Obama’s Stump Speech Says Less Than It Leaves Out

You ever wonder if some people are actually paying attention to what's going on? Obama's clearly the face of the Democratic party now, which makes sense on some level. Clinton's aging out of relevance, and even for hardcore Democrats, Biden was never that popular.

So, he's the obvious figurehead, out on the trail pumping up Democratic candidates.

But it's what he's saying that should get attention. The same old "affordability" pitch. And who he's supporting—Democrats, sure, that tracks. But Abdul El Sayed? And coming out for Ilhan Omar, Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, or whatever her real name is, in her legal troubles? There's some real amnesia happening here, which, let's be honest, isn't new.

Is inflation still a problem? Yeah. It's stubborn. No one's denying that. The point is, we're only talking about it at all because Biden drove it to levels we hadn't seen since Carter. If that hadn't happened, it wouldn't even be a conversation. Calling Trump out for inflation without owning how we got here is absurd.

And there's the clear witch hunts against Trump before the 2024 election. Sure, sure—that wasn't a witch hunt, right? Just justice in action. Anyone paying attention knows it was about a lot more than that.

Even before that it was all the other stuff: IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, spying on Trump Tower, the Russia Collusion hoax.

As I have said before, when the amnesia card gets played, the hope is that everyone else experiences amnesia right alongside them.

"This is our chance to rein in some of the foolishness of this administration," Obama told supporters. Does he just completely dismiss the foolishness of the Biden administration? The border ran wild with floods of illegals—something even pre-presidency Obama wouldn't have sided with, and something he never pushed while he was in the White House.

And what about flying LGBTQ+ flags on the front of the White House, advocating for men in women's sports, crazy vaccine mandates for federal workers and the military, or the clear coverup of Biden's mental decline?

I mean, there are even serious questions about who was actually running the show during Biden's term. Was it Kamala? His staff? Or was it Obama himself? That's a very real possibility. Who wrote the documents the autopen was signing?

Talk about foolishness. The entire Biden presidency was nothing short of a total disaster, and frankly, one of the scariest stretches in our history.

I know this gets tossed around nearly every presidential cycle—that if "this guy" wins, that's it for America. We're cooked forever. But I think we seriously dodged a bullet with Kamala Harris. If the media machine and the courts had finished the job Democrats were desperately trying to do—get Trump off the ballot—we'd be living a real nightmare right now.

What people need to be paying attention to isn't what Obama or anyone else stumping for power is saying. It's what they're not saying. The things they're conveniently leaving out. The lack of ownership for problems they didn't solve—or more importantly, the ones they created that we're living with now.

It's their lack of concern over what's happening inside their own party, things they should actually be railing against or trying to change. The radical calls for socialism—something that's never worked anywhere it's been tried. The utter craziness of diminishing womanhood or making a mockery of it by claiming men can get pregnant.

And yes, supporting people like Ilhan Omar or Abdul El Sayed. People that don't even sound like Americans. I'm not talking about their names. I'm talking about the things they actually say. Supporting their clear hatred for America and American values, or the principles that founded and shaped this nation.

Whatever Democrats ever stood for, it's a far cry from what they stand for now, and that's the part that people need to pay close attention to. They want to fundamentally change America. They want to change the culture, the foundational premise of what we stand for, and it seems clear they want to turn this country into a place not that unlike all the other places so many people flee.

For all the chaos anyone feels about the Trump administration, what the current Democratic leadership is advocating and proposing is far worse. The fact is, we're at a critical crossroads with this midterm election.

California has an important governor's race. Minnesota needs a sea change too. Michigan's a disaster. Illinois is a mess. New York City has lost its mind. People have to acknowledge the disasters left in the Democratic wake over the past decade or so. Sanctuary cities and states, tax money scandals simply glossed over, tampons in boy's rooms, wide-open borders—it's just madness.

Like what you see here? Check out The Springboard on YouTube.

© 2026 Jim Bauer/The Springboard. All rights reserved.

The Tell: Trump’s Cases vs. Ilhan Omar

Tells happen when two events line up but draw opposite reactions. The Ilhan Omar investigation is a clear example. Federal agents raided her home and removed documents and other items as evidence. Potential crimes are being alleged, and we'll see where that evidence leads.

How does this differ from what happened to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago? Or from any of the other investigations and court cases brought against him?

When those hit, right in the middle of an election while Trump was the clear frontrunner, no one on the left came out and said this was wrong or political warfare. It was simply framed as no one being above the law. If he did something wrong, his position didn't matter.

Indicting a former president who then became a candidate was unprecedented. So, the question has to be asked: if Trump had never run for a second term, would any of these cases ever have been brought? The clear answer is no. They would not have.

This was a clear attempt to sway public opinion—or best case for them, find a way to keep Trump off the ballot entirely.

But if the real conviction was that no one is above the law—and that who you are shouldn't matter if you've done something wrong—then why are so many on the left now calling the Ilhan Omar investigation the same thing we on the right called out when Trump was being dragged through the legal system?

Why were we wrong then, and they're right now?

Because the only real difference, outside of whatever the actual merits turn out to be, is which party is being targeted.

I've said all along that people should be held accountable—especially elected officials and anyone we put into positions of power. How they conduct themselves can affect all of us.

That said, the cases against Trump, and the "felony conviction," still deserve real scrutiny. Plenty of lawyers who aren't Trump supporters had serious questions about what laws he actually broke. Alan Dershowitz called it the worst legal basis for a conviction he'd seen in 60 years. Even Judge Judy, who isn't a Trump supporter, threw her hands up and asked what the hell he did that was illegal.

I'm not bringing this up to dismiss the convictions or defend Trump. I'm pointing it out because it helps explain why his situation may have been motivated differently. The question of whether these cases would have been brought if he hadn't run again still matters. So does the fact that so many legal observers said it wasn't even clear a law had been broken. Shouldn't that have been clear? The fact that it wasn't suggests the cases may well have been politically motivated.

But of course, that brings us back to the tell. How did the left react to Trump's cases and conviction? According to them it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. They accepted the outcome. In nearly every conversation about Trump, they still remind you he's a convicted felon in the White House.

How is Trump's case the right thing to do, but Ilhan Omar's is political weaponization of the justice system? And if her case leads to a conviction, how much does anyone want to bet the left will claim the courts got it wrong and you can't trust the outcome?

So, which is it? Hold everyone accountable or does it depend? Is the court only right when it hits the right target?

To me the tell is that some people aren't really thinking it through. They're hoping for outcomes that fit the preferred narrative. It tells me some people never seriously considered the evidence in Trump's case. They were simply satisfied with the result because it matched what they wanted.

I don't know if Ilhan Omar is guilty of anything. Based on what's public, there are serious questions. I also can't call her case entirely politically motivated—it's been reported that parts of it started under Biden.

What I do know is that once political motivations start filtering verdicts, the truth gets distorted. The same people who treated the court's findings in Trump's case as gospel will find fault with any conviction of Ilhan Omar if one comes.

You can't have it both ways. And if that turns out to be the reaction, then the law was never the thing they were actually interested in.

Like what you see here? Check out The Springboard on YouTube.

© 2026 Jim Bauer/The Springboard. All rights reserved.

Would Broadcasting Nidal Hasan’s Execution Change Anything?

Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who gunned down 13 people at Ford Hood, should face a firing squad as President Trump has urged. Whether that execution should be broadcast is the part I'm still unsure about.

The real question is whether it's necessary. What does the public gain from seeing it? Hasan's crime was beyond heinous. He broke his allegiance to the United States, gunned down fellow soldiers, and carried out a clear act of terrorism that, given what he claimed to be fighting for, can reasonably even be viewed as an act of war.

Too many people have lost the plot on what it means to be American. The right to disagree with the country—loudly, publicly, even harshly—is one of the things that separates us from the regimes we oppose. That right, though, is not unlimited. It ends where allegiance ends.

Hasan didn't disagree. He switched sides and opened fire on his fellow countrymen sworn to protect the constitution and our fundamental freedoms. The question is whether putting his execution on display makes that line clearer to anyone who has blurred it, or whether it just becomes another spectacle that changes nothing.

That would be the point, right? To show the public what happens when certain lines are crossed—not just tell them the consequences but put them front and center.

That's how it worked in the Old West. Public executions were common for serious crimes because the goal was deterrence through visible consequences, and to make clear that laws existed and would be enforced when broken. Children were often brought along on the theory that seeing it firsthand left a deeper mark than simply hearing about it.

Granted, it was a different time. Enforcing the law was far harder, and authority itself was less established—you had to work harder to make it stick.

It was also a different country. People were different. Sentiments were different.

The public largely accepted that certain lines carried real consequences. Sure, sympathies for the condemned existed, but it rarely overrode the sentence itself or turned the crime itself into a lesser concern.

That restraint is harder to find now.

We have people openly celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk or treating Christa Pike's torture-murder or Lindsay Clancy's killing of her own children as occasions for primary sympathy directed at the perpetrators.

We live in an era of the great, "But..."

The expectation that some acts and their consequences forfeit sympathy, and the public at large will enforce the forfeit, has faded for too many.

Does broadcasting Nidal Hasan's execution offer any kind of reset? If it doesn't—if it only fans the flames of the current outcry—then what, exactly, would be the point?

I am not saying don't do it. I'm asking why do it.

Like what you see here? Check out The Springboard on YouTube.

© 2026 Jim Bauer/The Springboard. All rights reserved.

Alan Greenspan Died of What???

Sometimes even the gloomier headlines land a little funny. Take the latest one about former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who passed away on June 22nd.

"Alan Greenspan, former Fed Reserve chair dies, with cause of death revealed."

"Cause of death revealed"—as if we were all waiting for some shocking twist. The article goes on to say he died from complications of Parkinson's disease. Sure. But honestly, every disease kills you through "complications." If diseases had a job description, that would be it.

Rule #1: Complicate one's ability to continue living.

By their very nature, complications are the part that actually does you in. Heart disease? One of the complications is that your heart stops. COPD or emphysema? A key complication is that you stop breathing. It's not exactly a mystery.

The part, in this case, that matters more is the fact that Alan Greenspan was 100 years old. Parkinson's or not, few people are cracking triple digits and making a run into overtime. At that age you could trip over a throw pillow and that would be your "cause of death revealed."

We already knew he had Parkinson's. We also knew he was a very old man. So, his passing isn't shocking, and it certainly doesn't require a dramatic headline tease.

Perhaps if someone had never heard of Alan Greenspan, the headline might be more informative. It's certainly a headline worthy of someone much younger who suddenly dies. When that happens, out of pure curiosity, we want to know.

A cleaner and more honest headline would have been: "Alan Greenspan, former Fed Reserve chair, dies at 100."

Then, inside the article, mention the Parkinson's diagnosis, and trust readers to connect the dots. He was a centenarian with a serious illness, and eventually biology does was biology does. 

Like the things I write about or the way I write about them? Want to help to keep the lights on? Consider making your next Amazon purchase through my Amazon link and I'll get a small, appreciated commission. Also be sure to check out The Springboard on YouTube.

© 2026 Jim Bauer

Trump on a $250 Bill? Seriously?

Only in America could the idea of putting President Donald Trump on a brand-new $250 bill turn into a national meltdown before lunch. The man could cure cancer, and someone would still find a way to be offended. That's just the political climate we're living in.

And before anyone assumes, "Well, of course Springboard loves this idea, he's one of those MAGA guys"—pump the brakes. If you've followed me for any amount of time, you know I don't rubber-stamp ideas just because they come from someone I generally support.

So, let me be clear. I think the idea is dumb. Not dangerous. Not world-ending. Just unnecessary.

There's a long-standing rule—codified in 1866—that we don't put living people on U.S. currency. It came after Spencer Clark, then Superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, put his own face on a 5-cent note. Congress was furious, the public was furious, and Representative Thayer argued that honoring living individuals on currency undermined the dignity of the nation. He was right then, and he's still right now.

Now, Trump isn't against the idea. Of course he isn't. He likes putting his mark on things, and there's nothing unusual about that. Plenty of wealthy and influential people do the same. But this wasn't his idea to begin with. It came from Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina, and 13 Republicans cosigned it.

Honestly? They shouldn't have. Not because it's immoral, but because it's tone-deaf and politically pointless.

Should Trump oppose it? I think so. Not because he's unworthy, but because it hands critics an easy talking point. It adds fuel to a fire that doesn't need more gasoline. And beyond that—it just feels tacky.

If we want a $250 bill to celebrate America's 250th birthday, I'm all for it. I'd happily add one to my collection of interesting notes. But do we even need a person on it? Why not feature the signers of the Declaration of Independence? Why not choose something that honors the country instead of turning it into another culture-war chew toy?

Wilson and the cosponsors should have known this would look bad. Trump should know it doesn't look good. And the whole thing becomes yet another distraction—another shiny object for the media and the haters to obsess over instead of focusing on anything meaningful.

Changing the law wouldn't end the world. Most Americans will never even see a $250 bill. It would be a novelty, a collector's item, a conversation piece.

But big national milestones deserve something better. Something that reflects our history, not our divisions. Something that honors the country, not the chaos.

We have a chance to create a piece of currency that celebrates 250 years of America. We don't need to turn it into another political circus. Honor the country. Make the bill. Make it historic. And leave the culture-war out of it.

Like the way I write or the things I write about it? Follow me on my Facebook fan page to keep up with the lastest writings wherever I may post them. Also, be sure to check out The Springboard on YouTube where I'm spending more of my time lately and consider subscribing if you like my style of commentary there.

© 2026 Jim Bauer