Category Archives: General Interest

Men?

So often it’s fascinating to hear different perspectives from people watching the same video. The above video is from that CA Trump rally, where a female Trump supporter got pelted with eggs and other things. I was disgusted by the organized leftist wackos attacking this woman, but my husband was fuming at the men inside the building looking out, who did nothing to come to her rescue. He kept ranting, “Look at those men standing right inside doing nothing to help her!”

Some men are sheepdogs, some aren’t! And if they don’t understand the reference, they’re obviously not

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The winds of war blow hotter

My favorite analogy about geopolitical strategy is one which I don’t remember where it came from or I would attribute it appropriately. There’s a pack of dogs standing around and suddenly one dog steps away from the pack, puts his nose high in the air, ears perked up, and hones his eyes far into the distance, sensing danger.  The other dogs continue to amble about unaware of the threat.  That dog who sensed danger early is your geopolitical strategist.

Hopefully, there are a lot of US national security dogs who’ve stepped away from the pack and are looking at the internal US political situation, a leader-from-behind CINC totally clueless on geopolitics, an American public distracted by a sideshow presidential election and a US military that has been ruthlessly gutted by President Obama.  Let’s hope they are stepping into America’s most determined adversaries’ shoes and gauging our adversaries’ escalating military provocations accurately.  If you were going to escalate matters, you would choose a time when America is completely distracted.  The polarized political climate leaves America  ripe for internal factionalized hostile agitation propaganda efforts and staged riots to divert attention to domestic,  rather than foreign issues.

Time to keep scanning the far horizons and staying alert!

The last few months of escalated Russian and Chinese military provocations should have some US national security dogs on alert – things are brewing.

U.S.: Chinese jet makes ‘unsafe’ intercept of Air Force plane

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Military, Politics

More on the “great” General David Petraeus

New documents say FBI found hundreds of classified files on Broadwell’s computer

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article82469027.html#storylink=cpy

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Trump messaging 101

“ADMIT NOTHING, DENY EVERYTHING, MAKE COUNTER ALLEGATIONS”

The messaging muddle in the Trump campaign continues to stir up the muck and will end up leaving Trump’s big name GOP enablers covered in the sleaze and flailing about looking for even a shred of unsullied personal honor, if they choose to stick with this fraud. Despite the mounting realization that Trump’s not going to “act” presidential, these big name enablers cling to the belief that he is somehow some “great” catalyst for change and breath of fresh air, fighting against oppressive political correctness or in their most desperate mewling, they keep repeating that he’s better than that dreaded witch of Chappaqua, Hillary.

The irony that Donald Trump follows the Alinsky playbook more assiduously than Hillary or Obama should clue his big name supporters in that, this man is NOT a conservative nor even a Republican, he’s a pampered, puffed up Prince of New York, “The Donald”, as I’ve mentioned many times before and he’s about SELF-promotion, not about “Making America Great Again” or fixing America’s problems, heck he’s not even really into the details of public policy. Donald J. Trump is about Donald J. Trump, you can full stop there, because that’s the beginning and end of Trump’s world view.

Trump threw that sideshow press briefing last week, to attack reporters and lie about his January veterans’ fundraiser. As I’ve said several times, his Trump Foundation vet fundraiser PR gambit highlights just how much he is like the Clintons, with the melding of the political operations with what is ostensibly supposed to be his “charity”. The truth about Trump’s dedication to veterans can be summed up by this bit of trivia from a January Washington Post story:

“The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack detailed that giving, contrasting the $57,000 the Trump Foundation gave veterans groups from 2009 to 2013 with the $100,000 it gave to the William J. Clinton Foundation in 2009 alone.”

Trump kept bragging since January about the million dollar donation he made to vets during his propaganda gambit vet fundraiser/Trumper tantrum at FOX News event, but the truth is he didn’t donate the money until he was pressured by press questions about the donations’ distribution the week before last.  Again, he is a liar and a fraud.

Trump revels in his power to suck up media attention, he revels in vicious character assassinations and forcing Republicans to bow down to him.  He wants Republican power-brokers to bow to him and kiss his feet (and other parts too).  Instead of showing an iota of humility, Trump intends to continue to attack Republican leaders, like his attack on NM governor, Susana Martinez,  because he wants them to become his loyal stooges or he wants them eliminated from the GOP power structure – that’s what a GOP Insurgency IS, for the clueless GOP dupes who believed his scorched earth primary campaign was just an “act”.  No, this is the real Trump – he’s a lowlife, sleaze who will break any rules to get what he wants – he’s CORRUPT to his core and has no moral boundaries.

Trump moved on to not only maligning all Mexicans and scapegoating sundry ethnic groups, he’s now set out to attack the federal judge in his Trump University fraud case.  Plenty of his media minions jumped on board to assassinate the character of this judge too and that should give you a clear indication of how Trump will abuse presidential power.  One of Trump’s biggest apologists, Newt Gingrich, has come under attack from Trump too, for condemning Trump’s attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel.  Instead of backing off from his attack on the judge, Trump once again doubled-down.  Between now and the convention we will see if any of these big name GOP Trump enablers gather enough courage or shreds of character to walk away from Trump’s gutter politics.

Several Trump surrogates came out yesterday and were marching in line to the new Trump talking points, which they admit came from a Trump conference call yesterday , where Trump ordered them to get on his message and fight back against the  fallout from his infamous attacks on this federal judge.  Many Trump-friendly pundits have jumped on board to aid Trump in assassinating the character of this judge, with lengthy pieces to bolster Trump’s slurs and smears against the judge.  Trump’s sewer rats operate exactly like the Clinton sewer rats, as if they roam the same gutters…

Trump started with a con about “Make America Great Again”, but his policies are truncated talking points, not coherent policy.  What drives Trump is the media attention and his love for bullying, braggadocio and scurrilous character assassinations – he is a punk who should have been put in his place decades ago – that’s the truth.  He loves to engage in these staged public humiliations – like last week he was calling reporters names and accusing them of lying, when HE is the one who lied outrageously about this veterans’ fundraiser.

Reporters should be investigating every claim he made, because the chaos with how he operates is a YUGE warning sign that he is not an organized manager or good at principled leadership or behavior.  He didn’t bother to research how primary campaigns work before launching a presidential bid and even now Paul Manafort is trying to put together a viable general election ground game, against the continuing internal campaign warfare between Trump’s scorched earth facilitator, Corey Lewndowski and Manafort.  Trump bet his entire campaign on his borrowed Clinton-style scorched earth/mass media saturation strategy.  Just a week ago, Trump fired Manafort’s pick for a national political director, Rick Wiley, after Wiley only being on the job for a month, indicating the internal Trump chaos continues and Trump remains comitted to Lewnadowski and a scorched earth campaign.

Trump practices the “admit nothing, deny, everything, counter attack” strategy that his sleaze friend, Roger Stone, lives by.  Trump does Alinsky better than Hillary Clinton.  Any hope for a more presidential-acting Trump will be in vain.  The best thing that could happen to the GOP is if Trump pushes too hard and some of his big name GOP enablers get cold feet about backing this LOOSE CANNON.  What a strange election cycle, where the most odious, corrupt, UNFIT Hillary looks like she is equally matched by this odious, corrupt, UNFIT former Clinton friend, masquerading as a Republican.

Will any in the GOP bolster some courage and launch a counter-insurgency before the convention?  Judging by the milquetoast, backing down from Trump’s bullying tactics thus far, chances of a real COIN strategy within the GOP seem highly unlikely and with the likes of Bill Kristol being the emerging strategic-leader of this #NeverTrump effort, well, I expect it to be as well-thought out as his “moderate Syrian rebel” wild goose chase he beat the drum for.   Before the “moderate Syrian rebel” fable, Kristol  was out there touting the glorious “Arab Spring”.   Sadly, Kristol relies on his “military strategy” from his friends the Kagans, whom I consider a top-level menace to American national security and an insult to sound military strategy, so hopes of him building a viable third-party candidate to counter Trump’s borrowed military information strategy  (yes, the Clinton spinmeisters strategy is a military information strategy  – not benign PR) seems  doomed.

The truth is America needs a COIN strategy to get us back to a republic grounded in our American founding principles and rooted in The Constitution.  The need for a 180 degree change in the direction our country is headed goes well beyond the GOP, it speaks to a we need a revolution of American ideals.

Yours truly, me, a nobody homemaker, amateur military strategist thought up a comprehensive PR strategy using sound military strategic precepts to defeat the Clinton-style scorched earth/mass media straegy, without breaking any laws and defending The Constitution every step of the way.  Yes, I have a plan to wage war without a single shot ever being fired and yes, Americans have been reinventing “war” since 1775, when General George Washington took command of the Continental Army and we continue to pave the way toward innovative thinking and modern warfare.   Alas, I am only one person and one person can’t wage war – even ideological war, with the mission of winning the hearts and minds of Americans.  On the bright side, I still own this domain name and am still able to blog….  isn’t freedom grand:-)

Winning the hearts and minds in America will take a team committed to the same ideals.  I am not even sure  America still  has a team committed to defending The Constitution.

 

 

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Filed under American Character, General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption, The Media

A wider view

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Hillary scored a win today

Hillary Clinton delivered her first general election foreign policy speech today and if even a tiny fraction of her claims about her foreign policy record were the truth, she’d be a truly dynamic candidate.  Her speech was very good and she delivered it quite expertly.  She made the contrast between her and Donald Trump crystal clear and he reacted in his usual juvenile twitter tantrum default mode.  Of course, Hillary and her staff, who wrote that speech, knew Trump would lash out, that’s why the attacks on him were written to jab him so hard.

When it comes to manipulation, Hillary wins hands down against Trump.  She played him expertly.  Now, with her email server scandal still hanging over her head and her real foreign policy disastrous record ripe for a rehash, there’s still plenty many more episodes left in this 2016 battle for the presidency.  Today, Hillary scored several points against Trump and he looked like a whining loser.

 

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Another hobby in progress for me – Zentangle.  As you can see by my first two attempts, I lack any artistic or drawing ability and learning to master this structured form of doodling is going to be a challenge.  According to the creators of  Zentangle, this technique can be mastered by almost anyone, as it uses repeated patterns, that while looking complex, are created by very simple sequences of repeated pen strokes.  This is supposed to be relaxing, but for someone with extreme OCD perfectionist tendencies, I’ll admit it made me tense, because I like following step-by-step directions when I learn new crafts.  Aside from learning how to draw specific patterns, which you can use, the paper is a blank canvas for you to decide how to break up into sections, what patterns to fill it with, and when to stop.  Lacking aesthetic sensibilities and pen control, left me thinking, “oh crap, none of this looks right!”  So, I am posting my sad first attempts and hoping that with practice I improve and in a month or so, I promise to post more of my efforts and then we can see if the creators of  Zentangle claim that “almost anyone” can master this method is true……  of course, I might be their rare exception included in that “almost” anyone claim 😉

Minta is a real artist with great talent, so I am sure she could produce beautiful Zentangle art with little effort.  You should try it Minta.



On the politics front, well, Trump really has mastered scorched earth and the Clintons probably wish they were dealing with a Jeb or Rubio, right about now.   Trump pulled out his staged media attack format the other day when he defended himself about his January veterans’ fundraiser.  The press raised legitimate questions about Trump’s claims about raising 6 million dollars and then his campaign staff gave conflicting answers as to the exact dollar amount, whether all the money had been distributed to veterans’ groups, whether Trump had actually donated the million dollars he pledged back in January and then the overall handling of funds distribution.

Trump had NOT donated the million dollars until the press started raising questions last week.  His campaign staff should not have been involved in speaking for the Trump Foundation, a charity, that should be run completely divorced from the political campaign and the controversy arose not because of the press, but because the Trump campaign gave so many conflicting accounts on the veterans’  fundraiser.

Trump pulled out the same staged production as when he came out and defended his failed business ventures, claiming that none of them were failures – he tossed out the Trump magazine, had Trump steaks and wine on hand, while ruthlessly deflecting questions and attacking the press.  It worked like a charm.  He used this same staged attack on the press to deflect questions about how his charity handled his vet fundraiser and on an optics level, he won hands down.  On the “facts” and the “truth”, every word he uttered should be double-checked – HE LIES A LOT.  In fact, he lies as much as Hillary and that takes some doing.

Trump is a master of Alinsky tactics and I guess that comes naturally to bullies, because it’s a sneaky, conniving, corrupt way of getting your own way and MANIPULATING people.  That the truth – Trump and Hillary are both world-class bullies, who will do or say anything “to win”.

The debate among conservatives and Trump supporters rages on at sites like National Review and I posted the comment below and yes, I realize my views are antiquated, but here’s where I still stand on Trump and Hillary.

“Dollar signs do not denote character. A poor man can be a more morally upright American citizen, than this puffed up, pampered prince of New York, “The Donald” or for that matter, above the law/smartest woman in the world, “Queen Hillary”. Frankly, these two spew endless miles of lies and half-baked policies. Neither has a respect for The Constitution and hence, no matter how rich or how many “titles” they’ve racked up, both of them are UNFIT to lead our great nation.”

Back to Zentangling….  Oops, doing more reading on  Zentangle and the correct terminology is “tangling”, not “Zentangling”… and this is supposed to be stress-free, but it’s got a page of terminology to learn too:-(

 

 

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A day to remember

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Freedom isn’t free

Memorial Day image

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May 30, 2016 · 9:16 am

Begala rails against “scorched earth”

Sometimes a headline just hits on the truth in ways it was never intended to.  Clinton spinmeister extraordinaire, Paul Begala penned a piece at CNN:

“Donald Trump’s Clinton strategy is for losers”

Begala rails against Donald Trump’s “scorched earth strategy”, which Trump has been using to great effect against Hillary Clinton:

“As Donald Trump launches a series of zombie attacks, digging up long-dead personal accusations and wild conspiracy theories to attack Bill and Hillary Clinton, he might want to take a look at how that strategy has fared in the past.

The politics of personal destruction, which Trump has embraced with gusto, are certain to fail. Republicans used the strategy relentlessly against Bill Clinton. He was accused by right-wing conspiracy mongers of murder, rape, real estate fraud — pretty much everything except complicity in the Kennedy assassination.”

So, to be fair, Trump is most assuredly using a “scorched earth strategy” , but he is using the scorched earth strategy that Carville/Begala introduced to American politics during the Clinton impeachment, not some Republican strategy.   While Begala insists that Trump’s politics of personal destruction will fail, the rest of his article is regurgitation of personal sexual misconduct dirt on an array of Republicans  (character assassinations), in an attempt to dish as much dirt back at Republicans as he can.

Now, if Trump weren’t such an odious, narcissistic, emotionally-unbalanced, compulsive liar, it might be fun watching the Clinton sewer rats scurry trying to keep their bold-faced liar and perennially preachy and pathetic candidate afloat.  Hillary is one of the worst campaigners ever.  It almost looks like a public service to see someone torch Hillary’s broomstick,  if America is saved from having to endure her cackling edicts from the Oval Office.  She talks down to people, her voice grates on the nerves, and her brazen lies show a total disrespect for voters.  In the words of Samantha Power, Obama sycophant:

“She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything,” Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Read more: http://www.scotsman.com/news/hillary-clinton-s-a-monster-obama-aide-blurts-out-attack-in-scotsman-interview-1-1158300#ixzz49x8Auu5p
Follow us: @TheScotsman on Twitter | TheScotsmanNewspaper on Facebook

Despite Trump’s horrid personality, he has a showman’s style and he knows how to work a room.  And the truth is he is even better at the Carville/Begala scorched earth than Carville/Begala.  I am sure that in the beginning, setting Trump up as a dupe sounded like a genius plan to the Clintons and their sleazy operatives, because it assuredly has been Dem operatives driving Trump’s scorched earth/mass media saturation through someone in that Potemkin Trump campaign.  I bet Carville and Begala were rolling on the floor laughing as Trump, using their vicious scorched earth, torched the entire GOP primary field, but now the polls they live by have turned on them and Hillary keeps sinking, while Trump inches higher.  Stone, likely a candidate for sleaziest Republican political operative, bolted last August, when Trump attacked Megyn Kelly with that “bleeding out of her wherever” line.   Lewandowski does not have the experience to orchestrate the Carville/Begala scorched earth/mass media saturation strategy. So, the question still looms – who are the real Trump political operatives driving his scorched earth/mass media saturation strategy???

As Hillary flubs, flounders and her flat-out lies flat line her campaign, now, the Clintons are starting to look like the dupes……. ahh yes, poetic justice.

And despite their penchant for outrageous lies, both Trump and Hillary hit on ground truth about each other.  He dubbed her Crooked Hillary and she shot back that he is a Loose Cannon.

The only thing for certain remains, that with either of these two,  America will be the biggest loser.

 

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