Category: Society

A Repeat of the 1970’s Gasoline Shortages?

Coming to a gas station near you? Photo courtesy of the smithsonianmag.com

In the 1970’s we went through a couple of gas shortages in America. You would think, in 2021, our government would understand the need to become energy independent, especially when we have the resources to do so.

So, what happened in the 1970’s? Two things people are familiar with that came out of the 70’s crisis were Daylight Savings and the 55 mile per hour speed limit.

In a nutshell, in October 1973, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started an embargo on oil exports to the United States because Arab countries were at war with Israel. The embargo was a result of the United States resupplying Israel’s military during the conflict.

The United States was dependent on foreign oil and gas prices almost doubled overnight . The system of “Odd and Even” rationing was born, and it lasted until 1974. More recently, we have seen this system reinstituted in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria destroyed the island in 2017.

In 1979 on the onset of the Iranian Revolution, Iranian oil production was halted. Oil shortages and gas price hikes showed up, once again, in the United States.

Oil markets went on a panic and the price of crude oil doubled. President Carter was quoted as saying of the crisis to be, “the moral equivalent to war.”  After the American embassy was seized, Carter declared and oil embargo on Iranian oil imports.

In 1990, after the invasion of Kuwait by “our former Man in Havana”, Saddam Hussein, another jump on crude oil prices and gasoline shortages were seen across the globe.

Fortunately for the United States, this was not a long lived shortage. Once the conflict was dealt with, prices decreased.

After these global incidents, most shortages in the United States have occurred due to unforeseen natural disasters and government ineptitude.

Before 2017, the United States was not an energy independent country. Mostly because of government over regulation of the oil and gas industries and Environmental Protection Agency mismanagement.

Once President Donald Trump was elected to office, the United States saw a renaissance of the oil and gas industries. Construction of the Keystone XL pipeline resumed and we were a leading producer of liquified natural gas in the world.

On June 2021, TC Energy announced the cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline due to Biden’s denial of construction permits. This was the first stage of failure of American energy independence. Biden begged OPEC to produce more oil, but OPEC told him to pound sand.

After the “election” of Joe Biden, gasoline at the pump has gone up as much as $4.00 a gallon from an average of $1.85 before the 2020 “election.” In places like California, gasoline prices are as high as $5.00 a gallon and inching closer to $8.00 a gallon.

The difference between the shortages in the 1970’s, and today’s, is the fact those were caused by geopolitical and military actions.

In 2021, the energy crisis was perpetrated upon the United States by our own government and the reversal of almost every Executive Order issued by President Trump in support of energy independence.

This is a self-inflicted wound and one that it will be hard to heal. The Biden administration killed the energy sector in the United States, and you will pay the price for it.

This only hurts the working class, the poor, those living on a fix income and on government welfare.

People like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Elite class, will continue to ride their SUV’s, even if gas prices reach $10.00 a gallon.

Do I believe we can end up in the same position as in the 1970’s? Absolutely!

Get those gas cans ready!

Racial Pandering and Advertising

This is what Racial Pandering looks like in advertising. Unwelcome noise! Photo courtesy of trinityp3.com

I do not watch much television these days because network television offers programming that I find demeaning, insulting, racist, and too dumb to waste my time.

It is by design since network television works hand in hand with our government and the government is happy if we are dumb and stupid.

On those moments that I have watched or flicked thru channels, I have noticed advertising agencies and products are not advertising to people who look like me.

It seems companies have decided that people who look like me are not welcome to buy their products, despite the fact 85% of the people who happened to look like me, still have the most buying power in the United States.

This is a fact, and the data do not lie as you can see in the following chart courtesy of www.eMarketer.com

So, why the Racial Pandering? Personally, I do not support businesses who wish to infringe on people’s rights or companies who think that I am a lesser being because of the way I look.

Racial Pandering is despicable and companies who engage in such behavior do not deserve my hard-earned cash.

Fortunately, the beauty of being an American, and the free market, is that I can take my money and go elsewhere to get the things I need. I do not endorse companies or products whose ideology and values differ from mine.

Advertisers think that Racial Pandering, for whatever reason, is the right way to go about things or change. It is divisive in nature and does not promote any type of unity or dialogue.

Two wrongs do not make a right. When companies and advertising agencies think excluding a whole group of people is the way to reach a certain sector of the population, all they are doing is contributing to social discord.

But I am not surprised. In today’s America everything is backwards. What once was wrong, today is right and vice versa.

So, remember, you have the power to reject these companies and products. The United States is not a racist country and when companies are trying to tell you otherwise, they do not deserve your business.

Racial Pandering is racist in nature and should be rejected by every American regardless of race.

Where’s Pete?

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg

Has you seen this cabinet member?

Why is it our presidents keep appointing unqualified people to important cabinet positions?

During the Trump administration, President Trump appointed Mitch McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation and she was a disaster.

Enter the Biden administration and the appointment of failed presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg, as Secretary of Transportation.

Pete Buttigieg knows nothing about transportation or interstate commerce. Biden appointed him to the position so he could say he had a gay person serving in his administration.

Personally, I do not have a problem with his sexual orientation, but why not appoint a gay person who knows what he or she is doing.

While the lad has been on “maternity” leave, store shelves have continued to remain empty, ports in California have been at a standstill, truckers are not allowed to operate in California, and prices on everything from bubble gum to canned meat continue to go up.

Upon his return, he was nowhere to be found. He finally decided to grant an interview to the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party, CNN.

During his interview, he made several comments that did not addressed the issue or were flat out ridiculous.

 He told CNN, “Certainly, a lot of challenges that we have been experiencing this year will continue into next year.”  That is comforting knowing our government does not have a plan.

“But there are both short-term and long-term steps that we can take to do something about it.”  Of course, he could not say which steps they were ready to take.

To be funny, he suggested the supply chain issues causing prices to go up was, “beneficial.”  To whom? Ah yes, to the ruling elite who does not shop where you little people shop, and do not have to worry about shortages.

He went on to say the sight of empty shelves was a sign Joe Biden had “successfully guided our economy out of the teeth of a terrifying recession.”  Is this guy crazy?

We were not in a recession until the Biden administration took office. We are in a recession due to the failed economic policies of the Biden administration, period.

“Part of what’s happening isn’t the supply side, it is the demand side, demand is off the charts.” “Retail sales are through the roof. If you think about those images of ships, for example, waiting at anchor on the West Coast, every one of those ships is full of record amounts of goods that Americans are buying because demand is up, because income is up.”

Sure, but they cannot deliver because the Undertaker of California, Gavin Newsome and the Gargoyle of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, have put draconian regulations in place slowing down the process. So much for “privately owned” enterprises.

Retail sales are up because people are spending money they don’t have. When the hear the government talking about giving free stuff away for nothing in return; what is the point of being fiscally responsible?

As to higher incomes, I do not know how he can make that claim when workers are getting fired form their jobs over COVID-19 vaccinations. Perhaps he meant the politicians in Washington who go to D.C. broke and after a couple of terms they become multi-millionaires.

As he acknowledges supply chains cannot keep up, he used the opportunity to promote Biden’s multi-trillion dollar “infrastructure and reconciliation” bills. Because they think that throwing money at it is going to fix the problem.

Lastly, “Our supply chains…that’s a complicated system and mostly in private hands and rightly so. Our role is to be an honest broker, bring together all of the players, secure commitments and get solutions that will make it easier.”

An honest broker, sure Pete. That is why you have not produced a viable solution or have used the power of your department to get things moving.

Like Elaine Chao, Pete Buttigieg does not have the tools nor the know how to run anything of this magnitude.

I wonder if we are better off with him staying away. He is a small fish in the pond of Joe Biden’s incompetency.

*Quotes courtesy of One America News Network*

Parents vs School Boards

Parents Are Not a Threat Mr. Agent Man

This is!!!!! Antifa and Black Lives Matters activists. Photo courtesy of en-volv.com

After the death of George Floyd, cities across the country went up in flames by the hands of BLM and Antifa activists.

Businesses were burnt to the ground, police officers were routinely assaulted, federal, and private property were defaced, and citizens lived in constant fear.

This went on for months while Democrats were claiming these were “peaceful protests,” and the Federal Bureau of Investigations concluded they did not have evidence showing Antifa was a domestic terrorist group.

Of course, for a person like me who has been trained in counter terrorism and worked for 15 years preventing terrorists from conducting another 9/11 style attack, this laughable.

Now the Department of Justice wants to designate concerned parents as “domestic terrorists.”  Just because these parents do not want their children to be forced fed Critical Race Theory garbage which is designed to divide our country.

I wrote about this a few days ago, but since then new details have come out about AG Garland and his relationship with promoters of Critical Race Theory.

It is interesting, AG Garland’s son-in-law, Alexander Tanner, is president of Panorama Education, a company who makes millions from the government education system by promoting and selling Critical Race Theory surveys and Critical Race Theory curriculums to government schools across the country. Can you say conflict of interest? YES, BECAUSE IT IS!!!

No wonder AG Garland wants to use the power of the federal government to protect his son-in-law’s bottom line. We saw the same thing during the Obama years with the Internal Revenue Service going after conservative groups like the Tea Party Patriots.

Using the FBI to go after parents who are only exercising their first amendment rights, and their rights as parents, is wrong and a waste of investigative resources. Furthermore, that’s Banana Republic law enforcement.

But how real is this threat by the Department of Justice? According to former SEAL, FBI agent, and fellow former Federal Air Marshal, Jonathan Gilliam, sources at the FBI have told him they have not seen any written directives. He shared this information during an interview with Breitbart News and went on to say he believed this was a bluff.

Personally, I do not believe it’s a bluff, but at the same time I would like to think the FBI would stay away from something that has nothing to do with real terrorism. If they want to deal with real terrorists, I could think about our porous borders and groups like BLM and Antifa.

BLM and Antifa may not be as active as they were during the Trump presidency, but they are still there, and they remain a threat to this country. There is nothing peaceful about burning buildings or setting police stations on fire.

Lastly, the hypocrisy of the left never ceases to amaze me. Just this week, “climate change” protesters clashed with law enforcement at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C.

The Department of Interior released a statement, not condemning the violence but saying the Department “believes strongly in respecting and upholding the right to free speech and peaceful protest.”

Say what? There was nothing peaceful about it. These protesters were trying to break into the building while fighting and disobeying law enforcement. By liberal standards, this was an act of insurrection.

But wait a minute, these were Joe Biden voters, so it is all right to commit acts of insurrection under the cover of “free speech.”

Just as the events of January 6th were quite different from an act of insurrection, the protests at the Department of the Interior were nothing more than a bunch of greenies complaining about lack of action from the administration. Nevertheless, they were not peaceful, and they should have been managed accordingly.

This is an example on how if you think like a liberal you can get caught up in a labyrinth of worthless slogans, labels, and accusations. Violence should be never justified, regardless of party affiliation.

The government, be federal or state, do not have the right to tell parents how to raise their children or what’s appropriate education. We are entitled to question, respectfully, our school board officials, after all, we all pay taxes to fund these schools, and we have the right to know how that money is used.

Instead of chasing concerned parents, I would like to suggest the FBI concentrate their efforts on real crimes and real terrorism. This is something I expect from Banana Republic security apparatuses, not the United States of America.