Allyson

ABC is being forced has agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s Presidential Library(1) after being found guilty of defamation of character. “ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million toward Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll(2).”

This is an interesting ending, one I sort of wish Trump had pushed to completion instead of settling. Carroll has never managed to get Trump convicted of rape. What she did was make complaints, and her lawyers set things up such that the jury decided the Bad Orange Man had to be guilty of something, so they went with the lesser charge of sexual assault and/or battery. Please know, that charge (which was not, to my knowledge, defined beyond that) can be handed off to someone who patted the ass of someone in public. It’s ridiculous. I have a real problem with it, because if someone has committed sexual assault, it needs to be dealt with in a court of law. If you can’t prove that it happened, then you need to walk away. Does it suck? Yeah, sometimes it does. But this is America. We don’t get to presume someone guilty until proven innocent, as they do in other countries.

Regardless, he was never convicted of rape, and ABC has to pay for saying he was. It’s not enough, though. We need to get back to our roots, where someone is innocent until PROVEN guilty. Not guessed. Not raked over the media coals. PROVEN guilty, in a court of law, in front of a jury of peers or a judge. I’m tired of the media telling us what to believe.

There have been a few wins for Trump, of late, beyond winning the Presidency. Near as I can tell, he’s basically stopped WWIII. Canada is so upset that they’ve got politicians standing up and vowing to tighten the border while simultaneously saying that Canadians must stand up for Canada and how dare the United States stand up for the United States! It’s rather funny, or it would be if it were a joke.

In the media, we’re seeing interesting reports. Democracy Forward is saying that Trump loses 93% of his cases in court(3), but it isn’t quite that simple. If you go to Policy Integrity’s “round up,(4)” you can see a list of the things Trump won and lost in his first term. If you actually read them, some of the “losses” are wins for Trump. It’s hard to understand, because they (the media, and these sites that report about court cases) just seem to dump everything out in a way that’s difficult to follow. I can only assume that’s because it hides the fact that Trump is doing pretty well.

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I love making different feasts. It pleases me to no end to come up with some new recipe based on something I saw in passing online. This recipe is based on something I saw on TikTok, and another recipe that I skimmed through on Facebook.

Ingredients:

• pork ribs (2 per person, roughly)
• barbecue sauce (your favorite)
• orange juice
• cranberries
• salt, pepper, paprika, thyme, oregano, red pepper flakes

Grease a large oven-safe pot or pan, deep enough to contain all the ribs plus the liquids. I use no-stick spray, but you could use any fat, really. Preheat your oven to 250F.

Place your ribs into the pan in whatever manner you like, but in a single layer. Don’t stack them on top of each other, or some will be delicious and the rest will be hard and yucky. While the oven preheats, whisk together the barbecue sauce and juice, then add in the spices until it’s right for you. You want enough to cover the top of your ribs, but not to drown them. They’ll make their own liquid as they cook, so you just need to coat the top.

Cover the top of the ribs with the sauce, using a brush to get all the nooks and crannies. Add in the whole, fresh cranberries or some dried ones (or dried cherries, or whatever floats your boat here). Cover the pan with a lid or tin foil, and place in the oven. Bake for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, check on the ribs. They should be partially cooked (pork ribs are fully cooked when they reach an internal temperature of 210F, but they also tend to fall apart when you try to take their temperature, so you can just judge it by that if you like) at this point. Move the ribs around if some of them are sticking out or looking dry, but otherwise, just check on them. Raise the temperature of your oven to 350F, and continue to bake, covered, until the pork is falling apart and ready. You’ll know it’s ready when it basically falls apart when you poke it with a fork.

Serve up hot, with delicata squash and fresh made spinach noodles.

Notes:

I spooned the liquid out of the pot over my noodles, and it was FANTASTIC. I made the noodles myself, although they were a bit soft. I didn’t add enough flour to the recipe. Still, they were tender and quite yummy. And green LOL!

Okay, today’s post is a bit of a cheat, but what can I say. I like to window shop, even when the window is Amazon. LOL!

There are a ton of items out there that would make excellent gifts for the Prepper in your life. I hope you find some of these to be of use.

• Weather Radio, USB Charger, combo with great ratings
• Flatpack solar lantern
• The P38 stocking stuffer special
• Power Bank/solar charger
• Zip ties, because if someone says they have enough, they’re lying
• A garden starter kit
• Thermal blankets, because they’re very useful
• SAM Splints, because you may need them some day

It’s just a little list. It’s one I think is worthwhile looking into. Create your own. If you have young ‘uns or teens, give them a Get Home bag for part of their stocking. Plan out your garden for next year and get all the seeds as stocking stuffers. Heck, get seeds you can start indoors now, and plant outside when it gets warmer.

There are some items that are “always buy” in my opinion, like the zip ties and thermal blankets. No matter how many you have, more is always a good thing. Also in that list would be paracord on the roll, small first aid kits, rain ponchos that fit in a purse… There are so many ideas.

Happy holidays, folks. No matter what you celebrate, this is a month full of holy days, and may each of you find something soul comforting over this month.

The subject of vaccinations is of importance to me because I strongly believe in childhood vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy has plans for vaccines, and the Left is in a tizzy over it, so I wanted to discuss it a bit. But first…

A bit of background on me. My first daughter was born in the 90s, and as a dutiful parent, I took her in for her first set of shots when I was told to. She got her shot, and about 30 minutes after she got it, she started screaming. Not crying, but screaming, that sound that causes parents to run to the ER. I thought at first it was just a bit of lingering pain from the shot, so I did warm washcloths at the vaccination site, baby Tylenol, snuggles, breastfeeding, all that stuff. The screaming continued. She barely breathed. It was just a continuous scream, like the sound out of a piece of machinery. I called my doctor, and in the middle of that call, she stopped. Other than the fact that she was exhausted from screaming for a couple of hours, it was like nothing happened. She was bubbly, happy, eating again… My doctor suggested that we wait until she was older to get any further vaccinations, because that was definitely Not Normal.

I ended up not getting any of her childhood vaccines. I was too afraid that she would end up screaming and in pain again. By the time my daughter was about 3 or 4, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a study that made claims he had proven that vaccines caused autism. I skimmed his study, but at the time I was not a good researcher, nor was I an experienced adult. I assumed that Dr. Wakefield wouldn’t have been published if his study wasn’t good. I decreed that my child would never be vaccinated again.

Of course, that didn’t happen. To get my kid into school, I had to get her vaccinated. I didn’t live in the States at the time, and my option was to lie and say I was a member of a religion that didn’t allow vaccinations. That was the only exception allowed. I didn’t lie, and my kid got vaccinated, in a truncated schedule that allowed her to enter kindergarten with her peers. She was fine, and she’s not autistic.

We now know, of course, that Dr. Wakefield’s study(1) was critically flawed, and that vaccines do not cause autism. In fact, not only is there no causation, there’s not even any correlation. His study and one other made some extremely bad jumps in (lack of) logic and the scare of the late 90s and early 2000s was enacted. I was caught up in that. I did not want my later children to be vaccinated, because my memory of my first child’s experience, along with my emotional reaction to the study, put me into a froth. My partner explained that the study was wrong, and sent me off to learn more about it.

That led to one of my first true research deep dives. I had to educate myself in order to understand a lot of what I was reading. I didn’t want to depend on experts, because it was an “expert” who had misled me the first time. By the time I was done, I was not only willing to get the kids vaccinated, I was demanding we do so.

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I adore sausage gravy and biscuits. They’re the ultimate comfort food. The biscuits are a wee bit sweet, and the sausage gravy is a bit spicy and savory and creamy, all at once. I always make mine with an egg, though you can do what you want with yours.

Ingredients for the sausage gravy:

• 1 lb ground sausage meat (Jones or Jimmy Dean work well)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 1 to 2 cups of milk (regular, cream, or non-dairy is fine)

In a large pan, brown your ground sausage meat over a medium heat. You want it to be thoroughly cooked, but not crispy or burned. Drain off the fat, and reserve it (pro tip: add a lining of tin foil to a bowl and strain your fat into it… after, use what you want by spooning it out, then discard the rest, wrapped up in the foil). Remove the sausage and set aside.

Add 2 tablespoons of the fat back into your pan and add in the onion. Saute over a medium heat until the onion until becomes soft and opaque. Add in the garlic and stir continuously for about 30 seconds to a minute. You want the garlic to be fragrant, but not brown or crisp. Add extra fat if necessary.

Sprinkle the onion mixture with the flour, and stir with a wooden spoon until it’s incorporated and clumpy. If it’s very loose and saucy, you may need a bit more flour. If it’s all white and not mixing into the onion, you may need a bit more fat. The idea is to make a roux.

Lower your heat to just below medium. Pour in your milk very slowly, about a quarter cup at a time, and stir gently and constantly with a wooden spoon. Work on getting rid of any lumps or bits of unincorporated flour to ensure your gravy comes out smooth. Continue to add your milk until the gravy is a good consistency for you. You want to end up with a smooth, fairly thick gravy that is easy to stir and has no lumps.

If your gravy “breaks,” meaning it separates into lumpy bits and oily liquid, you can fix it. Add warm water a tablespoon at a time and whisk vigorously in between. This should allow your gravy to emulsify again, and get creamy. The water must be warm, not hot or cold, for this to work.

Once your gravy is how you like it, add the sausage back in and stir to mix it well. Set aside until your biscuits are done!

Now it’s time to make the biscuits!

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There are skills that our grandparents and great-grandparents had, that we (as a society, at least) are sadly lacking in today. The art of “making do” is one of those skills. It’s something we MUST learn to do, and quickly. Whether we have some type of country-wide emergency, an apocalyptic event, or a recession, the ability to “make do” is crucial.

So what is “making do,” you ask? It is actually an amalgamation of important skills. First and foremost, it is living within your means, no matter how uncomfortable. That means putting away the credit card and paying cash for things. If you can’t afford something, you don’t purchase it. Don’t live a filet mignon life when you have a hamburger budget.

It’s so much more than that, though. How many of you have mended a pair of socks or your jeans because they got a hole in them but still had a lot of life to them? Likely very few of you. Until the last ten years or so, I hadn’t done much of that myself. Even as someone who had a very low income, I could afford our frankly very cheap clothing. Today, even though I have access to considerably more money, I tend to spend less.

I do know how to darn a sock, mend a hole in a knitted sweater, and hem or patch clothing. I practice these skills on a regular basis. A good example of this is that I discovered my favorite holiday dress was eaten into (likely by a bunny, but we don’t know for sure). There are several jagged holes, and they’re near the hemline. I could patch the holes, but they would be very noticeable, and I don’t want that. I could darn them or put a decorative patch on them (which I’ve done with some of my jean skirts), but again, it wouldn’t look nice. It’s a nicer dress. Instead, I’ve decided to shorten the entire dress. I tend to wear it with tights or leggings anyhow, because it’s quite short and revealing, so taking off the 1.5 inches to remove the holes will not really be seen. As a bonus, it will give me a strip of the dress’s fabric that I can use for future patching, should it ever be necessary. My lovely holiday dress will live on, and I will enjoy wearing it despite a few mishaps.

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We’ve all heard it. That damned One Percent. If only they would share their wealth! If only the One Percent would pay their fair share! How dare the One Percent take away from me and mine!

The outrage is real, but what’s behind it?

The short answer is, greed. It’s more than that, though. There’s a sense of entitlement we build up for various reasons, and we, as Americans, have certain expectations. Someone, somewhere, told us that we deserve to own a house by the time we’re 30. Someone said that we ought to have a car by age 25. Someone implied that we should be able to afford lavish vacations by age 50. The list goes on.

This elusive “someone” goes right back to the media, in my very strong opinion. Television shows and movies highlight the people who are exceptions to all the rules. That’s just film, after all. None of us are interested in seeing boring stuff on tv, right? You go to television (and books and such) to read about the extraordinary, the strange, the unusual. But when it’s force fed to us on a regular basis, it can seem like each of us, ALL of us, should have those things.

The bottom line is, not all of us can afford to own our own homes. Not everyone can afford a car. Not everyone can afford to have one parent stay home and watch the kids. Not everyone can afford expensive medical care. It is (in some cases) a sad state of affairs, but it is the way of the world.

The basic status of human beings is poverty. While we’re working on “extreme poverty” around the world (defined as not having the basic human needs of water, shelter, food met), basically about half the world population lives in poverty. It should be noted, however, that 90% of those who live in the worst poverty tend to live in African and Asian countries (World Poverty Statistics 2024 | Social Income. https://socialincome.org/en/int. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.).  In America, we consider a person to be living in poverty if they’re bringing home (before taxes) $14,580 a year (or roughly $40 per day). Elsewhere in the world, “poverty” is defined as bringing home less than about $7 a day (“Overview.” World Bank, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview. Accessed 2 Dec. 2024.).

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If you’re like me, you currently have a turkey carcass somewhere in your fridge, freezer, or on your (very cold) porch. Thanksgiving was delicious, and you’ve mostly picked that carcass clean. What’s left are the bits no one generally eats (wings maybe, or the bottom of the bird, the backbone, and perhaps the neck and giblets). Don’t throw those away, folks. That right there is Winter Gold.

To make a hearty turkey broth is quite easy. You can do it in a crockpot, a Westinghouse (which is my method), or on your stove top. This can even be done over a fire, on a hearth, or on top of your wood stove, if you like. You simply need a heat source that will bring your liquid to a low simmer, but not a full boil.

Whatever method you’re using, the preparation is exactly the same. First, denude your bird. Pull off ALL the edible meat (yes, even from the legs). Leave behind tendons, bones, gristly bits, and parts no one eats. Store the meat in the fridge for later. Now take your hands, a large knife, or a good pair of kitchen sheers and cut the bird into pieces that will fit into whatever you’re making your broth in. You want all the bones and bits to be submerged, so depending on your size of pot, you may need to chop up the bird fairly small. It’s perfectly okay to put the carcass into your pot then use a large spoon or a wooden mallet to shove and break it until it fits. For our purposes, it does not matter if the bones are broken.

Once the bird is in the pot, you will begin to add your vegetables. If you want to be truly frugal, you should add in all the peelings and skins from Thanksgiving dinner. I didn’t save all mine (though I have in the past), so instead, I’m adding in the following:

• one whole onion, skin on, quartered
• one head of garlic, cut in half so all the cloves are halved, skin on
• 2 bay leaves
• leftover carrots (carrot tops and skins are fine here, too)
• celery tops (the leafy bits, rough chopped)
• whatever herbs you prefer (my garden yielded the last of the sage, thyme, and some parsley)
• whatever spices you prefer (at least the standards: salt, pepper, garlic)

Add all these to your pot, and then pour in enough water to cover everything, but not to boil over. Bring your broth to a boil, and then put the temperature down to low and let it simmer for several hours.

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I wanted to share this young man’s post on TikTok with you, because it says a LOT in a small space.

@truscum_tr_nny Trans activists love to fuck EVERYTHING up for transsexuals. Thanks a lot. #Trump2024 #transsexual #Igbtrepublican #republican #conservative #LGBT #transgender #kamala #CapCut ♬ original sound – Nicholas

So… long story short, Trump is going to stop public taxpayer money (ie Medicare/Medicaid) from paying for transition surgeries. The kid isn’t the least bit upset about that. No, he’s upset over the fact that when gender dysphoria was considered a mental disorder, it was treated as one. That means that necessary care, through a doctor who’d gone to the trouble of having you tested six ways to Sunday, was covered. Just like being diabetic was covered. Or being clinically depressed was covered. Now that “being trans” is a social movement and they’ve removed it as a mental disorder, it’s not covered.

Now… I’m going to say something that would make the Left clutch its pearls, but y’all might just agree. I believe that gender dysphoria should be reinstated as a mental disorder. So should a few other things, but that’s another post. And then we, and by we I mean We The People, should get off our fucking high horses and stop making mental disorders so shameful for people.

I have mental disorders. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. If you met me, you probably would never know. It’s an invisible disorder, and I’m lucky that it’s well controlled  by medication. I don’t hide that I have it, and I often share with others who suffer from anxiety who feel alone or scared. Too many people want to demonize those who have mental disorders, and frankly, it irritates the fuck out of me. Here’s the thing… your body might not produce insulin, so you have to get it in a bottle. My brain over-produces certain chemicals, and I need meds to make it stop. It’s not a shameful thing. It’s just a thing.

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Last week it was turkey. This week, I’m sharing my favorite side dishes that I use in a perfect Thanksgiving Feast!

Mashies

Mashed potatoes are a definite requirement at any Thanksgiving feast. The easiest way to make delicious mashed potatoes is to cut them into about inch square cubes, and boil them until they’re soft but not yet falling apart. Mash with whatever masher you have on hand, adding in a minimum of a tablespoon of butter per potato in the mix and drizzling in milk or cream (or in my case, oatmilk) as needed to bring them to the right consistency for you. I like my potatoes a little lumpy, but everyone else likes them creamy, so I tend to whip them very fine. Serve them with a slight well in the top, filled with a pad of butter and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. They don’t need anything else!

Bread Stuffing

Stuffing is a constant battle in my household. We have several recipes we like, but I’m going to share my Hungarian grandmother’s recipe, because it’s my favorite. This was named “Song Stuffing” by one of my kids, because it contains parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme… but we adults call it “Heart Attack Stuffing” because of all the yummy fatty goodness inside it. It’s also a great way to get liver into your kids, because they’ll never know it’s there until they’ve fallen in love with it. It’s how my Nagymama got me to eat liver!

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