Monthly Archives: December 2025

military news

Partisan divide over a war crime

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Should anyone be surprised that Democrats and Republicans can look at the same video evidence that seeks to explain whether a war crime took place and come to radically divergent views on whether a crime exists?

Not me. Nope. I guess I could have predicted that congressional Democrats would be aghast at what they saw while Republicans accept it as a proper response.

At issue is what they call a “double tap” on a speedboat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela to somewhere in the United States. Naval jets blasted the boat to smithereens in September and then returned to finish the job by killing two survivors who were clinging to the shattered remains of the boat. Critics accuse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of committing a war crime, as the rules of war state specifically that the survivors should have been captured and taken into custody. Republican lawmakers see it differently, contending that the survivors were trying to flip the boat back and I guess start it up to continue its mission … whatever the hell it is.

I haven’t seen the video so I cannot comment on its content. However, I saw video of the initial strike and it looked for all the world that the first missile delivered a serious kill shot on the watercraft.

Here’s the deal. The craft was spotted just off the Venezuelan coast. about 1,200 miles from Florida. For the speed boat to make it all the way to U.S. territory, it would need to refuel dozens of times along the way. Was this boat really a legitimate target for the U.S. Navy and was it actually packing the drugs that Donald Trump says?

Once again, we see a Defense Department acting on a shoot first-ask questions later policy.

I want to see proof that these craft are, in fact, carrying drugs and that they indeed are headed to our shores to inflict pain and suffering — and worse — on Americans. We are getting nothing close to evidence to back up the Trump administration’s assertions about what is going on.

Dude just wants to go to war. Oh, wait … he’d better ask Congress for permission first. That’s in the Constitution, the document that Trump likely has never read.

medical news

This idiocy takes the cake … seriously!

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Donald Trump continues to violate the Law of Idiocy by lowering the standard to never-before-seen levels.

Take his response recently during a two-hour Cabinet meeting about the MRI he received from the White House medical staff. A reporter asked Trump about the exam and its purpose. What were the docs looking for? the reporter wondered.

Trump answered with a lie that defies one’s ability to understand anything. You can’t make this up.

He said he “didn’t know” the reason for the MRI. Many millions of us have gone through an MRI procedure. It involves lying perfectly still on a tube that makes a whole lotta noise. It usually takes about 30 minutes to complete the exam.

You must understand this: There isn’t a medical doctor alive today who doesn’t tell the patient precisely why he or she is being asked to subject themselves to such discomfort. That only can mean that Trump lied about his supposed ignorance about why he received the MRI. Why in the name of medical malpractice would Trump have to lie about that? Never mind. He probably wants to hide whatever medical condition from which he might be suffering. Can’t reveal his humanity … y’know?

Anyhow, he lied about a subject that should become public knowledge. After all, he is the president of the U.S. of A., and that includes millions of us who don’t give a damn about the man personally, but who do care about whether our government is working for us.

And this moron is the nation’s chief executive!

local news

City falls short on building ban goals

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All righty, kids, where does the city of Princeton, Texas, stand in its effort to prepare for the deluge of new residents wanting to call this North Texas city home?

The city council voted recently to rescind a building moratorium it had declared a year or so ago. The council decided to stop issuing building permits for new homes and apartments because it needed to shore up its infrastructure to prepare for the ongoing tidal wave of new residents.

Did the city succeed? Uhhh … no. Not even close. The Princeton Herald reports that the 2025 Legislature enacted laws aimed at preventing future building bans. So the city was left with no choice but to start issuing building permits.

What about the infrastructure, you know, the streets, sewer, water and emergency services personnel the city said it needs to shore up? A few streets have been improved. Near as I can tell the water and sewer systems are as they were when the ban took effect. Police and fire? I hear that Police Chief Jim Waters asked for seven new officers; he got two. The fire department is equally short staffed.

As a taxpaying resident of this rapidly growing community, I am asking: What the hell is going on at City Hall? City Manager Mike Mashburn walked into something of a bee’s nest when he took the job held for all those years by former Manager Derek Borg. There’s now an active recall movement afoot against at least one incumbent city council member and I understand that Mayor Eugene Escobar has signed on in support of one of the recall efforts. What in the world … ?

All the while, the city continues to struggle with providing the infrastructure it said was necessary when it enacted a building ban on new single-family homes and apartment complexes.

Seems to me someone needs to take a firm hold of the municipal rudder and start steering this ship toward serious stability.

local news

On a roll heading for ’26

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You know, there are days when everything one touches turns to doo-doo and there are days when the stars align just right for you.

Today is one of those latter days for me. I now shall explain.

A few weeks ago I was involved in a minor accident that damaged the driver’s side of my Maverick pickup. The damage wasn’t huge, but it was still costly to repair. I picked my vehicle up and drove it home after a couple of weeks in the Princeton, Texas, body shop.

Then a strange event occurred a couple of days later. The driver’s side door suddenly was sprung. I couldn’t open or close it without scraping the edge of the door against the front fender. I had to reconfigure the interior of the truck to enable me to enter and exit the vehicle through the passenger door … a royal pain in the patootie. I called the body shop to tell them what happened. No sweat, they said. Bring it in and we’ll examine it and let you know the extent of the repair, they said.

I delivered the Mav to the body shop today at 8:40 a.m. At 9:15 the young lady, Devin, emerged to inform me “the door isn’t sticking any longer. Come back and take a look at it.” I did and met the mechanic who performed what I consider to be something of a miracle repair job. Poncho me told the wind might have caught the door and sprung it.

What? That’s it? Yep, he said. It’s all good, he added. It took 35 minutes. Period.

If that’s the case, then the damage to the truck wasn’t necessarily a result of faulty repair. That was Poncho’s best guess. However, Poncho fixed the problem without charging me anything for it.

Some days it is good to wake up on the right side of the bed. Today is one of those days.

national news, political news

World has gone mad!

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There can be no getting around what I believe is obvious, which is that our world has gone mad, nuts, bonkers, into the loony bin … and beyond.

I’m going to harken to the 2024 presidential election in which a tiny plurality of Americans decided to ignore the obvious warning signs about the Republican Party nominee for president and elected this guy to a second term in the White House.

Yep. Donald Trump told us what was in store if we elected him. He would be the “retribution” for the MAGA cult and that he would all by himself fix what he said was wrong with the greatest nation on Earth. My goodness! The message could not possibly have been clearer!

He took office on Jan. 20, 2025 and commenced to do precisely what he said he would do. And no one seemed to care! OK, many of us did care. We have been raising holy hell ever since the end of the ’24 campaign. But those in power have blown it off.

It’s getting worse by the day. I read Trump’s “Thanksgiving message” and wanted to puke onto my lap. He hurled racial slurs, insults, epithets and utter rubbish at his opponents. Damn near every word that poured forth from his overfed pie hole was a lie.

Now there appears to be significant evidence of cognitive decline. He’s falling asleep in Oval Office meetings. Try reading transcripts of statements he makes and if you can discern a cogent message out of them, be sure to broadcast it loudly and clearly because no one has been able to make a shred of sense of what this guy is saying.

I’ll say it again, with gusto … which is that we have gone ’round the bend, kids. It is imperative that we collect ourselves and get busy fixing what is fundamentally wrong with our republic.