Category Archives: General Interest

April 10, 2019 · 7:56 am

Trumpers grasp fevered spin dreams, again

The Trump-spinners went into overdrive last night based on this news bit:

Attorney General William Barr has assembled a team to investigate how the Russia investigation and other counterintelligence probes began, a U.S. official told CBS News. Barr said in a Congressional hearing Tuesday that he is “reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016.”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/william-barr-has-team-reviewing-how-investigation-started-official-says/

The DOJ also has an ongoing investigation into 2016 happenings and there’s still the ongoing DOJ-appointed Huber investigation looking into the FBI’s conduct investigating the Trump campaign during 2016. The Mueller report should have covered all of the Dems claims of Trump campaign corruption in 2016.

The truth is both campaigns were very corrupt and that’s the fact none of the partisans want to face. The FBI had two criminal investigations of the Clintons in 2016. The email scandal has always been cast as “Hillary’s homebrew server”, but the truth is Hillary never set up a homebrew server in her home. Bill Clinton had that private server set up in their home, as his Clinton Foundation server.

The server scandal focused on Hillary failing to turn over State Department emails and keeping them on the private server in their home. Why she decided to meld all of her State Department emails onto their private Clinton Foundation server has never been answered.

All of her so-called private emails of yoga schedules and wedding plans glossed over the fact that there had to be Bill Clinton foundation emails on that server, because that’s why HE had that private server set up in their home. Once Hillary was Secretary of State, she and Huma Abedin had private emails accounts on that server. Huma Abedin was involved in orchestrating a server upgrade and Huma recommended the Clinton campaign IT guy, Pagliano, to work with Bill Clinton’s IT guy, Cooper, to set-up an upgraded server.

All of these server details matter, because in the fall of 2016 , news came to light that several FBI field offices were investigating the Clinton Foundation for pay-to-play corruption. Details of what they were looking at matter too, because if it was the foundation’s foreign big money donations and Hillary was ensconced running the State Department, wouldn’t it be interesting to know if there was private foundation email correspondence back and forth between Abedin and Hillary with Bill Clinton or other Clinton Foundation peeps, capitalizing on the State Department info? Kind of a cozy relationship the Clintons’ set-up there with that personal foundation server in their home…

And the real question remains, why on earth wasn’t the FBI looking into that server in connection with the Clinton Foundation criminal investigations?

Yoga schedules, indeed…

While it’s good that the new AG, Bill Barr, is looking into all of this, my prediction is no one in the Clinton campaign or Obama administration will ever be held accountable for 2016 corruption. I believe the corruption went all the way to the top – to President Obama, based on a Lisa Page text with her lover, Peter Strzok, where she mentioned that the POTUS wanted to be kept updated about the Trump investigations. The Bill Clinton-orchestrated meeting with Loretta Lynch, leads me to wonder if she had direct communications with President Obama about how to deal with the media fall-out about that meeting. The top people in the Obama administration weren’t acting independently.

The President Obama corruption is why nothing came of the Hillary email investigation. The released FBI notes of Huma Abedin’s FBI interview in 2016, indicate that the FBI had a classified President Obama email, which he sent using a private google email account with an alias, to Hillary at her unsecured private server email address… Top Obama officials, including President Obama, were very careless at handling classified information, not just Hillary. And that is why nothing was ever going to happen to Hillary.

The same is true for this investigation into the FBI handling of the 2016 investigations into the Trump campaign. Comey and McCabe weren’t acting alone in these machinations to investigate the Trump campaign. You can be sure Loretta Lynch and top DOJ officials were part of all of these decisions and actions and you can be sure that President Obama was being kept abreast of every move.

I always think back to this odd August 2015 photo of Bill Clinton and President Obama golfing at Martha’s Vineyard, where Bill Clinton, Obama and old Clinton-fixer, Vernon Jordan, were hitting the links. The email scandal broke in March 2015 and by August 2015, the story was sucking oxygen out of Hillary’s presidential run. Bill Clinton wanted that investigation buried and I am sure he dealt with that, one-on-one with President Obama. By the summer of 2016, and that email investigation still being a weight dragging down Hillary’s campaign, Bill Clinton must have been livid. And all throughout this media spin storm about Hillary’s emails before the Dem convention, there was Joe Biden in the background, dithering on about whether he was going to enter the race to unite the party. At the top of the Democratic Party (Obama-level), there had to be a lot of calculations and discussions going on about these FBI criminal investigations of the Clintons and how to deal with the Clintons.

Fox News spinners may be bellowing on about FBI, Clinton and Obama corruption in 2016, but these Trump spin-fever dreams, that someone will be held accountable for the 2016 corruption, will end up being only wishful thinking, I suspect. Hillary isn’t the only one above the law in America. The 2016 Dem corruption reaches to two former presidents, Obama and Clinton, whom the American media complex will move heaven and earth to run 24/7 spin damage control operations.

There is no way truth stands a chance against the power of their media spin forces.

9 Comments

Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Hillary's Email Scandal, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption

April 9, 2019 · 1:45 pm

A rambling blog post

Our constant hysterical political climate disgusts me. Trump’s constant braggadocio, petty attacks and rambling , fact-free word salads disgust me. The Democrats and media hysterical spin about Trump disgusts me. As far as political commentary or analysis goes, the various smart takes in 2016 remain the same in 2019, as our American political hamster wheel spins round and round.

For the most part lately, I’ve gotten off the daily habit of tracking the partisan spin throughout the day. Perhaps if something interesting or new happens, I’ll write about it, but fair warning, the rest of this post will be another detour about my efforts to make peace between our consumerist culture and the myriad counter-cultural efforts to combat our wasteful American lifestyle.

Last night I watched a short CNN video on Twitter about a fashion designer, zero waste daniel, who started a clothing design business using only scrap fabric waste. His approach of sewing together small scraps of fabric to create larger pieces of fabric, from which to construct his clothing designs, while being a trendy environmental-mindful concept, does highlight our society’s love affair with consumer goods, where most of us acquire way more than we consume and live totally unconcerned about our wastefulness.

There’s a common mindset among more conservative Americans and the political right to dismiss everything coming from the liberal environmentalist echo chamber, but perhaps we should all try to be a little more open to listening and considering the merits of ideas, before making snap partisan political judgments.

Many aspects of our environmentally conscious activism do stem from the political left, then take hold in American businesses, who react to the political activism. Many businesses respond to and embrace the latest politicized framing of appropriate environmentally conscious policies. This type of political pressure infuriates many on the right.

On the merits, though, pushing all of the politics aside, being less wasteful, using less disposable packaging and taking a more mindful approach to our consumer habits seem like very traditional, conservative American thrifty values, that would even have appealed to Benjamin Franklin and most of our American founders. The less wasteful approaches definitely were ingrained habits to my parents and grandparents.

Moving to a crafting/needlework blog post, explains why I haven’t been blogging much lately… I have been stitching away… using all stuff that’s been sitting here for many years.

I struggle with my consumerist mindset and am working to rethink my relationship with purchasing many items, that clutter up my home, and often have never been used. However, moving to a zero waste lifestyle takes way more commitment and effort than I will expend, so it’s small steps in my life.

For decades, I purchased loads of craft and needlework supplies, without much concern or thought about the possibility of having too much stuff. Yet, the thought of parting with my craft and needlework stuff just isn’t happening yet, but I now strive not to buy more, unless it’s some basic supply that I really need.

A few years ago, I began an effort to make projects using only stuff I already have and that’s what that hummingbird cross-stitch picture above is. I bought a bunch of small Spring-themed counted cross-stitch kits (and some not so small ones too) on clearance at Walmart, over the many years that I worked there. I stitched a couple of these a few years ago and posted a photo, but never fear, I have more to go:

I have a hard time seeing to stitch on 18-count, so I used 14 Aida cloth from my supplies for the hummingbird and a bunny kit last weekend. I bought two of the bunny kits, for no logical reason…:

I did finish that Diane Graebner Amish design (out of the hoop and needs pressing):

Learning more about finishing my needlework into some useful or decorative item leads me to read a lot of cross-stitch blogs and browse Pinterest frequently. That habit leads me to want… more new cross stitch stuff, especially the nicer linens and evenweave fabrics and threads. It takes a constant effort to remind myself that, while stitching on plain old Aida cloth isn’t as nice as stitching on expensive fabrics, these kits and Aida projects still look nice, I think.

Yesterday afternoon, I was torturing myself looking at the blog of a very talented cross stitch designer, Brenda Gervais. All of her patterns scream, “I want to stitch that!”. Gervais wrote a short background story to her 2017 series, Summer Schoolhouse ~ Lessons in Abecedarian. She relates how she found a small children’s book while hunting for antiques, but it wasn’t just any old book. It was a copy of the oldest children’s book in the Library of Congress and it’s considered to be the oldest children’s book in print. This book contains the first documented use of the word, baseball. In the process of browsing cross stitch blogs, I learned a new word: abecedarian and a bit of historical trivia too.

To fill my fix for something new, there are lots of free patterns online. I stitched this free St.Patrick’s Day cats piece, by Lynn B., twice. I am going to make them into little decorative pillows or perhaps frame them, but one is for a family member and then I liked these black cats so much, I stitched one for me too:

Yesterday, was another free pattern start, Russian Dolls, this one from DMC:

Plus, I have a bigger cross stitch project of a Liberty Bell, that’s in progress, but that one deserves a fancier Belfast white linen, not plain old Aida cloth. Just started this, so it’s only the top of Independence Hall and some of the lettering:

Of course, still working on plastic canvas too:

Not sure what I’ll do with this house picture, but it’s a design that I like, so I stitched it…

It’s very hard for me to concentrate on writing lately, but I’ll try to get back to politics soon.

1,590 Comments

Filed under General Interest

April 3, 2019 · 1:39 pm

The privacy concerns metastasize

Whenever you think you’ve conjured up all the worst-case scenarios with computer viruses, malignant PC attacks and such, along comes another even more alarming potential attack. Here’s a Washington Post article, in their technology section. Kim Zetter writes:

“When Hillary Clinton stumbled and coughed through public appearances during her 2016 presidential run, she faced critics who said that she might not be well enough to perform the top job in the country. To quell rumors about her medical condition, her doctor revealed that a CT scan of her lungs showed that she just had pneumonia.

But what if the scan had shown faked cancerous nodules, placed there by malware exploiting vulnerabilities in widely used CT and MRI scanning equipment? Researchers in Israel say they have developed such malware to draw attention to serious security weaknesses in critical medical imaging equipment used for diagnosing conditions and the networks that transmit those images — vulnerabilities that could have potentially life-altering consequences if unaddressed.

The malware they created would let attackers automatically add realistic, malignant-seeming growths to CT or MRI scans before radiologists and doctors examine them. Or it could remove real cancerous nodules and lesions without detection, leading to misdiagnosis and possibly a failure to treat patients who need critical and timely care.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/04/03/hospital-viruses-fake-cancerous-nodes-ct-scans-created-by-malware-trick-radiologists/?utm_term=.a89a2e489387

All I can say is I’m glad I read this article today and not last week when I received a breast biopsy report with good news, from my radiologist. The potential for, dare I say, “malignant” actors to invade people’s privacy and cause egregious harm here boggles my mind.

With the privacy concerns continually metastasizing (sorry, I couldn’t help myself here), in many ways, I think we were all a bit safer and our personal privacy was more secure before the world became interconnected.

In search of Dem Spin trail of breadcrumbs

Jot this tweet down under tantalizing speculation, as we await more information on the bizarre dropping of all charges against the actor, Jussie Smollett, who was accused of faking being the victim of a hate crime:

Randy Barnett‏Verified account@RandyEBarnett

Following @RandyEBarnett

More

None of this is normal—even for Crook County where I was an Assistant State’s Attorney. Educated guess: this hoax implicated someone very important who had pull with the State’s Attorney, and who very badly did not want to be implicated.

Terry MoranVerified account@TerryMoran

Celebrity justice: Cook County clerk’s office tells @ABC they were shocked that no written motions were filed with the court in…

1:02 PM – 27 Mar 2019

Media reports mention Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff as contacting the Cook County State’s Attorney:

“Chicago’s police union has demanded an investigation into Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx her text messages with Jussie Smollett’s family friends.

Before recusing herself from the case in mid-February, Foxx exchanged texts with Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff, Tina Tchen, a close friend of the Smollett family.

Tchen, 63, sent a text to Foxx three days after Smollett, an actor on television’s “Empire,” claimed he was the victim of a hate crime, saying that she wanted to set up a phone call to discuss the case.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/police-union-wants-investigation-into-prosecutor-who-exchanged-texts-with-former-michelle-obama-chief-of-staff-on-jussie-smollett-case

In dropping the case, Smollett’s public service was cited as justification, so it’s interesting that Chicago political heavy hitter, Jesse Jackson, came to bat for Smollett:

“Jussie Smollettlogged a total of 18 hours of community service over 2 days — with Jesse Jackson‘s organization, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition — and that was enough to satisfy prosecutors in Chicago.

Honchos at Rainbow PUSH — a civil and human rights organization — tell us, Jussie volunteered for the first time Saturday, putting in 8 hours from 10 AM to 6 PM. He just completed another 10 hours on Monday.

We’re told Jussie’s “service” included stuffing membership envelopes, working in the group’s bookstore to sell merchandise … and critiquing its Saturday broadcast. We’re told he helped them with camera angles, and also worked with the music director on a plan to build the choir.”

https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/26/jussie-smollett-community-service-rainbow-push-jesse-jackson-charges-dropped/

A key fact in the initial reporting was Smollett’s allegation of being attacked centered on his attackers being MAGA hat-wearing thugs, which turned this story into another massive media anti-Trump spin effort. Don’t know about this case implicating “someone very important” specifically, but obviously Smollett has connections to some pretty powerful Chicago political players… with a former Obama aide and Jesse Jackson going to bat for Smollett.

This situation should go in the “stay tuned” file, for sure, as we try to track down the trail of breadcrumbs left by Dem spin operatives and fixers …

Some Added Thoughts:

This Smollett, dare I use the term, “narrative” smells so much like other Dem SPIN narratives meant to smear Trump and his supporters, that one wonders if Smollett wrote this script alone or if he was collaborating with some professional Dem SPIN writers?

Here’s a Feb 18, 2019, CBS report:

“Sources said the brothers are now cooperating with police.

Smollett has said two men attacked him while he was walking home around 2 a.m. on Jan. 29. He claimed they yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him, beat him, poured a chemical on him and put a rope around his neck.

Sources told CBS 2 News that Smollett paid the two men $3,500 to stage the attack in Streeterville. The brothers, seen on surveillance video near the scene of the alleged attack, told investigators Smollett directed them to buy the rope used in the incident, and paid for the purchase at Crafty Beaver Hardware Store in Ravenswood days before the incident.

The brothers, who were questioned by police last week before being released, were paid $3,500 before leaving for Nigeria and were promised an additional $500 upon their return.

They left for Nigeria later in the day on Jan. 29, after the attack.

Sources said one of the brothers held the rope and poured bleach while the other wore a plain red hat and yelled slurs at Smollett.

The sources say the red hat was bought at an Uptown beauty supply store and that the attack was supposed to happen before Jan. 29. The brothers told detectives the three men rehearsed the attack days prior to it happening.

All three men rehearsed their plan just days before everything played out.”

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/02/18/jussie-smollett-case-investigation-alleged-attack-brothers-released/

There was a rehearsal, professional actor, stage props purchased days before the attack, which makes one wonder if Smollett wrote this script alone or if he had assistance? Was Smollett the sole creator of this MAGA SPIN hoax or was he just the actor recruited to play the lead role?

9 Comments

Filed under General Interest, Politics

March 28, 2019 · 1:06 am

A clear explanation of the Mueller findings from National Review

Andrew McCarthy at National Review provided the best legal analysis of the entire Russian collusion mess for the past two years and JK kindly provided a podcast link, located here, where McCarthy discusses the latest news on the Mueller report findings. It’s worth your time to listen to this, almost hour-long, discussion.

32 Comments

Filed under General Interest, Politics

March 25, 2019 · 11:08 am

Time to finally look into the Clinton SPIN operatives

The Mueller report key findings hit yesterday, so here goes: Mueller did not find any evidence that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign. On the obstruction of justice allegation over firing James Comey, there’s sure to be more efforts by Dems in SDNY to try to continue fomenting that spin effort to take down Trump.

Here are the main things the Mueller report doesn’t explain:

Who on earth were Steele’s Russian sources “close to the Kremlin”?

Were these Russian sources paid, or did they just offer up this supposed “Kremlin dirt” to Steele?

If Steele did pay his sources, where did those funds come from?

Cody Shearer, longtime Clinton operative (sleaze merchant), was reported to have produced a second dossier, which was fed to the Obama State Department as “reliable intelligence”.

How much overlap, collaboration or “collusion” (dare I say) was there between Shearer, Steele and/or Fusion GPS?

From 2018: “The second dossier — two reports compiled by Cody Shearer, an ex-journalist and longtime Clinton operative — echoes many of the lurid and still unsubstantiated claims made in the Steele dossier, and is receiving new scrutiny. Over the weekend, Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a TV interviewthat his panel is shifting its focus concerning the genesis of the Russia investigation from the FBI to the State Department. This probe will include the Shearer dossier.

In late September 2016, Sidney Blumenthal, a close Clinton confidant and colleague of Shearer’s, passed Shearer’s dossier on to State Department official Jonathan M. Winer, a longtime aide to John Kerry on Capitol Hill and at Foggy Bottom.”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/04/25/test.html

That 2018 report asserts, “two reports compiled by Cody Shearer, an ex-journalist and longtime Clinton operative — echoes many of the lurid and still unsubstantiated claims made in the Steele dossier”. Why do the Steele dossier and Shearer dossiers “echo” each other and who are the Kremlin-connected sources, or even Russian sources both Steele and Shearer relied on???

Adam Schiff, James Comey, John Brennan and James Clapper may want to keep faith in the Steele dossier, but it’s way past time to dig into the details of who were the Clinton sewer rats behind feeding that Steele dossier to top Obama officials and then trying to figure out why these officials bought into the Steele dossier so completely.

It’s time to investigate the Clinton SPIN operatives.

5 Comments

Filed under General Interest, Information War, Politics

March 24, 2019 · 3:26 pm

Cart before the horse… as usual

Space abhors a vacuum… so in lieu of any facts about what the Mueller report actually says, the media, partisans and the punditry “smart” set have talked themselves into extraordinary spin contortions, since news broke Friday that the Mueller report is finished. In the political media cart before the horse fashion, by the time we learn actual details, the media spin fronts have already staked out their talking points.

The Dem spin pivot is it’s now all about the SDNY, according to Adam Schiff, while Trump spin is working to cast Trump as a sainted martyr.

The truth remains, regardless of Mueller’s report, that both 2016 campaigns were extremely corrupt and working to acquire Russian dirt on their opponent. While that isn’t criminal, it speaks to both Trump and Hillary being thoroughly corrupt and willing to do anything to win. That fact should disturb every American.

All along I’ve contended that the Russians would not want to openly “collude” with either campaign, because that would require the Russians having some level of “trust” in those American political operatives and besides, why should the Russians “collude” with American political operatives, when they can feed tantalizing bits of partisan disinformation into the American media and keep the American partisans attacking each other?

Now, the quest to uncover the Clinton/Russian collusion will begin, as the focus shifts to trying to uncover how the Steele dossier came about and how on earth the FBI, DOJ and top Obama intel peeps bought into it so completely. Fun times as the 2016 SPIN information war drags on and on and on.

2016 Russian Collusion count

More proponents of a “Kill Them With Kindness” plan

I like cutesy pictures and saccharin sweet sayings, so here’s what I look at on the hutch above my PC.

An op-ed in the Washington Post a few days ago, The Dalai Lama and Arthur Brooks: All of us can break the cycle of hatred, caught my attention. It was a short piece about the deluge of angry word flying across the internet. The Dalai Lama and Brooks write:

“Human beings have a deep longing to live together in harmony. People only feel completely alive when experiencing loving bonds with one another. Everyone, of all faiths and no faith, knows this truth, and most profess it openly.

And yet people fight incessantly. Even though war is blessedly absent in most countries today, these are deeply polarized times. Words too often are delivered with contempt; philosophical differences are likened to warfare; those who simply disagree with another are deemed “enemies.” Often it is on the Internet — which was launched as a forum for unity — where people attack one another, under the cloak of anonymity.”

Their answer to defeating the growing “war of words”, especially online, is very simple:

“Respond with kindness. Want to say something insulting about people who disagree with you? Take a breath and show generosity, instead.”

As I am typing this, Twitter is aflutter with another Trump-generated outrage spin cycle about Trump’s vicious attack yesterday on the late senator, John McCain, while standing in front of Army tanks and the American flag. This spin cycle will agitate for a few days, but nothing will really change, despite a firestorm of words flying in the media, covering this latest Trump spin blitz.

Our politics very much reflects our culture and despite many anti-Trump politicians and pundits asserting, “This (meaning Trump) is not who we are,” sadly, Trump very much reflects who we are.

The truth is, in an America where good character and being truthful matters, neither of our two thoroughly corrupt 2016 presidential contenders would have been their party’s choice. If either party had any ethical standards, they would have rejected such completely mendacious candidates, who were under so heavy a cloud of corruption, and who both have glaring character flaws. We embrace a culture dominated by social media celebrity, Reality TV stardom and a news media entrenched in promoting political spin cycles. Absent this media dominated culture, neither Trump nor Hillary would have risen to the top and diligent investigative reporting in the news media would have sunk both of them.

You don’t need a degree in psychology or fancy clinical terms to see that both Trump and Hillary lie outrageously and they both have the disturbing habit of doubling down on their lies, even when there’s video of them saying or doing the exact thing they are denying. They launch media spin campaigns to bolster their lies rather than admit they lied.

In real life most people with even a bit of a moral compass, recognize thoroughly mendacious people like Trump and Hillary as people to be wary of and untrustworthy, but in American politics now, most Americans chose one of them to lead America…

That speaks to our American culture, where too many people prefer to jump on the latest popular spin train rather than standing up for any sort of moral principles.

Many conservatives and NeverTrumpers made their peace with Trump as POTUS, happily consoling themselves with “But Gorsuch” type rationalizations and trying to skim past the recurring Trump-instigated outrage spin cycles, like this bizarre spectacle of Trump’s attack on McCain yesterday. Likewise, many Democrats chose to ignore the obvious Clinton corruption.

How many Americans will choose to start being kind and generous when facing hostile attacks? Well, judging from a couple of decades of watching… and experiencing, social media behavior, even a few people beginning to lead this “kill them with kindness” approach, assuredly, is a welcome glimmer of hope.

The Dalai Lama and Brooks “Kill Them With Kindness” plan, naturally, resonated with me, because it’s the only way to defeat the massive SPIN information war that drives, not only American media, but also American culture.

Since 1998, I’ve wished a thousand times, and more, that I had never posted any comments online, but perhaps working toward writing less about politics and more about things that matter much more to me might be a good thing. Sometimes all it takes is a small gesture to change the tone, so I welcome the Dalai Lama and Brooks suggestion and will work to try to change the only person I can control… myself (and the tone of my blog & social media comments).

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Filed under Civility, Culture Wars, Food for Thought, General Interest, Inspirations

March 14, 2019 · 3:50 pm

Old ways and new with survival

On YouTube, amidst mountains of rubbish, you can also come across truly excellent historical information presented in a very entertaining video format. The above YouTube channel, Townsends, offers hundreds of videos exploring 18th century American living. Along with fascinating historical information, this channel dishes up some amazing 18th century cooking, prepared as it would have been, back when bison roamed America’s fruited plains. The Pemican video is part of a series of videos on this true early American survival food.

The Townsends YouTube channel offers dozens upon dozens of well-researched videos on 18th century cooking and living, presented in an entertaining and educational format. These videos are like a walk back into early American life and you can almost imagine you’re living in George Washington’s time. With my fascination with the American colonial time period, once I came across the Townsends channel, I wished I still had my cheap felt tricorn hat and quill pen.

In my last blog post, I took a pretty dim view of some of the “homesteading” videos I’ve watched on YouTube. There seems to be a consumerist bent to how many of these people approach their “back-to-nature” lifestyle, being motivated mostly by watching other popular YouTube homesteading “influencers”, then following advice gleaned via social media, embarking on moving into rural settings they are unfamiliar with and lacking financial plans and a means to provide for unexpected expenses.

The ground truth appears to be, their goal seems more to become quickly famous (popular) selling their beliefs about their back-to-nature lifestyle than it does to actually develop good working systems on their homestead and that bothers me. Many of these people seem to spend more time working on their YouTube videos and social media than they do on finding practical ways to make their actual homesteading more productive.

Any home, requires food, water, heating, sheltering, waste disposal/sanitation systems. Those are the basics anywhere humans live. The more effectively and reliably these systems operate in a home, the more enjoyable everyday life becomes. Absent dependable systems in the basics, the more stressful life becomes. That’s just common sense, in colonial American homesteading or modern American homesteading.

Rather than be so negative about so much of the YouTube homesteading fad, here’s, the queen of common sense homesteader, Appalachia’s Homestead with Patara, who offers not only sensible homesteading advice, she offers the real deal homespun common sense advice, to people with no background in gardening or farming, embarking on a homesteading lifestyle. Beyond all of the sensible things Patara says about finances and planning for her homestead, at minute 7:32, in the background is a simple clothesline.

I’ve watched another YouTube channel, of a homesteading couple, with a lot of young children, who have put out several videos where the mother laments about all of her off-the-grid laundry misery. They choose to live with no electricity and this mother uses a ridiculously small, folding, wooden drying rack to try to dry clothes outside.

In a recent video, she praised her husband for helping her out with laundry… by carting some of their laundry to the neighbor’s, to wash and dry there. How on earth this is being self-reliant, I have yet to figure out. In another video, this father also talked about going to part-time hours at his retail job in a home improvement store, in hopes of being able to have more time to work at home… mostly, it seemed, on their social media video “business” ventures.

I kept wondering why on earth, living in the Ozarks and this man working in a home improvement store, he hadn’t put up some real clothesline outside, so his wife could make use of the many days of wonderful breezes there. I lived at Fort Leonard Wood in the early 90s, during my husband’s Army career and I had a clothesline in my backyard of our military housing. On many clear, breezy days, I could fill up my clothesline, sometimes three separate times with loads of laundry. I started laundry as soon as my kids left for school and got the first couple loads hung out. Usually by noon, that was dry and I could hang out some more. And if I had still more, by mid-afternoon, I could hang it out and get it dried.

I had a large capacity electric washer and dryer though, so on rainy days, laundry continued without any interruptions. One time, living in MO, the heating element in my dryer stopped working. My husband went and picked up a new heating element and fixed my dryer when he got home, after working a very long day in the Army.

A clothesline is a common sense thing to have living a rural lifestyle, in most parts of the country. It’s also one of those basics that could make laundry less of a trial with a large family and no electricity. A sturdy clothesline doesn’t cost much to put together and for a family with small children, off-the-grid, it makes no sense to me why this mother spends so much time on YouTube lamenting about her laundry woes.

I kept wondering why her husband, who said he worked at a home improvement store, hadn’t put up some sturdy clotheslines, so she could make use of the great breezes that blow through the Ozarks. Instead, this mother waxes on about amber teething necklaces, pricey amazon health food stuff and the kids, unsupervised, were mixing up batter with almond flour in one video. I had priced almond flour for a recipe that called for it. The Walmart store brand was $10 and some change for a 2 lb. bag. The other brands of almond flour cost more than that. I decided to stick with my all-purpose flour and skip trying this new recipe with almond flour.

As irksome as I found this couple’s laundry decision-making, it’s nothing compared to some of the YouTube preppers, like a lady waxing on about “dry canning” store bought rice and beans and claiming they have a shelf life of 30 years. I wondered who on earth tested this “dry canning” method as a safe 30-year food storage method… She did motivate me to go through my cupboards and discard some food that had long passed the expiration date, lol. I have a bad habit of stockpiling store-bought canned goods and packaged food. “Dry canning” store-bought beans and rice is advice, I’ll take a pass on, thank-you very much.

I suppose this sounds like my Three Little Pigs YouTube homesteading saga, so here’s another couple at Living Traditions Homestead (also in the Ozarks), who offer really solid, practical advice on planning and operating a family homestead business. This couple planned for 7 years before moving to a homestead in the country. They paid off all of their debt and appear to do their homework before making big decisions and changes. They offer many interesting cooking and canning videos too.

My dream isn’t a family homestead, but to be completely debt-free and to eventually have a big backyard vegetable garden again and plant lots of flowers. Whenever I browse seed company sites or walk into stores with gardening supplies and plants, my heart longs to buy, buy, buy, but I’m going to just grow some herbs and veggies in containers this year. It’s the same response when I watch many homesteading and gardening videos, my eyes are bigger than my physical energy level and time.

For inspiration on container gardening, here’s another YouTube channel, a very nice couple at, Hollis and Nancy’s Homestead, who offer very clear how-to videos on container gardening methods.

You can learn many positive things from YouTube and social media, but often the “most popular” people or the videos with the most likes aren’t the ones offering the most sensible advice. It’s best to take the time to wander through several YouTube channels when looking for “how-to” videos and think about what that channel is really selling before buying into magical “healthy” products or lifestyles.

As the Appalachia Homestead lady, Patara, advises constantly, “Slow down and think before rushing into things!” That’s sound advice on just about all aspects of life.