The United States is respected again!!

This has been a Republican talking point as far as I can remember.  I recall that when Bill Clinton was being impeached that the GOP claimed that the rest of the world lost respect for us.  If memory serves, the rest of the world was laughing at us because we were trying to remove a president for a blow job...but I digress.

My daughter has been in France for a little over a week.  I know...liberal Europe...we don't want to be like them...but my daughter is getting quite the education on what the world thinks of us.  The girls in her new "squad" are from the UK...England, Scotland, Ireland, and one from Belgium.  She was saying something about lockdown drills, and they stopped her and asked what that was.  She was like "you know...at schools when they have drills in case there's an active shooter".  They're like "NO WE DON'T KNOW!"  I mean, they know that we have mass shootings, but outside of that, they know very little about all the residual issues.  She had to explain all the details...how the students have to close the door and go to the farthest corner of the classroom, etc. etc. etc.  The girls are like "um, our police don't even carry guns!"  

And not surprisingly, none of these girls would ever even consider moving to the U.S.  They said even though if you're in music or acting (you know...important stuff), if you can be successful here, that's where you're going to want to be, but they think our country is messed up and that they wouldn't want to not have healthcare.  One of the girls said that even though plastic surgery isn't free in England, that if you give the doctor a sob story, you can get yourself some implants at no charge...so there's that, too.

Why any Republican thinks we're anything besides the laughing stock of the world with the big orange buffoon in Washington is beyond me.

In my two weeks just spent in Europe, anytime people found out I was American they would kind of sheepishly bring up Trump and roll their eyes and chuckle.  I assume that's not a sign of respect?

Gab texted me about a freak accident her host mom had.  "Her stove exploded and she as standing right next to it and it was super loud and made her heart literally stop, punctured a nerve in her brain, lost hearing in her left eye, lost hearing in her left ear, lost sigh in her left eye, paralysis in her left cheek and partial paralysis through the rest of the left side of her body.  She's a beautician and she had to stop working and it took two years to get any of her senses back but they're all back now."

Me:   I'm guessing the medical bills didn't result in host mom losing her home and everything she had?

Gab:  "Not at all!  That's the life of a European."

So Gab told me that host mom had breast cancer.  Diagnosed in 2006...same as me.  Last weekend, she hurt her knee and was in the ER until 4:00 a.m.  (no charge!).  I asked Gab who is more broken down, host mom or real mom.  She said "Probably you.  I think Laetitia has less chronic illness.  She has had big accidents and sicknesses and also hurts herself often.  But she can generally move and you can't".  Sad, but true.