Archive for March, 2021

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – I am just off Spring Break where we spent five days in my beloved south Louisiana; we go to Arnaudville, LA in St. Landry parish five times a year and I really hope to move down there in the next year or two. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sell my house in Shreveport; I’m not the only one who wants out of here.

I find it interesting to note that we paid twenty-cents a gallon more for gasoline coming home than we did going down. I mean, WHAT?! 

You hear some talk and a little anxiety about Biden’s environmental agenda in that part of the state where most are conservative; it’s over in New Orleans where you get the Democrats, but in Acadiana, there are a lot of conservative voters.

As the Biden-Harris oil and gas job killing agenda continues to unfold, there is some anxiety and concern over job loss and rising gas prices. Consider this news out of Lafayette:

 Louisiana officials say the state’s oil and gas industry is in danger.

This comes after President Joe Biden cancelled a March oil lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly 80 million acres of available leases would have been sold this week.

The damage to Louisiana’s oil and gas companies started in January when President Biden signed an executive order banning all new oil and gas leases on public land and waters for 60 days.

“Right now I think we’re still pretty much in the holding pattern. It was a 60-day ban, and he was going through relook at it, the president,” Louisiana Oil and Gas Association President Mike Moncla said.

Moncla says their worst fear was that the president would extend that ban past 60 days.

“Since that time, Governor Edwards has sent him a great letter letting him know exactly what that would mean to Louisiana, all of the economic and finances that come from our offshore work,” he said.

He says as the 60-day ban comes closer to its end, President Biden isn’t easing restrictions.

He’s enforcing new ones, cancelling the 80-million-acre Gulf of Mexico oil lease sale that was scheduled for March 17 in New Orleans.

“It would kill our state. It would kill workers,” Moncla added. “It would kill jobs, and it would be a terrible thing.”

Moncla says all they can do now is wait.

We are talking thousands of jobs, y’all:

Leaders in coastal parishes like Lafourche, who would be impacted the most, worry.

“The major sector in Lafourche, 5600 residents who work in exploration, 4100 work in oil service and 4100 and shipbuilding,” said Lafourche parish president Archie Chaisson. He says the oil industry is now producing jobs with an average wage of $82,000 a year, that could be lost if the moratorium remains in place.

This is not good, not good at all.

Reportedly, Governor John Bel Edwards has written a letter to Biden asking him to reconsider cancelling these leases, but honestly, who thinks that is going to do one iota of good? I’m not holding my breath.

We are not in a good place right now, and I have grave concerns for the future of my state if this continues. I thought the Obama years were terrible, but I think this might be a worse ride than that was.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

The answer to Don Surber’s Question

Posted: March 22, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Without God all things are permitted.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Do not defile yourselves by any of these things by which the nations whom I am driving out of your way have defiled themselves. Because their land has become defiled, I am punishing it for its wickedness, by making it vomit out its inhabitants. You, however, whether natives or resident aliens, must keep my statutes and decrees forbidding all such abominations by which the previous inhabitants defiled the land;

Leviticus 18:24-27

Commenting on the arrest of a gay married Democrat Judge with adopted children and strong supporter of “drag queen story time” for child porn this week Don Surber asks a question:

Why don’t we oppose perversion anymore?

That answer is actually pretty easy. We are divided into two societies in the west. The Christian society that we always had and the secular society of the left where Christianity is rejected. The initial trigger was the removal of prayer in schools and began in earnest when the left embraced abortion which caused Christians who actually believed in, you know Christianity, to migrate to the GOP. Their embrace of Gay Marriage cemented the change and their demands for Transgenderism put the exclamation point.

While some might not think this is a big deal, the truth is that the rejection of religion in general and Christianity in particular (with its roots in Judaism) reduces man to what he is without God. Simply an animal that exploits their environment to satisfy one’s individual desires.

The problem being for the left of course that one still needs the votes of Christians to get elected (except for elections when one steals it of course) and thus a facade of respectability must be retained, as John put it

And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. But whoever lives the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.

John 3:19-21

The farther we walk from God the more we become that revert from children of God with an eternal soul to the other half of our nature, the animal no different than any other simply with a higher capacity to use tools to satisfy our desires and impose our will.

All of what we are seeing is the animal in us undoing civilization and using the tools of the modern world to satisfy their desires for power, control, wealth, or sexual satisfaction, or to put it simply, to elevate their desires over all and for those ends any means is allowed.

It’s the sin of pride on steroids’.

So to answer Don Surber’s question: Why don’t we oppose perversion anymore, the answer is simply, because we’ve abandoned any believe in anything bigger than ourselves, namely God and thus are embracing the finite animal we are rather than our eternal soul.

It will have a high cost.

By John Ruberry

Unless you tuned in at the right time and you get your news only from MSNBC or CNN you probably didn’t know that President Joe Biden, while climbing the stairs up to Air Force One, fell not once, not twice–but three times. Apparently he was not injured.

Biden, 78, is the oldest man to serve as US president. How old? The prior oldest commander-in-chief, Ronald Reagan was 77 years-old when he completed his second term. 

Biden has been president for 60 days–he has gone longer than any president without holding a press conference since Calvin Coolidge. But Biden will end that silence by holding an afternoon presser on Thursday. 

Many conservative commentators have made a similar observation. Joe Biden’s fastball, if he ever had one, has lost its spin. Biden’s tightly controlled appearances have gone beyond gaffes. In one appearance he clearly forgot the name of his Defense secretary and where he worked, referring to him as “the guy who runs that outfit over there.” Oh, his name is Lloyd Austin, “that outfit” is the US military and “over there” is the Pentagon.

What else?

He referred to his vice president as “President Harris.” Was Biden dropping a hint?

In Texas while discussing relief from the winter storm there Biden uttered, “What am I doing here?” He also botched the some names of dignitaries at that appearance.

An unsure Biden during a video feed said, “I’m happy to take questions if that’s what I’m supposed to do, Nance [Nancy Pelosi], whatever you want me to do.” But then the White House abruptly cut off that feed.

While Biden has been president for a brief time, I’m not cherry-picking these embarrasments. They have one thing in common. All occurred in the last four weeks.

Everyone knows of an elderly relative who one day just didn’t mentally have it anymore. There’s an unsteadiness in speech, in steps of too, the eyes aren’t focused, names are forgotten, or they are confused with others.

That’s Biden. 

It gets worse for America. Lots of other people in government leadership are really old. There’s speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who turns 81 this week, House majority whip James Clyburn, the kingmaker who arguably paved the way for Biden winning the Democratic nomination, is 80, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is 70, his second-in-command, Dick Durbin, is 76, and Treasury secretary Janet Yellen is 74. Ah, but liberals cry out as they do about so many other political discussions. “What about Trump?”

Well, what about him?

True, until Biden’s win Trump was the oldest person elected to the presidency. But Trump regularly engaged the media in impromptu question-and-answer sessions. His energetic campaign rallies usually lasted more than an hour–where he spoke without notes–or a teleprompter.

Contrast Trump with Biden, with his shoulders slumped, squinting into a teleprompter as he struggles through his speeches. Yes, medical technology and healthier living habits have allowed people to live longer than ever. Age was a major issue for Reagan, who was 68 when he won his first presidential election in 1980 as it was for him four years later. But science–which of course we must follow at all times–has had less success battling cognitive decline and dementia.

Being old should not be a disqualifier to be president. Konrad Adenauer, 74, became chancellor of West Germany in 1949, a key reason he was chosen is that he was seen as a transitional leader for the new nation because of his age. But he served capably until he was 87. In 2003, German television viewers selected Adenauer as the greatest German of all time.

Coincidentally last spring, when he had clinched the Democratic nomination, Biden declared himself a “transition” candidate. Sorry, Joe, but you are no Konrad Adenauer. 

Biden is the head of state of the American Gerontocracy. That’s not a good thing.

In the 1970s and early 1980s the Soviet politburo was dominated by old men. After the long-ailing Leonid Brezhnev died in 1981, he was succeeded by Yuri Andropov, then Konstantin Chernenko, two sick old men. Finally a vigorous and relatively young Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm at the Kremlin in 1985. But by 1991 the Soviet Union was no more.

Back to Germany.

Paul von Hindenburg, a World War I hero, wanted to retire as president of Germany in 1932. He reluctantly ran for reelection after being warned that if he didn’t to so then Adolf Hitler would win the presidency. Hindenburg prevailed, but the next year he appointed Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg died in 1934 at the age of 86; historians disagree whether he suffered from cognitive decline late in his life.

Hold on! I’m not saying, or even hinting, that because of Biden and the Gerontacracy that the United States faces imminent dissolution or a dictatorship. American democracy is still very robust. But a weaker America is already here. Whether by choice, inacation, or by incompetence, our southern border is no longer secure. At last week’s disastrous summit with China in Anchorage, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was lectured by our adversary over our human rights record. Yep, this is the same China that has concentration camps for Uyghurs and is stifling democracy in Hong Kong. Biden’s sole legislative achievement, the $1.9 billion stimulus, may bring back 1970s-style inflation. As I wrote last week there are winners and losers with inflation. The latter won’t keep quiet. 

Biden is already the weakest American president since Jimmy Carter, who was just 56 when he left office. Yes, age isn’t everything.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was an ill man in the last year of his life. Shortly before his death he was duped by Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, eastern Europe was gift-wrapped for the communists.

A weaker America means a more unstable world. 

Right now the symbol of America to the rest of the world is a frail Biden falling on a set of stairs.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

My Woke Breaking point Circa 1988

Posted: March 21, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Saw this tweet via instapundit via Not the Bee

I replied on twitter but here is my answer all in one go:

It was 33 years ago when I owned a comic book store. I had left to do a Sunday comic show putting a young but responsible teenage employee was in charge. When I came back he was nervous. He pointed to a young black kid that I had befriended and said he saw him stealing but was unsure what to do because I had been very friendly with him.

I said: “What are my standing orders if someone is caught shoplifting?”

He answered: “Lock the door and call the police”

I said: “Do so”

He locked the door and called the police. The kid was very scared until the officer showed up and I head him say in relief: “It’s a black cop”. I took the officer aside and told him I didn’t want the kid arrested because he’s young and didn’t want to give him trouble but I didn’t want him stealing from me, if he could put the fear of God in him I’d really appreciated. The officer made a big show of telling him “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a thief” and asking me if I wanted him arrested I said I’d let it go this time but if it happens again that wouldn’t be the case. He took the kid home.

The next day the kid’s mom showed up very angry that her son had been brought home in a police car. I explained that my employee had caught him shoplifting while I was gone and although I had not it myself the kid working for me was very responsible and I was obliged to believe him. She wanted to talk to him but as he was a teenager he didn’t work until next Saturday. I told her she was welcome to come back then and talk to him at that time. I’d let them speak in the back.

I spoke to him about it and he agreed. The word got around with the regulars at the store and a good sized crowd were at the store Saturday to see what would happen. She showed up around noon and she and the employee in question went into the back room.

She led with: “My son is not a thief”

My employee answered matter-of-factly, “Yes he is”

It went downhill from there.

After about 10 minutes she left in a huff pausing only long enough to say “Hello Monkey” to a tall black kid near the counter who was one of the regulars looking at baseball cards. She was followed by my teenaged employee came out with a smile having not backed down one bit from what he saw and not the least bit intimidated by the woman twice his age and talking about his encounter.

I had noticed that “monkey” seemed surprised at seeing her and from that presumed he had no idea what was going on he he had come in after she had showed up and was looking at baseball cards either completely indifferent to or completely unknowing of the day’s unfolding drama. I turned to him and asked:

“Do you know that lady?”

“Yes, she’s ‘xxx’s mom”, he paused for a moment, “She’s a racist.”

I did a double take, and everyone else in the store suddenly turned in amazement, a few already with silly grins already on some faces, particularly my employee who had just spoken to her.

Still surprised I asked him: “Why do you say she’s a racist?”

He answered calmly like a reporter stating a basic fact: “She hates my mother because she’s white.”

At this point the entire store erupted with laughter as the irony of what we had just heard combined with what had happened that day.

It was in that moment that the twenty something me considered what I had saw and realized most emphatically that whatever the merit of the struggles of the past might have been, the “white guilt” card, what is now called “wokeness” was simply a grift employed by some for advantage or profit.