Monthly Archives: August 2022

August 26, 2022 · 1:14 pm

News and some prepping thoughts

This post is just some thoughts on the disturbing political craziness in America lately. I wrote a few blog posts about the latest Trump drama with the FBI raiding Trump’s home, so I’m skipping that today. With the recent Democrat-created, Inflation Reduction Act (green-energy/healthcare plan), that President Biden signed into law last week and now the executive action this week, where Biden announced $10,000 per student college loan cancellation, I’m left wondering how soon our government’s financial house of cards will collapse. The Inflation Reduction Act was $750 billion dollars more in spending, just as the US passed two quarters of negative growth (a recession).

I went to college one year after high school and my parents struggled to pay for my first semester and I took out a student loan for the second semester. I dropped out of college and joined the Army and I paid off that student loan. One thing that seems obvious is “debt forgiveness,” like President Biden just doled out for student loans, won’t be coming for average Americans, who have racked up more consumer debt than they can handle. This was just a pre-election vote-buying effort. Plus, seeing that the Inflation Reduction Act includes expedited hiring of 87,000 more IRS agents, well, it’s obvious the Biden administration is gearing up to take every cent possible from hard-working Americans to help fund their green-energy dreams.

While the fiscal insanity in Washington should alarm all of us, Washington isn’t alone in crazy fiscal policy, because according to the figures of credit card debt in America, so are millions upon millions of Americans, who are racking up huge amounts of credit card and other consumer debt as inflation is soaring. According to this CNN report from August 2, 2022, “US household debt surpassed $16 trillion for the first time ever during the second quarter, the New York Federal Reserve said Tuesday.” This article also states, “Over the past year, credit card debt has jumped by $100 billion, or 13%, the biggest percentage increase in more than 20 years. Credit cards typically charge high interest rates when balances aren’t fully paid off, making this an expensive form of debt.”

It’s easy to fume about the government’s reckless fiscal policies, but each of can control our own personal finances. Too many people dig themselves into too much personal debt trying to achieve or maintain a lifestyle that is beyond their means. With inflation climbing, most people will have to make hard decisions and for many people that will require cutting out extras and streamlining their expenses to make ends meet. Unfortunately, a whole lot of people are racking up massive amounts of credit card debt to maintain a standard of living their means can’t cover with the rising cost of living.

I can only speak for my own small town’s grocery stores, but inflation is continuing to climb every time I shop. Shortages continue to crop up too – no potatoes yesterday, except for a few bags of red potatoes. I am glad I canned some potatoes, have instant and dehydrated, plus I have some frozen fries and tater tots in the freezer, but I can guarantee you, if the potato supply situation improves once this year’s potato crops make it to stores, I will be canning more potatoes. Nothing has really improved in the overall financial picture in my small area of America – prices on just about everything have continued to climb and while gas prices have dropped, that’s largely due to the Biden administration releasing over a million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is a short-sighted plan.

I mentioned in other blog posts that this move by the Biden White House can’t continue indefinitely, they have no concrete plan on replenishing the SPR and are recklessly leaving America unprepared for a serious crisis. Once they stop releasing that much oil into the market, gas prices could sky-rocket, but it would happen after the November elections this year – and that’s the whole point of their using the SPR. It’s a political gimmick geared toward the November election. The SPR release, the Inflation Reduction Act, which has nothing to do with reducing inflation or this student loan forgiveness plan are intended to buy liberal votes and energize Democrat voters to show up on election day. Here’s a letter from last week, that Energy Sec. Granholm, sent top oil refiners:

https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1563178240197664768

Of course, economic collapse and massive upheavals seem likely to hit Europe before the US, but we definitely are positioned to be facing some unchartered political, economic, and societal chaos in the coming months. While I’ve come across all sorts of good emergency preparedness advice, it’s one thing being prepared for a limited emergency like a natural disaster vs. being prepared for a long-term emergency that ebbs and flows, which also has the potential to substantially impact our lives in ways we can’t even predict yet. I’m still struggling with figuring out my own preparedness plan in this situation.

I’ve been trying to continue stocking up food and other supplies, downsizing my lifestyle where I can, and trying to improve my gardening skills and other skills, like gaining experience with various food preservation methods, like home canning and dehydrating, but I also bought a book. Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning, which explores several old-fashioned food preservation methods, like lacto-fermentation, preserving in oil, salt, sugar, alcohol, plus dehydrating.

I’m still following some news, but I’m more focused on trying to improve my own skills in several areas. Getting back to my sewing and needlework is on my list too, because I’d like to improve my darning and mending skills. I always loved working on decorative needlework, not fixing clothes and damaged fabric. My mother was very good at darning and mending. She used various stitches and techniques she learned growing up during the Great Depression and she never bought into the disposable clothing habits that took hold in America. My mother had her priorities right – master the important basic skills first, before the frivolous stuff.

Everyone’s preparedness goals will probably vary, but with all the ominous problems from disruptions in supply chains, economic crises, geopolitical instability in the world, serious droughts (here in America and abroad) things look gloomy. Add in the rancorous state of American politics, where President Biden just yesterday, once again smeared “MAGA Republicans” (however he defines that) as semi-fascists and the NY Post reported, “Gov. Kathy Hochul, who hasn’t proven shy about issuing orders, had one for the state’s Republicans this week — all 5.4 million of them: “Just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?” she said. “You are not New Yorkers.” So much for President Biden being the president who would return us to normal and unite America.

I’m also looking around my house trying to decide which home repair projects I need to get done now and which can wait. I’ve been tackling some small things myself and asking my sons for help with a few things, but I have some bigger projects I’ll need to hire someone else to do.

Each little accomplishment matters and every act of kindness we extend to others or which are extended to us matter too. I’m trying to focus on not criticizing people (in person and online)- yeah, except for politicians, because I am still going to criticize them. We can’t change the world with some big swooping action, but all the little acts of kindness can add up and truly change hearts.

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August 24, 2022 · 3:53 pm

Gathering some facts in the Amish farmer vs. the feds case

Recently, I started turning on cable news during primetime again, after going many months without even turning on the TV. I had been watching news clips and videos online, but I wanted to get a longer view of what’s going on during primetime. I intend to watch CNN some nights too and I will attempt MSNBC, but MSNBC has felt like torture for years. MSNBC primetime veered off into far-left cuckoo-land a long time ago and being conservative, it’s difficult for me to sit through.

The thing that’s hard to admit for many on the right is FOX News primetime has often veered off into far-right territory too. If you’ve veered into that territory, it might feel just fine, but I expected the right to be calmer, care more about facts, study issues more. Despite there being a real need, CNN didn’t stake out some middle ground during its primetime, but turned into #Resist/anti-Trump and blabbing about what FOX News is airing.

There’s been a concerted effort among liberal media and Dems to pressure FOX news to remove Tucker Carlson off the air. I have never been a Tucker fan, even when he was on other cable news networks, but sometimes he gives voice to news or issues that I feel are important. I don’t want Tucker fired, but in this case, I wish his staff had done more research. He often plays into stories that have gained a lot of traction on right-wing online forums.

Tucker had on some journalist from Rebel News, to relate a story of the feds raiding and fining an Amish farmer, Amos Miller, in PA.

This case started in 2016, not during the Biden administration – that’s fact #1 that is wrong with Tucker’s story.

I had been following this story for a few years. The truth is this story isn’t about the feds just randomly targeting some poor Amish farmer. The case started back in 2016, stemming from an outbreak of listeria, where one man died. The CDC testing linked the likely source back to raw milk from Miller’s farm. I also read this information at a lancasteronline news site too.

From there Miller had agreed to comply with inspections, then failed to comply, tried to open another farming business under another name, tried to fire his attorneys, after listening to some “sovereign citizen” nuts, and he’s defied the court at every turn. Miller’s lawyers have tried to be removed from representing him too, once he got caught up in listening to sovereign citizen lunatics. He isn’t a victim. Here’s a Daily Beast rundown of events: Conservatives Milk Story of Amish Farm Tied to Fatal Listeria.

This Amish farmer story spreading on right-wing social media follows the same trajectory of the food facility fires hysteria. Granted, there have been many fires at food facilities, but there’s no evidence that these fires are arson or connected in some big conspiracy. And there are many other potential causes for a rash of fires from changes in work force at facilities due to the economic upheaval over the past few years, to faulty equipment or lax safety procedures at these facilities. Leaping to the conclusion that it must be some major government plot to destroy the food supply, without a shred of evidence seems premature. Yes, perhaps down the road some bigger conspiracy will be proved, but so far no one’s presented hard evidence of that. The same thing is happening with this Amish farmer case, trying to turn him into some victim of the Biden administration.

If you were to directly defy a federal court order, after agreeing to comply several times, the judge probably wouldn’t still be trying to work with you – you’d be in jail. Amish people need to abide by the food safety laws, just like everyone else who sells food. And one person died of listeria, so the federal government definitely should have jumped into action trying to trace that listeria strain back to a source, because a safe food supply matters to all of us.

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August 22, 2022 · 12:31 pm

Blog gremlins again…

Part of today’s post disappeared and WordPress editing isn’t allowing me to edit this post – another one of those “glitches” I mentioned recently. I guess my expecting this crap to continue, because of my Twitter activity, would make me just paranoid, but after all these years of fighting to expose the corrupt Dem spin information war and having these computer “gremlin” issues when there’s a major Dem spin effort, that I am trying to “defuse” on Twitter, well, so be it. I’m still online and that’s what counts, lol.

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August 22, 2022 · 12:00 pm

A few updates

So, basically, I still have no idea what documents Trump had, that were so urgent a raid on his home was necessary. Furthermore, I have no idea what classification any of the documents seized are. Yes, I mock the Dem/liberal media spin attacks on Twitter, in hopes of “defusing” some of them, lol.

Now, on to the other topics. I’ve continued to dehydrate herbs and pressure can meat. I also pressure canned 16 pints of chili, 12 quarts of potatoes and 13 pints of carrots recently. This morning I am pressure canning 8 more pints of ground beef. I used store-bought potatoes and carrots, so I’m not waiting until I grow enough fresh vegetables to can. While I am wanting to continue stocking up food and supplies, in case the economy gets worse and a lot of things are either in short supply or very hard to afford, another goal is I want to build my skills with home canning. I could have purchased cans of potatoes and carrots at the store at a reasonable price, but I opted for buying fresh, then pressure canning them, to get more experience with canning. I already have dehydrated potatoes, both potatoes I dehydrated and ones I bought at the store. I keep working on learning more about dehydrating food too.

I planted some more cucumbers for my fall garden and so far they’re looking okay.

I have some plastic totes with cabbage and red beets started.

This red cabbage is supposed to be a compact type, suitable for containers, so we’ll see how it does.

In previous post I posted photos of the five pieces of succulents in this pot, so here you can see the babies growing at the base.

These are mascotte beans. I have 10 containers planted to try these.

In the spring I planted a pack of balloon flower seeds, which are a perennial. I have a lot of plants to figure out where to plant. I used to have one in the flower bed in front of my house for years, until it stopped coming up in the spring. I plan to take some to give to the nice lady, who gave me the succulent pieces.

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August 17, 2022 · 3:02 am

“MAGA Extremists”everywhere

This morning I had a doctor’s appointment and decided to drop off a box I had in the back of my car at the Goodwill, which is near my doctor’s office. Then I decided to stop by Dollar Tree, which is also nearby, and look around. When I was checking out I told the cashier I think my decluttering plan needs more work. I went to the Goodwill to get rid of junk, then I went to Dollar Tree and bought more junk… At least it was under $10.

Okay, this is going to be a long politics post and I’ll probably be writing mostly politics posts for a bit. I’m not buying into the Dem/liberal media spin hysteria that the raid on Trump’s home was because of some “urgent” national security threat pertaining to Trump allegedly having classified information in boxes, which necessitated this dramatic FBI raid. I will never be a die-hard Trump supporter, so of course, I realize Trump might have classified documents, even highly classified ones. I also know Trump lies a lot, so I try to look for facts. I’m using some of my tweets in this post, to save some time.

I believe what’s going on in this episode of Dem/liberal media Spin Theater is not only about the J-6 hearing, but also trying to incite and demonize “MAGA Republicans.”

Sorry that part of this tweet thread has the same tweet twice, but the entire thread won’t copy and paste, and the last tweet keeps copying two tweets at a time.

This issue of a president’s ability to declassify and what steps he needs to take to declassify information has never been put to any tests – despite what all these liberal experts on CNN and MSNBC wax on about. The president has unique powers in the executive branch under our constitution, so we’ll have to see how that plays out.

The actual details of the documents aren’t even publicly known and the actual process of reviewing those documents and assessing their classification status has not been completed yet, so all the liberal media hyperventilating about “nuclear documents” is spin being fed to the media from inside the Biden administration:

From the Clinton email scandal, I remember reading information about how it’s not just a matter of determining whether information is classified or unclassified. Information could have been marked classified, but is no longer classified and vice versa, information can be up-classified now, that was not classified originally. Plus, there are the different levels of classified information. And of course this issue of a president’s power to declassify has never been tested.

Yesterday, some liberal media people were on a spin effort to create more Trump drama, going on and on about how dangerous Trump was for wanting to declassify some highly classified information that alarmed intelligence officials. The president has the power to declassify any information he chooses, not intelligence officials. It’s been amazing to me that the liberal media and anti-Trump people worked so hard to impede and obstruct every decision Trump made. Here’s an example of that and my quote tweet:

I have been quoting liberal media sources and official government reports on my Twitter quote tweets with facts. I am using their own words to show they’re either ill-informed about their own reporting or deliberately lying to generate anti-Trump hysteria. And that’s what I want to get into here.

One of my sons today told me liberal Twitter was full of talk about something called “stochastic terrorism,” another made up bunch of liberal bullshit.

I believe Dems are deliberately trying to stoke right-wing anger and incite outrage, so they can use any incident of violence as justification for silencing the right. I believe Dems are setting the staging to start cracking down on First Amendment free speech rights.

Last week President Biden convened a meeting with historians & they were there to talk about the potential for “civil war”:

One of those historians at this meeting was Michael Beschloss, who is very active on Twitter and he leaps to retweet every stupid Dem spin line, plus he appears on cable news frequently. He was one of the idiots who spun up the drama over Melania’s Rose Garden renovation and blabbing that it was an “authoritarian design.”

Melania had convened a group of experts, funding for the renovation was done with private donations and she wanted to go back toward the Jackie O original design. When this original Twitter/liberal media spin attack about the Rose Garden started there were even crazy liberals ranting that her new design used only white roses and was “racist.” Those white roses are John F. Kennedy roses… That’s how crazy things are with the conspiracy theory rabbit holes (and yes, there are plenty of those on the right too).

Just to demonstrate that this is orchestrated to drum up “fear of a civil war” and dangerous MAGA people – here’s Beschloss again:

Trump dishes out attacks too, but there’s been a widespread Dem/liberal media/ big tech (and NeverTrumper) #Resist effort, to do everything possible to first delegitimize his presidency, using any means necessary, but also to demonize and marginalize his supporters. Some of the anti-Trump derangement has been cruel and so crazy that it’s stunned me:

In another post I’ll rehash some of the ways the Hillary email investigation was handled so differently than a FBI raid on her home, but for this post I wanted to share this information about “stochastic terrorism” and how I believe this bullshit will be used to silence people on the right – labeling them as terrorists or as “inciting” terrorism.

As a reminder, a few days ago I mentioned the FBI bulletin listing American Revolution symbols as indicative of potential right-wing terrorism and FBI director, Wray played dumb about that when he testified in front of Congress last week. I use the Liberty Bell in my blog name, lol.

I have taken issue with FBI director, Wray, making excuses for Antifa a couple years ago and insisting it’s not an organization, so the FBI didn’t track them. This is total bs., because the US has tracked Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups for decades now and Al Qaeda and most of these jihadist groups aren’t typical hierarchical organizations either. The US government has spent a fortune studying how to track these types of groups and Islamist-inspired terrorists, since 9/11. There’s also a lot of research into leaderless and decentralized organizations. The book, The Starfish and the Spider, by Ori Brafman, explains a lot of different types of those organizations, beyond terrorists, and it’s an interesting read. If a homemaker, like me, can easily find this information, assuredly the crack experts at the FBI can too, then again they have experts like Peter Strzok… And as an aside, somehow the FBI always tells us they were aware of a jihadist terrorist, after an attack here in the US, but then say the “motive” is unknown.

In the recent attack on Salman Rushdie, by a radicalized young man, whose mother said he came back from a long trip to the Mid-East changed, law enforcement was still saying the motive in unclear. Same PC law enforcement response, as usual, with Islamist terrorist attacks.

Wray was completely focused on right-wing domestic violence, even when BLM and Antifa were rioting in cities across America. AG Barr broadened the focus to track extremism of all persuasions. With the urgency of the “threat” Trump posed with these boxes of documents in a storage room at his home, Garland pondered the matter for weeks and Wray cut out of a Congressional hearing early on a Friday, to take a weekend vacation, despite knowing they had a FBI raid planned to deal with the “urgent Trump threat” on Monday morning.

Yes, this really is quite a Dem/liberal media clown show, but it’s very serious. Millions of Americans could find their First Amendment rights infringed upon under the guise of “provoking a civil war.” And be assured, the people who decide which speech needs to be silenced won’t be anyone on the right.

I ordered Mark Levin’s book, American Marxism, a few days ago and want to start reading it. I have Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, but he appears to suffer from TDS, in my opinion, and buys into all of the Dem/liberal media anti-Trump spin smear attacks automatically. That said, it is a good book.

Note: 8/17/2022, 8:11 am – I did some editing and added a few lines this morning. The hypocrisy and “rules for thee, but not for me” attitude among so many of the liberal elites always stuns me. I’d like to see someone ask Juliette Kayyem, who wants to silence “MAGA Republicans” and take away their rights, her opinion of the secret memo her husband, David J. Barron, wrote when he was in the Obama Administration. He was the author of the secret memo that Obama used as the foundation for drone striking American citizens. From Wikipedia:

“In 2009, while on leave from his faculty position, Barron rejoined the Office of Legal Counsel as Acting assistant attorney general. In 2010, he authored a secret memo which provided the legal foundation for President Obama‘s unprecedented decision to order a drone strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was a radical Islamic militant living in Yemen.[5] Barron’s memo was described by The New York Times Editorial Board as “a slapdash pastiche of legal theories—some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law—that was clearly tailored to the desired result.”[6]

#6  The New York Times Editorial Board (June 24, 2014). “A Thin Rationale for Drone Killings”. The New York Times. Retrieved November 18, 2015.”

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August 13, 2022 · 6:25 am

Trump/Russian Collusion Goes Nuclear

This is going to be a long politics post with a lot of links & details, which I realize many people might be unfamiliar with, if they didn’t follow the Clinton email scandal closely. I did follow that investigation closely, as I have followed all of the Clintons scandals closely, especially since the Clinton impeachment scandal in 1998.

I believe the current raid on former President Trump’s home this past week had absolutely nothing to do with “nuclear documents” or “espionage,” but is a continuation of the Trump/Russian Collusion effort that began when the Clinton machine came up with the bogus Steele dossier, to paint Trump as “colluding” with Russia.

So, let’s start with a little bit of rehashing the social media and online dramas about banning right-wing people or people who get in the way of Dem spin narratives. I first became aware of this on Twitter a few years back when Twitter banned Alex Jones. Well, Jones is an easy person to dislike, but then things progressed to banning other right-wing people. Then the big threat Dems and liberal media began hyping since 2016 is “Russian disinformation.” By 2020, when the pandemic started, the big threat Dems and the liberal media were ranting about was “COVID disinformation” and actual experts, like Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA vaccine platform, who had differing opinions on the COVID vaccines, were banned. Of course, the most famous Twitter ban, is former President Trump.

On to some of the other online drama that’s gotten a lot of attention recently– Dems redefining words and social media trying to force compliance to the new definitions. Recently, the word “recession” was not only redefined on social media platforms, but Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, came under fire for locking the “recession” page from edits, after a flurry of edits by people trying to fight to maintain the accepted definition and those trying to impose the Dems new definition. This occurred after the news broke that the US had just had two quarters of negative growth.

I had noticed the partisan Wikipedia editing back in 2016, after a Trump/Hillary debate when she accused Trump of fat-shaming a former Miss Universe beauty queen, Alicia Machado. I just happened to look up her bio and I found it interesting and began writing a blog post, when I checked back on Wikipedia that bio had been scrubbed. I am glad I had copied some of the original entry and the sources listed at the bottom of that Wikipedia entry for my blog post, You can’t make up this stuff … The highlights are mine:

“On June 25, 2008, Machado gave birth to a daughter, and said that the father was her best friend Mexican businessman Rafael Hernandez Linares. Mexican news sources, quoting the Attorney General of Mexico, reported that the real father of her child was Gerardo Alvarez-Vazquez, the Mexican drug lord, of the paramilitary drug-cartel Los Negros.[8] The christening of her child was subsequently attended by the chief members of the Beltran drug cartel (the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel), including the cartel’s “boss of bosses” Arturo Beltrán Leyva, his brother Héctor Beltrán Leyva and the drug-lord Edgar Valdez Villarreal, “La Barbie”.[9]

There was also information that Machado was accused of driving the getaway car for her boyfriend, who was accused of attempted murder, in Venezuela and a judge accused Machado of threatening to have him killed and using her friendship with President Cadera to ruin him. Lovely lady it seems, and there was the liberal media fawning all over her and Hillary championing her, but the real kicker for me was this, Former Miss Universe Gets Citizenship, Will Vote Against Trump. Yes, this woman got US citizenship and I wonder with her history in Venezuela and her alleged connections to Mexican cartel drug lords, how well she was vetted for US citizenship. Those Mexican news sources were quoting the Attorney General of Mexico. The liberal media effort to turn crook, Michael Avenatti, into a national hero was no accident. They were running the Dem spin info war effort.

Right before the 2020 election news of the Hunter Biden laptop broke. Twitter and facebook banned the NY Post: Jack Dorsey says the New York Post Twitter account will remain locked until it deletes the original tweet featuring its Hunter Biden story.

Then we had: Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say

Moving on, here are a couple tweets of mine from yesterday:

I have been following the Clinton smear machine and the Dem/liberal media spin war closely since the Clinton impeachment, in hopes of trying to expose some of the vast corruption, in any small way I can.

I haven’t pieced together all of the details of what I think is happening, but here are two powerful clues. It’s who they try to silence that catches my attention.

Paul Sperry, an investigative journalist, was banned from Twitter. I recall Sperry had a NYPost piece back during the Hillary email scandal: Clinton directed her maid to print out classified materials. So, I was wondering what Sperry tweeted to get banned. Jonathan Turley, Washington Law School professor, posted this piece: Twitter Permanently Bans Paul Sperry After Posting on the Mar-A-Lago Raid. Here’s some interesting information from the Turley piece:

“Sperry says that he tweeted the following:

Funny, don’t remember the FBI raiding Chappaqua or Whitehaven to find the 33,000 potential classified documents Hillary Clinton deleted. And she was just a former secretary of state, not a former president.

DEVELOPING: Investigators reportedly met back in June w Trump & his lawyers in Mar-a-Lago storage rm to survey docs & things seemed copasetic but then FBI raids weeks later. Speculation on Hill FBI had PERSONAL stake & searching for classified docs related to its #Spygate scandal.”

Turley also writes, “Sperry went on to note that “the current deputy general counsel at Twitter is also the former general counsel at FBI HQ under Comey. His name as you may know is James Baker, and he was the top attorney who reviewed the fraudulent anti-Trump FISA wiretap warrants for probable cause.”

I think this brings us closer to what is really going on and this isn’t about “nuclear documents,” but another cover-up in progress.

Finally, here’s a tweet by Catherine Herridge, CBS news senior investigative correspondent:

Perhaps, they wanted to preempt Trump from releasing information on #Spygate, but all I am sure of is all this “nuclear documents” and “espionage” drama is deliberate misdirection.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Update: 8/14/2022 I like details, so I want to add the sources that were with the Wikipedia entry for Alicia Machado, back in 2016, when I saw it. #8 & #9 were listed for the entry included in this blog post. I don’t speak or read Spanish and know nothing about Mexican news publications, but both news sources cited the Attorney General of Mexico;

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b Michael Barbaro & Megan Twohey (September 27, 2016). “Shamed and Angry: Alicia Machado, a Miss Universe Mocked by Donald Trump”. The New York Times. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
  2. Jump up^ Alicia Machado Pose For Playboy[dead link]
  3. Jump up^ “BBC News | World | Beauty queen in attempted murder trial”. news.bbc.co.uk. 27 January 1998. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  4. Jump up^ Gutkin, Steven (February 5, 1998). “Ex-Ms. Universe Accused of Threat”. apnewsarchive.com. AP. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  5. Jump up^ Ex-Miss Universe stars in real-life Venezuela soap Reuters, via Hurriyet Daily News, 2/7/1998
  6. Jump up^ People en Espanol: “Ex novio habla del escándalo de Alicia Machado – El beisbolista Bob Abreu se declaró sorprendido por su conducta y dio por terminada su relación”, May 16, 2005
  7. Jump up^ “Alicia, en programa de escándalo” El Universo, May 9, 2005
  8. Jump up^ “Cayó “El Indio”, capo señalado como operador del cartel de los Beltrán Leyva “ Univision News, April 23, 2010
  9. Jump up^ “”El Indio” tuvo hija con Alicia Machado”. April 22, 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
  10. Jump up^ “Alicia Machado cierra su cuenta en Twitter por culpa de las burlas”. bbc.co.uk. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  11. Jump up^ “Venezuelan beauty queen stumbles over Korea crisis”. reuters.com. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  12. Jump up^ Cite error: The named reference autogenerated1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. Jump up^ Bruces, Rubén (May 20, 2016) “¡En hora buena! Alicia Machado obtuvo la ciudadanía americana”
  14. Jump up^ Daniella Diaz & Dan Merica. “‘Miss Universe’ tearfully thanks Clinton for defense against Trump’s ‘Miss Piggy’ remarks”. CNN. Retrieved September 28, 2016.

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Filed under General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption

August 13, 2022 · 6:13 am

Blog Note

I am having a lot of problems with my blog posts lately – lots of WordPress “glitches,” as I’m trying to post them and edit them – I can’t get the Twitter posts to show up in this post right now, but the links are there. I don’t know how many “computer gremlin” problems I’m going to have throughout this scandal, but if past is prologue – probably a lot. I’ll do my best to keep sharing information.

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August 12, 2022 · 7:08 pm

I refuse!

Today is another politics post. I spent a lot of time today on politics Twitter. I have 54 followers on Twitter, so perhaps it’s all just tweeting into the wind. I hope that maybe one tiny bit I tweet might help powerful voices on the right fight back against the Dem spin info war. This blog post is going to be short, because I don’t feel like posting a lot of links to news stories and other stuff tonight.

I’m just going to share what I am concerned about with the Dems effort to destroy Trump, by any means necessary. I expect the Biden DOJ will try to charge Trump with serious crimes and where that leads I do not know. I don’t know if it will lead to civil unrest, but I am positive that whatever happens in regards to Trump, it won’t end with Trump.

The Dems and political left in America will target any other Republican politicians, who appear to be gaining traction, as is obvious with the endless stream of attacks against Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. So, this is about much more than just Trump.

The left’s culture war has met a lot of resistance, with ordinary Americans speaking out against things like the climate-change zealotry & hysteria, the gender politics, and the attacks on even our American symbols, recently. There was a leak of a FBI bulletin listing American Revolution symbols. FBI Director, Christopher Wray was asked about that in a recent appearance and he pretended like he knew nothing about it, because I feel certain he knew he’d be asked about that. Here’s a quote from a Reason article, American Revolution Images Might Reveal You as a ‘Violent Extremist,’:

“When the FBI puts out a bulletin on symbols “used by Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists,” and it looks like a catalog of T-shirts half the country might want to wear, it’s a strong indication that the feds are way off-base. It gets even sillier when part of the bulletin resembles a brochure for a Revolutionary War museum. Then again, George Washington and the Continental Army were, arguably, “Anti-Government or Anti-Authority Violent Extremists,” which is a reminder that governments aren’t necessarily the good guys”

Beyond all the politics, there’s been a War of Words raging for years now, that propels much of the left’s culture war. When even the sitting president goes to great lengths to target “MAGA Republicans” repeatedly, however that is defined (and that’s the thing – the definition will be fluid), as enemies of the state, I feel certain, that wherever this political drama, with the effort to destroy Trump ends up, Democrats and the Left intend to expand well beyond just certain Republican politicians.

Sorry, I refuse to ever go along with the left’s culture war and spin word games. I have spent over 20 years trying to understand the Dems corrupt spin information war and expose the corruption, in any way I can. I am a law-abiding American citizen, who doesn’t even have a speeding ticket on my record, BUT…

I refuse to use or buy into the spin words they’re trying to cram down our throats. Period!

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Filed under Culture Wars, General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption

August 12, 2022 · 12:59 am

Applying the law evenly

This is a politics blog post. I’ve debated what to write about the information coming out about the raid on former President Trump’s home on Monday.

I detest so much about former President Trump’s behavior and relentless lying, but I also realize there were some important accomplishments in his administration, like America became energy independent for the first time in my life and the Abraham Accords, for which he gets no credit in the liberal media. I wrote scores of anti-Trump blog posts over the years, but as the Dem/liberal media efforts to destroy Trump intensified, I also became aware that a large portion of their attacks were lies, often thoroughly corrupt and always orchestrated spin efforts between Dems and liberal media.

For a long time I’ve believed the left’s anti-Trump efforts go way beyond they just hate Trump, although they obviously do hate him. Trump got in the way of the Democrat’s liberal agenda, but he posed an even larger threat, because he both exposed their corrupt spin information war and he’s quite good at defeating their spin attacks.

Although, many people on the left decry mentioning Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and how other presidents handled documents when they left the White House as just “whataboutism” to excuse Trump’s behavior, I disagree. Today, Attorney General, Merrick Garland, gave a short statement in the raid of Trump’s home on Monday. Garland stated”

“Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing.” – https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/11/politics/garland-announcement-justice-department/index.html

That “applying the law evenly” matters for Americans to trust that we have one set of rules for everyone. However, I don’t believe we have one set of rules anymore and frankly, even when it comes to how we treat duly-elected presidents, all the norms that the media and Democrats applied when dealing with a sitting president were thrown out the window with Trump.

The effort to trash and destroy Trump extended to his family. First ladies often grace the cover of fashion magazines. Recently, Vogue ran a cover with Ukraine’s First Lady on it. Every fashion magazine shunned First Lady, Melania Trump, a beautiful former model, and did they not put her photo on a single cover in four years. Most disturbing were the constant hysterical “beginning of the end” Dem/liberal media spin attacks, revving up some new ‘breaking news” story, claiming this was the one that was going to destroy Trump. Since Monday, there’s been another round of this “beginning of the end” with the raid of Trump’s home and the claim he had documents that belong to the US government in his possession.

And that brings us squarely to the “applying the law evenly.” The Obama DOJ lowered the standard on former officials having sensitive documents in their home during the Clinton email scandal.

The short rehash is Hillary never set up a homebrew server in their home. I read through all of the FBI Notes on that investigation in 2016, as they were released. Bill Clinton had his aide, Justin Cooper set up that server for his foundation work. Just as Hillary was ready to become Secretary of State, the Clintons had their aides, Justin Cooper and Bryan Pagliano, upgrade that server. Hillary Clinton merged her State Department email onto Bill Clinton’s private foundation server in their home. That’s the truth. Oh and in 2016, the FBI was investigating the Clinton Foundation for pay-to-play, so perhaps the Clintons merging the US State Dept. with Bill Clinton’s Foundation server in their home could have been of interest in a pay-to-play investigation. Here’s a quick rundown on the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation in 2016, from a Real Clear Politics report:

“1. The Clinton Foundation investigation is far more expansive than anybody has reported so far and has been going on for more than a year.

2. The laptops of Clinton aides Cherryl Mills and Heather Samuelson have not been destroyed, and agents are currently combing through them. The investigation has interviewed several people twice, and plans to interview some for a third time.

3. Agents have found emails believed to have originated on Hillary Clinton’s secret server on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. They say the emails are not duplicates and could potentially be classified in nature.

4. Sources within the FBI have told Baier that an indictment is “likely” in the case of pay-for-play at the Clinton Foundation, “barring some obstruction in some way” from the Justice Department.

5. FBI sources say with 99% accuracy that Hillary Clinton’s server has been hacked by at least five foreign intelligence agencies, and that information have been taken from it”.

Here’s a CNN timeline of the email scandal: https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/politics/hillary-clinton-email-timeline

By the time that email scandal ended on July 5, 2016, James Comey gave his statement proclaiming Hillary’s handling of highly classified information wasn’t criminal or grossly negligent, it was only “extremely careless.”

I’ve written a lot of blog posts about that email scandal, but what I want to focus on here is what Garland said about “applying the law evenly.” Tonight Twitter is abuzz with information leaked to the Washington Post, claiming that Trump had “nuclear documents” and in light of all the Dem spin word games, I don’t trust anything the Biden DOJ is selling at this point.

The larger problem though is for our system of justice to survive requires trust and by continually applying one set of rules for Dems and another set for Trump and Republicans, the trust deficit keeps growing.

The FBI, per the Comey statement found:

“For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”

Those seven e-mail chains concerned some of the most highly sensitive information and it wasn’t just Hillary who emailed that highly classified information on an unsecure email system, it was also other Obama officials (the sent and received tells us that). Hillary kept that highly classified information on the unsecure Clinton family server. It gets worse though, because James Comey reopened that email investigation when the Weiner laptop the FBI had, revealed, Hillary’s aide, Huma Abedin, had thousands upon thousands of State Dept emails stashed too, but Comey quickly reclosed that investigation and told us “nothing to see here,” due to political pressure and Dem outrage that this damaging information would impact the 2016 election.

Comey never told us if the FBI checked into the other people involved in these chains and if they had that highly sensitive information stored on unsecure email systems too. This matters because the Hillary unsecure server came to light in 2013 when some emails, generated from Hillary’s server and sent to someone else, were retrieved by a Romanian hacker called “Guccifer.”, – from that CNN timeline again :

“March 20, 2013 – Gawker reports that based on emails retrieved by a Romanian hacker called “Guccifer,” Clinton used the “clintonemail.com” domain name in emails to advisers and friends. Because her original address is revealed in the article, Clinton changes her email address.”

Add in all the electronic devices the FBI subpoenaed from Hillary Clinton, that were never turned over, the bleach-bit server, and Comey brushing it aside as just “extremely careless,” while Dems and the liberal media spun it as Hillary was the victim of a right-wing conspiracy. It would have to be some pretty spectacularly damaging documents Trump had for me to buy into any of this after the unchecked Clinton/Obama corruption and I haven’t even gotten to the Hunter Biden laptop yet. The Democrats’ wholesale public corruption in Washington seems almost surreal these days and Dems and the liberal media want us to get worked up because someone in the Biden administration decided to spin up “nuclear documents” in a leak to the Washington Post tonight. This Dem/liberal media spin information war has completely corrupted so many people.

“Applying the law evenly,” yeah right. I have zero confidence in the Biden DOJ and FBI and it pains me to say that.

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August 9, 2022 · 1:10 pm

The loss of a great American historian


Yesterday, American historian, David McCullough, passed away. Above is an inspirational video of McCullough talking about George Washington. Please take a few minutes and watch this video. It offers some perspective we can all use.

I’ve read several of McCullough’s books and pulled a few of my favorites from my bookshelves to snap a few photos for this blog post. He had a rare gift to take dry historical facts and turn them into a moving, very human story. Here’s 1776, which was about America’s founding:

Rather than waste a lot of time following the latest partisan political drama today, I looked at the news online a bit this morning, then went outside to work in my little container garden. I’ve been cleaning up and started planting some things for a Fall garden. I’m working on decluttering inside my home too.

Cleaning out the partisan politics clutter from taking up too much of my time is part of my decluttering efforts too.

I also collected more cosmos seeds this morning. I’ve seen several YouTube homesteaders talking about learning to save seeds and although seeds aren’t usually very expensive, with sky-high inflation, it sure doesn’t hurt to cut costs wherever you can. I heard mention of potential seed shortages too. I have been buying more seeds and intend to order more online very soon.

There are loads of videos and sites online that can walk you through the seed saving process for various types of plants. I recently bought two books on saving seeds. Books are really important in my life and it’s encouraging to see so many preppers and homesteaders online mention reading books as an important part of their efforts at becoming more self-reliant. Being open to learning new things and exploring new ideas can keep you moving forward in life. Here’s a link to a free 1887 book, The White House Cookbook, which has recipes and all sorts of interesting history of White House meals.

I have a fascinating book on America’s founding fathers’ gardening and yes, procuring seeds played a pivotal role in America’s early history:

The small decluttering efforts around my home take way more time than they should, due to my penchant to attach sentimental value to possessions and my hard-to-break belief in my hoarding grandmother’s view on stuff – “I paid good money for this and might need it later.” My mother ruthlessly decluttered our home on a regular basis. I’m working on letting go of more stuff that I don’t use and have not used in years. Yesterday, I filled up a box with some hardcover books, which are more difficult for me to part with than paperbacks. It felt good to fill up that box that’s going to my local Goodwill store.

McCullough’s books are keepers and I would not even think of getting rid of them. A few years ago, I read his, Brave Companions, which is a series of stories about fascinating people in history, most of whom I knew nothing about. This, so far, is my favorite David McCullough book.

That said about my favorite McCullough book, I started his, The Pioneers, and it’s excellent too. I need to finish reading this book soon.

Being a lifelong news junkie, it’s hard to turn off the blaring “breaking news” political soap opera, but I’m still working to kick the habit and spend more time doing things that will improve and enrich my life. Social media politics definitely doesn’t do that. Reading more about America’s early history helps me clear away so much of the clutter and noise in our media and politics today and I’m hoping it will keep me focused on a better path than racing down rabid, partisan political rabbit holes or getting distracted by constant online noise.

America lost a truly gifted historian and storyteller yesterday.

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Filed under American Character, American History, General Interest