From Behind Enemy Lines

BLUF: Are you in the area that’s been affected by Helene? Talk to us. We want to hear what’s going on from those who are there. If you need help, let us know what we can do. We might not be able to do everything, but we’ll do *something*!

As I watch what’s unfolding in the Carolinas and Tennessee, I am just heartbroken for the people who’ve lost family members, homes, everything. I’m happy to see so many people, “average people,” standing up and doing what needs doing. I know a lot of people are turning to X for their information from boots on the ground, and I watch TikTok for the same reason.

I want to scream at the people who are whining about their holidays being cancelled, due to the hurricane’s devastation of the area. Yes, there are people on TikTok who are actually complaining that they can’t go visit scenic Appalachia and such. I suppose they don’t realize that the hotels and AirBnBs they had booked are simply no longer there. It’s not that trips are cancelled to do a bit of clean-up… it’s that entire communities are under water, or have been destroyed. On the other side of that spectrum, there are so many people who are cancelling their bookings but not their fees, meaning they let the owners know they aren’t even attempting to come, but to keep the money because they know it’s needed.

Yesterday, I watched Trump talking in Georgia (I think? I can’t remember, but one of the places hit hard), and he commented that the state governor couldn’t get ahold of Biden or Harris. I also watched a reporter ask Biden if there was more aid going to the southern states to help dig out the towns devastated by the hurricane, and Biden’s very clear answer was no. Now, Trump’s campaign tends to cut it off right after the “no” but Biden do go on to say more (here’s the clip). I don’t know that Biden’s staff is ignoring the issue, and certainly he managed to get on tv later in the day to tell everyone that there was more aid going to the south. I think the problem is that *Biden* isn’t doing anything. I didn’t really expect him to. He can’t handle simple stairs; I don’t know that we want him somewhere that the ground is uneven and it’s moderately dangerous. Regardless, the mainstream media seems to think that the clip I reference above simply doesn’t exist. They say that Trump is lying about it. But it’s RIGHT THERE.

I really don’t know what to make of all this. I understand not wanting the President or the VP on the site right now. When Katrina hit New Orleans, Bush delayed going so that he and his entourage of Secret Service didn’t interfere with search and rescue. I didn’t expect anyone from the White House to arrive on scene for a few days, and that’s just fine. But I did expect to see Harris, at least, on television saying words of hope and concern. Isn’t that what she’s all about? The fact that she seems to have completely ignored the red states makes my skin crawl. I mean, let’s face it, there are Blue folks down in the rubble there. Surely she cares about them?

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Update – Wed. Sep. 25, 2:39pm:

So it turns out that each state has its own election rules, and there are several places that you cannot do what is suggested in the video below and the post. I encourage everyone to find out BEFORE the election what you should do if you find out someone has stolen your identity. Also, if you’ve had family members move out of state, pass on, or change voter status, make sure your local pollsters know that. It behooves us to ensure this stuff before each election, so that only the people who should vote, do vote.

I also urge people who live in states that only allow mail-in ballots to change that. There should always be the ability for a citizen of the United States of America to step into a polling station and cast their ballot in person. Always.

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Original post, unedited:

I’ve never had it happen to me, but I know a couple of people local to me were told at their polling place that they had already voted. This is, essentially, a form of identity theft. There are things you can do. What you should absolutely NOT do is harass the volunteers at the voting station. It’s not their fault and they are just following their rules. I was trolling on TikTok while I’ve been sick, and ran into this video, which I suggest you watch. The sound can be funky on it, not sure why. Works on my phone but not my computer.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFjSh3rx/

There’s a lot of other stuff on the video, such as advice on checking to make sure dead relatives aren’t on the rolls, and making sure that someone who’s changed their name (due to marriage or whatever) doesn’t have someone steal their pre-change identity.

So apparently there are people out there, professional looking people, telling the populace to fill in their voting oval, and then to draw a line to their candidate. Please know, that will INVALIDATE your vote. Do not do that! Just fill in your oval.

If you make a mistake, do not scribble on it. Go request another ballot. Yes, it’s a hassle. No, it’s not stupid. Yes, it’s worth it.

If someone makes any kind of mark on your ballot, request another one. You do not take a ballot that has been marked on by another person, because it can invalidate your ballot.

For those who don’t do TikTok, here’s the step by step written explanations on what to do. Please note, I am not a lawyer, and I literally got this off TikTok. It “passes the sniff test,” as Chris often says.

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I had to give this one a few days. I watched most of the debate, but had to tune out after the umpteenth time the moderators interrupted the debate to say things that are just not true. All in all, it wasn’t so much a debate as a dog-pile on Trump. I thought Trump handled himself fairly well, but I was irritated that he let himself be baited by Harris. It was obvious what she was going to do, and she did it, and the fact that he fed right into it was painful.

The main topics were Jan. 6th, the economy, immigrants, war, unemployment, job rates, trade deficits, gun confiscation, and a few other things.

David Muir asked Trump if there was anything he regretted about January 6th. I thought it was a decently worded question, and open ended enough that Trump should have been able to find something to talk about. I’m sure that Trump has regrets that people turned into a mob (not a riot, no, but yes a mob), that a person lost their life, etc. Instead, he chose to talk about how he had nothing to do with it except to make a speech. While that’s factually true, it left opponents open to making all sorts of commentary and accusations.

Harris, for her part, was just ridiculous. She said, “On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured and some died, and understand the former president has been indicted and impeached for exactly that reason.” Sure, lots of people were injured, but the ones who died were not due to their injuries sustained at the Capitol (FactCheck.org). Her bullshit about Trump threatening a “bloodbath” is just ridiculous.

The fight over tariffs is beyond my paygrade. There’s a lot of information on it online, and I encourage people to go read it. Both Trump’s and Harris’s various economic plans will cost the country money. The question is how much, and when. Trump’s tariff plans seem to indicate that We The People will see a slight increase in prices initially, because tariffs always do that (increase a price to someone and they pass that along to the consumer), but the general expectation is that American producers will be able to compete, thereby making American goods cheaper to purchase. That takes time, though, so right now it looks bad. And honestly, it IS bad, but only in the short term. I don’t know that many of us can handle a short price hike while things sort themselves out.

Harris just seems to be wanting to give people money, which might seem “nice” on the outside but… where’s the money coming from? In a crap economy where the government is bleeding dollars down the drain, where are these grants for new housing and other monies coming from? I gather Harris is just planning on printing more, but we all know how that works out. NPR suggests that the pandemic messed with the economy world wide (NPR) and I believe that to be correct, but only sort of. People were better under Trump in general. NPR suggests that prices under Trump were “depressed” for some reason, without actually giving a reason, so that now that they’re “normal,” it seems like more. NPR also states that prices have risen about 21%, but salaries have risen about 23%, so it’s all about the same as before the pandemic. I don’t think they understand economics.

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I admit it, I’m struggling. I don’t understand a lot of this. I know what I thought and said four years ago. I know what I felt during Trump’s first four years. I know that I had a small inkling into the lies of the Left, but not enough to make me change. Now? Now I see so much, and I wonder how I could have been so stupid.

I’m constantly being blasted with headlines like What If Trump Wins? (“The safeguards that kept Trump in check during his first term have collapsed — starting with the MAGA-fication of the Republican Party. “We know from the first administration that Trump was an amateur and lots of people stopped his most radical actions,” says Jason Stanley, a Yale professor and author of How Fascism Works. He underscores that Trump’s darkest ambitions were present from the beginning — from the Muslim ban to the coup attempt of Jan. 6. “The only thing that stopped him from being a full-on dictator was other people,” Stanley says. “We know that that’s not going to happen anymore.”), Pelosi suggests Trump might skip presidential debate against Harris: ‘I know cowardice when I see it’ (“Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested former President Trump could skip the upcoming presidential debate because of ‘cowardice’…”), and Trump warms up for debate by threatening to jail election officials (“Trump warned he will jail election officials he considers cheats; is complaining Pennsylvania’s voting is a fraud; vowed to pardon January 6 rioters; railed against women who accused him of sexual misconduct; and spent hours in recent days on sometimes incoherent rants that raised questions about his state of mind.”).

The so-called news doesn’t seem to match the reality. When I go and research things, it turns out that words are taken out of context, lies are being told, and things are being blown ridiculously out of proportion. I’m especially confused by the comments about “incoherent rants” that I keep hearing about. I tried to listen to Trump back when he first ran, and I found it difficult. His speaking voice was uncomfortable in pitch, and he tended to ramble. He’s gotten MUCH better. I admit I wondered if it was my own bias that made it seem less coherent before, but I went back and listened and a lot of what he said on campaign tended to be difficult to follow. He has either taken lessons in public speaking, or has been practicing. Regardless, his ability to stay on topic is much better. That aside, when you hold up Biden or Harris beside him, the term “incoherent” should not even be considered. Good grief.

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I was running behind the gun this week due to the long weekend. I’m tired after three days at the Fort, and all the packing and all the work while there. So I’m going to just toss some news spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.

Fort stuff – I went on Friday, and stayed until Monday afternoon. While there, I lit up the bake oven once, on Saturday, and turned out two *perfect* loaves of bread. I didn’t rush myself for patrons, for a change, and the result was that there was no burn on the bread at all, and the crumb was divine. By Monday morning, all that was left of those two loaves were some crumbs at the bottom of the bowl I’d had it sitting in. I decided to make egg noodles on Saturday, as well, and that turned out very well. I made a second batch on Sunday, because I wanted to try and get the dough a bit thinner. I succeeded, and the end result was a very consistent, 1/8″ thick dough that turned into quite lovely flat noodles similar to a pappardelle. They’re still a bit too thick for my taste, but these cooked up quite nicely.

We had a decent turn out at the Fort over the long weekend. We had a slow but steady stream of patrons come through, all with fantastic questions. I wasn’t rushed for time, so I spent a lot of my “free” time going from place to place and giving tours. I definitely got my steps in, and ended up walking about 17 miles over the course of the weekend! After hours, I had two nice dinners with the volunteers (Saturday night and Sunday night), which included great conversation, friendship, and a bottle of wine to share. It was definitely a fantastic weekend.

Harris stuff – I’m having a really hard time watching what Harris is putting out on media. Some of it I know is actual lies, because I have been paying attention. Some of it is just bizarre. Her documentary (because that was NOT an interview) was ridiculous, full of contradictory stuff. The fact that she’s repeating the same EXACT speech in city after city is getting a bit old, and the odd fake accents are incredibly grating. Her inability to give a straight answer is painful.

That said, there are people putting false stuff out about her, and I dislike that, too. There’s plenty of fodder that’s real; we don’t need to make anything up. So no, she was not involved in a hit and run accident in 2011. Yes, Harris was born in America (in California, which explains a lot, but is still a US state). No, Harris did not make a campaign ad that disses herself (for heavens’ sake, why would she? she’s stupid, but she’s not dumb). And no, the Eagles did not endorse Harris. At this point, there’s so much misinformation out there that it’s almost impossible to tell what’s real and what isn’t. There’s a big question as to whether someone on the far Right is doing some of this, or if Leftists are messing with it in order to get caught and blame the Right. It’s crazy.

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I’m going to start with Harris, only because I don’t think this is going to take very long to research. I don’t mean that in a snarky way, either. I just don’t believe she’s actually accomplished all that much.

According to the official WH website: “As Vice President, she has worked to bring people together to advance opportunity, deliver for families, and protect fundamental freedoms across the country. She has led the fight for the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, the freedom to live safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote, and the freedom to drink clean water and breathe clean air. While making history at home, she is also representing the nation abroad – embarking on more than a dozen foreign trips, traveling to more than 19 countries, and meeting with more than 150 world leaders to strengthen critical global alliances.” Semantic content, zero. This is literally more of the word salad she uses in her speeches.

To be clear, women can already make decisions about their own bodies. People are already free to live safe from violence of all kinds, not just gun violence, and we have a whole police force to take care of it when violence becomes a problem. If anything, Harris made the country MORE violent by bailing out violent offenders who burned the country during the riots. Everyone has the freedom to vote, and there’s been not one whiff of a smidgen of a hint that anyone’s interested in repressing that right. Drinking clean water and breathing clean air is a function of many things, and if you want to do it you have to move out of the cities. There’s nothing a VP or President can do about it. And in four years, Madame VP has made “more than a dozen” drips. Wow. In what way did she “strengthen critical global alliances,” pray tell? Again, this has no actual content.

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I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks thinking a lot about voting, and who I’m supporting, and what I’m learning about politics along the way. I’ve never been a fan of Biden, and Harris wasn’t even a speed bump on my highway to hell until Biden fell down the plane stairs that time. I wasn’t a fan of Trump, either, and found him abrasive and rude. Now, Trump continues to be a bit abrasive, and occasionally rude, but I think he’s learned a bit about what it means both to run for the position of President, and to BE President. I can find him annoying to listen to, and still think he’s the better of the two current choices offered.

But Harris? She scares me. She doesn’t scare me the way Hillary did. Hillary was actually a wee bit competent (that’s why no one’s been after her about all the people who “accidentally” died when they crossed her or Bill’s path), and that’s terrifying. Harris seems to be a sock puppet. I could actually be happy with a sock puppet, depending on who’s hand was up inside it. In this case, though, I think Harris doesn’t even realize she’s a sock puppet. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s saying. She regurgitates stuff, sometimes out of order. It’s not that she’s senile like Biden or anything. She just doesn’t have enough brain cells to run at full capacity. I suspect that’s why they aren’t having her answer questions.

Despite all that, I could probably manage to live through a Harris presidency. The economy would tank, and a lot of socialist programs would eat up what little money we have left, and the country would be in shambles… but we’d live through it. The Right would buckle down, make do, and solidify itself over a four year Left presidency. I would probably be unhappy. I know most of my family would be devastated. But none of our lives would be directly threatened.

If Trump comes into the presidency, we have a whole different story. I genuinely believe he’ll fix a lot of the problems we’re currently having. He’s smart enough to listen to advisors, and smart enough to pick decent advisors. He’s not afraid to fire people who do stupid stuff. The economy will likely get better, slowly.

And then the Left will burn the country to the ground, in the name of love, tolerance, and peace.

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I was looking at voting trends over the past few years, and I find it interesting that so many people are choosing not to vote. Pew Research has a lot of information about voter turnout and flip flop on their site, and while they aren’t perfect, they do tend to do a pretty good job of reporting.

This got me to wondering… How do we fix the voting system? How do we fix the campaigning system? How do we encourage GOOD third party candidates to bring their best and enter the interview process (being President is a job, and We the People interview for that job)? There are so many questions, and way too many answers that only make sense in a single-use scenario. We desperately need results that help the country as a whole.

Right now, I’m fairly sure that Trump is going to win the election. Harris is a twit, honestly, and while she’s currently riding on a blue wave thanks to Biden, I suspect that it will bottom out pretty soon. She simply isn’t that popular, and she just hasn’t done anything with her four years. Trump has a proven track record, and even if there’s nose holding going on, I think a majority of people are going to vote for him. Of course, winning the popular vote isn’t enough. We’ll see what happens.

The problem that I have is that, if Trump wins, the country is going to burn. I fully expect there to be gnashing of teeth, false reports of racist/sexist/homophobic attacks happening, etc. Basically I expect what happened during his first election to be tripled or more, with false accusations across the country. And then the Dems and their violent machine are going to literally begin burning down the cities.

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Right now, there are literally hundreds of women on FaceBook and other social media that are telling “all women” that we are being treated like livestock. I can’t make this shit up, folks.

Yes, absolutely. As a female human being in America, I am currently:

• being held in a cage
• restricted from movement
• bred against my will
• used in breeding programs
• abused and neglected
• being used for someone else’s profit
• living in windowless sheds
• being denied normal behaviors
• being used for meat and milk, and perhaps eggs

Seriously? What the hell. In what way is any woman in this country being treated like livestock? For fuck’s sake. Yes, I’m ranting.

I have MAJOR problems with statements like this. So many problems. Let me innumerate them.

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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNgJrsMe/

I hadn’t heard much about Tim Walz before this, but apparently he’s quite the character. He’s 60, probably to give Harris’s youth a wisdom boost.

Per the Left:

•  he’s a veteran, having served in the Army
• Governor of Minnesota, defeated the Republican nominee
• codified abortion rights into the State Constitution
• staunch union supporter
• free breakfast and lunch for all students
• made Minnesota a “transgender children’s sanctuary”
• Mid-western appeal and a “dad vibe”
• he adores his cat (not sure why this is a pro but a few places mentioned it, so…)
• he was a teacher and football coach
• is known as a “good gun owner”
• he likes Mountain Dew (so does JD Vance, and this is apparently important??)
• he’s run against Republicans successfully several times now
• he speaks well about what he has done and what he wants to do
• David Hogg likes him (the Left considers this a positive)

Per the Right:

• has a DUI from 95
• dealt badly with the George Floyd riots
• wants to defund the police
• was draconian during COVID-19
• apparently he’s given free college and free medical to illegal aliens
• interfered in a police shooting case
• after the Parkland massacre, he became vocally anti-gun
• most of what he’s done and wants to do is skirting unconstitutional
• David Hogg likes him (the Right considers this a negative)

Apparently, the Left think that calling the Right “weird” is causing discomfort for conservatives. That’s not what I’ve observed. Most people on the Right seem to be embracing the concept of being the weird ones. I’ve seen some rather fun videos from people on the Right, showing a variety of truly odd ducks from the Left, then saying, “But I’m definitely weird because I like cheese pizza,” and things like that.

In any case, there you go. Having heard the video above, I have a strong feeling of dislike for Walz. That may change, but I doubt it. But he does feel like he could change the tide slightly. As The Guardian noted, “It’s part of a vibe shift Democrats are feeling since Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. There’s less focus on the dire consequences of electing Trump again – though those consequences are certainly still part of the motivation – and more on detailing what Democrats want to do if they win.” —Guardian

I think we need to keep a close eye on the guy. Let’s not allow Trump to fall into the “attack mode” he used last time. That was a failing gambit. His current methods, amusing jabs but mostly sticking to talking about policy and what he’s going to do and has done, are working well. I don’t want to see him “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”