Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

Report from Louisiana: Fun at the Grocery Store

Posted: January 31, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT  — My husband has taken to walking through the grocery store commenting in a very loud voice, with obvious disdain, “Let’s go Brandon!”

He does most of the grocery shopping in our house and does a lot of it on the nearby Air Force base where the commissary allows us to save a bit of money. We also shop at a couple of neighborhood grocery stores; you know how it is…this store has better meat, that one better produce.

My husband is absolutely incensed at the rising prices for groceries and is quick to comment, “And we haven’t seen anything yet!”

As it turns out, he’s not wrong.

Kraft Heinze and Proctor & Gamble have announced huge price hikes coming to a store near you very soon.

Kraft Heinz (KHC) said in a recent letter to its customers that it will raise prices in March on dozens of products, including Oscar Mayer cold cuts, hot dogs, sausages, bacon, Velveeta cheese, Maxwell House coffee, TGIF frozen chicken wings, Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drinks.

The increases range from 6.6% on 12oz Velveeta Fresh Packs to 30% on a three-pack of Oscar Mayer turkey bacon. Most cold cuts and beef hot dogs will go up around 10% and coffee around 5%. Some Kool-Aid and Capri Sun drink packs will increase by about 20%…Last week, Procter & Gamble (PG) said that it was raising prices for its retail customers by an average of about 8% in February on Tide and Gain laundry detergents, Downy fabric softener and Bounce dryer sheets. Conagra (CAG), which makes such brands as Slim Jim, Marie Callender’s and Birds Eye, recently said it will raise prices later this year as well.

We are seeing the steepest hike in prices in nearly forty years.

Add to that grocery shelves that still have bare spots on every aisle and it’s no wonder that grocery shoppers are getting irritable.

Sometimes I even feel like a hoarder…my son, for example, favors a certain blue sports drink. It’s been very hard to find, but today I went to the store and found the shelves full of this drink! I bought several eight-packs just because I wasn’t sure when it would come back around. I know this only adds to the problem, but….

And so, my husband blames Joe Biden for all of this and walks through the store with his blood pressure rising, angrily tossing things into his card, saying “Let’s go Brandon” in a loud voice, ignoring the side eye glances from other shoppers.

Imagine how fun he will be to shop with when all these companies raise their prices this spring!

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

Just about half of Democrats embrace abject Covid tyranny

Posted: January 27, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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Anyone living in a Democrat controlled state, such as the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, are well aware that the Wuhan Virus pandemic has revealed an even more malevolent and insidious pandemic amongst our Democrat brethren.  The pandemic I’m referring to is one of tyranny, oppression, and outright fascism. 

Elected Democrat officials, at all levels of government here in the United States, have imposed draconian restrictions on the people under their dominion, in the name of fighting a virus with a better than a 99.7 percent survival rate.

These draconian restrictions, including mask mandates, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and vaccine passports, are embraced by a very significant majority of those living in this country who identify as Democrats. 

According to this Rasmussen survey, nearly half of all Democrats would be in favor of imposing far more tyrannical restrictions to fight the Wuhan Flu.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters would oppose a proposal for federal or state governments to fine Americans who choose not to get a COVID-19 vaccine. However, 55% of Democratic voters would support such a proposal, compared to just 19% of Republicans and 25% of unaffiliated voters.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Democratic voters would favor a government policy requiring that citizens remain confined to their homes at all times, except for emergencies, if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a proposal is opposed by 61% of all likely voters, including 79% of Republicans and 71% of unaffiliated voters.

Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications. Only 27% of all voters – including just 14% of Republicans and 18% of unaffiliated voters – favor criminal punishment of vaccine critics.

Forty-five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Such a policy would be opposed by a strong majority (71%) of all voters, with 78% of Republicans and 64% of unaffiliated voters saying they would Strongly Oppose putting the unvaccinated in “designated facilities.”

While about two-thirds (66%) of likely voters would be against governments using digital devices to track unvaccinated people to ensure that they are quarantined or socially distancing from others, 47% of Democrats favor a government tracking program for those who won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine.

The contents of this survey are exceptionally shocking to me.  I’ve studied the true history of the United States, not the extremely odious revisionist crap that has been shoveled to college students for several decades.  I’ve studied the original meaning of the Constitution in extreme detail.  World history, with a particular focus on the carnage caused by tyrannical governments, is also my passion.  I am absolutely outraged that such a significant percentage of Democrats support out right tyrannical policies, the same policies that led to the deaths of over 100 million individuals last century.

The fault lies with us Libertarians and Conservatives.  We allowed the political left to take over our entire educational system and we abandoned the culture war to the left as well.  This needs to be righted immediately if we are to make sure this current nightmare is finally ended, and is never repeated.  I know that is a very tall order but it is one we must begin immediately. 

Report from Louisiana: a Book Roundup

Posted: January 24, 2022 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – Life has been busy, y’all. So busy I slap forgot to put up my post last week. It’s a wonder Pete let’s me hang around. One thing about being retired is that I lose all track of time and I never know what day it is. On top of that, I started a part-time job at my church working Tuesday through Thursday so Tuesdays feel like Mondays and Thursdays feel like Fridays and I don’t know which end is up lately.

One thing I have been doing on my off time is reading a lot. I’ve always been an avid reader and I read whenever I get a chance; I prefer actual books, but I do have a Kindle and I read some things on that. I’m on NetGalley and preview books there prior to their publication for purposes of review and so by necessity those are on Kindle. Books that I don’t plan to keep on my shelves forever are also often read on Kindle. I can get my library books there too. Books I plan to keep, usually nonfiction or collector copies of fiction, are obviously real, paper books.

Anyway, I thought I’d share my most recent reading list with you. It is heavy on Louisiana thematically, but there’s nothing wrong with that!

For Christmas, I bought for myself a copy of Mosquito Supper Club by Melissa Martin. When this beautiful cookbook came out last year, I am embarrassed to say that I dismissed it as yet another chef hawking yet another Cajun cookbook with overblown and impossibly stuffy recipes fluffed out with pretty pictures. I could not have been more wrong. Martin’s photographs of swamps, bayous, fish, crabs, shrimp, and landscapes are stunning, but her recipes are from her family and from her childhood on the bayou in the southernmost parishes of Louisiana. She writes extensively about the vanishing marsh, sustainability, and the history of her Cajun people. The book is a gastronomical feast for the eyes and belly. I have thoroughly enjoyed this cookbook that is really so much more than a cookbook.

Speaking of the vanishing marshland, the nonfiction Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell is part history, part travelogue, and totally entertaining. Tidwell is interested in the vanishing Louisiana coast; as he travels down the bayou on one shrimp boat or another and talks to the locals, he is stunned to see how much land loss Louisiana has suffered in just one man’s lifetime. The rapid rate of this land loss is devastation. The book was originally published in 2003 and holds up still. Beautifully written, Tidwell takes you along the bayous and into the homes and around the dinner tables of the Cajuns that he meets. I read this book slower than I needed to because I did not want it to end.

Moving north from Cajun country, the next book I want to share with you is Shreveport Martyrs of 1873 by the Very Reverend Peter B. Mangum, JCL. This book tells the story of the 1873 yellow fever epidemic right here in Shreveport that wiped out at least a quarter of the population. The epidemic is the stuff of legends here, and tours of the historic Oakland Cemetery on the edge of downtown include a pass by the Yellow Fever Mound – the mass graves of the victims. Sometimes new dirt has to be brought in and put on the mound as sometimes pieces of fabric or bone might work their way to the surface. During this epidemic, there was obvious panic and concern as the affluent tried to protect their families by sending them away to stay elsewhere. Five missionary priests stayed behind, stayed with the sick, to minister to them, sacrificing their own lives to the fever. It’s quite a story and well researched.

And so, that’s one little bit that has been keeping me busy! My links are Amazon affiliate links, which I’m duty bound to disclose, but it doesn’t matter where you buy your books! These are good ones.

What are YOU reading?

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

We owe Senators Sinema and Manchin an enormous debt of gratitude for saving our Constitutional Republic

Posted: January 20, 2022 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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When the Democrats successfully stole the presidential election from Donald Trump, along with, most likely, the Georgia Senate seats, I was exceedingly apprehensive that that would mean the end of our Constitutional Republic.  I knew that the Democrats planned to cram through an avalanche of hardcore progressive legislation that would transform the United States into a Socialist Democracy that none of us would recognize.

The Democrats were far from secretive when it came to their plans to dismantle the United States.  They’ve been crowing about them for decades.  All of their plans involve getting and maintaining complete control over all aspects of the lives of everyone in this nation.  The Democrats would have turned the United States into a living hell

Two very courageous moderate Democrat Senators have stood strong and stymied the plans of the remaining Senate Democrats, who are all rather radical, to dismantle the United States.  These two Democrat Senators, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have shown a tremendous amount of courage, far more that a lot of Republicans have exhibited. 

Both Senators have withstood an onslaught of fury from the members of their own party that has been excessive even for Democrats.  They have stood strong.  They stood strong and prevented the Democrats from enacting their total destruction of the American economy through Build Back Better, which was just the Green New Deal in disguise.

Maintaining a permanent strangle hold on federal elections has been the plan since the Democrats successfully stole the 2020 election from President Trump.  They have the perfect legislation to accomplish this.  All that stands in the way of this is the Filibuster.  All that stands in the way of dismantling the Filibuster are Senators Manchin and Sinema.  Just the past week these two told the Democrats that they would not support dismantling the Filibuster, scuttling the Democrats plans, thus saving our Constitutional Republic.

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