Posts Tagged ‘datechguy's magnificent seven’

By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – For the first time since 2006 Shreveport, Louisiana has elected a white Republican mayor. Attorney Tom Arceneaux was elected in a runoff election Saturday.

I am astounded yet also extremely cautious exactly HOW conservative this mayor-elect actually is given that he was endorsed by the much loathed, ineffective outgoing Democrat mayor and two other locally prominent Democrat politicians.

His opponent is longtime veteran state senator Greg Tarver who has a colorful political and personal history.

The abysmal voter turnout of 30% has a lot to do with the outcome of this election and local pundits point to the fact that in a primarily black city, those voters did not turn out for Greg Tarver.

Shreveport has been circling the drain economically for decades and we have been losing our young, producing citizens for decades. There is literally nothing to hold upwardly mobile young people here except family ties. There are no jobs, no industry. Even the casinos are stagnant. With Dallas, Texas three hours away why would these young people stay here when there is so much more on the table so close by?

Crime is, of course, at an all time high with shootings, murders, and other violent crime literally a daily occurrence.

This is, of course, not unique to Shreveport. Many cities, small and large, are suffering the same plight. Is a new Republican mayor a step in the right direction?

Meh. Who knows.

Is it too late?

Maybe.

Am I skeptical? Definitely!

Tom Arceneaux will take office December 31. I sincerely hope he has an impressive start and generates a lot of optimism and hope in this town. I would say that it can’t get much worse, but of course it always can.

Color me disillusioned.

For further reading: NOLA: Tom Arceneaux wins, is Shreveport’s first Republican mayor in more than twenty years.

Cerberus and Heracles. Etching by Antonio Tempesta (Italy, Florence, 1555–1630). The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Graphic courtesy of Wikipedia.

By John Ruberry

A theme coming out of Elon Musk’s release of the Twitter Files is that there is a three headed beast that seeks to be an overlord of us all, who I am dubbing Cerberus. 

Why that name? According to Greek mythology, he was a vicious three-headed dog who guarded the underworld, the realm of the dead. Sometimes he was called the Hound of Hades. “Heads of snakes grew from his back, and he had a serpent’s tail,” Encyclopedia Brittanica tells us about Cerberus. If you are thinking of the hosts of The View now, then we are kindred spirits. 

There is a nexus between the federal government, most ominously the FBI, the mainstream media, and Big Tech. Information is of course power, and the Modern Cerberus used that power to suppress and censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, as well as dissenting opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic. And probably many more topics.

In regard to second one, I regularly see CDC public service TV ads that tells us that COVID is a serious health threat if you suffer from other ailments, not so much everyone else. Earlier this year, self-appointed COVID expert Bill Gates said of the virus, “We didn’t understand that it’s a fairly low fatality rate and that it’s a disease mainly in the elderly, kind of like flu is, although a bit different than that.” Expressing such opinions on Twitter of Facebook would lead those social media giants to suspend or ban users from their platforms in 2020 and 2021. 

The mythological Cerberus would devour and dead souls who tried to escape Hades. Let me rephrase it for our troubled times: the beast permanently banned them with no hope of appeal.

Moving from a prominent top federal government job to the media, and sometimes back again, is an old phenomenon, but it has accelerated lately–cable news is the culprit, and most of the participants in this transfer portal are Democrats. Jen Psaki comes to mind, as she has gone from working in the Barack Obama White House, to being a CNN contributor, then back to government as the White House press secretary under Joe Biden, then back to the media as an MSNBC contributor. 

As for Big Tech, Andy Stone, the communications director at Meta, the parent of Facebook, declared on Twitter in 2020 that FB, in regard to New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, would be “reducing its distribution on our platform” until it was fact-checked. I call that suppression. Prior to joining Meta, Stone was a longtime congressional staffer, working exclusively for Democrats.

Last week Musk fired Twitter’s deputy general counsel, Jim Baker, who may have withheld damaging details involving the FBI and its alleged role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop reports. Baker, when he was an FBI attorney, played a part in the Donald Trump-Russiagate collusion red herring. Before he joined, Twitter, Baker was a CNN analyst. 

Benjamin Weingarten has more on what he calls the “revolving door between Democrat Deep State and Big Tech.”

Stifling the free flow of information is the stuff of totalitarian states. My wife was raised in the Soviet Union, she emigrated to the USA in 1991. An extreme example yes, but I was the one who told her that not only did the United States send men to the moon and safely return them to Earth–but did so six times. 

There was an incarnation of Cerberus in the USSR.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Satan. The Prince of Darkness. Lucifer. Whatever the title, normal people typically associate Satan with something evil. Satanic worship always puzzles me, because while I can understand that someone would be an atheist (which lets you off the hook on plenty of bad behavior), worshipping someone that you know to be bad and want the worst for humanity seems like a really, really dumb idea.

Alas, there are Satan worshippers, and they are coming to an elementary school near you! Imagine my surprise when I received this gem of an email last week:

Dear Families,

In an effort to maintain transparent practices, I would like to share the following information that was sent to the B. M. Williams school community yesterday.Chesapeake Public Schools (CPS) is committed to open communication and transparency with our families. For that reason, you are receiving this message to ensure you have accurate information.

The School District has long held policies and procedures in place which allow varied community groups to use our publicly funded facilities outside of the school day. This is common practice among school districts around the state and nation. Over the years, different religious groups have requested and been allowed to rent our facilities after hours. By law, CPS cannot discriminate based on beliefs among groups wishing to rent our facilities.

Consistent with the law as detailed above and the criteria set out in the CPS Board policy regarding community use of facilities, the School District has approved a building use request from an organization known as the “After School Satan Club” (ASSC) to host gatherings after school hours at B.M. Williams Primary School. Students must have parental permission to attend any after school event hosted by any outside organization.

It is important to note that CPS does not endorse any of the activities or content of groups that host events on school district property outside the instructional day. It is also important to note that the ASSC is not a School District-approved club, and no District employee is acting as a club sponsor.

The School Board does not approve building use forms and has not voted in this case.

Please note, we have added this item to the agenda for the next regular meeting of the School Board on December 12, 2022, for further discussion. Citizens are welcome to attend and may address the Board during the Hearing of Citizens portion of the meeting. For more information on how to sign up to speak, visit our website (link provided).We remain committed to working to minimize any distractions this news may create, while ensuring our focus is always on providing a safe and secure learning environment for our students. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jared Cotton, Superintendent

Like, WTF, Jared?

So there is literally a group that is totally cool with worshiping the Prince of Darkness, and that group wants to talk to your kids. Inside the school. After hours. What could possibly go wrong?

First, I call BS on the “we have to be equal to everyone” claim. I highly, highly doubt that. Had the Westboro Baptist Church, or some similar organization tried to reserve the school, it likely would have never seen the light of day. Heck, had the local Republican group asked to reserve a classroom after hours for a meeting, I’m betting they would be denied.

Second, the email is a cop-out. It screams “Please don’t show up to the school board meeting like they did in Loudon County,” and “Please don’t blame us when you go to vote.”

Not surprisingly, many local churches banded together to, literally, fight Satan. My church included. I mean, can you call yourself a Christian church and NOT fight Satan? So a massive prayer fight was organized, and eventually the Satanic Temple decided to pull the event, but not before my Catholic church had 40 people out in front of the school praying.

This won’t be the last battle though, and the club is still on the next school board discussion, per an email sent this week:

Dear CPS Families:

Last week I shared information regarding the Facility Use Application for the After School Satan Club (ASSC) to hold monthly meetings at one of our schools. I emphasized that the ASSC is not a District-approved club, and also that the Application was compliant with District Policy. Following our Policy and applicable federal law, the Application was approved.

Today, the Chesapeake citizen requesting to use the facility on behalf of the ASSC has officially withdrawn their request. As such, the application no longer meets the requirements of School Board Policy. At this point, the approval for building use has been canceled.Please note, this item will remain on the agenda for the next regular meeting of the School Board on December 12, 2022, for further discussion. Citizens are welcome to attend and may address the Board during the Hearing of Citizens portion of the meeting. For more information on how to sign up to speak, visit our website (link provided).

I hope our communications on this matter have helped to answer questions and concerns regarding this situation. Thank you for your continued understanding and support.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jared A. Cotton
Superintendent

I think I know what I’ll be doing on December 12th.

This whole thing reminds me of a conversation I had with a flag officer almost 10 years ago. We were having a friendly discussion about religion and the existence of evil. He argued that while he believed in “God” (of some kind anyway), he didn’t believe in true evil, only that people could do bad things based on their interests. I made the comment “The best way for evil to exist is to convince the world it doesn’t.” I still stand by that comment today.

The Satanic Temple will make plenty of arguments about how its just using the imagery to catch attention, or that it just wants to “teach critical thinking,” but in truth its just twisting our own rules to try and justify itself. Remember when Satan quoted Scripture to Jesus in the desert? He’s quite intelligent, far more than most people give him credit for. He’ll manipulate everything we have, from our laws to our emotions, to advance his will. If we’re not willing to fight back, he will pull away our children and destroy everything we hold dear.

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.

Mitch McConnell is the poster child for everything that is wrong with the Republican Party.  He is a swamp dweller who all too often conspires with Democrats in their dismantling of the United States.  Long ago he declared war on conservative republicans in the United States Senate.

Just this week Mitch McConnell engaged in his greatest betrayal of the American people when he caved to radical Democrats who seek to cram the Journalism Competition Preservation Act into the latest National Defense Authorization Act.  McConnell’s latest betrayal is captured in this Breitbart article.

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has caved to outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and will allow the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include the highly controversial media cartel bill the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), sources familiar with the matter told Breitbart News.

Democrats have been pushing the JCPA intensely because it is nothing more than a scheme to censor conservatives and other right wingers.

The JCPA, essentially a transfer of wealth from Silicon Valley to the discredited and distrusted corporate legacy media, is highly controversial. Beyond the financial payouts to media companies, they will be able to form a “joint negotiating entity”—a cartel, immune from antitrust law—to negotiate with Big Tech companies on the “terms and conditions” for carrying their content.

Censorship is sure to be a frequent demand of media companies. Despite provisions in the bill that purportedly stop media companies from negotiating the suppression of any one competitor, there is nothing to stop them asking their content to be prioritized over broadly-drawn categories that are used as pretexts for censorship, like “disinformation.”

As usual Democrats try hard to obscure their misdeeds through word games and legal charades.

Even with the hastily-added Senate amendment aimed at addressing conservative concerns regarding collusion between the media industry and Big Tech on the censorship of competitors, the bill still contains plenty of ways for the cartel to sideline conservative media.

Provisions to ensure the cartel cannot discriminate on the basis of “viewpoint” are particularly unconvincing. The pretexts used by social media companies, “fact checkers,” and other arms of the corporate censorship apparatus are almost always viewpoint-neutral. No one is censored for being a conservative, say the censors: they are censored for “misinformation,” “hate speech,” “conspiracy theories,” and other purportedly viewpoint-neutral reasons.

Both George Washington and John Adams warned strenuously against dividing the United States into two political parties.  They have been proven correct over and over again.  Mitch McConnell’s latest betrayal is more proof that they were right.