Yes, the Russian threat is serious

The day kind of got away from me, so it’s after midnight and I’m finally trying to write a blog post.  I ran to my local Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market for some groceries this afternoon, did some laundry, then made some homemade beef stew for supper.  After cleaning up the supper dishes, I intended to sit down and write, but then I got the idea that I needed to make PA Dutch Pickled Beet Eggs (you can find plenty of recipes on YouTube).  Of course, I have several types of vinegar, but I forgot to buy more plain old apple cider vinegar this afternoon, and which I used the last of about a week ago.   So that meant another trip to Wal-Mart.  I have a glass gallon jar with a lid, specifically for my pickled beet eggs, because I make them fairly often.  Since my husband doesn’t eat them, I only made a dozen eggs, which will last me a while.

I use hard-boiled eggs, 2 cans of sliced pickled beets, 1 small sliced onion (optional)  I add a couple of bay leaves, a cinnamon stick, and a few whole cloves, but many people don’t add these.

I put 1/2 c. to 2/3 c/ of sugar and 1 cup of apple cider vinegar into a medium saucepan, heat on medium.  Pour the juice from both cans of pickled beets into the pan.  Add the bay leaves, cinnamon, cloves.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat and let cool.

Place the shelled hard-boiled eggs, beets and sliced onion in a clean gallon glass jar.  Onions are completely optional – I like them pickled and use them on salads, along with the beets and sliced pickled eggs.   Pour the cooled liquid into the jar.  Place the lid on tightly and gently shake the jar a bit to make sure the eggs are completely covered with the pickling liquid.  Refrigerate.  Every day gently shake the jar.  The eggs will be well pickled in a couple of days.  After a week or so, you can remove the cinnamon stick, bay leaves and cloves, if the  flavor is getting too spicy.

It’s fine to add more hard-boiled eggs to this pickling juice a couple of times before making up a fresh batch.

Now, onto politics.  I wanted to clarify something, in case anyone doubts that I take the Russian information warfare threat seriously.  I take it very seriously. What I don’t take seriously is how the Dems and mainstream media are using the “Trump/Russian collusion” and the “Russian bots everywhere” hysteria to incite fear and to create another one of their pathetic, partisan narratives for their SPIN information war.

No one in the mainstream media, American politics, even our national security officials even view the “SPIN war” as a real domestic information war, dedicated to fueling partisan divides and spewing 24/7 agitation propaganda at the American people.  THAT is the larger problem with trying to deal with hostile foreign information warfare directed at America.  Our domestic SPIN war creates a wide-open media space for hostile foreign info war operators to flourish.  Heck, they just need to “amplify” domestic SPIN war messaging at respective domestic partisans and they blend right in here.

I think our national security people fully grasp the cyber/technology aspects of hostile foreign information warfare activities and work very hard to try to counter those threats.  Things like protecting networks, protecting our electrical grid, preventing cyber attacks, cyber theft, the endless hacking assuredly are easier to grasp than information operations geared toward manipulating the American people (mass media agitprop efforts, psychological operations, etc.).

After decades of the Left’s very real culture war in America and the advances of political correctness, replete with morally bankrupt terms and ideology, America no longer has a coherent sense of American values and principles and finding any firm common ground, for Americans to rally around anything presents a real challenge.  Americans unifying around anything usually lasts less than 24 hours before the partisan rancor shatters the calm.

For a few years now,  thought pieces occur fairly regularly at online political commentary sites, asserting American is already in a state of  “civil war” and I’m willing to concede the extreme partisan divides in America have deepened and definitely corrode hopes of national unity on almost anything, but I remain optimistic.  The challenge with dealing with aggressive hostile information warfare geared toward deepening partisan divides among partisans, who are likewise working to deepen partisan divides, is, well, obviously we are making it easy for our enemies to “divide and conquer” us.  This point, I’ve stated many times already – we are our own worst enemy and unless and until our rabid partisans stop our domestic SPIN information warfare, there’s no hope of countering hostile foreign messaging operations.

The best defense against hostile foreign information messaging operations is an informed citizenry, who are united by some common values and principles, so working toward that seems more important than all sorts of hysterical, knee-jerk censorship efforts.  Just trying to get Americans, who have different political views, to embrace my “let’s go have pizza” solution, which I wrote about back in 2015, might be a good start.   I’ll repost it.