This morning I woke up to icicles on my magnolia tree, which is a rare sight here in coastal Georgia. The freezing rain has now turned to snow and there’s even a little bit on the ground.
It’s rather funny how Southerners react to a little bit of ice and snow. The local school and business closure announcements started in the early afternoon yesterday. Last night the governor of Georgia declared a state of emergency before this storm even hit. One of my dogs reacts like a typical Southerner too. She slipped on the icy patio, which scared her and then she stood in the back yard, barking at the falling snow, as if she’d lost her mind. She’s definitely a Southern belle personality… bless her heart (Southern code language intended).
In over 20 years of living here, most years we don’t even see so much as a snowflake, so I’ve been enjoying sitting here looking out the window watching the snow.
Of course, old habits die-hard, so I’ve been reading the news too. One of the most annoying things about the mainstream media is how they report, using Obama hacks, as if these are credible, unbiased sources on policy, especially foreign policy.
The Obama administration’s default foreign policy position was a fearful crouch and endless foot-dragging before making any decisions. President Obama and his administration bowed and scraped to America’s adversaries for 8 long years and our adversaries read that as American weakness. The Russians, Iranians, and Chinese began to escalate at harassing American Armed Forces in international territory, at sea and in the air. President Obama did nothing to dissuade their aggression.
The worst moment, was in January 2016, when Iran captured two American vessels and American sailors, whom they videotaped and photographed for propaganda that was demoralizing to America’s military. Then Secretary of State, John Kerry, took credit for the release of our sailors, but he THANKED Iran for their “care” of our sailors and tried to play this national embarrassment and humiliation off as some sort of great diplomatic victory.
And therein lies the problem. The Obama administration, with the mainstream media selling the Obama narrative, sold this event as a Obama foreign policy “success”, instead of reporting the truth. The truth is the Iranians violated international law, both capturing our sailors and using them for propaganda purposes. The Obama administration’s failure to defend America’s military, but instead to kowtow to Iran and then THANK the Iranians was bordering very close to traitorous behavior. The Obama response was not a diplomatic victory in any sense.
It was a national disgrace!
However, the mainstream media seemed completely unaware that the Obama administration handling was a disgrace and even worse they sold the Obama narrative that this was a Obama foreign policy success. It was a total lie.
That the mainstream media both bought into every Obama narrative and sold it brings me to the present. They continue to pedal every bit of spin the Obama hacks (always identified as former foreign policy officials or intelligence experts) spew. The mainstream media also portrays highly politicized former Obama intelligence officials, James Clapper and John Brennan, as if they are unbiased sources, when they played starring roles in every Obama foreign policy debacle.
This same mainstream media penchant for their “trusted sources” applies to Hillary’s email server investigation, where their default source for fact-checking is former FBI director, James Comey.
Comey with his obsession to burnish his image as that of heroic fighter for truth, with tweets like, “But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24, tirelessly works to bolster his carefully cultivated public image as James The Sanctimonious Truth-teller, but is he really?
I’ll answer my own rhetorical question: “NO!” Comey went along with the Obama narrative to bury Hillary’s email server scandal. Nothing about his July 2016 email server statement made sense. He listed CRIMES, then spent the second half of his statement trivializing those crimes, which he stated had been committed. And as he was speaking, President Obama and Hillary were on Air Force One jetting away to a campaign stop… Just another of their “time to move on” moments, which the media aided in pushing off the front page headlines..
Yet, the mainstream media always quotes Comey as an unimpeachable source.
You don’t need to watch FOX News to become jaded on the mainstream media reporting. All you have to do is consume mainstream media news with some objectivity. President Trump is not the only one who lives on Twitter. Most of the mainstream media folks live there 24/7. And even more obnoxious than Trump’s tweets are the Obama hacks breathlessly tweeting about how everything Trump does is “unprecedented” and how Obama’s foreign policy was perfect…
January 3rd and a blog post on politics already…
I need to do better working on my good intentions.
libertybelle diaries 
I was kinda wondering how y’all fared. Thanks for the dog tale – tripped me back to a “once upon a time” featuring a cat, the Mojave Desert, and some snow. Not much but quite too much for the cat.
I’m afraid Al Gore made some inconvenient errors. No snow here but, five nights in a row in the single digits.
Now about those good intentions – hows about a post extolling the advantages of double-paned windows about a week before the next Polar Express promises another visit?
JK, Thank God for modern heating! The thing is we have electric heat and it works great,
But my youngest daughter borrows more trouble than you’d think any one person could. Last night she started about what if your power goes out from the ice on the power lines. Then I got to worrying, when I had been perfectly happy. She asked me what my plan was and I didn’t have one. So, there I was out in my cold garage locating the duraflame logs that have been there for several years collecting dust. I hate using the fireplace here, because the main area of the house gets nice and toasty, but then the heat doesn’t kick on – and the bedrooms are like a refrigerator. Plus I am not fond of cleaning out a fireplace. I carted in 4 duraflame logs, each one can burn over 2 hours and I figured that if I had them in the house, “if” the power went out, then I wouldn’t have to let cold air in from the garage as I hunted for them. There – I had a plan…
Yep, good that you had those Duraflames.
Back in ’09s summer I’d contemplated selling some old camping gear I’d not been able to use since … anyway, January rolled in and eight inches of freezing rain fell leaving a right righteous mess. I was living in an apartment building then. Few of my 20 odd (a right smart use of the word there) neighbors had had much to do with me previously – they thought (among other things I suppose) that my religiously purchasing 2 gallons of distilled water per month spotlighted that I was a weirdo. Or something.
Anyway as I was saying, my good intentions the previous summer abandoned left me holding four of those little green bottles of propane, a lantern and one of those little screw-on burners. On the fifth day (of nine total) I used a screwdriver and fashioned myself some cleated shoes so I could venture out to my pickup for something or another.
A neighbor bundled up with near the whole populace of the apartments in the shelter of a ground floor veranda hollered at me, “Hey JK you silly coot you’re gonna catch your death of pneumonia out here in a t-shirt!” I hollered back what I soon regretted, “All y’all fools I take it didn’t bother to keep up with the forecast? My apartment’s not got below 72° since we got icerinked!”
You can imagine what happened next as I, among other things, had the only flushable toilet within .22 long rifle range.
But I did get a little of my vengeance in – the only hot food I was prepared to provide ’em was rice and kippers.
My next venture out that passed by a Wal-Mart saw me adding one of those screw-on Coleman catalytic heaters. Still don’t do “a right speck of proper camping” but, I am prepared.
JK, I’d imagine you would persevere in any environment… something to do with those stubborn Arkie genes, lol. I didn’t even think about those little green bottles of propane – there are still several of those in the garage, plus the Coleman lantern and some stove thingy my husband has. He never went camping, but lived in the field for most of his years in the Army.
I hate camping and “roughing it”. For a mountain girl, I am really quite attached to modern conveniences. Thankfully no power outage last night.
Well should you ever find it necessary to use the stuff indoors, just ensure there’s some outdoor air able to seep in. lol, with the house I live in “seepage” won’t pose a problem.
Oh yeah, careful with that lantern, it does get hot!
That is, should it come to that – oh an’ brag to your daughter.
“This Mountain Girl has got a plan!”
I have a few of those old-fashioned kerosene lanterns that use lamp oil & I use those when the power goes out. I have lots of candles too, even one of those emergency candles that is supposed to last a long, long time. And I did send my daughter a message last night, after I carted in those duraflame logs that I had a plan now, lol.
Well where I was meaning the (Coleman) lantern being very hot, was that, that was what I used to manage keeping the 72° – the little one-burner cooking doohickey wasn’t nearly what I would call a “reliable space heating source.” Fine for cooking though, coffee and shaving water.
I figure you know/knew that just, as you’re mentioning using the kerosene lanterns/candles for what I take to mean lighting, I didn’t wish a misunderstanding.
JK, I am one of the most clueless people when it comes to anything mechanical or such. I would be liable to blow up the house if I tried to figure out how to use those little green propane tanks with anything. I am even nervous turning the gas on with the gas grill and don’t get me started about how nervous I was living in government quarters that had a gas stove… But I have to admit cooking with a gas stove, besides my nervousness about the gas part, was really terrific (much better than cooking on an electric stove).
There is about zero chance I would attempt to use that Coleman lantern or the little camping stove thingy.
The thing I really keep telling my youngest daughter, who has been married
9 years and is 30, is she should have some kids, so she wouldn’t have time to worry about all this other crap that she sits and googles about. She would then worry her pediatrician to death, lol.
Yep. Good advice. Having kids around would, it seems to me, kinda hamper one’s googling for subject matter to pester Grandma with.
I say “seems to me” only because when I had kids around there wasn’t any google. … I have been made a Great-Grandpap though so I may find myself learning whether that thesis turns out to hold water.
You’d be fine using the lantern so long as before you turn the dial for the flow to start, you already have a lit match inserted inside the globe and under the mantle. (Or one of those long-ended Bic type disposable lighters though sometimes should one get a flare that startles, one can upset the lamp. Probably better a match the first few times you practice.)
I’d add an adventure about my experience in the BQ but, I’m kinda concerned this, being a public blog that, the military still has that practice about collecting on any of their issued stuff that’s been damaged in some way. Best I keep that under my hat I think.
Something LB, you might want to file away for later.
Thanks Jk, I will listen to it. Lack of long-term strategic planning seems to be a fixture of Trump’s foreign policy and doesn’t seem a bit more coherent than the Obama approach. And chaos, based on Trump’s whims, seems to be a feature, not a bug, with how Trump operates. Kinda baked into his modus operandi and might be more unsettling than Obama’s “leading from behind”. Each approach sends potent messages to our adversaries about inept American leadership… and, um, to our friends alike.
The Copley guy is pretty good. His past “predictions” re: the Red Sea, Africa/Chinese look to be the case. He’s the guy who, before Trump’s addressing the hall in Riyadh said in effect, “By pointing toward the Saudis past financing of … the Saudis will create a situation … most likely Qatar.”
Yes you may suppose that its Thursdays I try to catch up on Mr. Batchelor’s show. This month’s centenary anniversary I hadn’t a clue:
Something I recall some years ago your interest in. Follow on from the above of 18 January at 1302:
Curious this, no?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/19/british-15-year-old-gained-access-intelligence-operations-afghanistan/
H/T D&N’s “Sunday Rumble.
Keeping national security secrets seemed to be easier before the internet…
I think you’ll enjoy these LB. Again, in two comments:
Thanks JK, listening to this right now.
Ever heard it put, “the New Ordeal”?