With so many things hitting the news since Trump began making announcements of his cabinet picks, perhaps the biggest earthquake since his election is the liberal news is in disarray and suffering a massive ratings collapse. Comcast announced it will be spinning off MSNBC. CNN is dropping talent and reshuffling. All over liberal media, they’re doing major cope about Trump winning the election and many can’t grasp that their extreme leftist views aren’t shared by most of the rest of America.
And on The View, Sunny Hostin, a firebrand liberal lawyer, has spent the past three days being forced to read legal notes to correct lies and smears against Trump cabinet picks that she told on air, as ABC tries to fend off defamation lawsuits, https://x.com/theMRC/status/1860060072745009569.
These radical leftist media personalities have spent years being allowed to wage scorched earth spin info war, and spew any smear or spin lie to advance the Democrat political agenda and try to destroy political opponents on the right (and even ordinary citizens who they sensationalized – like the Covington kid)..
There’s an epic realignment in American media happening, so Trump won against the Dem spin information war, but I feel certain Democrats and the liberal media will try to regroup.
CNN announced they are trying to hire analysts with more diverse opinions.
Trump has been very quiet this past week and his staff is announcing cabinet picks quickly. Most are outstanding, with only a few I don’t like, not that my opinion matters at all. Honestly, after the craziness with the Weekend at Bernie’s Biden presidency, I am hopeful things will improve in America.
There’s a lot happening in foreign affairs, too, but I don’t want to get into that in this post.
The Trump win, no matter all the Dem and liberal efforts to trivialize it, signals a huge shift in the Dem spin information war – it’s on life support.
President Donald J. Trump won the presidential election. He won the electoral college vote and the popular vote decisively. I debated writing something for a few days now, but felt that my unsettled feelings would lead to too much emotional outpouring. I stayed up until 3:30 am to make absolutely sure Trump won.
I felt enormous relief that finally the Dem/liberal media spin info war suffered a crushing blow. It’s easy to watch the MSNBC and CNN liberal media meltdowns and the various liberal meltdown videos on social media and feel, dare I say, JOY, but now is the time for Americans, to demand real accountability for the vast Dem corruption of our federal government (especially our national security agencies).
With winning both the electoral vote and the popular vote, Trump does have a mandate and he’s set out a big agenda, both domestic policy and foreign policy, but if America is ever to put the final nail in the corrupt Dem machine and the vast corruption of our federal government, there must be serious accountability for the criminal leaking and abuse of power within our national security agencies – all to destroy Trump. The abuses of power at the top of the FBI need to be investigated thoroughly.
My sister messaged me this morning and she thinks Republicans should set up a commission to investigate the corruption. Not a bad idea, I think. She also thinks Trump should make a deal with Biden to pardon him and his family, if they provide information on the Clintons, Obama and other powerful Dems’ corruption. She also thinks they could start flipping higher up people in agencies and get them into CYA mode and singing like canaries.
I’ve been waiting for 25 years to see a real blow to the Dem/spin information war and last night was definitely real momentum to that end. That said these corrupt Dem elites didn’t become this powerful and this corrupt by being weak and timid – they will regroup quickly and try drastic measures, if they can pull it off. They’re cornered rats now, so hopefully Republicans can keep the pressure on and start getting them to turn on each other.
Until the Dem corruption is defeated, it’s best to remain vigilant.
As America inches closer to our 2024 presidential election, it seems our news media and politics social media sphere latch onto all the sideshows and gimmicks, but none of that’s what’s on my mind. Sure, I find some of Trump’s political stunts, like his afternoon at McDonalds or his latest garbage truck stunt, hilarious, but my mind is on all the what ifs, as far as possible civil unrest or more ominous threats, like a terrorist attack.
I think about the millions of illegal immigrants the Biden administration allowed to flood across our borders in the past four years and the FBI didn’t raise the alarm about this being a serious threat until this year, after the threat levels rose to astronomical levels. The FBI either covered up the threat level promoting the Biden administration position or they were unaware of the serious threats our open borders posed all along, in which case they’re too stupid to be in law enforcement. The selling of the Biden administration position speaks to the politicization of our national security and that speaks to a serious public corruption problem.
Then there’s the reality that there have already been two assassination attempts on former President Trump’s life in recent months and the realization that the Secret Service has serious competency problems. The FBI has been investigating both of these attempts and so far has shared no real information about either attack. This smells like another FBI cover-up in progress.
The entrenched powers that be in Washington don’t want anyone coming in to disrupt their corrupt management and a second Trump term promises to be a major disruption, so I don’t expect the entrenched powerbrokers (in both parties) to quietly accept a Trump win. Likewise, because of the widespread corruption, I likewise, don’t expect some factions of the Trump sphere to quietly accept a Harris win.
For these reasons, I think it’s sensible to remain calm, vigilant and try to be prepared for chaos, while praying we have a peaceful transfer of power and no mayhem.
I took a couple hours break while writing this and now I see Dems are launching a major spin attack against Trump about a comment he made about Liz Cheney talking to Tucker Carlson and contorting Trump’s comment into a death threat. Kamala got off a plane and read from prepared notes about Trump’s comment and stated his comment is “disqualifying.” Sure, Dems want to try to pull out a Kamala win, but the way this statement was worded led me to believe Dems are going to try to set this up as “disqualifying” legal grounds to deny Trump a win. The Dem machine powerbrokers will do anything to stop Trump from becoming POTUS, so any belief this is going to be an ordinary election seems even too rose-colored for me. There’s a news report that the Arizona AG (a Democrat) is investigating whether Trump’s comment can be charged as a death threat.
This comment from Trump talking to Tucker Carlson about Liz Cheney’s war-hawk behavior, has been blown up into a Dem/liberal media hysterical ranting that Trump is calling for Liz Cheney to be shot by a firing squad:
The Dem machine and their liberal media cabal are already rewriting Trump’s comment and Google is presenting their rewrites as what Trump actually said. Then there is this by Mollie Hemingway:
It’s only downhill from here until this election craziness passes – hopefully.
I urge everyone to stay calm and try to remain optimistic about America. Most Americans, regardless who they vote for, are decent people. That said, I think everyone in America should be prepared for unusual events and potential civil unrest. The worst that can happen if everything remains calm and peaceful is you have some extra food, water and supplies on hand.
Over the weekend President Trump did a lighthearted short shift at a McDonalds restaurant in PA, Trump has decades of experience pulling off these sort of cameo appearances. I thought it was fun, great, and the image of him at the pick-up window was instantly iconic. Even better, was he and everyone involved appeared to be having a great time.
The Dem and liberal media reaction though painted a dark and very negative view of Trump’s McDonalds event. I happened to watch the 2000 Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant movie, Two Weeks Notice, on Netflix Sunday afternoon. Lo and behold there’s a fun cameo appearance of, none other than, Donald Trump in this movie – just like Hollywood loved to slip into movies before Trump entered politics and he became the left’s Public Enemy #1. Trump’s great at these sort of appearances and nothing could be more American than a Trump photo-op at a McDonalds. Trump has made no secret for many years that he loves eating McDonalds food.
Of course, what has Dems and liberal media mouthpieces so outraged is he expertly trolled Kamala Harris over her reported college job working at a McDonalds, for which McDonalds has no record. Our illustrious liberal media, who failed to dig into Kamala’s McDonalds job claim, went to work digging up dirt on the McDonalds franchise owner, trying to damage his restaurant and drumming up pressure on McDonalds corporate office for allowing Trump’s appearance.
For the campaign that’s touting about being all about “Joy,” they certainly seem to be trying to smother any positive media Trump got out of this event.
This wall of negative reporting by the liberal (formerly mainstream) media reminded me that since Trump won the election in 2016, the left’s #Resist movement has driven the left into a sort of mob mentality fueled by hatred of Trump and anyone who supports him. There’s a dangerous edge to this movement, where it seems like most prominent liberals in all the key institutions that prop up our American system, have become highly politicized and adhere to a strict belief system, that the highest cause of good citizenship isn’t about playing by the rules, but their own code of destroying Trump by any means necessary and hatred of both Trump and his supporters.
While this media meltdown over Trump’s afternoon at McDonalds will likely fade in a few more days, I wonder how Dems and the liberal media will react if Trump wins this election, which sure looks to be where the momentum is heading, no matter how hard and ridiculously, the meltdowns and outrage theater on the left.
I think we should all be prepared for an even crazier reaction than the 2017 Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration or the 2020 George Floyd “mostly peaceful” protests in that Summer of Love… The level of hate and rage about Trump is of epic proportions.
This blog post is a long ramble, but I want to get this stuff off my chest. I realize most people don’t follow the news as closely as I do, but I’ve been analyzing the Dem spin information war closely since 1999.
I heard a crazy story at the grocery store the other day, from the lady in front of me in line at the check-out. She told me that this past week, when the power was out in a nearby town, there was a confrontation at a gas station where a customer pulled a gun fighting over ice. One of my sons told me there were stories like that in Augusta too and he said the Walmart had a security person by the ice. I never thought about people going berserk over ice, but when the power’s out and you aren’t prepared to keep you fridge and freezer going, ice might become a precious commodity. Civil order can degrade quickly – that’s something we should all understand.
Most people aren’t even minimally prepared for emergencies and there are way more people with learned helplessness, who expect other people to save them, than people with a self-reliant mind-set. Watching this hurricane Helene disaster, made me think of a blog post I wrote in 2012, Survival: The Mind-Set. I’ve been committed to preparedness since I was a Girl Scout, as a kid, but I avoided the term “prepper.” In 2012 I wrote:
“Reality TV garbage, like Doomsday Preppers and the fixation on extreme survival skills, like Bear Grylls, marginalize the seriousness of learning practical steps to take to be prepared. In fact, stockpiling and building a fortress probably won’t increase your odds of survival anyway. The surest way to survive lies in building that team, where individual strengths and skills can lead to innovation, creative-brainstorming and more ideas on how to tackle our problems, even in the most dire situation. If you are stranded by rising water, calling Washington won’t help you, but calling your neighbors, who can pool resources sure might.”
The first responders are almost always going to be your neighbors and local officials, like your police and fire department, but in a massive disaster, like with the flooding in NC and TN, we should expect a prompt state and federal government response. The people in TN & NC are shining examples of neighbor helping neighbor in this disaster. They should be very proud of their people, who often get ridiculed as backward hicks from Appalachia. I grew up in rural PA, in the mountains, that are part of the Appalachian Mountain range and close to the Appalachian Trail. I understand how backwoods people get treated.
There’s plenty of time to do a post mortem on FEMA and problems with this disaster response and that should happen, so that problems can be addressed and better policies and procedures implemented.
Every American watching this on the news should be motivated to start taking practical steps to become better prepared for emergencies, learn more skills, and even if you’ve been committed to personal preparedness for a long time, it’s time to go assess your supplies, skills, and look for gaps in your preparedness plans and supplies. I have a list of things I want to do better or stock up on.
Elon Musk’s Starlink has been mentioned repeatedly as a lifesaver for communications in a disaster. Donald Trump wasn’t the only one who didn’t know anything about it. I had heard about it, but not being interested in technology, it wasn’t something I learned anything about, so I googled it. One of my sisters told me buying a Starlink kit might be a good thing to have and I think so too. These are the kinds of things I’m reassessing.
Sure, I’m disgusted with the Biden administration and yes, I do believe they were very slow to respond – Biden was on the beach and Kamala was at a big fundraiser in San Francisco last weekend, they weren’t concerned about the hurricane at all. Fort Bragg in NC and Fort Campbell in TN weren’t called in until a week after the storm. They were awaiting orders. Now, it’s all about how to spin it for damage control, but I am trying to leave my anger and disgust aside and trying to focus on positive things.
One of my sisters messaged me that she has attended two FEMA emergency communications webinars with her civilian job. She’s retired from the Air Force and worked in Public Affairs at the Pentagon years ago. She was lamenting that she thinks we aren’t as prepared as we were more than a decade ago and she expressed disgust at the DEI focus in her FEMA webinar training. She said the one before hurricane Helene focused mostly on climate change and pushed out a concept of Radical Collaboration, whatever the heck that means. She said they talked at length about stakeholders in shared spaces. And this is a direct quote from my sister, “It was all bullshit from a practical standpoint. It seems FEMA is mostly absent from meeting Helene victims in their shared spaces.” She also told me FEMA’s top communications person worked in campaigns for various high-level officials her whole career and has no practical experience in disaster response. She said they knew Helene was coming & the focus was on climate change, not disaster response.
I believe my sister is telling the truth about this FEMA webinar and I think most Americans watching this on the news or online know something is very, very wrong with this hurricane response and in this WH.
Dems and their liberal media allies are going to gaslight us any way they can to win this election. Today, some liberal media flacks were back on hyping signs of Trump’s cognitive decline and at the same time Axios has a piece out:
The only reason Kamala's the candidate is because of the two week Dem/liberal media scorched earth effort to expose Biden's cognitive decline & pressure him to step aside, but now we're supposed to pretend none of that happened.
It’s totally insane. We have no information on the two men who tried to assassinate former President Trump. We have no answers on what condition President Biden really has, despite the almost dozen visits of a Walter Reed Parkinson’s specialist to his WH physician since January. The media just breezes past all of this. It was only a week before the hurricane, when Biden held his first full cabinet meeting in almost a year, and he turned it over to Jill to run, but now Kamala is vouching for Biden’s mental fitness. Only a few months ago Dems & liberal media claimed Biden was so impaired that he needed to step aside and let Kamala become the candidate. Trump does lie a lot, but he’s got nothing on Dems and liberal media with their non-stop gaslighting.
These people are recklessly endangering all of our lives with this charade – all for power and control. We have a seriously cognitive-impaired POTUS and CINC.
Finally, because she never goes away, Hillary did an interview and she’s angry that if they can’t force X to censor speech, they will lose total control of social media:
Bill Gates two weeks ago, John Kerry last week, and Hillary Clinton today — all demanding government censorship of X. Hard to see this as a coincidence. They appear to be laying the groundwork for totalitarianism. Our democratic republic is in danger.pic.twitter.com/nafR7oJFs8https://t.co/zO9fgKYRrL
It’s amazing that so many Americans are now talking about how free speech is under attack and alarm about these Dem efforts at censorship, like it’s something that’s new and alarming that Dems are trying to control information in America. For years I’ve felt like a lone voice in the wilderness, as I tried to explain the 1990s Clinton spin information war, which expanded to the Dem spin information war. This isn’t some sudden new plan – they have been working on this since the 1990s. Most of the media in America, Hollywood, social media (except for X), and Silicon Valley tech giants are all big players in the Dem spin war This cabal of elites is the most corrupt, political machine in American history and they’re determined to control information and to not let Trump get in the way of their “total control.”
I don’t care for Trump and have loads of very anti-Trump posts on my blog, Almost every time Trump speaks he blurts out something that offends me or hits me wrong, but at the same time I sympathize with him. He’s also been right about many issues and his administration implemented many policies I support.
Trump is the #1 target of the Dem political machine, which will do anything to, not just defeat him in this election, they are trying to destroy him financially and use lawfare to send him to prison. I don’t know if the two assassination attempts are connected, random crazies, a foreign plot, or some nefarious plot by domestic political enemies. All I can say is I do know how far the Clinton machine went to silence a nobody homemaker (me), when I got in the way of their spin effort on a popular online political message board, during the Clinton impeachment. Trump poses a much, much larger threat to their power. I’ll be amazed if he survives to election day, but if he wins it will only get crazier.
I do not believe Dems will peacefully transfer power.
The wheels are coming off the American bus.
I hate to sound alarmist, but we are not living in normal times. Last week, with most of the southeast US reeling from severe hurricane damage, a thug union boss announced a strike of port workers along the entire east coast and all the way to Texas. The secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo, was asked about this potential strike the day before and she said she hasn’t been very focused on that. She had no clue about the impact a major port strike would have on hurricane disaster recovery? The Biden crew don’t have a clue how to think ahead, piece information together to identify potential threats, and certainly no ability to prepare ahead of time.
CNBC: What are you hearing will happen if dockworkers strike and it goes longer than a week?
Harris-Biden Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo: "I have not been very focused on that."
It wasn’t Biden or Kamala who put pressure on the thug union boss, who said he would shut down the economy to get what he wanted. It was governor Ron DeSantis, in FL, who stood up to that thug:
At my direction, the Florida National Guard and the Florida State Guard will be deployed to critical ports affected by the strike to maintain order and, where possible, resume operations.
It is unacceptable for the Biden-Harris administration to allow supply chain interruptions… pic.twitter.com/KfzVbBgI10
Hours later the union delayed their strike until January and Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, tried to take credit for negotiating this settlement, but it was DeSantis who really called that thug’s bluff.
There’s another hurricane approaching FL this week.
Things seem very uncertain these days, so we should all put some time into becoming better prepared – this isn’t something to procrastinate about. Just do the best you can and if you need inspiration, just look at the people in TN and NC, who just loaded up whatever supplies they could muster to help their fellow citizens in trouble. That organic emergency response is very heartening.
The spirit of America is still alive across our great land, even if it’s dead in Washington.
With all the surreal happenings in the past several days, from flame-throwing back and forth about Haitians eating pets in Springfield, a second attempted assassination of Trump and a raging battle over who is inciting violence with their words, along came Hillary Clinton to toss another Dem spin grenade into the public debate. She showed up on MSNBC, to opine about how the media is screwing up on how they cover Trump. She lectured that the media needs to stick to a narrative. And then she suggested censorship and criminal penalties for spreading Russian misinformation.
The audacity of this corrupt woman knows no bounds. It was her 2016 campaign that concocted and spread an elaborate, false Trump-Russian Collusion story, that corrupted the State Department, the FBI, our intel agencies and which the liberal media spread for years. Her latest comments reinforced my belief she and the Clinton machine will do anything to destroy people who get in their way. Without a doubt, Trump, definitely got in the way of her lifetime dream of becoming the first female president. And she’s still plotting for some way to destroy him.
Despite all the other crazy things going on, I feel certain we haven’t heard the last of Hillary Clinton,
As for Trump, there are definitely a lot of people who are out to destroy him and although he keeps praising the Secret Service, it’s hard for me to have confidence in them. They are controlled by the same administration that’s using lawfare to try to throw Trump in prison. And the FBI and DOJ involved in that lawfare are now in charge of investigating this second assassination attempt.
#BREAKING: DeSantis says as soon as he heard the news of the assassination attempt, he ordered investigators to immediately save the social media accounts before the accounts were taken down
"As soon as this happened. […] Facebook will take it down, and try to hide it. FDLE… pic.twitter.com/ZKLdRyCLbn
One other bit of news from this second assassination attempt on Trump, is for all the Trumpers who jumped into the Trump primary campaign effort to destroy Ron DeSantis and smear him, well they owe him an apology. DeSantis never hurled dirt at Trump, but Trump and his campaign were as bad as the Dem smear merchants. In fact, the right-wing activist weirdo, Laura Loomer, who’s been hanging onto Trump since the primary, admitted she regularly shared dirt on DeSantis with a Dem operative, Ron Filipkowski. Loomer spread the rumor that Casey DeSantis faked having cancer.
Right after the second assassination attempt, while all the people around Trump were rushing to drum up outrage in the media – it was Ron DeSantis who immediately saved all the social media of the suspect, before it was taken down. And it’s been Ron DeSantis who set up for FL to prosecute this case too, so that, hopefully, it doesn’t just get buried by the FBI.
Assuredly, there will be more political craziness, but I’m going to be taking some breaks from it. This past week has been extremely crazy.
Many years ago when I worked at Walmart in the fabrics and crafts department I watched what started as a silly practical joke snowball out of control. One of the two department managers came up with this practical joke to play on an associate in our department, who was obsessed about Winnie-the-pooh stuff. She gathered up the bolts of Winnie-the-pooh fabric and stuck them in a shopping cart before that associate arrived. She let me and the other associates and other department manager in on her joke and the gist was to play along when she told this associate that the Winnie-the-pooh fabric was being discontinued.
It was a harmless joke, except she decided to carry her joke further and went around the store getting other department managers to play along and tell this associate that Walmart was discontinuing all Winnie-the-pooh merchandise. Several of us told her that she was carrying this joke too far, because the associate believed her and was upset about this Winnie-the-pooh “news.” Finally she told the associate it was just a joke.
That associate was so embarrassed she fell for this practical joke that she ran in the restroom. I and another associate went in there to talk to her, where she was sobbing in humiliation. The jokester felt terrible too and she bought this associate some Winnie-the-pooh merchandise and apologized profusely to her. Sometimes people might think something is really funny, but they carry it too far.
I thought about this with Trump hyping the “eating the pets” thing in Springfield, OH. Sure, some dark humor aspect to many of the Trump “they’re eating the pets” memes, had me laughing, BUT…
It stopped being funny when Springfield just had bomb threats in schools and children, both Americans and Haitians, are scared. I don’t care who is at fault for these bomb threats, because I feel it’s a safe bet they are related to this Trump-hyped “eating the pets” drama that Trump tried to exploit for political advantage. There are right-wing activists running around Springfield and scouring the internet for proof Haitians are eating the pets and assuredly, there are sleazy Dem operatives busily at work to set up more racial-themed false flag operations to capitalize on this situation and make Trump look like Hitler, again.
A funny meme has gone too far, but assuredly many extreme partisans don’t realize that yet. Some very influential Trump pundits are on X urging Trump to have a huge rally in Springfield, to stir up more divides in this community.
Setting up Haitians, people from the poorest country in our hemisphere, as sub-human barbarians, creates a permission structure to mistreat them. The Biden administration gave these Haitians legal status, whether you agree with that policy or not, so they are here legally. Trump’s entire MAGA schtick always veered toward dividing people and incitement. He’s also unconcerned about facts or verifying information and even in his pre-politics days, he wallowed in spreading malicious gossip.
Back in his 2016 rallying campaign he did incite people at rallies to punch protestors and a 78 year-old vet got worked up and did punch a protestor. He was arrested and faced charges. This type of Us vs. Them rabble-rousing is Trump’s trademark approach to manipulating people. He displayed this same type of behavior on J-6 too. His latest “they’re eating the pets” is Trump creating this same type of incitement to justify vilification of Haitians in one small city.
Of course, the Biden administration open borders policy created this illegal immigrant/refugee crisis situation in Springfield, OH, where around 20,000 Haitians were brought into this small town, by the Biden administration, and now compose a third of the population.
There’s a massive Open Borders system of Dems (and some Republicans) politicians who welcome cheap, third world labor, companies and a vast structure of NGOs and religious charities that rake in billions of dollars from federal funding for providing migrant services. The people in this system should be the #1 target, not the Haitians in Springfield.
By all the reporting so far, most of Haitians are working in Springfield and the most frequent complaints I’ve seen reported are about their terrible driving and causing accidents, language barriers, and the amount of federal aid and benefits they’ve received. The eating the pets and ducks stuff, was the thing Trump chose to hype.
Sure, considering the poverty level in Haiti and the practice of voodoo being common there, just about anything that moves is considered food and weird animal sacrifice stuff is part of voodoo, so it wouldn’t surprise me if some of these Haitians do eat cats and dogs and practice voodoo. That said, there are over a million immigrants in the US of Haitian descent, who have successfully immigrated here and fit into American society. Haitians can successfully assimilate into American society. While doing more reading on Haiti, I was disheartened reading about impoverished people in Haiti who mix dirt with oil and make mud cookies to feed their children and there’s even a market selling them, as something cheap to fill bellies.
Another thing I learned in the Army is you can put people from all kinds of different backgrounds together, unite them to a common value system and goals, and they can live and work together peacefully and productively. The same thing is true in America – that is the wonderful thing about America.
The real issue is dumping so many people from a completely different culture in American towns, without the consent of the residents and then not having adequate plans and resources to facilitate assimilation into American culture. These residents have a right to be fed-up that more taxpayer money is going to help these Haitians than is going to help the residents of Springfield. The residents are just supposed to silently accept the upheaval the Biden-Harris administration caused or be labeled racists, so yes, their grievances should be heard.
Stepping back from the situation in Springfield and looking at the big picture of this illegal immigration crisis, granting legal status to Haitians in Springfield is not as high a priority as the large numbers of criminals, gangs, drug traffickers, terrorists, likely 5th column elements from hostile countries that have been allowed to flood into America.
These Haitians in Springfield, if they are working and not engaged in crime, are low on the list of top priority for deportation, I think, while rounding up illegals who are criminals, gangs, drug traffickers, terrorists, 5th column elements from hostile countries should be the priority. Trump doesn’t even understand anything about prioritization or forming a comprehensive strategy. He just brags, brags, brags and repeats malicious stuff “someone told me” or “I heard that.”
While in office, Trump did do better on the illegal immigration problem than Biden, but it was not spectacular. And he had no plan for how to get through the political walls Dems kept erecting, because he does not have a clue about the US constitution or how our government actually works. His loyalists have consistently tried to sell that as a benefit (and an excuse when he screws up). but if you are trying to defeat a vast, corrupt system, you better try to understand everything you can about how they operate. The same thing is true in war – you try to study everything you can about your adversary and how they operate.
Trump, when in office, often spewed out things he was going to do that weren’t legal or even within the powers of the presidency. He’s not sitting around studying policy or trying to learn more – he’s a schmoozer, braggart, and always looking for a way to get more media attention for himself.
At this point it will be hard for me to vote for Trump and I’m feeling much like I did in 2016, when I left the top of my ballot blank. How America ended up with two candidates, who are lazy, self-indulgent, and need campaign staff and surrogates as 24/7 babysitters to prevent them from self-imploding boggles my mind. Kamala can’t speak even a few minutes extemporaneously without sinking into a wilting tossed word salad.
Trump can’t be left unattended or he’s posting crazy or self-destructive stuff on social media or inviting a psycho far-right activist to travel around with him. He took Laura Loomer, a 9/11 truther, who claims 9/11 was an inside job, along with him to a 9/11 memorial service a few days ago. That’s his level of judgment.
The babysitter clubs in both campaigns are trying to keep these two pathetic candidates on message and from self-immolating. We, as a country, need to do some serious soul-searching on how we let our country devolve to this sad state, with two complete nincompoops as candidates.
China is preparing to make some bold moves, but meanwhile….
There was another big kerfuffle in the liberal media about some altercation between a Trump aide and an Arlington National Cemetery official during a wreath laying ceremony. Former President Trump attended, at the request of some Gold Star families, whose loved ones died during the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle three years ago.
Naturally, within hours the liberal media account turned out to be missing a lot of details and was presented to make Trump the villain. I condemn Trump’s bizarre comment recently comparing the Medal of Honor award to Presidential Medal of Freedom awards and saying the medal of freedom was better, while sucking up to some wealthy donor lady, Miriam Adelson, who had introduced him (he had awarded her the medal of freedom as president). He was at this event to speak about anti-Semitism. Here’s what he said:
Trump later clarified his remarks, but it was totally self-inflicted damage and I watched the video of this lady introducing him and his gushing comments several times. His comment deserved criticism.
For me, the truth matters more than partisan politics, so the truth is the liberal media acts as just part of the Democratic Party and left-wing political organizations messaging operations. And destroying Trump has been their #1 mission since 2016. The truth also is Trump dodged the draft in Vietnam and has no understanding of military service and sacrifice. I still think he’s a liberal role-playing at being a Republican. So, our choices are the most radical left candidate ever or Trump, a mixed bag of foibles, who often landed on good policies while president. He’s not Hitler, but he’s a deeply flawed candidate whose ego and big mouth gives his adversaries endless piles of ammunition to attack him.
Naturally, trying to get past his careless remarks from weeks ago, attending this ceremony at Arlington was politically beneficial, but Trump had called these families before and that might be why they invited him.
Trump was invited by these Gold Star families to attend this ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, that’s the most important point.
Neither President Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris have ever contacted the families of the fallen heroes at Abbey Gate, during that Afghanistan withdrawal debacle.
“Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had to intervene to get former President Donald Trump into Arlington National Cemetery for the third anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal with Gold Star families, a family told the Daily Caller.”
“The Gold Star families, who lost their children during the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, invited Trump to Arlington National Cemetery. There he laid a wreath for the 13 servicemembers who were killed serving their country in Afghanistan. However, a Gold Star family told the Caller that Arlington National Cemetery was trying to make it difficult for the former President to appear for the ceremony to honor their children, something the families requested.”
Every part of the federal government appears to be politicized and deeply divided along partisan lines, including some officials at Arlington National Cemetery, who tried to impede Trump attending a wreath-laying ceremony at the request of some Gold Star families.
During the 20 years of having US troops fighting the Global War On Terror and US regime change/democracy in the ME effort, both political parties began actively recruiting former military members, who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to run for office. We now have deeply partisan “former-military” members in Congress, who jump into the fray on all military and foreign policy matters. This active political party recruitment of former military is how Tim Walz made it to Congress. With Walz becoming the Democrat VP candidate, information emerged recently that he had lied about serving in combat. True to form, former military Dems in Congress signed a letter backing Walz, while former military Repubs in Congress signed a letter condemning Walz for lying about his service.
The retired generals who show up in the media to comment, likewise are split along partisan lines, although the Dem-aligned ones became outspoken, rabid Trump-haters. However, among these retired Dem generals, who penned angry op-ed letters about Trump and showed up on cable news to berate him, I never saw any of them speak out about the Biden administration’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. The Pentagon claimed that withdrawal was a success, touting the large number of people evacuated during that debacle. I didn’t see these Dem retired generals criticize Biden or Harris for failing to contact these Gold Star families or even acknowledge them on the three year anniversary. Likewise, The liberal media doesn’t have anything to say about that Biden-Harris disgrace.
So, stepping back now to look at the big picture – we have a deeply divided country, including our news media we rely on for information, our elected officials, our intel agencies, our courts, our military leadership and even it appears, officials at Arlington National Cemetery.
Every federal institution seems to be deeply divided along partisan lines. And many American families are split along partisan lines.
How on earth are we going to be prepared, because our enemies see our divides and are watching? The Biden-Harris train wreck of a foreign policy continues to create opportunities our adversaries will surely try to exploit. Biden’s on an extended vacation and yesterday the media showed video of him lounging at the beach. Kamala’s preparing for her big “first interview” since becoming the official Democrat presidential candidate and she’s campaigning in GA. Here she is yesterday talking about leadership:
During a campaign stop at a Georgia high school, Vice President Harris talks to the students about what it takes to be a great leader. pic.twitter.com/UiMAJMnr5s
Our enemies are watching this vapid, silly woman and they’re watching all the American political theater. Most of all they’re watching the chaos and Biden dismantling of US military might by turning our military into a DEI project for Woke radicals to tinker with.
The floating pier project that Biden deployed to assist in humanitarian relief in Gaza a few months ago ended in failure and embarrassment, but the Pentagon spokeswoman touted that as a success, just like the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle.
In the meantime this was in the news, as China is escalating aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific
But retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, former director of intelligence for the Pacific Fleet, said the absence of a carrier group in the region is dangerous, noting it is the first time it has occurred since 2001, when the Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk was deployed to the Persian Gulf.
Since then both Democratic and Republican administrations have maintained at least one carrier strike group in the western Pacific to provide a strong deterrence to aggressive Chinese military activities or for a possible North Korean contingency, he said.
The current gap “sends a clear and unambiguous message to Beijing that the Biden-Harris administration is unlikely to intervene to help protect America’s national interest in Asia or those of our allies such as Japan, [the Philippines] or even Taiwan,” Capt. Fanell said.
He compared the gap to the decision by the Obama administration in 2012 not to respond forcefully to China’s seizure of the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, saying it only encouraged the Chinese military to build up more strategically located islands in the sea that are now armed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles.
“Wherever the U.S. leaves a vacuum, [China] fills it with their military forces,” Capt. Fanell said. An Indo-Pacific Command spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.S. presence in the region.
It’s always – make terrible decisions that create dangerous strategic opportunities for our adversaries, then pedal some weak tea assurance to our allies afterwards. This is a repeat of the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, trusting the Taliban for security outside the airport in Kabul, of Ukraine, where the Biden administration weakness emboldened Putin, of Israel, where the Biden administration has tried to hamstring Israel to appease Hamas terrorists, and of Iran where Biden removed the Houthis from the terrorist watch list and now Iran keeps arming the Houthis to attack American forces in the region.
After watching four years of Biden-Harris military decisions, well, China is going to act sooner rather than later. We have no aircraft carrier in the Indo-Pacific, so the Biden administration offers a fig leaf to our Philippine ally that the US military is open to escorting their ships under threat by Chinese vessels ramming them. I doubt this US being open to discussing US escort is very reassuring to them. In Manila they’ve been watching the Houthis too. The US Navy has sizable assets in the region that could have demolished the Houthis and deterred Iran, but all the Biden administration whines about is a ceasefire, while letting the Houthi attacks go unpunished. The Houthis have been allowed to severely impede shipping in the Red Sea.
The Biden Pentagon keeps sending more and more ships and military assets to the ME, but then hamstrings them from defeating the Houthis or stopping Iran from arming the Houthis.
A bunch of rebel bands have defeated the US Navy, because of the Biden administration’s epic strategic failures. Here’s the British Telegraph: The Houthis have defeated the US Navy
China, Russia and Iran are watching closely and preparing to take more aggressive actions, while the US has the JOY campaign vs. Trump now sucking up to far-left Dems, RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, who was a Bernie Bros and is all about no more forever war…
Well, Americans better be preparing for war, because it’s on our doorstep. Weakness is as provocative as aggression. No amount of Kamala JOY and vibes or Trump embracing RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again or Tulsi whispering in his ear about how we shouldn’t do anything militarily is going to save us.
If you keep getting all excited about the dramas the Kamala Joy & Vibes campaign is blabbing about or thrilled about the Trump new unity with far-left Dems, perhaps it’s time for a reality check — China is going to make some big moves sooner rather than later.
With all the presidential election happenings I keep thinking most Americans have lost their way. Almost daily there’s some new effort by each side to claim moral superiority or launch a new attack effort, all while assuring us only their side has the magic formula to save democracy or save us from Trump or save us from Kamala’s radical agenda. This post is going to be mostly about family and how we treat each other, even though I’m going to use examples from our political circus.
At the DNC the other night, Tim Walz accepted the nomination for vice president. His teenage son, Gus, was openly weeping and very excited. Within a few seconds watching his son, I suspected some special needs problems in his behavior and then read an article about Tim and Gwen Walz talking about their son’s special needs – a learning disability, ADHD and anxiety problems. On right-wing social media, quickly there were memes and hateful comments mocking this boy, while Democrats posted angry condemnations of the attack on this boy. I agree that mocking a kid (any kid) deserves condemnation. However, Democrats and liberal media don’t have a moral leg to stand on.
Common decency should be the standard for everyone, not just when it suits your partisan fancy.
And that goes for Trump's petty name-calling to Dems spinning up Trump as Hitler. It's all eroding our culture.
JD Vance has shared stories about his grandmother, he called his Mamaw, so I’m going to share a childhood story about my great-grandmother, we called Mammy. My parents, my five siblings, and I grew up living in my great-grandmother’s house, which was an old farm house divided into two homes. I think at some point my great-grandparents rented out the side we lived in and I think my parents paid rent too (along with constantly sinking money into repairs). My mother longed to buy a house and move. I remember several times my parents looked at houses when I was in my teens, but it always came back to my father, who was raised by his grandparents and had promised his grandfather he would take care of Mammy. It was a deathbed promise and my father was big on if you give your word, you keep it.
Mammy spoke PA Dutch more easily than English, had a third grade education, and married at 13 years old. She had 9 children. She was a Democrat, not that that matters really. She was a very hard-worker, expert gardener, and loved all kinds of sewing and needlework, especially quilting and crochet. I spent many hours sitting with her and becoming her sewing and gardening helper bee. I loved her dearly. I spent many afternoons sitting with her in the afternoon, when she made hot tea and set out cookies or cake. She was a gifted storyteller and I wish I had written down her stories.
Now, on to other things about my great-grandmother. I knew she held racist views, but when I was probably around 13, I was in her living room watching the evening news with her and Henry Kissinger was speaking. Mammy started ranting about him being a Jew and reverted from English to PA Dutch, so I knew how strongly she felt. I didn’t understand why she was so angry. Later, I asked my mother (lifelong Republican) about this, because I thought Kissinger sounded knowledgeable about foreign policy. My mother told me he was a very smart man, that Mammy was just ignorant and to ignore it.
So, my Mammy was racist, anti-Semitic, bigoted, but her most reviled group of people were “Pine-swampers”. So you might be wondering who on earth are Pine-swampers. Well, to the best of my mother’s understanding they were people from one county over, where my mother was from. Yes, Mammy hated my mother with a passion, that scared me sometimes. My mother on the other hand always treated Mammy with respect and she made my siblings and me clean Mammy’s side of the house and help take care of her. No matter, how ugly Mammy treated my mother, my mother never raised her voice or argued with her and my mother would not allow us to be disrespectful to her. She said that’s your great-grandmother and that was that.
That old house had a coal furnace in the cellar and a smaller jack stove connected to a water tank, both requiring manually shoveling coal for heat and hot water. My mother shoveled a lot of coal in her life and carted out heavy ash buckets from the cellar. My mother had terrible varicose veins in her legs and had surgery several times. One time, in my teens, I came downstairs early one morning and after sitting there a while I wondered where my mother was. There was a door between our kitchen and Mammy’s living room, so I went over there to see if my mother was over there or in the cellar (the door to the cellar was in Mammy’s living room.
As soon I opened the door to her living room, I heard my mother yelling for help, as Mammy sat in her rocking chair, just rocking back and forth and ignoring my mother’s cries for help. My mother, was recovering from varicose vein surgery in one of her legs and she had caught her foot going down those old stairs. She was hanging upside down over the side of the stairs, with her head an inch or two from the cellar floor. I wasn’t strong enough to lift her up to get her foot loose, so she told me to turn her foot to get it loose. She had her elbows on the cellar floor to brace herself from smashing her head when I got her foot loose. Turning her foot ripped open the stitches in her leg. I helped her up the stairs and into our kitchen, then called my father at work to come home and take her to the emergency room. My mother, a registered nurse, calmly assessed the damage to her leg and she didn’t even cry, even though I knew she was in excruciating pain. I was crying and very upset about the entire situation.
After my father got home and took my mother to the hospital, I went into Mammy’s living room. I was so angry and upset that I raised my voice at her. I asked her how she could do something like that. She just ignored me and kept rocking. I told her that she should be ashamed of herself and told her she better think about the Bible she was always reading and wonder what God thought about her behavior. She did give me a glance and I know she knew she had done something very wrong, but she still hated my mother with a passion.
After that episode, nothing changed with my mother making us clean Mammy’s side of the house and my mother treating her with respect and demanding we do too, except my mother desperately wanted to buy a house and move away from Mammy, but she understood my father’s loyalty and his giving his word to his dying grandfather.
In my teens I took on a lot of the caregiving duties when Mammy’s condition deteriorated, under my mother’s direction, because Mammy adored me and it was less commotion than if my mother tried to help her. My sisters had to help too and even when we had a hospital bed and Mammy was bed bound, my mother was vigilant about her care.
Hate is the most dangerous emotion in the world. I determined after that incident with Mammy ignoring my mother’s cries for help, that no matter what wrong or hurt anyone causes me, I refuse to ever hate anyone. Evil can take over your heart, if you open it even a crack to hate.
Watching the craziness in our politics, where “thought” pieces have been written (mostly by liberals) in the Trump-era about how to deal with (or abandon) your relatives who hold differing political views at holiday time, or jumping on board mocking kids, or families turning on each other over politics, I am more determined that no matter what, I refuse to hate anyone – ever. The mocking and mean comments about Gus Walz were horrible and that Covington kid video was a Dem spin operation claiming that kid wearing a red MAGA hat made ethnic slurs against a Native American war hero. Joy Behar rushed to get into amplifying the Dem attack on that kid, saying he had a face you’d like to punch. The truth was that vet was a Dem activist and no war hero, who had went after those kids, not the other way around..
With Mammy, I chalk up a lot of her behavior to ignorance, xenophobia, and feeling defensive, because my mother was a registered nurse and a lot smarter. And naturally, I think there was some possessiveness of my father, whom she had raised. The degree of her hate for my mother, left a lasting mark on me, but all the positive lessons of my mother’s ability to rise above it and do the right thing, no matter what, became my role model.
It’s very easy to jump on board cheap political attacks, on either side. One of Trump’s things is coming up with derogatory names for people, which his supporters seem to love and cheer on. On the left, it’s Trump derangement, smearing Trump as Hitler (or worse) and ranting about Deplorables or MAGA extremists.
Your family, friends and neighbors should not become your enemies, especially over politics.
Rushing to join in pile-on attacks often generates lots of clicks online and media attention, but it’s always wrong – no matter who is doing it. Instead of making excuses when people who agree with you on politics engage in bad behavior, you should call it out – that includes when Trump or powerful Dems do it.
I like buying books and often I find very nice books used, at yard sales or at discount stores. My local Ollie’s often has discount books on history, gardening and loads of cookbooks. Recently, I bought a book on leadership, The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy), by Admiral Willian H. McRaven. As I was reading the back cover blurb and inside the jacket covers, I was debating whether I even care what Admiral McRaven has to say, because he joined the chorus of “retired generals publicly trashing Trump” and I refer to them as the Dem generals. Having such nakedly partisan retired generals is bad for America and it’s bad for the US military, which should be an apolitical institution dedicated to defense of our great country.
Finally, I decided it was only $4.99 and that I should be open to ideas, even from people I disagree with. McRaven gave a 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas, that became famous and then he wrote a book based off of that speech. The speech was excellent and inspirational:
Then McRaven joined a 2019 partisan effort by retired generals to attack a sitting president. They were outraged about President Trump’s decision to pull troops out of Syria. I never heard any of these Dem generals write op-eds about their outrage over the Biden Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. However, I bought his book and he offers many valuable insights on leadership. The book also contains great quotes. Chapter Seven is called Sua Sponte and begins with a Victor Hugo quote, “Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.” He explains that Sua Sponte, a Latin phrase, is the Rangers motto and means Of Your Own Accord – doing what needs to be done without being told to do so.
It can be hard to take initiative on your own sometimes or to speak out when what you believe is right doesn’t fit the prevailing views, especially when partisan fervor is high. Most engaged partisans want to promote their side and make excuses for or lie to cover up bad or damaging information about their side’s candidates. Many partisans have more anger for defectors from their side or if someone on their side disagrees and speaks out, than they do for the opposing partisans. You won’t win friends among partisans if you speak out against bad behaviors on both sides, trust me on this, but luckily I am not a paid politico, but just an ordinary citizen, so I don’t care.
As an American I think more people should take the initiative to call out bad behavior – no matter who is doing it. And even though I was disappointed in McRaven and other retired generals publicly acting in such a partisan manner, that I believe is detrimental to military cohesiveness or our national interests abroad, I bought his book and am reading it. I have been appalled and very disappointed with Trump’s repeated attacks on “the generals” and think that conduct is totally unacceptable for a CINC and extremely damaging for our military cohesiveness. I keep hoping Trump learns how to be a more principled leader. He could benefit from reading and thinking about the leadership lessons in Admiral McRaven’s book. And I think McRaven and other Dem generals should rethink their nakedly partisan public attacks of a sitting president.
If we are willing to open our hearts, even a tiny sliver, to working to find common ground with people we strongly disagree with or intensely dislike, miracles can happen.
With so many big things happening so quickly these days it’s hard to decide where to focus. In America, we have a chaotic and bizarre presidential election in full-swing. On July 13th there was an assassination attempt on former President Trump’s life at a rally in Butler, PA. A week later on July 21st, President Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, after an intensive, powerful Dem-led pressure campaign to force him out. He dropped out via a letter posted on X, that wasn’t even on official letterhead. There’s some big cover-up with this shenanigans, I am sure.
After top Democrat powerbrokers haggled it out in backroom dealings, Kamala Harris was selected to top the Democrat presidential ticket. Last week Kamala announced Tim Walz, the radical progressive governor of Minnesota, would be her running mate. Walz was the most gung-ho governor at imposing COVID social mitigation policies in Minnesota and has embraced radical transgender policies and all the BLM “defund the police” agenda. There’s plenty to delve into about both presidential campaigns and Tim Walz, with his unusual ties to China and 30 trips to China, and his use of his military service for political gain, but this post is going to be about free speech in America.
We should be closely watching what’s going on in the UK with their crackdown on free speech. Reports of glaring double standards of justice and free speech “privileges” between white British subjects and Muslims has been reported, as their government cracks down on “hate speech” and “Islamophobia.” America is unique in having our Constitution and Bill of Rights, which guarantees our rights. The 1st Amendment protects our freedom of religion, free speech, freedom of the press, right to peaceably assembly and a right to petition the government for redress or express grievances.
I’m trying to assess the news using a big picture/little picture approach. While it’s important to keep abreast of news here and all the daily news, it’s probably best to keep the big picture in focus too. I’m trying not to get bogged down in this or that presidential campaign hot topic, that the political pundit crowd is all yammering about, but kind of look at all that stuff, but keep looking at the world events every day too.
Back in the 1980s, I loved reading Sydney Sheldon novels and then the early Tom Clancy novels, where all sorts of events around the world start happening and you have no idea how they all fit together until much later in the story. We are in a real-life version of that type of “plot,” except this is real life with wars breaking out and great powers competitions veering toward confrontation. All over the globe hot spots are popping up. The West is showing major signs of serious stress fractures forming, while China, Russia and Iran are on the move flexing all their levers of power. Then there’s these extreme efforts by powerful elites trying to transform western civilization quickly.
Levers of national power are usually framed in terms of DIME – diplomatic, information, military and economic. The US is failing to leverage any of America’s national power in a way that advances our national interests, but we’re not alone. Post-COVID craziness and post-letting western countries be overrun with refugees and illegal immigrants, who are hostile to western culture and values, has left western democracies extremely vulnerable to domestic and hostile foreign destabilization efforts. America and other western democracies all have both internal extremist entities and hostile foreign entities intent on fomenting chaos (destabilization efforts), but they also have large numbers of refugees/immigrants who are hostile to western civilization (a fifth column). Add in western civilization has been subjected to a steady effort by communist countries and leftist progressives to radically transform (dismantle) western civilization for many decades now.
That’s the big picture reality.
With the information war effort, well, I’ve been harping on the Democrat/liberal media spin information war since the late 1990s and that info war has intensified dramatically since the pandemic to push infringement of free speech, to silence opposing views, to punish people who refuse to use leftist dogma being crammed down their throats. Many people want to just forget about all those COVID government and powerful social media companies’ efforts to force compliance of their draconian social mitigation efforts, but we should all be paying attention to what’s going on both here in America and abroad – especially the UK right now.
Jonathan Turley wrote a good piece on free speech being under attack.
For over three years, the Biden-Harris administration has sustained an unrelenting attack on the freedom of speech, from supporting a massive censorship system (described by a federal court as an “Orwellian Ministry of Truth“) to funding blacklisting operations targeting groups and individuals with opposing views.
President Biden made censorship a central part of his legacy, even accusing social media companies of “killing people” for failing to increase levels of censorship. Democrats in Congress pushed that agenda by demanding censorship on subjects ranging from climate change to gender identity — even to banking policy — in the name of combatting “disinformation.”
The administration also created offices like the Disinformation Governance Board before it was shut down after public outcry. But it quickly shifted this censorship work to other offices and groups.
As vice president, Harris has long supported these anti-free speech policies. The addition of Walz completes a perfect nightmare for free speech advocates. Walz has shown not only a shocking disregard for free speech values but an equally shocking lack of understanding of the First Amendment.
Free speech is under attack – globally – in the West, not just in totalitarian countries.
Tonight former President Trump did a live conversation with Elon Musk on X. It was an interesting conversation about all sorts of topics, carried out civilly. There was nothing threatening about it.
Across liberal media there was a tizzy about Musk hosting this conversation with Trump being dangerous misinformation:
The Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson: “One more, @ElonMusk is slated to interview [@realDonaldTrump] tomorrow — tonight on — on @X. I don't know if the president is going to — feel free to say if he is or not — but I — I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign… pic.twitter.com/zKxJNF1zbf
The Washington Post’s motto is “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and today their WH reporter was asking the WH press secretary if they could do something to silence Trump due to “misinformation” being a threat. An American reporter was asking the WH to silence a presidential candidate…
Once that sinks in, the EU today sent a letter to Elon Musk threatening him with a potential ban if he held his conversation with Trump tonight.
You can't make this up: EU 🇪🇺 just sent a long boring letter to @elonmusk warning him about his live stream with @realDonaldTrump and how it might violate EU regulations 🤣
libertybelle diaries 