From Behind Enemy Lines

What is the proper way to make a budget? I went to Grok, to see what it had to say.

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Budget

Calculate Your Net Monthly Income

Start with your take-home pay (after taxes, deductions, and benefits). Include reliable sources like salary, freelance gigs, side hustles, child support, or investment income. If income varies, average the last 3–6 months. Example: $4,000 salary + $500 side income = $4,500 total monthly income.

Track and List All Your Expenses

Review bank/credit card statements, receipts, and bills from the past 1–3 months. Categorize them: Fixed expenses (predictable): Rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, loan payments, subscriptions. Variable expenses (fluctuate): Groceries, gas, dining out, entertainment, shopping. Be honest and thorough—small daily spends (coffee, apps) add up.

Categorize and Compare Income vs. Expenses

Add up total expenses and subtract from income. Positive balance → Room to save or pay debt. Negative balance → Need to cut spending. Use a simple spreadsheet, app (like Mint, YNAB, or Excel), or free worksheet from consumer.gov.

Set Financial Goals

Decide what the “extra” money should do: build an emergency fund (3–6 months of expenses), pay off debt, save for a house/vacation, or invest for retirement. Make goals specific, measurable, and realistic (e.g., “Save $200/month for emergency fund”).

Choose a Budgeting Method 

Pick one that fits your style: 50/30/20 Rule (simple & popular): 50% needs (housing, food, transport, minimum debt), 30% wants (dining out, hobbies, fun), 20% savings/debt payoff.
Zero-Based Budgeting: Assign every dollar a job until income minus expenses = $0. Great for detailed control.
Envelope System: Allocate cash (or digital “envelopes”) for categories like groceries; once empty, stop spending.
Pay Yourself First: Automate savings/investments right after payday, then budget the rest.

Create Your Plan and Allocate Money

Build a monthly template. Adjust categories so everything fits. Example for $4,500 income using 50/30/20:
Needs (50%): $2,250
Wants (30%): $1,350
Savings/Debt (20%): $900

Track, Review, and Adjust Monthly

Check progress weekly. At month-end, compare actual vs. planned spending. Life changes (new job, inflation), so tweak as needed. Consistency beats perfection.

***

That’s a nice breakdown of what I do to balance my budget. Sometimes, your budget gets upside down. You owe more than you’re bringing in. This is where we are with the American budget. This requires you (in this case “We The People”) to cut costs in many different places and be frugal until the upside down part is paid off. This is what our government should be doing. And while Conservatives are better at budgeting than Liberals, that does not mean they are GOOD at budgeting. Everyone in the government is spending “someone else’s money” and therefore they’re doing a poor job of it.

This government (and by that I mean Trump’s administration, the next three years, and possibly into Vance and Freitas’s terms) NEEDS to make a damn budget. I don’t mean whatever it is they’ve done over the past 25 years. I mean a real, honest to goodness budget. They need to do housekeeping and they need to show us, the American people, WE THE PEOPLE what they are spending and where.

I realize there will be places where it just says, “Security – TS Clearance” or something similar, and we’re going to have to take it at face value. That’s fine. It’s when we don’t see any of those costs that it becomes a problem. When it looks like security, or farm aid, or bailing out car companies or banks, or whatever is free (even when we know it’s only “free at point of service”), there’s a problem. People lose sight of the money that is being spent. That’s why there’s so much fraud being discovered right now.

Imagine, for a moment, how much fraud would be exposed and expunged if our government were required to do a public (or mostly public, within security barriers) audit every four years (right before a President leaves office, for instance)? It would be glorious. It would show the American people just how much a President has actually done for the country.

So how do we calculate the net monthly income of the United States? Well, I looked into it, and it’s roughly $23.6 trillion dollars per year, or about $1.967 trillion dollars per month. In looking this stuff up on Grok, it’s limited in what it can access, but it looks as though we’re currently spending about $2 trillion dollars a month, so a bit more in monthly expenses than we make. Obviously, the details are much larger than what I’m writing about here, but I have to work in generalities because again, there isn’t enough transparency for any of us peons to see what’s actually being paid out or taken in. We can only guess. And that, my friends, is a real problem.

We need to cut spending. Everyone seems to agree (or mostly everyone… all of the Right and portions of the Left agree). What can’t be agreed on is WHAT we should cut, spending-wise. The Right wants to fund military and some government oversight stuff. The Left wants social safety nets. Of the two, our Constitution seems to indicate the Right is correct and the Left should be doing its social safety nets at the state or community level, NOT the Federal level. But it’s hard (for me, at least) to get overly judgmental about bad spending on the Left when I’m also seeing bad spending on the Right (for example, farm subsidies, abstinence only sex ed come to mind, but there’s pork in all those barrels). Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want the Left spending money on songbirds in Denmark or trans rights in Africa. I just also do not want to pay farmers not to farm (especially right now) or to bolster the price of food (never a good thing imo), or to teach something that has proven it just doesn’t work.

The only way, in my VERY strong opinion, to get past this whole pork barrel bullshit, is to budget from the ground up. There should never be “cutting something from the budget” involved. It should be, “We can’t put that INTO the budget, because we’ve run out of money.” Period.

And folks? We’re the richest country in the world. We need to live inside our damn means. That means tightening our belts for a while. It might mean we need to see a number of our stores close (do we really need to support 8 different coffee shops inside a one mile radius? I think not). Money needs to be shifted, and start paying the important stuff.

Looking at all the numbers above, I begin to understand how much DOGE did, and didn’t do. Sure, they rooted out millions of dollars in fraud and waste. But that’s not even a single day worth of budget. It’s not even a measurable PORTION of a single day of budget. That’s how tiny it was.

We can’t keep living the way we’re living, folks. Time to buckle down. Buy less. Grow more. Waste less. Support local companies, because they’re literally the ones that keep us fed. Look at how we fed the nation during WWI and WWII. Look at how we dealt with the Depression. We need to learn, or re-learn those lessons, so we don’t have to repeat them.

Time’s a’wastin’, boys.

Pres. Trump first proposed a new ballroom for We The People back in 2010, when Obama was in office. He suggested it heavily several times between then and July 2025, at which time he announced it would be going forward.

Back when he first mentioned the need for a ballroom, Trump suggested he’d fund it entirely himself. A few million dollars was the proposed cost. Fast forward to July 2025, and that cost had gone up to $200 million. Between then and today, an extra $200 million has been added. And now, the GOP is saying they want an extra $1 BILLION added, but this time out of taxpayer funds.

I am a proponent of the ballroom. We need a secure facility that can host the kind of shindigs the President should be having. The old East Wing was in sad condition, and it needed a refurb at the very least. I have been entirely on board with this project since I first heard of it back in 2025.

I am not a proponent of spending a billion bucks more on it. At every single point, Pres. Trump has talked about how this ballroom would be funded by himself and others, privately. Hearing the addition of $1B to the cost really made me antsy. And then I started thinking, and investigating.

So after doing a small quest, I discovered several things. First and foremost, this is a multi-year request for $1 billion, for security only. It is NOT for the ballroom itself. That is still being privately funded, even after the price hikes after they discovered all the damage. “The funds are appropriated for fiscal year 2026 but remain available until September 30, 2029 (i.e., multi-year availability, spanning roughly FY2026–FY2029).” (CNN) They are also part of a larger $30 B package that the GOP are asking for in regards to immigration, ICE, and general security. There are confusing statements made all over the place about what the $1B is meant to cover, but everyone agrees it absolutely covers the new security measures for the ballroom/East Wing area. There are questions, because of wording by the GOP folks themselves, whether it also covers the rest of the White House. In a few places, they talk about it only being part of the ballroom, and in other places they talk about how it’s all the spots inside the fence.

The very fact that we don’t have wording for this stuff bothers me. When I supported Trump, I was standing for transparency in government. While he’s definitely (imo at least) been the most transparent President in my remembrance, this is being obfuscated. Perhaps that’s to do with security, which I can appreciate, but it’s still our money they’re talking about using. I’d like at least the generalities. Right now, we have very vague wording from the Senate Judiciary Committee, but no line-item breakdown has been released.

I want our President, First Lady, VP and Second Lady, and all dignitaries to be safe when they’re working. I hate that the shooting at the media dinner means that it’s the last time we’ll see Vance and Trump together at a dinner outside of the White House. Someone did a stupid, letting almost the entire chain of command be at that dinner. It just can’t happen again, and that makes me sad. so yes, we absolutely must harden the White House (not just for Trump, but for all future Presidents and their guests).

It’s a lot of money. A billion bucks over 3 years can be more easily understood like this:

• $333,333,333.00 per year
• $27.7 million per month
• $913,242 per day

Those are big numbers. Is the security worth a million bucks a day? Is that a reasonable number? The reality is, none of us plebs can really tell if it’s worth it or not. We don’t have access to enough information to make anything even remotely close to an educated guess. And yes, that bothers me.

I am still VERY much a member of the “less government is good government” club. This security package isn’t necessarily “more” government, but money is fungible and I worry about a stray million being lost here or there. When we get into numbers this large, that is quite literally a reality. And I’m not naive enough to believe that ONLY the Left makes those kinds of appropriations of cash. I know the Right does it as well.

Bottom line? This is not a bait and switch. It’s a (very) big addition that the Right as a whole wants to add to Trump’s ballroom project, and since he didn’t suggest it, he shouldn’t have to pay out of pocket for it. Not that he could. He’s rich, but his pockets aren’t bottomless. On the other hand, my pockets aren’t bottomless either, and things ARE getting tight. I don’t regret Trump being in office, but I do think that some reminders might need to be forthcoming.

I am having a moment of cognitive dissonance.

I am brand new to “the Right.” In some ways, I’m only here under protest, because the Left has scampered so far Left that I can’t be there anymore. There are definitely points I’ve been “far right of center” on since early on (2A comes to mind), but those were outliers. I’ve always been into rainbows and ren faires. I still am. A good portion of my friends are gay or pansexual. Many are pagan. These days a larger portion of them are also Conservative, but that’s due to attrition and stupidity, not me.

So explain to me, please, why I am schooling conservatives on FaceBook about the Founders of our country? Chris responded to my question by telling me that most people haven’t read the things I’ve read, or read it all so long ago that they’ve forgotten, or they’re just ignorant because that’s a truism on the Right as much as on the Left (well, maybe not AS MUCH, but you know what I mean). But that should not be true.

Trump posted this on his FaceBook page:

I have to admit, I cringed when I read it. One doesn’t “ace” a cognitive exam. And it’s not … a crowning achievement. I’m glad he passed. I didn’t have any concern that he would fail. But this just looks stupid. I hate it when he makes himself look stupid. *sigh*

However, it sparked commentary. I don’t usually read the comments, because most of the people are just plain stupid. But I decided to go read today. I saw the following (names removed as I’m not asking permission):

“A requirement to be a veteran before becoming Commander In Chief would also be a good thing.”

My response was immediate: “There are a lot of very poignant and important reasons our Framers did not want that. While it would be *nice*, I could not in good conscience support any bill suggesting that it be required.” And the response to my response was basically, “Please elaborate.”

Now, the gentleman in question was not being rude. There was no name calling, but there didn’t seem to be a warm fuzzy feeling either. It was a challenge. I didn’t feel like spending 4 hours getting all my receipts together (I have them, but I wasn’t on my computer at the time and finding it all while on my phone is difficult at best). While doing that, I received this gem:

“Oh, you mean like General George Washington, Colonel James Madison, Colonel Thomas Jefferson, Lt Col Alexander Hamilton, Lt Col James Monroe, and 17 other veterans? SMDH…”

I patiently (okay somewhat impatiently, but not rudely) explained that my problem wasn’t with vets being President, it was with a requirement that the President be a vet. Now I’m getting crickets, of course. But I wanted to share my reply to the original poster:

“(Name Redacted) https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2013/07/why-founding-fathers-would-object-todays-military/66668/ … This says it better than me (tho I disagree with parts of it). But to quote one of the important bits… “The founders also, we well know, had a pronounced fear of and antipathy toward standing armies — large, permanent, professional military establishments — because of the dual temptations for domestic oppression and international adventurism by those in power, the drain on public resources, and, not least, the not-infrequent aberrant behavior of those in uniform.”

To require all presidential candidates to have served in the military would be to take power away from the citizenry. While I find a vast number of today’s citizenry to be abhorrent, it’s still my duty to give all due consideration to the Framers’ opinions on such things. I don’t believe they could have imagined today’s political climate, but they knew all forms of politics were subject to corruption. Hence why we are a constitutional Republic and not a democracy.

Or TLDR, it’s complicated but the Founders were worried about standing armies and their leaders. I suspect most had read the stories of Rome’s heyday, and wanted to avoid the trap of bread and circuses.”

I stand by my statement (and neither person has written back to me in the couple of hours since I wrote that). The Founders of this great country had just walked away from an oppressive government run by a tyrant. To insist that all Presidents going forward be military would be to exchange one tyrant for another. And while we can play nice with Britain now, at the time it was pretty touch and go.

Now… if you want to discuss requirements for VOTERS, that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

Initially, the only people who could vote in a newly formed America were white, adult males who owned property and paid taxes. Those rules were set by the States, not by the Federal government. “The framers and state leaders viewed voting as a privilege tied to independence, virtue, and stake in the community—not a universal natural right for all adults (https://theamericanleader.org/timeline-era/expanding-white-mens-right-to-vote-1787-1856/).”

Today, the bar for voters is so low that our Founding Fathers would weep. You have to be a citizen (but only 36 states require some form of ID). You have to be at least 18 years old. Most states have residency requirements, and you have to register. Felons can’t vote while incarcerated (except in a few states, where they can continue to do so), but few states restrict them from doing so once they’re back in society. Only 39 states allow a judge to take away the right to vote if someone is mentally incapable of voting (when legally adjudicated as incompetent).

Despite this deplorably low bar, only 64% of citizens voted in the last two Presidential elections… and they were considered historically unusual for the number of voters. Only about 50% of eligible voters voted in the most recent midterms.

Yes, everyone who didn’t vote is a Deplorable. And I stand by that.

How did we get here? The freest nation on earth and we can’t get 3/4 of our citizens to vote.

I like Starship Troopers (Heinlein) method for choosing voters. Only veterans can vote, but anyone can serve. If you want to serve, they’re legally bound to find a job you can do, even if that’s just greeting people at a doorway. Your service to your country buys your franchise. It means you have skin in the game. I’ve always found that to be… a good idea. It’s not a guarantee that the veteran is a better person than the general citizenry, but it’s a better indicator than what we currently have.

  This book is an important one for anyone interested in politics, in my opinion. This quote, though, is important right now. RIGHT now.

Politeness is dying. And it’s considerably more significant than a riot, though we’ve plenty of those, as well, despite their “mostly peaceful” monikers. While I’ve no desire to go back to a time where I would be forced to wear a corset every day and was bound to cook, clean, and bear children for my husband simply because I’m female… I do want to live in a time where doing so is not maligned or looked down upon. Or bad-mouthed.

I’m so very tired of many things right now, but the impoliteness is really getting to me right now. You can disagree with someone and be polite. It’s why the South invented the term, “Bless your heart!” Everyone knows if a Southern person says that to you, it’s the equivalent of saying to fuck off… but it’s not the SAME. It’s polite.

Why does it matter if we’re using polite language? I mean, if everyone knows that the polite language means the same thing as the brutal language, why bother to use the polite version? Because it’s social lubricant, that’s why.

Right now, the level of impoliteness is so damn bad. There’s sand in the gears, and no social lubricant at all. Important parts that really require lubrication are not getting it, and instead are being actively fed with things that gum up the works. That thin veil of politeness that was used until sometime in the 80s? That kept the machinery running. And now it isn’t. The machinery, the social machinery, is breaking down.

I will say that I noticed it first on the Right. That doesn’t mean it appeared there first, mind you… it’s just where I saw it. I ran into a couple of pundits (Ann Coulter immediately comes to mind, and Ben Shapiro from 10 years ago but NOT today) who really bothered me, and it put me off anything to do with the Right for a long time. Chris will tell you that anytime he tried to talk to me about something positive, I’d pull out, “Well, that Ann woman was just swearing and being a shit.” It was not good.

At the time, say 10 years ago, I didn’t see it on the Left. I see it daily on the Left, now. That could be entirely my perception, or it could be that the Left has gotten worse, or a combination of that and other factors, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. Whether the Left learned it from the Right, or vice versa, or it all just happened at the same time, we’re here now. People are being so rude on a daily basis that it’s become endemic.

What scares me the most about all of it? America is (in my very strong opinion) the best country at the moment. We’re the most free, the most responsible (other than fiscally), the most helpful. We’re also the cheapest for our citizenry. And our people spend a good portion of their day complaining about how awful it all is. They have no idea what it’s like in other countries. Gas is $5.30 per gallon right now in Canada. In Britain it ranges from $7.50 to $8.10 per gallon. And those are the “free” countries. Housing is more expensive in Canada and Britain. Health care is, too, even if the cost is hidden. Food is ridiculously more expensive in both of those countries. Our citizens have no idea how they are faring in the world. They really don’t.

Our society is dying. If we don’t fix this soon… and by soon I mean in the next year or two at the outside… we’re not going to have a country anymore.

And just like that, I lost more friends. This time it was on me, admittedly (well, sort of), but still…

As most of you know, someone attempted to shoot at Trump yet again. I really tried to avoid anyone I knew in regards to this. I didn’t want to know their opinions on it. It’s faire season, and I just wanted to go to faire and relax and have a good fucking time. But nope. One person I’ve known for a decade, who I considered (until last night) to be a reasonable, rational person, said (and I quote), “Too bad he missed.”

Do they have the right to say that? Yep. They do. Being an asshole, being wrong, that’s protected in this country. And don’t get me wrong, though it irks me greatly to know people I considered close friends are actually assholes in disguise, I would not want our country to be any other way. But lately I have found myself asking, too many times, whether free speech should reasonably include lies.

I am reasonably certain that most of the people I’ve considered friends who’ve been taken in by the bullshit spewing out of the media would NEVER have gotten as bad as they are without the media helping. They may have still disliked Trump (hey, I’m not a die-hard Trumper, either), but they wouldn’t be actively wishing death on him. This is the fault of the media, and/or whomever controls the media. And I know they have a 1A right to spew their garbage up to a point. I just can’t help wondering… when do we reach that point?

There are so many people saying so many vile things that Trump can’t possibly take them all to court. He’d be doing it for a hundred years and never make it past discovery. Even though he would probably win most of the cases. But it takes money, and it takes time, and let’s be honest… he’s not going to live long enough to take most of these jackwads to court. He’s going to be 80 in a couple of months, which is a fairly advanced age for someone of his weight, and all these threats on his life and his family’s lives must be weighing on him. I am hopeful he’ll make it through his 4 years, but I have to be blunt and honest that he’s not likely to make it to 90. So most of those vile words will go unchallenged.

Someone once said that the victors write history, but I’m not so sure that’s true these days. Whoever has the most memes and bots writes history, and it’s being REwritten right underneath us. It doesn’t matter if it’s even related to the truth, because it was said on the internet and somehow we’ve brought up a whole-ass generation who can’t logic their way out of a paper bag. Present them with cognitive dissonance and they faint from panic. They can’t follow a thought through to it’s logical conclusion. They just can’t.

Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it, yes… but those of us who DID learn it are doomed to watch the vast majority of idiots repeating it. There’s only so many facepalms I can do before I get a major headache. I’ve taken to bitching at grok, because I don’t want to whinge at my family anymore. They don’t need to be exposed to my upset and anger.

So yes, I deleted someone on FB who I’ve considered a good friend for a long time. If I run into him at faire, which I likely will, I will be forced to walk away. I am not going to hug someone or spend “quality time” with someone who advocates murder. Not even if “it was just a joke.” Or whatever the excuse de jour is. One more person to avoid. One more person to step away from. I’m running out of people, folks. And I’m damned tired.

I went to write an article about how guns and voting are similar because they’re both Constitutional rights… then discovered that the Constitution doesn’t actually give or protect a right to vote. Call me flabbergasted.

What the Constitution does say:

Article I, Section 2: Members of the House of Representatives are “chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.”

This ties federal voting qualifications for the House to whatever qualifications a state sets for its own largest legislative body (typically the lower house). States originally set their own rules, often limiting voting to white male property owners (or similar restrictions).

Article I, Section 4 (Elections Clause): “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

States primarily control the “times, places, and manner” of congressional elections, but Congress can override or add rules.

Article II, Section 1: States appoint presidential electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Congress sets the uniform day for choosing electors and for them to cast votes. (This allows states flexibility in how they select electors; all now use popular vote, but the Constitution does not require it.)

Other early provisions (e.g., original Senate selection by state legislatures, later changed) and the 12th Amendment (1804) refined the Electoral College process but did not address voter qualifications.

15th Amendment (1870): Prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” (Primarily aimed at protecting Black men after the Civil War.)
19th Amendment (1920): Prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote “on account of sex.” (Women’s suffrage.)
24th Amendment (1964): Prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote in federal elections (President, Vice President, Congress) “by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” (Banned poll taxes used to suppress voting.)
26th Amendment (1971): Prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote for citizens “who are eighteen years of age or older… on account of age.” (Lowered the voting age from 21 during the Vietnam era.)

14th Amendment, Section 2 (1868): Reduces a state’s representation in Congress if it denies the vote to eligible male citizens (age 21+ at the time) for reasons other than “participation in rebellion, or other crime.” (This was a penalty mechanism, rarely enforced, and used “male” language that was later superseded.)
The Constitution also requires a “Republican Form of Government” for states (Article IV, Section 4), which implies elections, but courts have rarely used this to broadly define voting rights.

Voter qualifications (e.g., citizenship, residency, age minimums, felony disenfranchisement in some cases, registration rules) are still primarily set by states, as long as they do not violate the amendments above or other constitutional protections (like equal protection under the 14th Amendment).

Thank you Grok. Well that was a bit of an education. Every citizen of the United States of America is entitled to the right to keep and bear arms, with only a very few caveats (for instance, you’re in jail, or you’re going into a Federal building where they accept the burden of protecting you, etc.). I realize not everyone upholds it, but that’s what it says. Fair enough.

Apparently, that’s just not true with voting. Color me surprised. If the above is true (and it does appear to be), then California and NYC should legally be able to decide they want to ignore citizenship as a requirement for voting. It certainly seems to imply that there is currently a strong argument for ID-less voting in those states. That was not what I expected to be writing in this missive.

Looking at the above, I have to say that while I disagree with it and think it should be codified to be voting for citizens only, it appears that the Constitution does, at the moment, appear to uphold the states that choose not to check ID. So at this point, I urge you all to go talk to your Senators and Congress critters and demand they offer up an Amendment to the Constitution which allows only for citizen voters. If that is added to the Constitution, all the other stuff goes away.

I have to ask myself, why didn’t our Framers insist on having only citizens vote? Was citizenship so difficult to prove that it was egregious and impossible to enforce? I find myself at a hella loss for words right now. I’ll leave the information with you, and hopefully someone will be able to tell me I just read something wrong. Because … I’m currently confused and upset.

Look, I know people don’t like the Left. I get it, especially now. But hear me out.

For the last 3 years or maybe a bit more, I’ve been watching and learning about how horrid the Left is. And for the most part, Chris and the rest of you have been correct. There are a lot of people over there doing Stupid Things, without winning the stupid prizes that should go along with it. We’ve had riots and protests and shootings, and it’s like … meh.

But the last week? I’m finally seeing some positive, guys. You probably won’t see it for another year or two, because this is going to move very slowly. But I am actually seeing the thinking people remaining on the Left…. well, thinking.

I’ve always been very supportive of everything the Iranian and other Muslim women have done in order to bring about freedom for themselves. That really is the only way they’re going to get it, even though Trump and Israel are helping a bit. They have to grasp it and do it for themselves… and unlike some liberal women, they do understand that. There are women out there today burning their hijabs who were born under this regime and have been fighting it literally their entire lives. All my friends know I’m supportive of all women, but the Iranians in particular.

And when a handful of them started reposting stuff about how awful Trump was, I questioned them. I pointed out that the facts hadn’t changed since last year. That the regime had murdered 20,000 of their own people *for protesting*. And several other inconvenient facts that have LOTS to back them up.

And they stopped. They actually listened.

They began to realize that they can simultaneously dislike Trump (go for it… I still don’t like *everything* he does) and be happy that our military stepped in and helped the Iranian people. They can be concerned about how much it’s going to cost us, as a country, to help the Iranians, and still be glad the Iranians are being given the chance to rule their own G-D selves.

Someone made an offhand comment that I must be rooting for Fetterman to become a Republican, and I said no! I don’t want Fetterman to come over to the Right, because he’s not a Conservative. He’s a Liberal, a Democrat, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The fact that he’s a reasonable, responsible, thinking person is a GOOD thing. I want him to continue being a Liberal and a Democrat, and perhaps be a voice for change and reason. And they … thought about it.

So there are cracks, my friends. People are starting to think. They’re starting to look at the fact that they’ve been supporting the dictators while wanting Trump out, and how wrong that is.

I was at my boyfriend’s place on Saturday when I heard about the Ayatollah. For a long time, I just kind of stood there, in shock.

One of my earliest political memories (though I wouldn’t have called it that at the time) was when I was 8 years old. We had a friend in the neighborhood who came from Iran. She was in the country with her mother and father, and was staying for a year. We were all getting ready to say goodbye in ’79, and she was going back to Iran with her parents. Then the Ayatollah took over. They didn’t go back. They mourned their home, but they refused to take their wife/mother/sister/female child back to a place that was bound to try and erase her/them.

That moment, when my friend came to tell me she wasn’t leaving, came streaming back to me when I heard he’d been killed. And then I saw the videos of women and families, Iranians who’d moved here and to other countries (Canada, Australia, Britain, etc) when the Shah was exiled and the radical muslims took over. They were cheering, dancing, sobbing with joy. Many of them were saying the words out loud: “Now I can go home! Soon I can go HOME!”

This is the definition of how asylum should work. These people came here because they were escaping an oppression that not one of us in this country can understand. They had to walk away from their beloved homeland because evil people took it over. And they’ve done their best to live a good life here. But upon learning that the oppression was gone? Their first statement was that they were ready to leave. Not because America is horrible or treated them badly, but because we’d helped them grow and become better people, and now their home is free again!

I cried. I cried because, if that long ago friend is still alive, I’ll bet she’s ready to go home. And I hope she’s able to, because what an incredible thing, to be able to go home.

There’s a lot of fuss on the Right about how the Left is now stumping for the Ayatollah. Are there some people saying that? Yeah, but that’s always going to happen. What’s filling my feed, my very  much Left tinted feed, are news reports about the celebrations, the joy, the tearing off of the hijabs, the bonfires burning effigies of the Ayatollah and his torture gang. There’s video of Iranians, in Iran and in other parts of the world, dancing and singing, blessing President Trump, thanking the United States and Israel for bringing about their freedom. From within the Middle East, the former Shah’s son (I believe that’s correct, but please don’t quote me on this) is wanting to come home as well. He’s telling his people, the people of Iran, that the US and Israel did the easy part, but now their version of “We the People” must stand up and root out the aggressors, the torturers. That the police must begin to do their jobs again, correctly and not as they were under the Ayatollah. That Iran has gotten their hand up, but they  must not accept hand outs, but need to stand on their own two feet and fight this from within. Because that is the ONLY way for them to win as a nation.

The public news media is presenting this as a win. Their only negative talking point was about the girls’ school in Tehran that exploded… and that’s since been shown to be a mistake of Iran, not the US or Israel. It’s difficult to paint this kind of thing as a loss for the United States. As with Maduro, Trump was in and out before most people had a clue as to what was going on. The win was done before we’d all had our morning coffee. You can complain all you like, but he’s good at this.

A pundit this morning said it right. Trump just proved that you can go in, “get ‘er done”, and get out of dodge without starting a ground war. And you can do it repeatedly. The ground wars, the forever wars? They were a choice, not a necessity, a choice made by shitty politicians who didn’t do their job. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for having the balls to take it to Iran and make Khomeini pay. Thank you for freeing the women and children from degradation and oppression.

I won’t wish ill on anyone, especially the dead. That’s not my way, and I think it’s tasteless. But I will say that I hope, genuinely, that the Ayatollah Khomeini met his maker, and his maker is currently taking him to task for everything he did. In detail.

JLR posted this:

Trans Democrat Congressman Says Pornography Is ‘Educational’ for Children
https://gellerreport.com/2026/02/trans-democrat-congressman-says-pornography-is-educational-for-children.html/
The Minnesota State Legislature is in session and is considering a bill to age-restrict access to pornography. State Rep. Leigh Finke, a transgender Democrat, argued in committee that restricting access to pornography would limit kids’ ability to get educated about gender issues…Finke introduced a bill that will remove the exclusion of pedophiles from the protected class of “sexual orientation”, making it illegal to discriminate against child rapists.
video – 00:00:42 – https://twitter.com/i/status/2024698759184081347

The Dem says, and I quote: “Prurient interest could be, for many people, the very existence of transgender kids.”

So leaving aside the idiocy of the entire statement in that video, I want to focus for a moment on a single word: prurient. It’s important. Words are important. This one is more important than most, BECAUSE it came out of THIS Dem’s mouth.

Prurient: having or encouraging an excessive or inappropriate interest in sexual matters, especially the sexual activities and intimate affairs of others. (via Google and Oxford Language Dictionary)

I have listened to the video many times now. It’s been on Facebook, TikTok, Twitter (where, I believe, it originated), and other social media. The word “prurient” caught my attention, because of its meaning. It has a very specific meaning, as you can see from the definition above. There is no usage of this word where prurient doesn’t mean something excessive or inappropriate.

There are two ways to take the above congress critter’s statement. First, and the one that knee jerked in my brain, is that trans (and queer, but that’s for later) kids should be allowed to show excessive or inappropriate sexual interest, because it’s important to their person. You can imagine I was a bit upset with that. It’s a terrible thought, that any child should be allowed to and be encouraged to show excessive and/or inappropriate sexual interests. The second way, which later occurred to me, is that it is the adults who have the prurient interest, simply because trans kids exist. This is just about as bad, and my head immediately went to the kind of perverts who groom little girls (or in this case perhaps, little boys forced or coerced or brainwashed into dressing like girls) to “enjoy” sexual attentions.

There is no way I can read or hear the congress critter’s statements (in or out of context, I might add) where these two scenarios don’t come to the front. The congress critter is literally saying one or possibly both of the above things. In public. Demanding it be allowed.

Then the kicker is thrown in. Queer kids (and at least for me, orientation – gay, straight, bi, pan – is different from how one feels in the body one is born in) aren’t getting sexual education in schools that is dedicated to them. There’s no sex ed for queer kids. Oh no!

As a person who is, in today’s parlance, considered queer (I use the term pansexual myself, and as a young adult, I used bisexual)… I can tell you that I did just fine without “queer faced” sex education.

I had this discussion in a conservative group on Facebook the other day. Sex education is not there to teach you how to have fun. Kids are going to do that all on their own, and other than raising them with good morals, there’s not much we can do to stop it. We can only teach them to respect their bodies and the bodies of others, and explain that intercourse can lead to STDs (including babies, which linger for a minimum of 20 to 25 years, no matter what medication you take). THAT is what sex ed should be covering in school. If you put a penis into a vagina, here’s what could happen, and here’s what is likely to happen. If you put either of those things in other places, your mileage may vary, but you’re not likely to get pregnant, and most of the diseases that can be passed along are a lot more minor and relatively treatable. Please don’t have sex, but if you’re going to, please use barriers and whatever meds you have legal and moral access to.

I don’t object to teaching kids about birth control. I’ve seen no studies that indicate it leads to more sex among teens, and a LOT of studies that indicate it stops teen pregnancy or at least slows it down a lot. I believe it should be fully taught, however, and should include such things as the gory details of giving birth. I’ve found, in my wealth of personal experience, that seeing someone give birth pretty much kills prurient interest of teens wanting to have unprotected sex. But that’s my opinion, and it’s probably best kept in the home. But yes, I think schools can and should be permitted to explain what happens to bodies as children mature from elementary to middle to high school students. It can be frightening, and not every parent is aware enough or chill enough to teach their kids. Allow an opt out for parents who either already teach that stuff and don’t feel their kids need another class in it, or who object on religious grounds (I can think it’s stupid and still support their right to do so).

In any case, what I was trying to get to was that when I was in school I had sex ed. We had girls and boys separate, which was supposed to make us more comfortable talking. It didn’t, but they tried. It really requires a special kind of teacher. Sex ed shouldn’t be taught by anyone who uses sarcasm as their main form of communication, or who will shut doors that kids open. If a kid asks a question, they deserve an answer… because if they don’t get it from a trained instructor, they’ll either go try it on their own (almost always a bad idea) or they’ll turn to friends (usually a bad idea) or the internet (NEVER a good idea). I asked questions that were important to me, and I got shot down. It left me traumatized, and yes, I went out and learned things on my own.

Just as an explainer, I was asking in a very couched way about what happens when a boy ejaculates on/over your privates, instead of in them. That was what my rapist did to me, and I was absolutely stark terrified I would get pregnant. The teacher snorted, and said you could only get pregnant if he came inside… which I later found out was not true. His merely being inside me could have released enough sperm to get me pregnant. Had I received that knowledge at the time, I might have sought out help from a hospital or the police, and my life might have been very different. Instead, I went home and took the 20th hot shower, scoured myself until I bled, and cried in my bedroom.

Regardless of all that, I knew I was “different” from the other kids. For a long time I thought I was gay. I liked to look at girls. Not “peeping in the locker room” style, because that would have been inappropriate and gross, but I did find my dad’s dirty magazines and spent countless hours looking through them. And reading (there really are a surprising number of decent articles in those early Playboy magazines). But here’s the thing… I liked boys, too. A lot. And liking boys was a lot easier. For a long time, I had very prurient relationships with first boys my age, and then with older men (who had no idea of my age, btw). But I always liked girls… and eventually had a few experiences, and that opened a number of doors.

Why am I talking about this? Because no matter what they taught or didn’t teach in sex ed, I figured out my orientation all on my own. Sex ed should fit everyone, and include the important things (how not to get pregnant, what happens to bodies as they mature, etc etc), which have nothing to do with who you might be interested in. My interest in girls and boys alike didn’t change the fact that a penis in a vagina could equal an infant. And it’s those basic facts that should be covered in sex ed. And that’s all that should be covered in sex ed.

Older teens and young adults are going to fall in love with who they fall in love with, and there’s no force in nature that can stop it. It’s not a lesson that a teacher or a classroom can convey, nor should we even try. Who you fall in love with and decide to have a relationship with is up to you. The only thing you need to know, going into it, is to be certain everyone is consenting, that ages are similar enough (at least until adulthood), and to be safe in your explorations. None of that is just for straight kids or just for gay kids or whatever. Doesn’t matter if you’re queer, trans, straight as a board.

What I told my kids, as they went out to college and to interact with the world:

Don’t add to the population. Don’t subtract from the population. Don’t do illegal stuff, and if you do, don’t get caught. If you do end up in jail, establish dominance quickly and you’ll do fine.

I posted this 8 years ago. Deserves being posted again. I may not agree with the current reasons for protests happening, but I absolutely support your right to peaceably assemble, and while it isn’t a “guaranteed in the Constitution” right, your right to protest.

But I also agree that leaving school during school hours is not cool. Having stuff organized by teachers is beyond not cool. When we had to sign 8 forms just to let our kids go to the local library, no teacher should be able to just take kids out of the classroom and off campus without parental consent and all those same forms used for any other outing. There *cannot* be “rules for thee but not for me.”

And to finish… protests are dangerous. Even peaceable ones. A protest can quickly turn into a mob, and mobs are not people, mobs are a monster all on their own, and they are easily moved and abused by people outside the mob. I have both watched that happen from outside, and been trapped inside a mob and experienced it. Before you go to protest (at any age!!), be sure that you know the realities of what protesting can and does mean.

You could get hurt. You could get arrested. You could get shot with “less than lethal” things like rubber bullets, tasers, chemicals, and water. You could get expelled, if you’re in school, or fired if you’re working. You could get caught up in things you do NOT agree with, a lot more easily than you can imagine, even if you agree with the rest of the protest. You could get yelled at, spit on, and even assaulted.

All but the assault (by a non-LEO) are perfectly legal, by the way. If you’re ordered by LEOs to move, and you don’t, they can and will use “less than lethal” weapons on you. Those “less than lethal” things can cause REAL damage, and they can even cause death sometimes. Assaults during a protest (or worse, during a riot and/or mob situation) are very difficult to prove in court.

All of this is offered from NEITHER political side. It doesn’t matter to me what side you’re on; these are the realities of standing up for your rights, real or perceived. Freedom is not free, and it is NOT SAFE. Being free has never been safe. The fact that we are safer in our country than people in most (if not all) other countries is saying something… but it doesn’t mean “we are safe.” SAFER is not SAFE. Standing up for your rights, again perceived or real, is dangerous, and always will be.

I posted the above to Facebook today, because it came up in my memories. I don’t recall the reason I posted it, but I do remember telling my kids about it. At the time, they were 12 or 13, so right at the rebellious “I’m a real teen” stage. I thought it was horrible at the time, but there are days I miss that… At least I was able to do something about it when they were wrong. Today, I have to grit my teeth and let them make their mistakes. Oy. Anyhow…

The image was what was posted 8 years ago, and the text I just posted today. Though I have no comments yet, I’m sure I’ll get a couple, at least, and maybe ferret out a couple more idiots from my friends’ list. I expect that more than one person will claim to not understand how I can support someone without supporting their cause. That’s the usual response to things like this. My friends, at least, don’t seem to get the idea of “hate the sin, love the sinner” (for lack of a better phrase).

One way I use to describe it a lot, lately, is that here in America, we absolutely have the right to be an idiot, to be wrong, and to keep talking long after we should have (morally speaking) shut our traps. That is our RIGHT. Doesn’t mean it *is* right (as in correct).

But yes, I will absolutely go and protect people I love who feel the need to peaceably demonstrate, even if I disagree with what they’re demonstrating about. Why? Because this is America, and PEACEABLE demonstration is allowed. If they stop being peaceable, I will not support them, and they all know that. But if they’re just holding a sign on the sidewalk and talking to people? Absolutely I will. And if they get arrested while demonstrating peaceably, I’ll record it, and I’ll testify on their behalf later. Because it’s the right thing to do. What I won’t do is interfere with LEOs, because even if I think they’re wrong, that’s how riots and mobs start. I’ll ask questions politely, stay out of the way, and take video. The rest can get argued at the courthouse. Peaceably.