June 14, 2024 · 4:40 pm

We’re in a clash of civilizations, whether we like it or not

Today is Flag Day and the US Army’s birthday. I remain hopeful for our republic.

There have been lots of alarming happenings this week that revved up WWIII chatter in the news and on social media.

To understand what’s happening now in world affairs, I think a good place to start is to realize big power competitions are as old as time and we are in the midst of a big power challenge that’s been unfolding long before Trump ever entered politics.

We can go back to the fairly rapid collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-1992 to see that the world power structure can change rapidly and pretty much in ways the overwhelming majority of the experts and pundits didn’t see coming. The end of the Cold War left the United States in a position of world superpower, which our leaders weren’t prepared for and more often than not didn’t leverage to America’s advantage.

The Reagan era ended and from 1992-2000 the Clinton administration kept trying to kowtow to and legitimize numerous miscreants and anti-American regimes around the world, while also embracing the role of world policeman and getting the US entangled in several UN interventions (some of which ended very badly). There was an emerging foreign policy view that the US should shift its world leader role to more of just part of a globalist alliance and subservient to UN agendas.

Early in GWB’s presidency 9/11, an attack on American soil, happened and from that point on America went full-throttle on a global war on terror, which later developed a parallel foreign policy pipedream of regime-change to implant democracy in hostile Islamic-ruled lands. Many Republicans and Democrats embraced this regime-change foreign policy – it wasn’t just one side. The idea that a sharia governmental system could also be transformed into a democracy was always delusional, in my view, since sharia law is a rigid theocratic system. That’s where US policymakers were though and in Washington, if a few prominent experts start selling a new policy, most of the other prominent ones will just get on board with it. Groupthink rules in US policy circles.

The Obama administration turbo-charged the regime-change efforts, that started in the GWB administration, with dismal outcomes to both the peoples we were supposedly saving by our regime change efforts and to the US military, which expended a lot blood and treasure, while remaining stuck in endless rotations to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond. Decades of non-stop deployments degraded our military readiness, even before Biden came along and forced far-left social engineering policies on the US military. It’s a double whammy to our military, that has definitely left America’s national security in peril, I believe. Add in the Biden open border policies and America is at a very precarious point.

With all these efforts, the Obama policymakers operated as if they had no clue about the Cold War world map and many Republicans, who should have known better, jumped on board the regime change train too. The Russians deployed troops to Syria to prop up Assad, while the Obama administration went on the search for mythical “moderate” Syrian rebels to arm to fight both ISIS and Assad. I strongly suspect the CIA was engaged in gunrunning from Benghazi to Syria and that the “moderate” Syrian rebels they were arming were connected to Al Nusra, which was Al Qaeda in Syria. The Russians were Cold War allies of Syria and maintained a large naval facility at Tartus in Syria, so they weren’t going to sit by and allow the US to topple Assad.

The Obama administration also was ham-handed in Ukraine. Russia was propping up a friendly Ukraine leader, while the Obama team openly and clumsily aided the toppling of that leader. Russia responded by deploying troops into Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Well here again, the Russians had their Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, a port city in Crimea. The Obama administration tucked tail and didn’t challenge the Russian annexation of Crimea… exactly how the Biden administration later had the situation in Afghanistan blow up in their face and then just let the Taliban humiliate the US with that debacle of a withdrawal.

Putin read that Afghanistan debacle as a green light and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago. The US isn’t “poking the bear” by aiding Ukraine, because the bear is already on the attack. China likewise is on the attack – floods of cyberattacks on US infrastructure constantly – to take down our grid and water systems.

It’s the Biden (Obama crowd) weakness that is emboldening Russia and China, because they want to usurp America’s role as the world’s superpower.

This is the big picture of what’s going on. Russia will hype how the US and NATO are escalating things by arming Ukraine and Ukraine attacking Russian assets and supply lines in Russia, but this is hogwash. Russia launched the full-scale invasion into Ukraine. Russia has continually saber-rattled threatening NATO, Poland, Sweden, Moldova and even the US. Russia has threatened nuclear war more than once since invading Ukraine.

Russia is now embarking on boldly approaching US waters off of FL and engaging in naval exercises in Cuba. This isn’t the US poking the bear, this is at the very least Russia and China testing to see how far they can go and if the Biden administration will grovel. At worst, Russia is positioning and training for some actual hostile actions against the US that would surely involve China, Iran and other regimes hostile to the US. Since China, Russia and Iran want to see the US relegated to the dustbin of history (Iran’s rallying cry is “Death to America!”) and this presidential election year will be ripe for exploitation to escalate internal chaos, so all cards are on the table.

Reagan would never have worried about “poking the bear” and for the life of me I don’t understand how craven and silly so much of the right-wing has become. Sorry, the reality is the US will likely be dealing with more challenges to US power, especially if we appease Putin on his Ukraine demands.

These challenges to the US’s world position will continue regardless who is elected in November and in the meantime America’s adversaries want to create as much chaos, division and turmoil in America as possible. The expanding power and influence of China, Russia and Iran will inevitably lead to more clashes.

We have a left that’s become increasingly crazy and there are thousands protesting against Israel, who was attacked by Hamas and cheering on Hamas, a terrorist regime that invaded Israel and massacred over 1,000 people, mostly civilians. And and we have a right that likewise has become increasingly crazy and a crowd that believes not upsetting Putin and not providing Ukraine with arms will lead to peace. Putin invaded Ukraine in a bold effort to try to decapitate the government in Kiev, but there’s a segment of the right in America that blames Ukraine for all the problems. Putin will read the US and Europe abandoning Ukraine as another greenlight to embark on more territorial grabs, not as a time to broker a peace deal.

Has WWIII started? Well, I don’t expect the next major world power structure upheaval to be like WWI or WWIII, with massive armies and land and sea battles. I expect a lot more asymmetrical warfare and totally unconventional conflicts, which has already begun. How long could America withstand major asymmetrical attacks that succeeded, if the people are so divided and won’t unite to defend our homeland or they distrust all the information they hear? I’m more concerned about Americans being so divided than about what America’s adversaries are doing.

I expect things to get crazier as this year goes on, but I will continue to try to live my life as normally as possible – no matter what happens. During WWII British people packed tea and food to take to shelters during air raids and people in war zones still focus on everyday needs and taking care of their families. Trying hard to maintain as much normalcy in you life as possible, no matter what happens, is how you survive and thrive in adversity.

I’m thankful to live in America every day and today I’m proud to see the American flag still waving.

Note: I cross-stitched the picture above decades ago and still love the message: Our Country; Our Destiny.

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Filed under 2024 Election, Foreign Policy, General Interest, Politics

June 11, 2024 · 2:20 pm

Working on growing my gratitude

Big dreams vs. harsh realities hit me again as the summer heat… and pest pressure increased in my vegetable garden here in southeast GA. Being a Yankee at heart, GA summers wilt my spirits. Yes, I know summer hasn’t officially begun, but it sure feels like it has.

Some things grow well here, especially the bugs, so along with bug spray for my plants, I keep a can of deep woods bug spray for me handy too. Flowers and herbs are much easier to grow in my backyard, so this year I’ve planted more flowers, which will provide much needed boosts to my spirit as tomato and squash plant deaths inevitably increase. I’ve got cucumbers forming and so far every single one has small holes in them with worms. I’ve sprayed them several times with BT spray and since I’m not invested in the hoopla about all organic, I’m going to use Sevin spray next. I’m the same about fertilizers and I can guarantee I will not ever use the fish oil emulsion that I see mentioned online frequently, because I avoid all fish products after having an anaphylactic reaction to fish.

I’ve read gardening books and watched many online gardening experts trying to learn more. I learned about the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes and I found a determinate type hybrid cherry tomato variety that does produce a lot of cherry tomatoes before eventually succumbing to the GA heat and plant diseases. I’m still trying to successfully grow larger tomatoes too. The same thing happens with summer squash. I picked a few yellow squash and one zucchini, but I’ve already lost a couple squash plants. I’ll try again in my fall garden effort.

The practical side of me realizes that if I kept track of how much I’ve spent on this container gardening effort I started three years ago, when I decided I wanted to get back to vegetable gardening, that this isn’t saving me any money. However, I am getting better at this container gardening and I love being out in my backyard garden.

Reality checks are important and unfortunately it’s easy to get carried away buying more and more supplies and gadgets or trying to imitate some picture perfect garden set-up you’ve seen in a magazine or online. I’ve seen amazing raised bed set-ups and beautiful greenhouses. I’ve seen all sorts of amazing trellis systems. irrigation systems and even sunshade systems. This year I purchased a better ground cover fabric and put together 4 small metal raised beds that I bought last year. It would take a lot of vegetable production to off-set the cost of even these purchases.

My gardening effort is mainly because I enjoy it. Embarking on backyard gardening with too high of expectations left me sadly disappointed many times over the years, so I’m working on learning to enjoy even the smallest wins. With the wormy cucumbers, I picked them and cut off the bad parts and found that a good bit of each cucumber was fine. I have a container of sliced cucumber in the fridge, ready for salads or snacking. I froze several gallons of blackberries from my blackberry bushes and dried a lot of herbs already, so those are wins. I’ve picked green beans several times. Peppers are producing. And this Burpee hybrid veranda tomato seed has come through again and I’ve got lots of cherry tomatoes ripening every day. The big tomatoes, well, out of ten plants, I’m down to two plants and I’m highly skeptical these will survive long enough to produce any usable tomatoes. There are a few tomatoes forming, but they don’t look promising.

Learning to be grateful for the small wins rather than fixating on the unfulfilled big expectations takes a conscious mind shift. All those big expectations are usually influenced by images I’ve seen online or seen someone else have and it’s really a form of coveting what other people have.

Gardening is like other hobbies. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing if we buy all the right gadgets and gizmos, we’ll end up with picture perfect outcomes. Learning from the failures and gaining more experience usually leads to more success, but learning gratitude for even the small wins helps grow more resilience of my spirit, I think. No matter what garden tragedy occurs, I am deeply grateful I can come inside, sit in my kitchen where the AC keeps it cool and sip on a glass of iced tea. From my kitchen windows I can see my entire container garden, which wasn’t there until three years ago and that puts it into perspective – I’m making progress.

Growing my gratitude matters more than any of the vegetables I planted.

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Filed under Food for Thought, Gardening, General Interest

June 7, 2024 · 8:55 am

Word games escalate

A couple days ago I clicked on Time magazine’s May 28th interview of President Biden. Time actually has this quote on the transcript: “Below is a lightly edited transcript of the interview conducted by TIME Washington Bureau Chief Massimo Calabresi and Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs.” That adverb “lightly” made me distrust Time magazine’s recounting of this interview and I didn’t even waste my time reading any further.

A week ago we were bombarded with media hit takes, recognizable when across liberal media they start repeating the same words and phrases, on the verdict in a NYC court against former President Trump. This week Hunter Biden is on trial in a Delaware court room facing charges that he illegally purchased a gun. Both trials highlight a definite sleaze factor – Trump paying hush money to a porn star and Trump hired Michael Cohen as his personal lawyer and had him on the payroll for years, then there’s Hunter Biden’s drug addiction, sexual relationship with his dead brother’s widow, and a wide array of debauchery he personally chronicled on his laptop.

However, in all fairness the Trump trial had Trump being convicted on 34 counts, where the jurors didn’t even have to agree on the underlying crimes and I still don’t understand how federal crimes that the feds didn’t prosecute could be given new life as the basis for state crimes in NY. In the Hunter Biden case, its clear that Hunter Biden was a drug addict and he lied on his application for purchasing a firearm. Usually federal prosecutors guard their turf when states try to overstep, but in Trump’s case, the #3 lawyer at the DOJ joined the NY prosecutor’s team to get Trump. All of it will lead to more corruption, less trust in the criminal justice system and more abuses of power. America is on a very dangerous path.

Democrats are way more organized, ruthless, and shameless in lawfare and in their media spin war efforts. Yesterday, I saw a Dem talking point warning that Trump will try to throw his political opponents in jail… as Trump is awaiting sentencing in July and could have a Biden-supporting judge toss him in jail. It’s surreal at this point.

If you aren’t emotionally invested in one of the partisan sides, well, I think most people would consider America’s leaders and their families trashy and corrupt. The media, across the board, is trashy and corrupt too. However, Democrats and their liberal media friends have decades of experience running these elaborate spin war operations and Republicans only began to grasp the scope of the Dems spin information war since Donald Trump entered the political arena.

When it comes to sleaze, we can add in all these highfaluting, top former intelligence officials, who pedaled the Clinton campaign’s bogus Steele dossier, purporting Trump was colluding with the Russians and presented the dossier as a serious intelligence report by a former British spy. Along with the “dossier” (doesn’t that word sound official,) since 2016, the “consensus of experts via a letter released to the media” has become a common Democrat spin tool of persuasion. There have been a string of these letters, orchestrated by Democrats to fearmonger and spread lies about Trump and intelligence information, which the liberal media then puts on blast to amplify. In October 2020 many of the same officials who pedaled the Steele dossier in the media got behind a letter signed by dozens of former intel officials stating that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

The mainstream media and social media companies tried to squash the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, but this week, the federal prosecutor in this Hunter Biden gun trial called a FBI expert to the stand, who testified under oath that the FBI had the Hunter Biden laptop in custody in 2019 – long before the November 2020 election and the FBI knew the laptop was Hunter’s and not Russian disinformation. Why didn’t the FBI issue any kind of statement in 2020 after those former intelligence officials released that letter? Did any of those former top intelligence officers contact the FBI for information? And, what does Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State, who reportedly orchestrated that intelligence officers’ letter spin effort, have to say?

In the past few days, media reports that top Democrat senator from NY, Chuck Schumer has a brother at some fancy law firm and his brother provided three of the firms top lawyers to be part of Alvin Bragg’s team to prosecute Trump. So, it wasn’t only the DOJ’s #3 top lawyer who assisted Bragg. And at the same time Democrats and their liberal media cronies keep blabbing about how serious these cases against Trump are, how they’re all about “protecting our democracy,” and how there’s nothing political about these cases.

No matter what happens to Trump, Democrats have normalized their scorched earth spin war, where they’ll spin up any lies with the aid of their media friends, if it advances their political objectives and now they’ve normalized using the courts to take down political opponents. It’s going to be very hard to reestablish boundaries in our politics, even if there’s a public demand for it. And once one side stakes out new political rules and boundaries, the other side will surely play by the new rules. The Trump campaign in the 2024 GOP primary adopted many of the same vile Dem spin game tactics against Ron DeSantis and at times both Democrats/liberal media and Trump mouthpieces were running the same orchestrated spin lies to destroy DeSantis.

All the words coming out of our political class ring hollow and sorry, the political class won’t save America. In 2024, Trump might look like the safer choice, even to Republicans and conservatives who cringe at Trump’s lying and baggage (for example, like hush money to a porn star and having sleazebag Michael Cohen on his payroll), but the truth is political partisans and our media, across the board, are 100% committed to escalating the spin information war, not ending it.

In 2024, we have two old men running for office – one whose cognitive function is declining rapidly and who has always been a big liar and the other doesn’t look well either and he too has always been a big liar. That’s the truth. We’re still left with picking the lesser of two evils. Even a conservative like me, who doesn’t care for Trump at all, can say Trump policies were better for me and my family and better for America, but what’s on my mind is this scorched earth spin information war could easily take more dangerous turns before we even get to election day this year. Democrats successfully used the FBI and intelligence agencies in their scorched earth spin operations, even when Trump was president. Now, Democrats control the executive branch. What’s left for Dem scorched earth tactics to stop Trump? We’re sure to find out in the next few months.

It’s been over 20 years that I’ve been blabbing about the danger of this spin information war having only one outcome – tearing our country apart and I still believe that. There is no 2024 candidate who is going to save America as long as Americans buy into this scorched earth spin information as an acceptable part of our political process

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Filed under 2024 Election, General Interest, Information War, Politics

June 3, 2024 · 11:42 am

Thoughts on the Trump conviction

Often with our American political dramas the media noise drowns out important bits of information and sweeps us along with narratives intended to fuel partisan divides and incite emotional reactions. That hype keeps people watching and clicking along, but often too many people just buy into the narratives and repeat the talking points fed to them. Those emotional reactions also drive poll numbers, which in this never-ending spin information war, get hyped by the media and political pundits and are a constant fixture used to sell the media narratives. This is a sophisticated form of manipulating and selling manufactured “public opinion.”

So, this past week with the criminal conviction of former President Trump on 34 counts, there were important bits of information that weren’t hyped.

First there’s this bit of information: Prosecutors Met With Biden Admin Before 3 Trump Indictments. Alvin Bragg met with the Biden DOJ before filing state charges against former President Trump.

The next bit of information is in this MSN news story: Scrutiny of prosecutor Matthew Colangelo intensifies after Trump conviction. So, Colangelo was the #3 person in the Biden DOJ and he left that position in 2022 to join Alvin Bragg’s DA office in NYC. This guy left a top DOJ position to work in a city DA office… From this MSN story:

“Bragg plucked Colangelo from his top post at the DOJ to help with white-collar prosecutions in December 2022. Colangelo had little experience in that field, but he did have a wealth of knowledge about Trump.”

“Before working at the DOJ, Colangelo worked for Attorney General Letitia James, who investigated Trump for three years before bringing a massive civil lawsuit against him and the Trump Organization in the fall of 2022.”

After watching the Democrat efforts to use lawfare to destroy Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, well, it’s obvious these legal cases are completely political and not about justice. The case that I thought had the most merit was the mishandling classified documents, but here again it’s hard to take that seriously considering President Biden mishandled classified information too and no charges were brought.

Then there was Hillary Clinton using her husband’s private email server, that he had set up in their home for his Clinton Foundation work, as her State Dept. server while she was Secretary of State. Of course, she also had classified information in some of those emails, that she mishandled. The Clintons, with the aid of the media, were able to spin Hillary into a victim of a right-wing witch-hunt and never honed in on why Hillary used Bill Clinton’s private server for her State Dept. work. Through all the investigative drama, it wasn’t until I read the FBI Notes, released in the Fall of 2016 that I understood the origins of the Clinton server – Bill Clinton had his aide, Justin Cooper, set up that homebrew server, for his foundation work. Hillary used other email providers for her email, until she became Secretary of State. According to the FBI timeline in their server investigation it was in the weeks before Hillary became Secretary of State, the Clintons had Cooper and Hillary’s campaign IT guy, Bryan Pagliano, upgrade the homebrew server, to accommodate Hillary’s State Dept. email load. That’s what the upgrade was all about – merging her State Dept. information with their Clinton Foundation business. So, she used other email service providers, then rather than use the State Dept. secure email system, the Clintons merged Hillary’s State Dept. business with their Clinton Foundation business on a homebrew server in their home. There was also the bleach bit server in Hillary’s email investigation and she never turned over many of the FBI subpoenaed electronic devices – she had numerous BlackBerry devices (some destroyed by Cooper with a hammer) and out of 5 iPads, only 3 were turned over to the FBI.

After all the Clinton corruption in 2016 from the email scandal to the bogus Clinton campaign smear operation “Steele dossier,” well, now we’re supposed to get outraged about Trump paying hush money to a porn star in 2016. Sorry, the two separate sets of rules, where Democrats, with the aid of the liberal media, can spin away all their crimes and then spin up Trump as the biggest threat to democracy, who’s going to destroy the world… well, I am done trusting anything the media reports. I also admit that after listening to many explanations on these charges against Trump, I was left shaking my head trying to understand the underlying crimes… and then I thought about all the Clinton campaign and Democrat efforts to corruptly “influence the 2016 election.” C’mon, some shady bookkeeping vs. the efforts of the DNC and Clinton campaign to hire Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS to concoct the Steele dossier.

In 2022, CNN reported: FEC fines Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC over Trump-Russia dossier research. This article states, “The Clinton campaign and the DNC never conceded that they violated campaign finance laws, but they agreed to drop their pushback and accept the civil fines, according to the FEC letter.” The DNC was fined $105,000 and the Clinton campaign was fined $8,000 and now we’re suppose to think Trump facing up to 20 years in prison is justice. From USA Today: “Each of the 34 counts Trump was convicted of individually has a maximum sentence of four years. Sentences can be imposed consecutively – meaning they must be served one after the other – but New York has a 20-year maximum consecutive sentence for Class E felonies.”

Clearly, there are two sets of rules when it comes to Democrats and Trump. The FEC dropped the hush money Trump matter, but then the Biden DOJ and Soros-backed prosecutors met and conjured up these 2024 campaign year cases against Trump hyping 2016 campaign actions. However, if you bring up the 2016 Clinton campaign corruption the mainstream media and Democrats insist it’s a witch-hunt against Hillary.

There are no guardrails left for Democrat spin information war, when the FBI buys into and sells Dem talking points like the white nationalism hysteria or Comey inventing an intent provision in the law to exonerate Hillary, or top intelligence officials routinely leaking information to attack Trump or signing a letter released to the media that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, to now they’re using lawfare and turning the criminal justice system into a potent political weapon to try to take out a GOP presidential candidate.

It won’t stop with attacking Trump. Anyone who gets in the way of the Democrats agenda will be targeted by the Democrat political machine. Supreme Court Justice Alito is under attack by Democrats and liberal media now for a flag his wife flew in front of their home. Justice Thomas is a regular target. We all saw what happened to Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing. Democrats have no qualms about attacking some courts and judges in America, while they rant about “protecting our democracy” and how we must respect this NYC court verdict.

Beyond our shores, America is looking less and less like a shining city on a hill and more like a banana republic.

This intensifying “winning by any means necessary” could reach a tipping point quickly. Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July and at this point, I won’t be surprised if this judge, who donated to the Biden campaign, imposes a sentence with jail time for Trump. I don’t think millions of Trump supporters will passively sit by and watch a former president, who they believe is a victim of corrupt Democrat prosecutions, be carted off to jail.

Democrats and their media allies are trying to ramp up branding Trump a “convicted felon,” but that’s likely to fall on deaf ears for half the country. We’re at a dangerous point when half the country loses faith in the rule of law and justice in America.

This presidential election year has now taken a dangerous turn and all bets are off on what happens next. Things could easily go off-the-rails very quickly, if Trump is sentenced to jail time.

It’s a good time for all of us to work on becoming better prepared for a bumpy road to the 2024 US presidential election. The 2020 election year dramas could very easily look like minor bumps in the road compared to the next few months.

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Filed under 2024 Election, General Interest, Hillary's Email Scandal, Information War, Politics

May 30, 2024 · 7:17 pm

The embarrassing end of the Gaza pier project

Two days ago there were reports that the US-built floating Gaza pier was damaged and broke loose during rough seas. This pier idea was a disaster waiting to happen from the beginning and now is another embarrassing Biden administration military disaster to add to the list.

The Pentagon announced a suspension of pier operations and admitted none of the aid delivered reached the Gazan civilian population – a total failure. Before moving on we should take a look at the state of the US military, because this Gaza pier boondoggle should have Americans outraged and demanding a serious shake-up in the Pentagon.

In April the ship transporting equipment to Gaza for this pier project had an engine fire and had to return to Jacksonville, FL Here’s a quote, “USNS 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo (T-AK-3008) experienced a fire in its engine room on Thursday, April 11, while it was on its way to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea with equipment and personnel for the humanitarian efforts planned via a temporary pier in Gaza, a Navy spokesperson said in a statement to USNI News.” from a USNI article, Navy Transport With Equipment, Personnel for Gaza Pier Back Home After Engine Fire.

A week ago there were news reports of three US servicemembers being injured in Gaza pier operations, with non-combat related injuries, but one was in critical condition and being treated in an Israeli hospital. ABC News on May 23, 2024 reported:

“Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM deputy commander, didn’t provide specifics Thursday other than saying they were non-combat-related injuries and that two of the service members had returned to duty, while the third is receiving care at a local Israeli hospital.”

“A defense official told ABC News the third service member is in critical condition and was injured aboard the USNS Benavidez, a U.S. Navy cargo ship. A U.S. official said it involved a forklift accident.” https://abcnews.go.com/International/3-us-service-members-treated-injuries-related-pier-gaza/story?id=110519574

Here’s a FOX News headline from today: Former MSNBC anchor trashes Biden after $320M Gaza pier falls apart: ‘What a bloody s—show’.

Americans have a solid belief in the US military being invincible, but after over 20 years of endless deployments, we have a force that’s degraded. This October 2023 Stars and Stripes article, The US military has a readiness problem, states, “Training exercises are not preparing units for the realities of the modern battlefield, sustainment issues are keeping complex platforms out of action, and a high operational tempo driven by “forward presence” missions is pushing the joint force to a breaking point. Pentagon leadership might be loath to acknowledge it, but the military has a growing readiness problem on its hands.”

Granted over $300 million dollars thrown into this Gaza pier boondoggle is a drop in the bucket Mediterranean compared to watching Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, try to explain how after spending $7.5 billion dollars on the green push, so far only a handful of EV chargers have actually been built (Pete Buttigieg Ridiculed for Joe Biden’s $7.5 Billion ‘Massive Failure’), but still this Gaza pier debacle still should not sink into the ocean of Biden failures that the media paddles past as fast as possible.

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Filed under General Interest, Military, Politics

May 20, 2024 · 7:25 pm

It’s about the small things

The news is still filled with loads of doom and gloom. Had to go pick up a few things at the grocery store today – the cost of food is alarming. I’m glad I have a lot of food stocked up already, but I plan to continue stocking up.

Small things can help you weather all of these trials and challenges, that’s what I believe.

With spending so much time working on my garden and yard, I’ve spent a lot less time perusing social media. That has had a very beneficial effect on my attitude. Sure, I am still following the news, still aware of the political and cultural chaos swirling, but despite that I feel more positive and upbeat. Over the years, as my late husband’s health declined, I stopped sitting outside and being outside regularly. Besides the gardening effort, I decided to spend some time sitting outside each day, weather permitting. I carry my coffee to a small table on my patio in the morning and some days eat meals outside too. It seems such a small thing, but it uplifts my spirit.

Each day I try to learn something new. Today I learned about florida betony and I realized that this weed grows profusely in my backyard. When I was getting my containers for my container garden ready, I dumped the soil from my containers into the wheelbarrow and pulled out the weeds, added some compost and refilled my containers. I had a big pile of weeds with loads of these tuberous roots. Today, I learned that weed is florida betony, it’s edible, including all those roots I threw away. This weed also has medicinal uses. Right in front of me was a “weed” that I was working hard to get rid of, that is probably as beneficial as the vegetables I’ve been planting. Learning about this weed gave me pause, as I thought about how hard I worked to get rid of it.

All around us there are likely hidden treasures, that with a bit of information and know-how could become a blessing. Along with learning about this prolific weed, I learned that sharing information can help people too. I gave extra tomato plants and other veggies, that I had too many started, to a friend. She was happy to have these plants, but she was not set-up or prepared for a vegetable gardening effort. I tried to offer her advice on how to go about this in the most economical way, because any way you go with buying bagged soil can add up quickly, not to mention other supplies. I’m still learning as I go along with this container gardening effort and for me it’s working. I don’t want to try to go back to planting an in-ground garden and all the effort that went into tilling and composting (which my late husband turned into his effort). I added four small metal raised beds this spring.

You’ve got to grow a lot of food consistently to recoup the cost of supplies. I garden mainly because I love it, but with the cost of food at the grocery store showing no sign of easing, being able to produce some of my own food feels like a tiny bit of extra security. Realizing how many weeds and things growing around me are edible has been an eye-opener, as I’ve been trying to learn more about foraging and wild plants. As I googled florida betony, I even found recipes for pickling it and how to incorporate it into curries and stir-fries. This information seemed like it might be more important to know than all the latest details of our partisan political soap operas.

The photo at the top is a handbook I found at my local Goodwill long ago. It’s a 2004 copyright and a local person whited out their name and address inside the front cover. I am not a master gardener, nor have I taken a master gardener’s course, although I’ve thought about applying many times. That said, this handbook is one of my most valuable resources for gardening information for my area. UGA has loads of online information for GA gardeners and farmers too.

I’m beginning to think that knowing all the latest happenings that people on social media blab about won’t matter at all in a real crisis, but knowing more about my own area and especially my own backyard definitely might be vital.

I gave extra vegetable plants to two other people and that’s a personal goal I’m focusing on in my life- to pass on extra things to help others. I always start more seeds than I need. I keep a few to have as replacements, in case some meet an untimely end, but I try to give away the others.

Small things matter.

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Filed under Food for Thought, Gardening, General Interest

May 13, 2024 · 3:01 pm

A garden tour

It’s been a bit since I wrote a blog post, but I’ve been busy getting my backyard garden set up and working in my front yard too. I’ve continued with the container gardening, but I added two metal raised beds and I have two more metal raised beds to put together. I bought these raised beds last year, but never got them put together. Each one has 40 nuts and bolts and my fingers were worn out after getting these two together. I have some diabetic neuropathy in my fingertips and I’m giving my fingers a rest before attempting to put the other two together. Filling them was easier than putting them together. And yes, my patio needs pressure washing desperately – I’m always potting and messing with plants on it.

The dog is Marius, my late husband’s dog and he’s 16 years old. I put down a different ground cover fabric that I ordered online from Grower’s Solution. After watching a Living Traditions Homestead video, where Kevin and Sarah offered tips on using ground cover fabric, I’m skipping putting woodchips on top of this, like I did with the cheaper ground cover fabric I used the past two years. This better quality ground cover fabric is working much better and by skipping the woodchips, I’m noticing a lot less bugs bothering my plants so far. The only issue with this ground cover fabric is it gets very hot on hot days and I’ve had to keep the dogs off of it, even though Marius loves to walk on it and lay out in the sun on it in the mornings. Marius walked onto it when it was hot and he got in a panic.

The green beans are getting ready to bloom.

These are the same Burpee Veranda hybrid tomatoes I’ve grown the past few years – it’s a patio tomato, gets 18″ to 24″ tall and produces loads of cherry tomatoes that grow in tight clusters. I started my seeds inside in early March. I have some bigger tomato plants too – think I started Better Boy this year.

This is a yellow squash. I planted a few zucchinis and patty pan squash too. There are two types of peppers and cucumbers growing. I have some grow bags with celery and I’ve never tried growing celery before.

Zinnias from seed I saved a couple years ago.

Cosmos from seed I saved.

Marigolds from seed I saved.

This tarragon plant I started from seed last year and it’s growing back.

This oregano I started from seed in 2022 and it keeps growing. I also have dill, lemon balm, parsley, stevia and thyme that just grew back too.

I bought a small pot of rosemary at Walmart in 2022 and it just keeps growing.

When I decided to get back to gardening in 2022, I ordered some fruit bushes from Stark Bros. I got 6 blackberry bushes that spring, but didn’t plant them in the ground until fall. I didn’t build a trellis, just let them ramble. They are loaded with huge blackberries this year.

I had gotten 4 blueberry bushes at Lowe’s in 2022 and this year I added four more blueberry bushes.

I’ve got other assorted flowers and herbs growing too.

I started some balloon flower seeds in a small square Dollar Tree container in 2022. They grew and grew and I gave some plants away. This spring I’ve given more away and I filled this raised bed with them, plus have some other large flower pots with them. Apparently, in Korea the roots of this flower are eaten and it has medicinal uses. I just think the flowers are beautiful, but I’m containing it to this raised bed from now on.

I’ll be back to politics when I have time, but for now it’s pretty busy in my own backyard.

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Filed under Gardening, General Interest

April 28, 2024 · 8:59 am

A reminder that BLM has morphed into the Free Palestine movement

Another radical, far-left protest effort kicked into high-gear this past week and it’s spreading (internationally). There’s been news reporting about authorities looking into orchestration and funding in these protests. Let’s hope they look beyond our shores, because there’s international orchestration.

Past is prologue, the saying goes, so looking back, there was an international protest effort following an American presidential election in 2016, with that Women’s March hoopla. Here’s a bit from History.com:

“On the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency, hundreds of thousands of people crowd into the U.S. capital for the Women’s March on Washington, a massive protest in the nation’s capital aimed largely at the Trump administration and the threat it represented to reproductive, civil and human rights.”

“At the same time, more than 3 million people in cities across the country and around the world held their own simultaneous protests in a global show of support for the resistance movement. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.”

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/womens-march

COVID, of course, led to global orchestration too, selling us Italy’s lockdown response initially and all the viral videos of Italians singing on their balconies. Here’s a March 14, 2020 CNBC story: Italians are singing songs from their windows to boost morale during coronavirus lockdown. We were being massively manipulated and conditioned to accept government infringements on our personal liberties. Of course, any who dared to protest in public were evil MAGA goons, recklessly jeopardizing public safety… until BLM launched their global protest movement. Then suddenly large protest crowds weren’t dangerous… That’s how it went. Many states still had strict funeral COVID rules, but of course none of those rules applied to the George Floyd memorial services. 2020 was the year of the pandemic and BLM protests/riots… and a US presidential election.

Here we are in another American presidential election year and lo’ and behold another far-left protest effort, the pro-Hamas protests, are igniting across American college campuses and in numerous cities. In 2020 the far-left’s protesting shifted from Covid-related themes to George Floyd/BLM and this pro-Hamas protesting will likely shift to other leftist themes, but I expect the left’s taking to the streets chaos to escalate through the rest of this year. Big money fuels the fire and fans of the flames of progressive taking to the streets political action.

After the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7th, very quickly pro-Hamas protests began (internationally again) and although the Biden administration consistently blabs about their ironclad commitment to Israel, they also started hyping Islamophobia, despite escalating threats against Jewish citizens here in America. Very quickly there was a case of a Muslim boy murdered in Illinois that splashed across the media. I wrote a blog post, BLM morphs into “Free Palestine” movement, back in November 2023. News media reported that boy’s family was being represented by Ben Crump (BLM fame) and CAIR was speaking for the family…

There was also more attacking statues back in November 2023, just like during the George Floyd protests/riots. The same playbook is being used now.

It seems that how government officials and law enforcement respond will differ dramatically based on whether it’s a Democrat-run vs. Republican-run state. Some states with Republican governors aren’t buying into any of this far-left/news media spin garbage anymore.

Other chaos this year seems more likely than not in America, but I’m still optimistic for America.   And yes, there are still America’s foreign enemies waiting to strike, but I prefer to be a believer in our American grit, tenacity and spirit to see us through.

The economic woes continue and that’s hitting everyone, no matter whether you live in a red or blue state. There’s plenty of bad news every day.

Everyone sees the world differently. A couple days ago I was chatting with a dear friend and mostly we were talking about gardening and flower stuff. I had dropped off some more plants for her that I started from seed, because I had extras. I’ve enjoyed planting seeds since I was a kid, when my mother taught me how to save flower seeds. I’ll post some pictures soon of my container garden effort and this is working better for me right now than an in-ground garden, due to my knees and back not being up to that.

At some point I’ll likely put in raised beds, but I’m not sure how I want to arrange raised beds in my backyard, so until then, I’m doing a container garden again. This year I ordered a better quality ground cover fabric and put that down. Although I had covered the ground cover fabric with wood chips for a couple years and that looked nice, this year I’m skipping the wood chips, because a lot of weeds grew in the wood chips. I use mostly 5 gallon grow bags and plastic pots, so I can move them around easily and arrange them how I want. A raised bed can’t be moved around easily.

That’s the thing, we all arrive at how we make decisions and commitments differently. I hadn’t had a garden in many years, but after my husband died in 2021, I thought about planting a garden. In 2022, I finally made up my mind to attempt a garden without him. When we used to have a garden, he did the heavy-lifting jobs and was better at planning infrastructure. At first I intended to plant some containers of tomatoes and a few other things on my patio. Then I had too many plants started and my container garden idea took shape. Since 2022, I keep making changes to my garden and this year, I decided that along with vegetables, planting more flowers is a goal. I’ll post some photos soon.

So, with my friend, she’s excited about planting the tomatoes, peppers, squash, herbs and even a couple flower plants I gave her, but along with the gardening effort, since 2020 I changed my preparedness efforts too and have been working to be prepared for longer term emergencies. I had mentioned stocking up extra water and food to my friend several times since 2020. I stopped mentioning it, because I didn’t think she was listening and this has happened with some family members too. Yesterday she brought up stocking up more food and I told her that’s a good idea. She told me her pastor keeps telling them to stock up food and be prepared. She started discussing what she’s doing and I’m very glad she’s making the effort.

If more Americans get on board the offering a helping hand rather than get riled about the 24/7 media outrage theater, we’ll all be better off.

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April 15, 2024 · 5:51 am

Rumors of war

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

– Daniel Webster

Over the weekend Iran launched a massive drone, cruise and ballistic missile attack against Israel. Political and pundit reactions and hot takes on Israeli and world responses started pouring out before we even knew much in the way of details as the strike was ongoing.

We also had Biden White House murmurings being reported that President Biden was warning Israel not to retaliate.

There’s a segment of the American right that has become hardcore isolationist and won’t support US military action anywhere or for any reason and they sound, to me, the same as the segment of the American left that reacts the same way – no war under any circumstances. I’ve always felt that isolationists have the luxury of being isolationists in America, because we have a strong military, prepared to defend our nation.

So, then we get to speaking truth about Iran – Iran declared war on America decades ago. Their official policy has been “Death to America” since 1979. When they declare Death to America and rant about defeating the Great Satan (America) as their top tier foreign policy objective, we should believe them.

This truth about Iran should guide American foreign policy decisions, but it doesn’t.

Democrats believe the Obama Iran deaI would change Iran’s foreign policy toward the US and deter Iran’s belligerent actions in the Middle East. The Democrat position that’s high on Obama Iran deal pipedreams seems delusional in light of Iran’s continued attacks against America and American allies. The reality is Iran has been attacking American military assets and personnel continually, especially via Iranian-backed proxies and Shia militias in Iraq, rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th last year, Iranian-backed groups have attacked US military interests over 170 times and three US servicemembers were killed in an Iranian-backed attack in January.

It’s myopic to pretend that we’re not involved in the ongoing war that Israel is engaged in. For all of Biden’s telling Netanyahu not to retaliate, he ordered the US military to help defend Israel during that weekend Iranian attack. The Biden policy remains convoluted and incoherent toward achieving any real strategic aims. Biden officials continually talk out of both sides of their mouths and pretend that words can gloss over deeds – so, yes, they keep saying we support Israel, but at the same time they’re undercutting Israel at every turn. They are also still committed to Obama’s Iran deal and believe that the Iranian government, which proclaims “Death to America,” can be trusted to act in good faith.

Biden’s public lecturing Israel about a ceasefire in Gaza and now urging Israel not to retaliate against Iran is read by America’s enemies the same way they read the American political right urging no aid to Ukraine and urging Ukraine to stop fighting – our enemies read that as American weakness and appeasement. History clearly shows that this will lead to our enemies being emboldened to more aggressive actions. In the most simplistic terms, I think, Iran wants to be the dominate power in the Middle East, Russia wants to retake former Soviet territories, China wants to take Taiwan and replace the United States as the world’s #1 superpower. The foreign policy expert class remains widely divided on how to contend with our adversaries’ aspirations

There are silly and simplistic reactions calling for a too forceful response and some calling for a too weak response, however after over 170 Iranian-backed attacks against US military interests in six months, three dead US servicemembers and now this attack on Israel, it seems like the no retaliation response would be suicidal for Israel and pretending the US isn’t involved in this war is likewise delusional.

There’s an argument about the monetary cost of military action being too high with the state of our economy, but I would argue the economic costs, if we allow Iran, Russia and China to disrupt more global shipping, (hint, that’s a large part of what Iran, Russia and China have been doing), and if they take more aggressive actions to expand their power beyond their borders will be even more costly.

There are various levels of military responses the US could take to make sure Iran gets the message. Even US missile strikes can send a strong message or a weak message, as we learned during the Clinton administration and which the Obama and Biden administration are now following suit. If the US targets Iranian interests or assets that are not high-value (the Biden approach), the message is we aren’t serious. Those are signals of weakness – just going through the motions of a response and that’s really just more appeasement. Of course, there can be over-the-top responses, like the people who rant about nuking adversaries. The better response for America is likely somewhere in the middle or supporting Israel responding as it sees fit (which will be a strong response) and then getting more aid to Israel quickly.

Appeasement and not responding to aggression are actions. That is choosing not to defend your country or interests. History shows that not responding to military aggression can result in a heavy cost, including emboldening adversaries to make more aggressive military moves and leading to wider conflicts. Deterrents can work, but the Biden administration so far has offered only muddled word salad responses and missile strikes against low-value targets.

The reality is America does have direct interests with what happens in Ukraine and what happens in Israel.

We aren’t an island unto ourselves.

Weighing what we know vs. the unknowns, brought me back to thinking about a 2015 piece, Thucydides Was Right: Defining the Future Threat, written by Dr. Colin S. Gray and published at the US Army War College. I’m going to be rereading this piece. I talked to one of my sisters on the phone yesterday and we were talking about leaders who react to crises emotionally. My sister is retired from the Air Force and has a lot of experience handling crisis communications. She echoed my belief that emotional responses are terrible leadership in a crisis and will lead to bad decisions. In fact, making decisions based on emotion and fear will lead to bad decisions for anyone. We definitely need calmer heads, but too many of our elected leaders and most of the news media now seem to spend more time on their social media hot take drama than they do in calmly and carefully reading and analyzing information. Instead, they rush out with emotionally-charged statements to try to garner news media attention.

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Filed under Foreign Policy, Military

April 12, 2024 · 8:03 pm

We can all try to pay it forward

It’s been a couple weeks since I wrote a blog post and mostly I’ve been feeling like why add to the online glut of online opinion pieces, when I could be outside working in my garden or working on other things. I’ve also stepped away from following so much news and social media content.

What’s particularly unhelpful in my life is social media content that’s hyping lists of things to buy now, before something dire happens and it’s not available. There’s quite a bit of social media homesteading/prepper content where that constant drama and fearmongering has become their daily bread and butter. Those content creators rail about criticisms that they’re fearmongering and stand firm about their righteousness, as their apocalyptic clickbait titles suck in viewers… and revenue for them. Fear and drama sell.

The news media has followed that formula in their coverage for decades too and it’s true, that “if it bleeds, it leads.” On Monday there was a total solar eclipse over a swath of the United States. I live in an area that had a partial eclipse, but two of my children and the grandkids live in areas where there was a total eclipse. I normally follow big astronomical happenings and find them fascinating, but between the right-wing doomsday type crazy that erupted weeks before this solar eclipse and left-wing crazy with fearmongering about closing schools to protect children from looking at the eclipse with bare eyes and then the all-around fearmongering about threats of large crowds/terrorism, well, I didn’t feel anything but annoyed. I turned on FOX News that day too and their coverage was insultingly phony- trying to generate enthusiasm and ending up acting like this was some earth-shattering event that would change the world. It was over-the-top on faked excitement.

The thing is pop culture and most of America have reacted accordingly to these media-generated events and now since the advent of social media, millions of Americans react and follow their favorite social media content creators in the same way. Heck, I’m susceptible too, especially when it comes to content creators promoting kitchen gadgets, gardening stuff and I limit my consumption of needlework & crafting videos, because I will be tempted to purchase more supplies – that I definitely don’t need.

Where I draw the line though is people talking like they are God’s messenger promoting their fearmongering. It’s not helping people to constantly hype the sky-is-falling to scare people into action and there’s a lot of that on social media. I personally don’t believe God wants us to live in fear and even in a crisis, I prefer to surround myself with calm, cheerful and upbeat people rather than the sky-is-falling type people. Most people function better with positive leadership.

The other tried and true manipulation is to talk about “people like us” vs. “them,” to con viewers into believing they are the good people. It’s not being good to work at dividing people. I know lots of good people who hold totally different views than mine – they have different political and religious beliefs, but that doesn’t make them part of some “them” group, because they’re Americans and entitled to believe whatever the heck they choose to believe. If a major SHTF event happens, we likely will be around the people who happen to be where we are when the event happens. If you’re surrounded by your hand-picked group, well, wonderful, but most people will be dealing with the people who are around them when the event happens. We likely will have to deal with all sorts of people to survive.

There are definitely many big things happening – wars spreading, climate/weather events, economic turmoil, political and social turmoil too, but I don’t see how creating constant drama about “the collapse is happening” or “beware of April 8th” or any of the other online conspiracy drama helps anyone become better prepared for adversity. It’s more constructive to figure out ways to manage cheerfully, even through adversity, than it is to try to borrow trouble every day. By nature I’ve always had a preparedness mindset and I try to avoid problems, by planning ahead for “what ifs.” Often I fail or something I hadn’t thought about happens. There have been plenty of times when I’ve had to ask other people for help.

True story: My son recently visited a friend. My son told me that one day his friend was at work and the power went out in his friend’s apartment, so he texted him and asked where he keeps his emergency lighting supplies. His friend didn’t have any emergency lighting supplies. I ordered a box of 4 more LED battery-powered lanterns on amazon and I told my son to take two of those for his friend when he visits again. That’s a very small thing to help someone.

Many people have done small things that helped me out a great deal and I’ve been very grateful for that. We can all pay it forward, as we can. Robert Heinlein’s 1951 novel, Between Planets, popularized that phrase, “pay it forward,” but the concept is probably as old as there have been groups of people. Trying to help people, where we can and with a cheerful heart seems a better approach than this constant drama that has been spreading, especially within the online homestead/prepping communities

It’s best to take people as you find them and then work to find some common ground. America used to have a culture of preparedness. Certainly a good bit of that was Cold War fearmongering, but there was also the Boy Scout/Girl Scout type preparedness, where kids were taught that being prepared was part of being a good citizen. The scouting preparedness was about acquiring skills. America could definitely benefit from a people who learn more skills and practice good citizenship, but we can leave the hiding under our desks in fear behind.

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Filed under Emergency Preparedness, General Interest