The war rages in the Ukraine and the war still rages here at home. How did the United States get here? When Reagan was President if you were a Russian sympathizer you would have been run out of Washington and maybe even the country. Yes, I know all about free speech, we had free speech back then too. Just because of free speech we would not have aloud treasonous behavior. Reagan worked hard to unite the country against our common enemies and he worked at maintaining our friendships with our allies. NATO was as important back then as it is now. We knew back then that we were stronger with good friends but for some reason some in the Republican Party has forgotten that. NATO by some has been called obsolete. Having friends when there are still threats in this world is never obsolete.

The Ukraine is not the biggest country in the world and really not a threat to anyone. Certainly not a threat to Russia. If anything they probably would have made a great trading partner. Putin had other plans. Zalenskyy ran on a platform of peace with their Russian neighbor. Putin had other plans. Sometimes I think of this as the bully wanting to take the smaller kid’s lunch money. Putin is a bully. He does not long for peace and he does not long for the Russian people to be financially prosperous. What is happening in Ukraine to me is nothing more that imperialistic expansion by force. It is an effort to topple the current duly elected Government of Ukraine with a puppet government that will be answerable to Putin. Him claiming that he is saving Russian speaking people in Ukraine would make about as much sense as Mexico invading Texas to save Spanish speaking people. Mexico of course would never do that because they know that we would defend our border. Why is it wrong that the Ukraine is defending their border?

Republican Madison Cawthorn has been calling the President of the Ukraine a thug.  Read Volodumyr Zelenskyy’s bio and tell me what has be done to be called a “thug” by a sitting United States Congressman. Here is a man that does not have a history of being a thug. Here is a man that looks like he has been working for the good of the Ukrainian people. Is this another case were a Republican can’t really find anything wrong with a person so they just resort to name calling? That is what it looks like to me. There are two problems here. One is the resorting to name calling where there is no proof. The other is that there are people out there that will believe the lies that Madison Cawthorn is spewing because they are too lazy to research it themselves.

Another Republican that has really been shooting her mouth off about Ukraine is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene justifies the invasion of Ukraine by Russia by saying the Ukraine “poked the bear”. Here is a lady that would try to justify the invasion of a sovereign nation because they stood up to a bully. She has also claimed that United States aid was going to fund Nazi Militias. I have seen no proof of Nazi Storm Troopers running around because I am pretty sure our mainstream press would be all over that. She stated the Zalenskyy was torturing his own people. I goggled that and the only person that seemed to be saying that was Marjorie Taylor Greene that I could see. Of course this just makes for great sound bites for the Russian Propaganda Machine here at home and in Russia. How can any decent person that believes in democracy even listen to that congressperson? Her lying and misinformation is intended to weaken not only our democracy but also our nation. She cheapens the United States on the world stage.

The Republicans used to be a party full of Patriots that wanted to build up America not tear it down. They used to be that party that wanted to tear walls down, not build them. They use to be a party that excelled in sound foreign policy. What is the hell happened? We had the whole world wanting to work with us after the destruction of the World Trade Towers on 9/11. We had a chance to unite the world against terrorism but our own lying and manipulation when it came to Iraqi made that a lot harder. I still don’t know the real reasons that we invaded Iraq but it wasn’t what we told the rest of the world. Our own lying and misinformation has hurt us. Biden has been doing a pretty good job of repairing our image with our allies, that Trump virtually destroyed, but it will take time. We have a ways to go but at least we are going in the right direction.

We all have to listen to the lessons that our mothers always said to us. “Honesty is the best policy”. That is a policy that too many politicians have abandoned. We keep listening to the liars because it is easier to listen to their lies than search for the truth. “Cheaters Never Prosper” is another one. The Republicans are working real hard to prove my mother wrong on that one. The Republicans want to prosper by cheating through voter suppression and racism. Another one is “Bullies Get It in the End”. I really do believe that this one does eventually come true. In the end, I believe that Putin’s bullying will do more harm to Russia than anyone else. I also think that if we had continued on the direction that Trump was taking us it would have harmed us more in the end. We must unite against the bullying and racism that too many Republicans bring to the table.