From Behind Enemy Lines

AKA: Maine Renaissance Faire, weekend the third.

I have somehow managed to create a “Conservative Safe Space” at Ren Faires. I’m not sure how this happened, but it’s definitely an interesting thing!

As I’m writing this, I’ve just gotten home from the third and final weekend of Maine Renaissance Faire. I had a blast, sold a ton of books, and cooked my way through a heatwave and the smoke from Canadian wildfires. I’m slightly sunburned, though not badly, and I managed to avoid getting dehydrated this weekend. I’m rather proud of that. I made Good Choices LOL!

By choice, I stayed on site one extra night, both to get a bit of extra sleep and to not have to load and unload the truck while exhausted and filthy. Instead, I helped other people pack up their stuff on Sunday evening, and then at 9pm I retreated to my tent with some gatorade and my phone (which I basically didn’t look at for most of the weekend). With the big queen bed out of the tent and just my single low cot in there, I had room for my comfy chair and a table, as well as my basket (which doubled as a foot rest on Sunday night). I sat down and watched some Futurama, played a couple of games, took my meds, and was out cold by 10:30pm. I didn’t even shower, even though I could have, because the sheets were already dirty anyhow and I really didn’t care. Come Monday morning, I was up by 8am, feeling actually RESTED. Once the ibuprofin kicked in, I was in fine fettle. I organized all my stuff, packed it neatly, and piled it for easy movement into the truck when Chris arrived to pick me up. THEN I went and showered, and lordy, it felt lovely.

Anyhow, safe spaces. If you listen to people long enough, you can usually tell if they’re liberal or conservative. There are enough code words in both groups that you can pick up on and make an educated guess. I spent the last three weekends learning who the closet conservatives were. I say closet, because at a Ren Faire, you just don’t really talk politics. Well, definitely not conservative politics, but even liberal stuff is largely not spoken about. It’s supposed to be a place to enjoy the fantasy of medieval or Renaissance life, and most everyone does their best to stick to the fantasy and ignore the real world outside.

As I found those I suspected of conservatism, I found a way to privately ask if I was correct. Bonus, I was right every time! I’m sure I missed some people, but that’s fine. I invited several of those people here to the blog, because they’re awesome folks. I let them know that, in my kitchen, we have true equality. Everyone is welcome. I also made it clear that I make my money off of liberals as much (or maybe more) than conservatives, and so if patrons or others were around, we needed to not talk politics. They all understood. Every conservative on site is well versed in keeping their mouth shut while liberals say things they dislike. That’s the price we pay for enjoying the fair and selling our wares to the liberals. It’s fine, most of the time it’s not all that painful.

Read More

The big question on everyone’s mind is who’s on “the list.” The problem is that there’s no real chain of custody for the damn thing. Anyone could have made changes or edits to it along the way.

I’m strongly of the opinion that, if “the list” had Trump’s name on it, the Dems would have released it already. They had four years to do so, and using a simple list to get rid of Trump at the expense of Biden or the Clintons would have been trivial. Still, Bondi said that Trump’s name was somewhere in those files.

On TikTok and Facebook, several of the left leaning people I follow are asking everyone, “If you knew your favorite politician or star was on the list, would you still want it released?” There’s been a lot of crickets from the Left (with a few vehement outliers saying absolutely yes), and a lot of noise from the Right saying “release it already.” More than half the country chose Trump to be our President, and we did so on a platform of transparency. It’s time to be transparent.

I happen to be on the “release it” side of things. Yes, it may have been doctored. It’s up to our Justice Dep’t and Bondi to track that back, have experts look at it and figure out what, if any, changes were made. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be released. Yes, it should. And if it turns out that Trump was bonking little girls and there’s definitive proof, then we toss his ass in jail. Again, we know that won’t be the case or it would already have happened, but that’s the bottom line. I don’t want ANY kiddie diddlers as part of the ruling class of America. I don’t care what “side” they say they’re on; if they’re into children, then they’re not a politician, they’re a cretin.

What is the problem with just opening it all up? Well, first and foremost, doing so would expose victims and people who haven’t been charged with crimes, which is basically re-victimizing those who already suffered. Some of it is definitively child pornography, so that won’t be released. It also exposes a lot of information that is definitively private (financial stuff, etc.). In order to “just release” everything, they’d have to redact large portions of the information. Some in the government fear that would just feed conspiracy theories that the government is holding information back (CNN).

The FBI put out a memo this month, basically saying that they’ve gone through all the information that was gathered. In the gigabytes of information retrieved, they found plenty of evidence of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell doing stuff, and not much else. My guess is, like most predators, Epstein kept images of himself but not others. He wasn’t gay; why would he keep images of other men with the children he was abusing? It doesn’t seem to fit the pattern of how that type of predator works, at least in my understanding.

Most people think there’s an actual list, a client list (Wikipedia). While there’s definitely a list of thousands of names and contact information, it’s not a list of those people who actively did things on the island. It’s basically a huge phone book of all the people Epstein might need to contact. I offer you in evidence my own phone book, which contains my mother’s phone number even though she’s entirely cut out of my life and I would never call her.

As to Trump being named in those files, well, we already knew that. He shared a plane with Epstein several times, or so I have heard. Apparently it’s a thing the ultra rich do. Steven Hawkings was in the files, too, but I don’t see anyone accusing him of doing illegal things with children.

All that said, I want to see the information. Even if it’s redacted to protect the innocent. I want the transparency promised us by Trump when he was running for office. If that means some Dems have to make excuses, so be it. Some will likely say that it was doctored by the Right. So be it. Transparency is HARD… but necessary.

I’ve been a teacher for 38 years. I still remember when I was taking my education classes early in my career, and my conservative uncle, who was a school superintendent in the Chicago suburbs, gave me a bit of advice that stuck with me. He said, “Do not join a teacher’s union.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant. I guess I was too young and idealistic. But now, decades later, I understand exactly what he was trying to warn me about.

Over the years, I’ve gone back and forth on union membership. Sometimes I joined the NEA (National Education Association), sometimes I didn’t. If there was no pressure, I stayed out. If everyone else around me was joining, I’d go along with it. For the past 15 years or so, I’ve been a member off and on. But this year, as I prepare to move to a new school in a larger city where nobody knows me, I’ve made a clear decision: I will not be joining the teachers’ union again—especially after what I’ve seen recently.

In the past few weeks, I’ve read several articles that left me stunned. One headline from the Washington Free Beacon hit me like a ton of bricks: “Largest Teachers’ Union in the United States Erases Jews From the Holocaust.” According to the article, the NEA described Holocaust victims as “12 million people from various faiths”—never once mentioning the systematic extermination of the Jewish people. That omission is not just disappointing—it’s disgraceful.

It’s become increasingly clear to me that the NEA is no longer focused on students, academics, or educational excellence. Their priority now seems to be pushing political and ideological narratives. I’ve read how they’ve voiced support for groups aligned with Hamas and use language that downplays the suffering of Jewish people while glorifying the Palestinian “Nakba” and vilifying the state of Israel. According to their 2025 handbook, they want to “educate” the public about the Nakba, which literally means “catastrophe,” framing the founding of Israel in 1948 as a disaster rather than a historic triumph for the Jewish people and a vital democratic ally of the United States.

This is not why I became a teacher.

I’ve also seen videos from PragerU, like the story of a gym teacher who was fired because she wouldn’t allow a biological male to enter the girls’ locker room. She was then investigated simply for expressing Christian beliefs in her personal life. They actually questioned whether her faith could be “accommodated.” This isn’t just anti-education. It’s anti-freedom.

I am deeply disappointed, not just in the NEA, but in how so many educators have fallen in line with an agenda that is increasingly radical, anti-patriotic, and anti-Israel. The NEA has strayed far from its mission. It is now a political machine, not a professional organization serving teachers and students.

As someone who has dedicated nearly four decades to education, I feel disillusioned. I love my country. I support Israel. I believe in the importance of free speech, faith, and honest history. But I can no longer support an organization that undermines these values.

So goodbye, NEA. I’m walking away—with a clear conscience and my eyes wide open.

I belong to a small (in the hundreds) community of social media folk who are LGBT and are all done with the bullshit of the alphabet mafia. The vast majority are Trump supporters. All of them are Conservative. All of the ones I’ve personally connected with are intelligent, forward thinking, well educated, and forthright. It’s been a breath of fresh air to be able to have conversations over why I disagree with some of the stuff going on right now (the BBB comes to mind), without getting trampled.

One of the ladies I follow is a big butch dyke. When I say big, I don’t mean fat. She’s stocky, muscular, a little bit masculine but definitely female, and she has the (if you’ll excuse the term) typical lesbian short haircut. She’s a Christian, an unabashed Trump supporter, and is married to a person who is not a Trump supporter. They provide a fairly balanced viewpoint of things, which I really appreciated during the election time.

This lady was recently told that she has to stop identifying as a lesbian. Because she has a masculine look to her, and she wears cargo shorts and high neck tees, she’s “trans masc” and therefore that’s what she needs to present as.

Let’s just say that this order didn’t go down well with the butch. LOL… She very clearly, very concisely, and very pointedly explained that “we the normal gays” are no longer part of the “rainbow community.” There may have been some four letter words, but most were beeped out because TikTok is like that. Let it be said, the butch was not the least bit interested in backing down from her personal viewpoint of her own lesbian self. In Leftist speech, they didn’t respect her pronouns so they’re dead to her.

That whole incident has led to a new movement, though, and I thought it was a good idea to let you all know about it. The first thing these few hundred LGBT people did was to “fix” the pride flag. They took off the “TIAA+” part (the triangle on the left side) and replaced it with a purposefully poorly tacked on other regular rainbow.

Note, this is my version of it. I wanted you to get the idea. Basically, the idea is that if the alphabet mafia doesn’t want anything to do with “normal” gay folk, then they can go. And they should take their part of the flag with them.

The second thing they did was reclaim the rainbow. Keep in mind, these are largely Christian people. Not only did they lose their “gay” rainbow to the alphabet mafia, they lost their Biblical rainbow. So they took it back. Now, they’re doing an upside down rainbow. The upside down rainbow is meant to look like a smile. It represents both the original basis of the rainbow flag (solidarity, wanting to be a part of the greater human community, etc.) and the idea that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.

I rather like it. So if you see someone with an upside down rainbow, they’re probably a gay Conservative. I might start sporting this one myself. And again, that’s my version of the smile. 🙂

Many of you know that I’m on TikTok. I’m on it less since the outage around the election, only because they haven’t definitively decided what’s happening to it yet. Still, I find it a useful way to find out what “people in general” are thinking. It’s also very interesting to me to see what people post from TikTok to Facebook. Me, I post up images of jelly capybaras in coconut soup, wildcat kittens with massive murder mittens, and the occasional moose or bear video. Once in a while I post political stuff, but mostly not, and mostly very “center” in nature.

Yesterday, I started seeing the posts from people who were blaming Texas for the floods. First, it was about how this was all Trump’s fault, because the BBB cut people from the weather service. Then it was no big deal because (and I quote) “it was all just white Christian girls.” Then they blamed the meteorologists for not doing enough. And then they started getting onto people’s cases because the orange man is bad.

Somewhere in there, I ran into a lovely blue-haired lady with nose piercings. I admit, I braced myself. While not universally true, quite a lot of blue-haired nose piercing types are … well, not people I enjoy listening to. This young woman admitted freely that she was a democrat, and then went on to express shock and horror that some of her leftist “friends” were talking about how Texas got what they deserved, that they voted for this, and the rest.

She had a light bulb moment. She actually says, “They’re talking about immigrants being deported from the country just because of where they were born, but then say bad things about this horror in Texas and children drying, and those people were just born in Texas!” The hypocrisy of the dems appears to have hit her square between the eyes.

“Can you not see the hypocrisy of saying that Texas got what they deserved because they voted for it?” she pointed out. And also that not everyone in Texas voted that way, and on top of it all, CHILDREN ARE DYING and they didn’t vote.

I wrote to her and offered her cookies from the Right, and let her know to watch for the tide going out and people on “her side” dropping her like a hot potato. I let her know we have “untrained trauma groups” where we share our concerns for those remaining on the Left who are just… off their rocker. She responded, politely and with much thought in her words.

The leftists are continuing to move so far left that they’re leaving everyone with a brain behind. I feel so awful for this blue haired woman, because I remember just how painful that awakening was for me. I’m sorry that she’s going to be “excommunicated” by her friends (maybe not today, but if she continues to think for herself, it isn’t long off). I’m so sorry that she’s going to realize all sorts of horrid things about the world she’s lived in and participated in.

They are literally eating their own. I watched it happen to me. More importantly, I’m watching it happen in other places. I could be an outlier. Seeing it happen all over the place, that means it’s real. If you have a thought that doesn’t match everyone else, their cognitive dissonance kicks in and they have to exclude you. You must be surgically removed from the group. Why? Because you could infect others with your beliefs.

It’s terrifying.

I’ve tagged this “from behind enemy lines” because I didn’t know where to put it. It’s replacing today’s prepping article because I only have time to write one, and this one needs to be written.

Many of you know, maybe all of you, that I’ve drifted Right over the past few years. Some of it is indeed that the Left has run so far Left that I look Right, but some of it is the conservative beliefs I already had (fiscal conservatism, for instance, and my stance on 2A) coming to the forefront. I have gone from being a “never Trumper” to being cautiously optimistic about him. I think that’s the most I could ever really have for any President, because the act of becoming President means I should be examining their every move carefully. I don’t care if it’s Gandhi or Mother Teresa. If you’re President, every action you take should be scrutinized, constantly and unendingly. You are MY employee, not the other way around, and in order to make sure you do a good job, I need to watch what’s going on.

I am not a fan of the BBB (Congress.gov). First and foremost, I believe that things need to be simple, and people I trust have stated that this bill is full of pork. It’s as full of pork as any other budget that’s been put in front of the House. I don’t want pork. We The People didn’t elect Trump to put pork into bills; he was hired to remove it. The fact that it took some 16 hours for the bill to be read to the Senate says enough. The fact that I don’t have time to read the damn thing from beginning to end says more. The fact that the table of contents itself is larger than I believe ANY bill should be pretty much puts the last nail in the coffin.

If it’s too long for ME to read, then the average American isn’t going to read it. That’s just a statement of plain fact. It’s also a damn shame. It puts the country in another moment of “you have to vote the bill in to know what’s in it.” Nothing that this country’s government is passing should be beyond the understanding of the average American (I realize we need to educate our people more, and that’s another fight for another day, but let’s just assume that most people have the reading ability and comprehension to read most bills). If the government is inking up rules for us that we cannot comprehend, then we’re no better than Britain was 250 years ago, folks. It means we have a ruling class, and that is EXACTLY what we fought to get out of.

I realize some folks are always going to consent to be ruled from on high. I can’t help them. Frankly, I’m not even interested in helping them (though the thought of deporting them has come to mind). If you haven’t voted in the last four Presidential elections, then I’m not really talking to you. You can move along. I’m talking to those of you who give a shit, who try to keep up with this crap, and attempt to understand it in order to make educated choices.

Read More

Color me surprised. I had no idea until yesterday that it was possible to revoke someone’s citizenship, even years and decades after it’s been sealed. I have to admit, I’m a bit concerned about this. The case that brought this to my attention was that of Elliott Duke, previously of the UK (NPR). The NPR article is obviously biased, so I went and found the removal order announcement from the Office of Public Affairs. Basically, Duke had kiddie porn that he was watching and distributing, and was arrested and sent to jail for that crime (ICE). Now, he’s also facing deportation.

Do I want kiddie diddlers in my country? No. But frankly, that’s something that should have been discovered during the lengthy and grueling process of becoming a US citizen. Somewhere in the multiple interviews, the background checks, the letters from people at home, and frankly, the check into his military status, SOMEONE should have see this. People applying for entry to the United States should be undergoing hefty scrutiny.

It feels to me like this is similar in nature to the idea of criminals losing their 2nd Amendment rights. I can agree that I don’t want violent criminals having access to firearms. However, if you’re letting a violent criminal out of jail, and you’re so sure he’ll re-offend that you want to strip him of a Constitutionally protected right, then why the hell are you releasing him at all?

When it comes to Duke, he broke the law while a citizen, and before becoming a citizen. He’s shown he’s a cretin.

When I go and read the actual DoJ papers in regards to stripping previously naturalized citizens of their citizenship, it’s incredibly open-ended. Whether I believe Trump’s people are going to use it poorly doesn’t even matter. I know that some Left leaning president will do so. Therefore, we should not be doing this. The Civil Division memo dated June 11, 2025, states, in part:

Read More

My kid has been harassing me to go to a friend’s wedding at an event this fall. I didn’t want to go to the event, but I did want to go to the wedding. These are friends who showed up to their first event and had a catastrophic failure with their food, and ended up at a 4 day event with nothing to eat but nuts. My household “rescued” them, fed them, loved them. They, in turn, adopted my kid (they’re only a couple of years older than my kid, though at the time they were young adults working full time and mine was still in high school). I’ve always been proud of that, the concept of being there to help and offer a hand up to people.

Now, those people are definitely on the Left. But they were, I thought, good people. And on one level they are. They do help others, support people down on their luck, and pass along the help we gave to them. But they are not the type of good people I thought they were.

Today, my very disturbed (adult) kid came to me and said that they’d spoken to those people… and that they didn’t want me at their wedding. I was too extreme. Apparently, when I “supported Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute” they were all done with me, and deleted me. Kid is gutted, apologetic, unsure of what to do.

I’d assumed they’d stopped following me. I’ve unfollowed a few people on social media that I’m still very good friends with. Sometimes, your religion or your politics or some other belief is just too much, and you don’t want to see it. You unfollow them but remain friends, as they say on Facebook. That way, I don’t have to read their posts about their parakeet, their love of Kamala Harris, or their hatred of their job. Or whatever it is I’m tired of seeing. Sometimes I “snooze” people, and sometimes I unfollow them. I VERY rarely unfriend someone, though. I actually want to know the other side of things, and seek out diverse input about various things. To me, that’s vital if you want to be good at … well, pretty much anything.

In any case, I knew they were very Left, and had assumed I’d been unfollowed, just as I’d unfollowed them. No harm, no foul. Despite the mismatch of political beliefs (and I can’t say opposite, because there are still things I heartily agree with them on), I’d always gotten along with them in person. They decided no.

These are people who know me to be kind, helpful, and generous with my time, my resources, and my knowledge. They know all my various niches and labels. But they were so offended that I had a thought opposite to their political ideology, that they had to not only not read my stuff (understandable) but had to remove themselves from me entirely. Online, offline, whatever, they don’t want anything to do with me.

Once more, I find myself disappointed, in people I considered friends, and in myself. Perhaps it’s the sting of the rejection, but I ask myself, was I so poor a judge of character? Again, I haven’t changed. My beliefs are still the same. Some of my opinions have changed because I’ve learned more and educated myself on subjects, but my morals and ethics are still the same.

The thing is, I’m sure they think the same thing. I’m absolutely certain that they were concerned for my kid, worried about her having a parent who thinks like I do. And that concern is likely genuine. But how am I supposed to trust in that again? It makes me ill and I really just don’t know what to think about the whole thing.

I’m disappointed in them. They accepted my hospitality when it suited them, but turned their back the moment it wasn’t all unicorn farts and rainbows. And that hurts.

My (former) best friend walked away because of my politics. That hurt more than I can describe. And you know what? If she showed up on my doorstep tomorrow, asking for help, I would help her. That’s me. That’s what I do.

But man, my patience is starting to wear awful thin.

I can’t write more about this right now. I’m too raw and angry and frustrated. And I’m too damn hot, because the lowest temperature my room has been at in 48 hours is 82*F.

I think that, from our current relatively enlightened viewpoint, we can all admit that slavery is wrong. Heck, I’m even polite to the Google Lady on my phone (who’s technically just a tech-slave), just in case the computers take over.

That said, I have to admit that I have enjoyed being able to get some of the stuff I have from China, Taiwan, and other Asian countries. This means I have supported slave labor. If you’ve bought anything from Temu, or any Chineseum knock offs from Amazon, you’ve supported slave labor. Hell, if you’ve bought peeled garlic, you’ve supported slave labor. I would hazard to guess that most people in America (or any of the first world countries) have supported slave labor at some point in their lives. We’re consumer creatures, and that means we buy cheap whenever we think it’s worth it. Cheap pretty much means slave labor. If you think you’re outside that broadly painted stroke, you’re probably wrong (unless you live off grid in the middle of nowhere and are mostly self sufficient, in which case I apologize for lumping you in).

Every person who’s supported gun control has chosen slavery. Every person who’s supported taxing the rich to give to the poor has chosen slavery. Every poor person who votes for more bread and circuses has chosen slavery. Freedom isn’t comfortable, and slavery often is. After all, as a slave, you don’t have to think or be responsible for things. It’s just easier. As a slave, you can be ignorant. After all, you’re “only” a slave. And you’re protected from the consequences of your actions. Slaves, after all, are owned by the ruling class. Therefore, any errors on the slave’s part are actually errors of the ruling class, not the slave.

Read More

There are currently riots happening in Los Angeles and other California towns. I’ve so far watched a reporter FAFO and get shot in the leg with a rubber bullet, seen rioters dump rocks off an overpass onto cars below (police and non-police vehicles), witnessed “peaceful” folk set fire to cars, and heard about those self same “peaceful” folk ordering up driverless cars just so they could torch them.

Someone on Facebook posted this, and I decided to go and find out if it was true. At this point, if “someone posts something” (be it person, so-called legacy media, or new media) I simply don’t trust it and I research and verify. It took me a while. I had to go through an article by the Times of India, and a handful of other places before I finally found the article at the Blaze (which I recommend reading and watching). They posted the actual video in their article, so I can now verify that yes, ABC did actually say this on actual television/video. I am at a complete loss.

On Facebook, I carefully laid it out. If you said January 6th was a riot, and applauded the people being arrested, held without bail for unreasonable time, and given outrageously egregious sentences… but you say throwing rocks on moving vehicles is “peaceful protest,” just leave. I literally said, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. M’kay, byeeeeee.

I assumed most people would just delete me, if there were any left who’d bother to comment. I expected that. I didn’t expect to hear people coming in and saying that it was Trump’s fault for “…illegal use of the National Guard and deployment of the Marines,” or that “…it isn’t rioting for the sake of rioting,” or “I agree dropping …(rocks)… on citizens is not right. Dropping them on Humvees, Bearcats, is fair game. The military are illegally there.” I also didn’t think I’d hear, “I’ve seen a couple of articles that stated that at least some of the car fire were started due to the flash bangs that were deployed.” Oh, and, “…that some of the images and videos were from 2020 and not this past weekend.”

I have informed those people that I am not interested in excuses. Having been lectured for four years about January 6th, which included very little destruction of property (and the proper, imo, charging of those who engaged in vandalism) and only one death (on “our” side, FFS), I am not interested in excuses about why it’s okay to drop rocks on moving vehicles. It’s not.

Read More