September 4, 2022 · 6:20 pm

“Something that I can do”

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

-2 Timothy 1:7

This is going to be a follow-up of sorts to my last post, but it’s not going to be about politics. I’ve written a lot about politics and foreign affairs stuff, but here’s the truth about “understanding the political/economic/world events” going on right now – it might prod you to invest more time, effort, resources into being more prepared, but it also likely will lead to more worrying about all those big things that we can’t do a thing to change. That’s energy wasted.

There are probably as many people in America who believe that voting Republican is the only hope for our country as there are Democrats who believe voting Democrat is the only hope. Politics isn’t going to save us.

Some of us place our faith in God, but that still requires us to get off our butts and work to save ourselves, each and every day. We can’t sit around waiting for a miracle. Even if you’re not religious, well, you’re still going to have to get off your butt and work to save yourself too. Getting worked up about all the bad news (and there are mountains of it these days) doesn’t change a single thing, except make you feel fear, anxiety or overwhelmed and it actually impedes staying focused on the things that will really make a difference in your own life.

None of us can solve the very complex and massive problems we’re bombarded with the minute we read or watch the news, but we can still take very real steps toward working on the problems and challenges in our own lives. Unfortunately, most of the people with the power to really impact or make those types of big decisions in our country seem to be less qualified than my late husband’s, almost 15 year-old rescue dog, Marius, who now gets confused a lot.

Despite whatever dire economic or other events happen, we will still have to keep plugging away, still make daily choices and still work as hard as we can to keep ourselves, our families and our communities functioning, as best we can. That’s what faith and hope are all about – we continue onward – no matter what.

In a previous post on preparedness I mentioned that each of us really needs to take a bit of time and figure out where we are, before we can plan for where we want to go. I wasn’t referring to physical location, but about where you are spiritually, emotionally, financially and if you’re married and have a family, you’ll need to figure out where they’re at too. Then try to work toward finding some common goals and assess the practical needs aspects of becoming better prepared.

Getting your head on straight, before you start rushing around in a hundred different directions to prepare, can save you a lot of wasted time and money, but also a lot of needless anxiety and worry. In our interconnected world, there’s so much information everywhere, which creates lots of distractions and noise, that can send you racing down rabbit holes, rushing to buy things that you quickly realize were a waste of money, but most of all it can derail you from staying focused on the things that really matter.

Simplifying your life requires streamlining and setting up some attainable goals, then working on those first. Many of the attainable goals don’t require spending a lot of money. They do require changing your work habits and changing your attitude.

In my early teens, I began collecting quotes, poems, verses, and mottoes that I came across and liked. Here’s one that’s always stuck with me: 

I am only one  
But still I am one  
I cannot do everything  
But still I can do something.  
And because I cannot do everything  
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.  
Edward Everett Hale

I was kind of weird, in that I always wanted to know more details, like when something was written, more about the writer, other things that writer wrote or did.

Edward Everett Hale was a Unitarian minister in the 1800s. He wrote a patriotic short story, A Man Without a Country, which became very popular during the US Civil War and was required reading in many American schools for almost a century. Hale fought for not only emancipation of slaves, but also for education for freed slaves. His most lasting achievement was he published another short story, Ten Times One Is Ten, that included the motto: 

Look up and not down 
Look forward and not back 
Look out and not in 
Lend a Hand

Here’s a short explanation of the story from the Lend a Hand Society:

“The Lend A Hand Society grew out of the response to a short story called “Ten Times One is Ten”, written in 1870 by Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909). The story tells of ten people who meet at the funeral of a mutual friend Harry Wadsworth and discover that he had financially helped each of them. They each resolve to follow the example of Wadsworth and to help their friends, neighbors and others in the community. They calculate that if each person they help would in turn lend someone else a hand (10 x 1 = 10, 10 x 10 = 100, etc.), the powerful spirit of charity and giving would spread and grow.”

After the story’s publication, groups sprang up spontaneously using his motto as inspiration and a Lend A Hand Society in Boston was formed, which still provides emergency financial assistance to low income people, senior citizens and disabled people. That sort of America “lending a hand” spirit still exists today and you can see it with how many Americans will quickly offer assistance and to help people in need.

Edward Everett Hale also did some Civil War public service work under Abraham Lincoln and actually worked with Clara Barton, the famous Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross.

If all you have time and energy for is to start working on your own family’s needs and bolstering their preparedness, that matters too. One thing I’ve found with trying to learn more about various aspects of emergency preparedness and developing skills is it’s just like with hobbies and other endeavors for me. I can quickly find myself moving in a hundred different directions, wanting to start too many things at one time. And that’s where I’ve had to struggle to work on more self-restraint and prioritizing, because it’s very easy for me to go way over budget and find myself having too much stuff and too many projects going at the same time.

Some people are natural-born teachers and mentors, I believe and in the internet age, many of them are online sharing skills and know-how on just about any topic imaginable. For all the bad stuff online, there’s also a wealth of good too. I’m working harder to seek out good and quit focusing on the bad stuff online, which takes work on my part, because I am a contrarian and can be too judgmental (yes, I am aware of that character flaw of mine – my family points it out regularly).

We can all work on the “something that I can do,” rather than trying to focus on the everything we can’t do.

Leave a comment

Filed under American Character

September 2, 2022 · 12:11 pm

There’s still hope left

This is going to be a long politics blog post. The bad news takes up most of this post, but there’s a bit of good cheer at the end. Recognizing the magnitude of events unfolding can feel overwhelming and it’s important to realize that big picture part, but it’s also important not to let that hamstring you or discourage you from just working harder to remain positive and proactive in your own life.

Last night President Biden gave a dark speech warning about the threat MAGA Republicans pose to democracy:

That’s what I believe was going on with Biden’s blood red speech last night in Philadelphia, PA.

I’m going to rehash the pandemic response around the world in 2020, because there’s something that’s been bugging me, after reading the Klaus Schwab book, COVID-19: The Great Reset. The “experts” and “elites” pushing all the COVID mitigation efforts on us already knew after the first few months, that this pandemic, in historical terms, would be mild and they knew all along which groups of people were most at risk, yet they deliberately opted for some of the most extreme economic, social and political measures all to condition people for this Great Reset (green-energy transformation,) they were already planning in the Spring of 2020. They planned the economic turmoil that devastated millions of small businesses across America, they planned the social mitigation efforts and they planned the political measures, using the pandemic as cover, I believe. Here’s a quote from Schwab’s book (I highlighted the last sentence, which has been bugging me since I read it):

“There is no denying that the COVID-19 virus has more often than not been a personal catastrophe for the millions infected by it, and for their families and communities. However, at a global level, if viewed in terms of the percentage of the global population effected, the corona crisis is (so far) one of the least deadly pandemics the world has experience over the last 2000 years. In all likelihood, unless the pandemic evolves in an unforeseen way, the consequences of COVID-19 in terms of health and mortality will be mild compared to previous pandemics. At the end of June 2020 (at a time when the outbreak is still raging in Latin America, South Asia and much of the US), COVID-19 has killed less than 0.006% of the world population. To put this low figure into context in terms of lethality, the Spanish flu killed 2.7% of the world’s population and HIV/AIDS 0.6% (from 1981 to today). The Plague of Justinian from its onset in 541 until it finally disappeared in 750 killed almost one-third of the population of Byzantium according to various estimates, and the Black Death (1347-1351) is considered to have killed between 30% and 40% of the world population at the time. The corona pandemic is different. It does not constitute an existential threat, or a shock that will leave its imprint on the world’s population for decades.”

Schwab, Klaus; Malleret, Thierry. COVID-19: The Great Reset (p. 247). Forum Publishing. Kindle Edition.

This book was published in July 2020 and many of the world leaders, WEF crowd, and UN crowd invested in the green-energy transformation, had already planned how to use the COVID pandemic to set the stage for their green-energy transformation. So, all the phony laments about “trust the science” were cynical mass psychological warfare being used against the American people by our leaders and health officials, I believe. We were being conditioned to accept doing what we were told was for the common good, as decided by politicians, elites and experts, who made those decisions for us. All that public virtue-signaling and the public-shaming efforts were orchestrated to target people who refused to do what they were told by the elites (the experts).

In America, President Trump, presented a huge obstacle to the western leaders’ green-energy grand plan. Under Trump, America, for the first time in my lifetime was actually energy independent, despite the chaotic ways he ran his presidency, his character flaws, his spending so much time on his reality show presidency. The truth is Trump’s actual policies, like freeing up American oil and gas production, promoting American business, and his unwillingness to just green stamp policies coming out of the G-7 crowd, who were completely committed to turbo-charging the green-energy transformation on the back of the COVID pandemic, made Trump the #1 target of the global elite “green dream” crowd.

The current economic turmoil was planned – it’s not an accident. The same group of world leaders and elites who orchestrated the COVID mitigation chaos are deliberately orchestrating this economic collapse. They believe they can manage this collapse and the conversion to not only green-energy, but to forcing the world into a new ESG-centric world, where people are forced to downsize, not only their energy consumption, but every aspect of their lives, to conform to groups of unelected global elites forcing people to do as they’re told or be ostracized and basically cut off from everything – from energy, from goods and services, from medical care, from employment. It’s a total control program to force people to give up their personal freedoms… all for the “greater good of the world”… as decided by a bunch of elites.

Since the largest business leaders in the free world are already on-board with the ESG/green-dream policies and have been pushing ESG compliance for several years now, unfortunately most of the leaders on the right in America, either didn’t take the green transformation effort seriously and dismissed it as just far-left activist kooks or they opted to quietly just go along to get along and continue to make a lot a money. The green-energy train has not only left the station, it’s racing around the world now. At this point, the moves have already been made to impose the green-energy transformation on the West and the areas of the world the West can exert pressure on. China, Russia and their allies might pay lip service to the green-energy transformation, but nothing China and Russia have done with their efforts to bolster their fossil fuel capacity, leads me to believe they care one iota about the green-energy transformation, besides hoping it will collapse the West – and it might. There are a myriad of tentacles in this transformation, beyond just “green energy.” There are global currency upheavals, and it moves down to even what type of foods and how much people will be allowed to consume, what goods and services will be available, what temperature you have to keep your thermostat set on, how much you can travel, etc.

In the conclusion chapter of Schwab’s book, he writes:

“In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, an entire village foresees a looming catastrophe, and yet none of the villagers seem able or willing to act to prevent it, until it’s too late. We do not want to be that village. To avoid such a fate, without delay we need to set in motion the Great Reset. This is not a “nice-to-have” but an absolute necessity. Failing to address and fix the deep-rooted ills of our societies and economies could heighten the risk that, as throughout history, ultimately a reset will be imposed by violent shocks like conflicts and even revolutions. It is incumbent upon us to take the bull by the horns. The pandemic gives us this chance: it “represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world”.[165]

Schwab, Klaus; Malleret, Thierry. COVID-19: The Great Reset (pp. 243-244). Forum Publishing. Kindle Edition.

I don’t think most people on the right, who get worked up repeating stuff they heard on right-wing media about the “Great Reset” quite grasp, that this green-energy/ESG global transformation effort is already well in progress. It’s not some future plan – it’s already been implemented and anyone who gets in the way will be silenced, destroyed, and cut-off from economic, not only opportunity, but even from the very basics of goods and services, we’re all used to. The controls over energy usage are already being rolled out, there will be controls on everything we consume – everything. The people driving this Great Reset believe they can manage a collapse of the world economic system without driving all of us off of a cliff and they have no “mitigation” plans to soften the fall for millions of people around the world.

Free speech poses a particular threat to the green-energy transformation agenda, so the social media word police games will escalate, but also, people who pose any sort of threat of disruption will be silenced, either overtly by being locked out of social media and online forums, to having their jobs threatened, to being doxxed. The Zuckerberg admission in the past week about being warned by the FBI about “Russian disinformation” stories right before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke in 2020, shows that “algorithmically” social media companies can (and did) banish accounts and stories into a literal internet wilderness, where no one would even see the stories. The FBI facilitated squashing that Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020. And dozens of former intelligence officials went public dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation.” The public corruption runs very deep.

I see a lot of people fuss and fume about this or that story that hits the media and while being pissed off is understandable, it’s really counterproductive at this point. Squashing free speech in America is a top tier Democrat effort right now and somehow too many Republicans in Washington still seem to want to out meme Dems or own liberals on Twitter, when Democrats are making huge moves to silence opposing views, especially via their big tech friends. “Owning the libs” on social media isn’t a plan, it’s wasting time. I don’t have a solution or ways around this huge communication problem yet, but it’s been on my mind a lot longer than the green-energy transformation agenda’s been around. Liberals own the online spaces and they can work together to crush alternative platforms.

For instance, Trump was banned from Twitter and facebook in January 2020 and we’re now in September 2022. The first few Trump-friendly social media venues failed quickly, but finally Truth Social, a alt-tech social media company by Trump Media & Technology Group, launched in February of 2022. A couple days ago, I saw this: Truth Social’s Ban From Google Play Renews Calls for Apple to Remove App. There is an orchestrated effort to silence and demonize, not only Trump, but any Republicans or people who get in the way of the Great Reset transformation underway. There’s a big tech cabal working to destroy Truth Social and knock Trump offline again.

President Biden isn’t running anything, he’s doing what he’s told to do by the Obama apparatchiks, inside the Biden White House. They wrote that divisive speech he delivered last night; they staged that speech that way deliberately.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve struggled with is to not react in anger and develop more self-discipline and self-control – it’s hard, when something smacks you in the face as an affront to all the values you hold dear. However, working calmly and diligently to prepare your own family for coming economic upheavals, so you can, not just survive, but still thrive is paramount. Then finding positive ways to build bridges of helping hands with other like-minded people, to try to bolster a sense of community and networks across America is way better than fuming and ranting right now. People who are calm, positive and prepared will fare better than the millions of people who trust the Biden administration and Democrats to take care of them. What’s going to matter in the end of this, I believe is strong, competent, calm American leadership – not partisan politics.

This morning I was thinking about a blog post, Who Will Defend Our Castle?, I wrote in 2014. I mentioned a WWII story about the Battle of Castle Itter, one of the last battles in WWII. I still think this remains true about American leadership:

“The almost farcical nature of the characters and events in the battle for Castle Itter provides a quirky, yet almost emblematic view of  how in the unlikely circumstance of fighting for their lives, this castle’s curious mix of inhabitants, like people everywhere, can put aside national and personal loyalties, to unite in moments, because not much else mattered, except surviving.

The story centers on VIP French prisoners, whom the SS kept imprisoned in Castle Itter during WWII.  As the Americans advanced across Europe in the waning days of the war, a young American first lieutenant, John C. “Jack” Lee, Jr., made the mistake of volunteering to go secure the castle, after a surrendering German major arrived to tell the advancing Americans about the VIP prisoners held prisoner in nearby Castle Itter.  The young American officer sets off with 8 volunteers, plus 5 soldiers from the African-American Company, along with the surrendering German major and a truckload of his German soldiers.   The French VIPs, upon seeing their small rescue force, were unimpressed that such a paltry band of soldiers was sent to rescue their grand personages.  But quickly the scene changed as the castle fell under attack from SS troops.  The squabbling French VIPs (which included two French generals, who despised each other) and  the surrendering Germans all turned to the young American lieutenant to take charge of their castle defense.  To get the full impact of the absurdity of the events, read the full story of the battle for Castle Itter (here’s the link again).”

Calm, unflappable, disciplined American leadership still matters and it can come in many forms and from unlikely places, from stepping up to the plate to organize and guide your own family, to working in your church or community to help others, to even figuring out how to handle emergency situations. Buying into believing we are powerless is the ultimate form of surrendering and giving up. There’s still hope left all around us.

2 Comments

Filed under General Interest, Information War, The Great Reset

August 26, 2022 · 1:14 pm

News and some prepping thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Comment

Filed under Emergency Preparedness, General Interest

August 24, 2022 · 3:53 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leave a comment

Filed under General Interest

August 22, 2022 · 12:31 pm

Blog gremlins again…

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

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

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.

Leave a comment

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.”

Leave a comment

Filed under General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption

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.

Leave a comment

Filed under General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption

August 13, 2022 · 6:13 am

Blog Note

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

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

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!

1 Comment

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