Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Report from Louisiana: Tragedy at Mardi Gras

Posted: February 24, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT —  Mardi Gras season this year has brought both raucous, bacchanalian festivities true to our “laissez les bon temps rouler” mantra, as well as terrible tragedy.

In New Orleans another terrible accident claimed the life of a man attending the Endymion parade Saturday night. As with the accident the previous week in which a woman was killed during the Nyx parade, this accident also involved a tandem float. For the unfamiliar, tandem floats usually belong to large super krewes and are multiple floats joined together by some kind of hitch. Some can be several sections and be as long as 300 feet.

In the accident Saturday night, Joseph Sampson, 58, jumped up to catch a throw, landed on some beads, slipped and fell, and somehow ended up under a float. His friends tried to grab him and pull him out while another tried to alert the driver to stop, an impossible task over the noise. As with the accident the previous week, the parade was terminated.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has now issued a directive that no more tandem floats will be allowed, thus causing krewes with tandem floats to scramble and make adjustments so they can roll in these last few days of Mardi Gras season.

Of course, some people agree and others disagree with the order. Everyone recognizes the tragedy of the deaths but contend that accidents are bound to happen and perhaps error in judgement should be considered. The woman the previous week was supposedly attempting to cross over between the two floats, got tangled and tripped over the hitch, and went under the float. No safety studies have been done or formal reports on either accident and tandem floats have been in use for many years. The disgruntled are calling Cantrell’s order a “knee jerk” reaction in an attempt to bolster her low popularity rate.

Here in Shreveport, in northwest Louisiana, we have three large parades over two weeks. Some portions of the parades have barricades but it would be almost impossible to place barricades along an entire parade route and it is unclear whether that would have averted the situation in NOLA. Many of these parades wind through neighborhoods. At some point you can’t legislate complete and total safety.

Mardi Gras is a major money maker for NOLA and Louisiana tourism. It is unlikely, as tragic as these events are, that any significant changes will take place; tandem floats may be back next year after safety studies, or whenever there is a new mayor.

In the meantime, roll on.

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.

No, Bernie isn’t working for the Russians

Posted: February 22, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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I’m sure Communist Russia has a special place in Bernie Sanders heart. As the Mayor of Burlington, he traveled to Russia to establish a sister city relationship with Yaroslav. That trip has plenty of video footage of Bernie giving gifts to Russians, plenty of which is available on Fox News.

But just because Bernie Sanders visited Russia and might align with some of their ideologies doesn’t mean that he’s colluding with the Russians. Just because the Russians were caught supporting Bernie, or attacking Hillary, doesn’t mean that Bernie Sanders snuck off on a plane to St. Petersburg to plan this with his Russian handlers. It’s doubtful that he has Russian handlers.

It’s a classic case of trying to explain data with what we know (our own candidates) and what we don’t know (Russia’s information campaign) and getting a bad explanation. If you look at it from Russia’s perspective, they don’t care who gets elected. What they want is a destabilized US regime, no matter the party, so that the US will focus on domestic issues and let Russia run amuck in Asia and Europe.

They did this during the last Presidential election by discrediting Hillary Clinton and supporting the Trump campaign. The goal was a damaged regime regardless of who won. If Clinton won, we would have seen Russian information saying she stole the election and calling for mass demonstrations. When Trump won, we saw…information saying he stole the election. All the Russians did was change the name.

We’ll see this again this year. Russia will troll every Democratic candidate. The Holy Russian Grail would be to go into the Democratic convention without a clear front runner. If that happens, we’ll see Russia turn up the trolling to an 11, and no matter who wins, they won’t be “legitimate.” During the general election, it’ll get worse.

Our best defense is engaging our brains and actually reading and understanding news instead of headlines and clickbait. The scary part we’ll be when we see the Russians move past the Presidential election and begin targeting Senators, Representatives and Judges. If they continue to succeed (and the failed impeachment was success for them), I’d expect this to happen next.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

I think Trump has Already Won Re-Election

Posted: February 22, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Can’t think of much to write about so I’m just going to blurt out what I think.

I think Trump has already won re-election and all of this is just going through the motions.

I also think the Democrats & Media already know this and what we’re seeing is prep work for the days after this.

That doesn’t mean we should let our guard down but there it is.

Shining some light on the true nature of Socialism

Posted: February 20, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The fact that Bernie Sanders, the self avowed socialist, appears to be currently the front runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination is proof our educational system has failed to properly educate far too many about the true nature of Socialism.  It is up to us on the political right to set the record straight on social media. To make this easier I’ve assembled a selection of quotes from a couple of articles.

The first collection of quotes are from this American Thinker article Bernie Bros and the Catastrophe of Socialism. 

This first quote is not to flattering, yet it is accurate.

The love affair of young Americans with Bernie Sanders is the result of their disturbingly disastrous belief that they are entitled to what other people worked for. Pied Piper Bernie seduces young followers with his seductive lie: “You deserve and I will give you everything for free.” Ponder that, folks. In Bernie’s America, no one has to work for anything.

This next quote perfectly sums up one aspect of socialism the youth of this country fail to appreciate, it primarily benefits the least productive workers at the expense of the most productive.

You and Larry have summer jobs as waiters. You work your butt off, remembering patrons’ food orders correctly and swiftly filling their empty glasses; doing everything in your power to make their dining experience enjoyable. For your excellence, patrons tip you generously.

But rather than your well-deserved hard-earned money going into your pocket, it goes into a tip jar to be distributed equally between you and Larry. Meanwhile, Larry routinely arrives late, reeks of alcohol, takes long smoke breaks, routinely gets food orders wrong and does not give a rat’s derriere about the patrons. Management (government) forces you to share the fruits of your labor with lazy Larry. That is the major flaw of socialism.

Most students are not informed that socialism was attempted in several of the earliest colonies of this nation, and it failed each time.  One attempt was made in Plymouth Plantation.

William Bradford was the first governor of the Pilgrims’ Plymouth Colony. Bradford tried socialism, which meant that everything belonged to the community and everyone supposedly did their fair share of the work. Because of lazy Larrys, it failed. Therefore, Bradford wisely decided to give everyone their own land, which was extremely successful. Due to an abundance, families began trading goods and services. Capitalism.

I don’t think too many millennials would be thrilled to learn that socialism would put an end to innovation in the United States.

Duped Bernie Bros are thrilled over his promise to confiscate all earnings over a million dollars. Cell phones, the internet, medical breakthroughs, and other blessings are the result of individuals being allowed to be the best they can be; striving to reap great rewards for themselves and their families. Folks, there is nothing evil about that. If the government takes everything over a million dollars, why would anyone take risks or pursue new breakthroughs?

This next article, from the Mises institute, is rather technical, however, it contains a treasure trove of information Socialism: A Brief Taxonomy

As you can see from this quote, the most often cited definition of Socialism is incomplete:

The contemporary meaning of socialism often runs along the lines that it is a politico-economic theory in which the means of production, wealth distribution, and exchange are supposed to be owned and regulated by the community as a whole. This characterization of socialism emphasizes its important economic features; however, it cannot be considered a comprehensive definition. The wording implies a narrow understanding of socialism from the point of view of materialist and positivist currents of socialism but does not fully encompass the features exhibited in antimaterialist, anti-Cartesian, and Kantian members of the socialist family.

Here is a much more complete definition:

Socialism is a set of artificial socioeconomic systems that are characterized by varying degrees of collectivization of property, or consciousness, or the redistribution of wealth… socialization of property, collectivization of consciousness, and wealth redistribution are necessary and sufficient causative factors that taken separately or in combination unambiguously define an ideology as socialistic and designate preferred paths to socialism

The Mises article contains definitions of many different types of Socialism that have cropped up over the centuries, the one for Democratic Socialism is the most crucial to understand considering the popularity of Bernie Sanders.

Democratic Socialism in the USA, is a significant revision to Marxism, which practically does not leave even the foundation of genuine Marxist principles. Reformism has been a mainstream form of socialist ideology and practice since the end of the nineteenth century. Redistribution of wealth and partial socialization of consciousness are the main paths being utilized by the doctrine. Socialism is supposed to be gradually built within a capitalistic society by methodically changing the socioeconomic laws of the land using parliamentary procedures. Great importance is also attached to the mental transformation of members of the society through the indoctrination of the population in educational institutions and the propaganda of the socialistic ideals in the mass media, social networks, and materials of pop culture.

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