Category Archives: Politics

October 11, 2022 · 11:16 am

Signals, noise and mixed messages

This post is going to be about our modern news media ecosystem and the Ukraine war. First point I’d like to make is it’s very hard to discern the signals from the noise. The signals are the meaningful information, while the noise just makes it harder to detect the signals. Our partisan spin information war now fills the American news media space with so much noise that important signals often get drowned out or buried completely, regardless what news media format you’re consuming. Even print media often doesn’t provide the most basic information about images or events in their copy and lots of times the important details are buried way down in the story.

It’s become commonplace to see photos and videos circulate on the internet that don’t include any information about when and where it was shot, who took the photo or video, who the people are in the images and a clear explanation of what the image shows. Often images are selectively edited or altered, which leads to further confusion. Many people, without any hesitation, share images and videos they `they know nothing about and they buy into them completely.

Both Russia and Ukraine have waged massive propaganda efforts, since Russia invaded Ukraine. Unfortunately, so many American political leaders, former government officials, to include former intel and defense officials, and many, many “experts” on foreign policy from academia now live online. Our news media people live online too. They also leap to share information they have no idea where it came from or if it’s true. The human race wasn’t ready for social media, I think.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but again Twitter is the main online social media space where they congregate and unfortunately that’s where most of them get their “information.” The problem with this rapid tweeting and retweeting behavior is the signals usually get missed, while the tweet noise floods the zone. The rest of America, who isn’t following the Twitter politics crowd ends up with the “news” that’s spun out from the partisan spin battles on Twitter to other news media in America.

Most Americans aren’t on Twitter and even if they went on Twitter it’s doubtful they’d see what I’m talking about. I didn’t understand Twitter’s role in the American spin information war at first either, but then I decided to follow hundreds of politicians, journalists and news organizations to see what would show up in my feed. Then I spent a lot of hours watching the Twitter interactions and learning how the partisan talking points generated and that opened my eyes to how the corrupt Dem spin information war, that I’d been trying to understand since the 90s, was operating in the Twitter age.

Trump learned how to fight spin battles on Twitter too and there’s now a dedicated Trumpian right-wing spin effort too, plus some assorted other right-wing media spin efforts. I can go on Twitter and sit for about 15 minutes scrolling my feed filled with journos and politicians and see spin cycles form in real time. It happened by accident, not by design, because I was just wondering why the cable news had begun mentioning Twitter and tweets so much.

One important point about the American spin information war is we don’t live in a vacuum, so foreign operatives are involved in trying to influence the American news too and the Russians have always been aggressive about those efforts, going back through most of the last century.

Russia was struggling to counter the Ukrainian propaganda war and the one place in America where Russian propaganda gains traction these days, bizarrely is within the right-wing media space, where due to the binary-thinking, many Americans will be for or against something based on if the “other side” is for it, they are automatically against it. Dems and Hollywood rushed to wrap themselves in Ukrainian flags and worship Zelensky, so many on the right automatically took the opposing view.

Anyway, back to the signals and noise in regards to the Ukraine war, both Ukraine and Russia are running massive propaganda wars, so getting accurate information about the facts on the ground is difficult. Added onto this is Hollywood and Democrats rushed to aid Zelensky’s propaganda war and Zelensky reminds me of Donald Trump in some ways. He’s a former actor and knows how to stage himself effectively, just like Trump’s a master of owning the stage. Trump could upstage any world event. Zelensky has been packaged and sold by Democrats and the vast liberal media space as the infallible hero and too many Americans are invested in Ukraine without any serious thought to American national interests.

There are important reasons for America and Europe to thwart Putin’s naked aggression, but at the same time it’s important to carefully keep sight of American national interests in how we do that.

The worst thing Biden and many European leaders have done is talk big, then drag their feet on aiding Ukraine, while mewling to Putin, trying to coax him to keep the oil and gas flowing. They imposed punishing sanctions on Russia, to include on buying Russian oil. Then they continued to buy Russian oil. What kind of message did that send Putin? If you want to be taken seriously, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Biden and many of the European leaders have talked out of both sides of their mouth.

And worst of all, if you truly feel stopping Putin’s aggression is a grave threat to stability in Europe and that weakness at this critical juncture would embolden, not just Putin, but China too, then it makes no sense to try to embark on some cockamamie green-energy transformation. The Ukraine-Russia conflict has led to a full-blown economic war, but the US and Europeans weren’t as serious as Putin has been. If you were serious about stopping Putin, you’d be ramping up American fossil fuel production and the Europeans would be postponing their Great Reset to fight the Ukraine War, which they blabber on is the greatest threat since WWII. They would not be buying a drop of Russian oil, and they’d be working overtime trying to carefully assess what arms to send to Ukraine, while trying to speed up resupply of their own military stockpiles. Instead, they were just trying to kick the can down the road, hoping Putin would back down, so they could focus on their Great Reset and green-energy transformation. Their priority wasn’t stopping Putin – it was the Great Reset.

The Biden administration is most concerned about all its liberal pet projects – green-energy, racial politics, gender politics and most of all defeating and crushing Republicans. I haven’t seen any real seriousness in how the Biden administration has gone about helping Ukraine or really wanting to stop Putin’s aggression. Now that things have spiraled into a huge mess, Biden isn’t out there giving any calm. clear articulation of what the goals are, what’s at stake, or why the US should care about the war in Ukraine. Instead, he was rambling on at a Dem fundraiser about Armageddon and Putin – just like he tried to blame his own war on American fossil fuel as being Putin’s fault. He was concerned about defeating Republicans – not about convincing Putin to withdraw from Ukraine.

The Biden administration has offered no clear and consistent statements on Ukraine, that it followed with actions that bolstered those words. It was all big talk, then still buying Russian oil, while the Germans and French kept going on bended knee to the Russians, begging them not to turn off the Russian oil and gas spigots. The US/European effort to aid Ukraine has been a hodgepodge, convoluted mess with a lot of foot-dragging and lack of coordination between Western leaders and a lack of coordination with Ukrainian leaders. I believe the Obama foreign policy people are running this sideshow, because it has all the earmarks of their incompetent and clueless stumbling and bumbling, followed by overreactions that were the Obama foreign adventures.

I have no idea how things will turn out, but I feel certain that if the US and West cave on Ukraine, China will be on the move very quickly. A lot of Americans, especially on the right, have become isolationist after all the military adventurism in the past two decades and they don’t want to hear about sending US troops anywhere. I understand that, but the reality is Reagan was right: “We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

America is still a force for good. If we decide to pick up our toys and go home, saying it’s not our problem or we don’t want to be the world’s policeman, that won’t keep us safe. Russia, China and other malignant actors in the world would quickly move to fill the void left by a US retreat from the world.

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October 2, 2022 · 7:24 pm

A few Nord Stream facts

I keep hearing this Nord Stream talking point, “Why would Russia blow up their own pipeline?” This generated in the American right-wing media ecosystem very quickly, so let’s get some facts straight – Nord Stream 1 & 2 aren’t only “Russian” pipelines – they’re JOINT ventures with Russian Gazprom paying half the cost of construction and a group of western companies paying half:

“Gazprom paid half the cost of building Nord Stream 2, with the remainder of the $11 billion pipeline project financed by British oil and gas major Shell (SHEL.L), Austria’s OMV (OMVV.VI), France’s Engie and Germany’s Uniper (UN01.DE) and Wintershall DEA (WINT.UL).” Source: Reuters article from March 2022.

The Europeans have been trying to keep Russia pumping gas, because especially the Germans are very dependent on that Russian gas. First there were reports that Nord Stream 1 was shut down due to needing repairs back in July and Canada sent the repaired turbine to Germany for that repair.

By August Russia said they couldn’t do the repairs on Nord Stream 1

By September: Russia cuts off gas exports to Europe via Nord Stream indefinitely

Nord Stream 2 wasn’t even operational yet.

“The construction of the pipeline started in 2011, to expand the Nord Stream line and double annual capacity to 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic feet). It was completed in September 2021, but has not yet entered service.” Source: Wikipedia

Russia has a massive gas pipeline project with China, that when completed will reach all the way to Shanghai.

Russia has other lucrative gas and oil deals with numerous countries and is the largest oil exporter in the world and will surely find new markets, while the Europeans are scrambling to find oil and gas to get through this winter. Even the US was importing Russian oil.

So, let’s look at this idea of “Why would Russia blow up their own pipeline?” Well, Russia was putting the screws to the Europeans, especially the Germans, trying to pressure them to back down on supporting Ukraine. The Europeans and US and Canada held their alliance together with supporting Ukraine and escalated the sanctions against Russia. Russia refused to get Nord Stream 1 operational and stopped pumping gas, then issued more threats and even threatened nuclear war, while the Germans were still trying to get Russia to resume shipping gas and scrambling to try to find other sources around the world. Russia exerted its influence with OPEC, so when Biden went to Saudi Arabia, begging for more oil, he was rebuffed.

Russia expanded their market in India by offering huge discounts. Here’s a September 2022 article: Russia is now offering even more discounts to India on oil

Why would the US or Europeans blow up Nord Stream 1, which will devastate western companies, while Gazprom has expanding markets?

Russia had already cut its losses on Nord Stream and can survive without Nord Stream, while the Europeans and US are scrounging around for oil and gas. Of course, in the US the oil and gas shortages are completely due to the Biden administration’s decision to kill the American oil and gas industry with their crazy green energy plan, but still what would the US gain by blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, which Russia had already written off and was using to try to blackmail the Germans to abandon Ukraine? Russia would gain a lot by giving the Germans and Europeans the middle finger by blowing that up and threatening nuclear war. It would show the Western alliance that Russia won’t hesitate to use more force. At the same time the Nord Stream explosions occurred, Putin announced Russia was annexing parts of Ukraine.

I can’t say 100% who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, but I can say there’s a lot of evidence that Russia had plenty of motivations to give a big middle finger to European leaders and to let them know that if they continue aiding Ukraine, Russia will retaliate forcefully.

So many right-wing Americans blame the US for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while absolving Putin of any blame. I disagreed with US policy decisions in Ukraine during the Obama administration and I disagree with a lot of decisions the Biden administration has made before and since Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. However, Russia also has escalated this war and Russia is the one threatening nuclear war. Putin is not some victim in this war and Russia had no legitimate right to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Part of why so many Americans rushed to buy into blaming the US for the Nord Stream explosions I blame on the Democrats and their corrupt “Trump/Russia Collusion” smear campaign, which was total bs. That years-long Democrat smear effort led many Americans on the right to just discount Russian disinformation as being a real thing. I blame Trump too, because at times he talked like Putin was a great guy.

And here’s the beauty of the useful idiots in the US carrying water for Russian propaganda- they hate Biden so much that they will make excuses for Putin these days. Tucker Carlson rushed to carry that water a few days ago. Carlson also frequently casts Putin as a good guy. Lots of other ordinary people on social media have too. I watched a prepper video recently by a hard-working, decent American guy, who hates Biden and the left’s radical agenda a lot, which I understand completely. He was quoting RT – Russia Today as his source and I was wondering how Americans could be so willing to buy into Russian propaganda.

Here’s the thing about Putin – he hates America and the West (that includes right-wing Americans too) and he’s still very much the KGB agent. Despite the Democrats calling everything on the right in America “Russian disinformation,” the reality is actual Russian disinformation still exists and unfortunately now right-wingers in America, who used to understand the Russian threat, are walking around citing RT and talking about how Putin isn’t such a bad guy. Our own domestic spin war has led so many Americans to distrust our own government and each other more than they distrust Putin, who wants to destroy the West and rebuild the former Soviet Union. And, I suppose many Americans no longer remember the Cold War or understand that history.

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September 30, 2022 · 3:08 pm

Nord Stream pipeline leaks whodunit

Here’s a link to a CNBC report on the Nord Stream pipelines: Russian pipeline leaks spark climate fears as huge volumes of methane spew into the atmosphere

Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal article about NATO formally blaming sabotage for the leaks: NATO Formally Blames Sabotage for Nord Stream Pipeline Damage

Here’s a Reuters piece: Putin accuses West of blowing up pipelines as Europe steps up vigilance

Here’s a Washington Examiner piece: Russian ships observed near area of explosions that caused Nord Stream pipeline leaks: Report

Tucker Carlson, the most watched primetime FOX pundit was quick to blame the US for the Nord Stream pipeline leak. He has been against the US and Europeans aiding Ukraine all along. Among right-wing media, this buzz gained traction with the line “Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline when they could just shut off the gas? This seems like a stupid argument to me. Somehow, these right-wing hot takes that “only this argument makes sense” with no real information seems to be the default right-wing media ecosystem these days.

John Brennan, the former Obama CIA director, rushed to blame Putin.

Here’s the thing, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I will say the argument Tucker Carlson made, rushing to point the finger at the US seems reckless and designed to foment more divides in America and was intended to turn Americans on the right against the US government and against aiding Ukraine. To state that the US or Europeans sabotaging that pipeline is the only possible explanation, with no real evidence, is as reckless as Brennan rushing to blame Putin.

Russia is currently not shipping more gas via that pipeline, but Russia knew there was still gas in that pipeline that will now not be delivered to Europe with winter approaching, is my understanding at this point. I could be wrong. And at the same time Russia was trying to annex parts of Ukraine this week. Russia is not above trying to fuel divides in America over support for Ukraine and certainly not above staging elaborate false flag operations. Russia also is not against sending stronger messages to US and European leaders, that Russia will not hesitate to escalate the economic war.

The gas that was still in the pipeline should be gone by Sunday according to the Reuters article: “Gas will continue to pour out of Nord Stream 1 until Sunday, the Danish energy agency said on Friday, though the leak on Nord Stream 2 is expected to cease on Saturday.” Russia had already shut off the gas – that’s the key part and a short-lived leak, that sent a strong message to the Europeans that Russia won’t be sending more gas, while at the same time blaming the US and the West for the leaks doesn’t seem beyond Putin to me.

I distrust the Biden administration and I certainly distrust John Brennan, but at the same time, Putin has shown himself to be ruthless and there’s a long, long history of Russian false flag operations against the West.

At this point, I’m just waiting to see what happens next.

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September 15, 2022 · 8:04 pm

Beware of “zero”

The first far-left “zero” movement I was aware of was the zero population movement, which gained popularity in the 1970s. My youngest brother bought into that completely. so I heard all I ever want to hear about that topic. When people get on board these far-left movements it becomes like a religion to them and they invariably zealously try to convert the entire world to their cause. Failing that, they try to force cultural and political change to impose their views on everyone.

That zero population movement is still enmeshed in the far-left mishmash of ESG (equity, sustainability and governance) goals, although most people, who aren’t leftists, probably weren’t paying much attention to the far-left movements beyond hearing about the green-deal, laughing at AOC or they remember a bit further back that the Obama administration pushed the green dreams.

In 2013, there was another leftist movement that I remember writing a blog post about – the global zero movement, which set as its goal the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2030. President Obama supported this movement. In 2015, the UN General Assembly passed the 2030 Agenda and all of these fringe far-left movements, from the green-energy to the other zero movements, to the gender movements became neatly packed into the ESG framework that’s going to build the highway to Net Zero utopia.

With the green-energy transformation, the green movement now has Net Zero. Here’s an explanation of the term net zero from the University of Oxford (https://netzeroclimate.org/what-is-net-zero/):

“Net zero refers to a state in which the greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere are balanced by removal out of the atmosphere.” 

“The term net zero is important because – for CO2 at least – this is the state at which global warming stops. The Paris Agreement underlines the need for net zero. It requires states to ‘achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century’.” 

While the Biden administration flunkies keep yammering on about electric cars, the ESG goals include forcing people to completely change how they live – from what they eat, how much they eat, what temperature they keep their homes, how much they travel, how they travel, and it’s about forcing people to change what they think or be forced into compliance – to reach that magical Net Zero.

Where we’re headed is a Zero Freedom world, as the “experts” formulate what’s the perfect sustainable balance with their zero movements. If you think the zero population growth and the global zero movement to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2030 (that magical 2030 UN Agenda date again) disappeared, I think you’re wrong. With the war in Ukraine, back in July, Steven Pinker, a prominent Harvard scholar, was tweeting that Europe should unilaterally eliminate it’s nuclear arsenal. Here’s a quote from a Washington Examiner article:

“Those suggesting major changes to NATO nuclear deterrence might first want to consider Russian nuclear strategy.”

“Former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and Jonathan Granoff of the anti-nuclear weapons Global Security Institute fail this test. Seeking a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, Arias and Granoff call for NATO’s preparation to withdraw “all U.S. nuclear warheads from Europe and Turkey, preliminary to negotiations [over the war in Ukraine]. Withdrawal would be carried out once peace terms are agreed between Ukraine and Russia.” Chiming in on Monday, Harvard scholar Steven Pinker suggests that this is a “bold idea” because nuclear weapons are “militarily useless, ineffective deterrents … [and] recklessly dangerous.”

Back in July, you might also remember President Biden stating that there was zero inflation…

Zero holds some mystical power among the left. Even with that zero population growth movement, it wasn’t just about trying to control the number of births. There were people in that movement wanting to have some controls on death too, which opens up a whole other kettle of fish.

All of these leftist “zero” movements involve allowing a group of experts/central planners to drain the lifeblood out of personal choice. If I hear any liberals mentioning “zero,” I cringe and know they’re going to be proposing another radical program that makes absolutely zero sense. My ears perk up, though, because zero with them also means they want to nullify all of our personal liberty and leave us with zero power whatsoever.

Definitely, beware of “zero.”

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August 22, 2022 · 12:00 pm

A few updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Filed under Gardening, General Interest, Information War, Politics

August 17, 2022 · 3:02 am

“MAGA Extremists”everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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August 13, 2022 · 6:25 am

Trump/Russian Collusion Goes Nuclear

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sperry says that he tweeted the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s all I’ve got for now.

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

References[edit]

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

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Filed under General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption

August 12, 2022 · 7:08 pm

I refuse!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 9, 2022 · 2:28 am

Nothing got better in our politics tonight

This is a politics blog post.

Monday morning on Twitter, I was wondering what was going on, because there was a big liberal media spin effort brewing about Trump – with “juicy details” (years old recycled stuff) from some liberal journalist’s new book. Many of the liberal media were tweeting about the “revered” retired generals’ Trump tales:

Kind of looks to me like some liberal media peeps were included in setting the stage for this FBI raid spin cycle this morning…

The news has been buzzing for hours about the FBI raiding former President Trump’s home in Mar-a-lago. Details are sparse so far, but reporters are saying it pertains to classified documents. This all feels like a liberal media narrative was written and staged, so I’m curious what on earth documents were so important that the FBI had to raid Trump’s home, which btw., former presidents’ homes have SCIFs, because they maintain security clearances and receive sensitive information.

Of course, after the Hillary Clinton email server scandal and her “extremely careless ” (Comey’s words) handling of classified documents and her aide, Huma Abedin, having tens of thousands of State Department emails stored on the Weiner family laptop, it would really have to be some earth-shattering documents to convince me raiding Trump’s home was warranted. With Hillary, the turning over of the servers (there were actually two homebrew servers the first that Bill Clinton had set-up in their home and then an upgraded one, right as Hillary was set to become Secretary of State), was coordinated with Clinton lawyer, David Kendall.

The FBI worked with Kendall on collecting subpoenaed evidence and much of it was never turned over to the FBI. They didn’t raid her home. Tens of thousands of emails were destroyed, many of her electronic devices were never turned over to the FBI, and Kendall aides wouldn’t even tell the FBI what keywords they used to search the email server for relevant documents.

I followed the details closely and I read through all the investigation notes as the FBI released them. Boy, I’m done with reading through government documents and investigations, because frankly, I believe the DOJ and FBI are thoroughly corrupted and high-ranking Democrats are above the law.

Growing up, my family watched the TV show, The F.B.I., and considered the agency heroes. I miss that fictional F.B.I. from my childhood. I hate feeling such distrust in the institutions I used to respect. I’ve also lost respect for many retired generals and former high-level intelligence officials, who became anti-Trump media pundits and leaked classified information and/or salacious gossip to try to takedown Trump. I expected these people to be apolitical and trustworthy. In their efforts to destroy Trump’s presidency (#Resist) so many people exposed their own corruption more than Trump’s.

I dislike Trump’s behavior – the petty name-calling, constant bragging, and most of all the lying, BUT I accepted he was our duly elected president after the 2016 election, just like I accept that Biden is our duly-elected president since 2020. I believe in upholding the rule of law and our electoral system, regardless who I supported. So many people, on both sides, have spent an enormous amount of time and effort trying to undermine and undo election results – since 2000, actually.

There is no way some FBI agents just decided to raid Trump’s home without a whole lot of powerful Democrats being included in this decision-making circle.

I’ve got no idea where this leads, but I can say with certainty – nothing got better in our politics with this raid.

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Politics

August 5, 2022 · 9:47 pm

Past is prologue: Obama’s foreign policy is calling…

This post is going to be more about the Pelosi trip to Taiwan. China ratcheted up the saber-rattling and today China cut off talks with the US on climate and military matters: China halts climate and military dialogue with the U.S. over Pelosi’s Taiwan visit. China wants to make the Biden administration look weak and impotent (and is succeeding).

John Kerry, former Obama Secretary of State and current Biden administration climate special envoy, was on Twitter appealing to China a few hours ago.

China knows full well what a cowardly, groveling bunch this Biden White House is, because they and all of America’s adversaries watched eight years of this during the Obama administration. John Kerry, as Secretary of State, was willing to grovel to Iran in 2016, when Iran captured US sailors. At that time, the Obama administration wanted to make the Iran nuclear deal work – no matter what. Kerry worked out the release of the captured US sailors and hailed it as a new era of diplomacy. And immediately following that Iran released demoralizing videos of US sailors and propaganda to make our American sailors look weak and like crybabies. It was totally disgraceful:

Rather than speak out and support Pelosi’s trip and stand up to China, the Biden administration continued to waffle today and China is playing this for all it’s worth. Kerry will likely sell American dignity and our country down the river again, to try to salvage the climate deal with China – no matter what. And just like with Iran, who never abided by any of the agreements on nuclear issues, China has no intention of abiding by the West’s green energy deals.

Russia, China and our adversaries will continue to bolster their fossil fuel capacities while the US and West rush down this green-energy transformation yellow brick road. Here are some links on China’s energy plans:

China sees biggest growth in energy and coal use since 2011

China continues to snap up Russian coal at steep discounts

This map shows the massive gas pipeline that Russia and China are building

China pays lip service to green energy goals, but China is the world’s biggest polluter Here’s a stat from an article, Most polluted countries in the world: 2022 ranking:

  1. China with 9.9 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, largely due to the export of consumer goods and its heavy reliance on coal;
  2. The United States with 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted;
  3. India with 2.3 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted.

 I expect John Kerry to sell America down the river again and grovel to China. Pathetic!

8/6/2022 – Afterthought: China is unhappy with increased aid being considered in Congress: Senators slated to take up bill to expand security support to Taiwan amid high-stakes Pelosi visit. My guess is I think China also hopes that their escalated big drama they’re enacting will pressure either the Biden WH to apologize to China for Pelosi visiting Taiwan or that Pelosi will apologize for visiting Taiwan. Either of these actions would signal an American abandonment of Taiwan and send a powerful signal to every other country in that region that America does not have their back.

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Filed under Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics