Author: thependulumswings staff

If You Fall Off of a Horse

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

During one of the Democratic Party’s nomination debates, then-candidate and now President, braggadocious Joe Biden claimed that he was the one that Vladimir Putin wanted nothing to do with.  “I’ve stood toe to toe with him and looked him in the eye,” he said, or words similarly intended, but a bit garbled.

He also told us that he had a plan to combat the coronavirus while the sitting president did not.   Though for better or worse, Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was full speed ahead by the fourth quarter of 2020.

Soon enough thereafter, also for better or worse, 81 million votes were counted for Joe.  “The most ever,” we’ve been told.

Fast forward to today, 18 months after he took office, and take a look around.

Shaking in his boots, Putin invaded Ukraine right away.  Biden has sent well over $40 billion in aid and weapons as he continues to stand toe to toe with Putin. Then, in a late Friday news dump, the Biden administration said that it will send another $400 million in military equipment to Ukraine, including four more advanced rocket systems.

What’s the end game?  “I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine,” Biden said last week.  Eye to eye, this guy is.

Just wait till we get the bill to build Ukraine back better.

On the virus front, it seems like the man with the plan has seen the plan go awry.  He’s weirdly whispered into the mic a few dozen times, though not recently, “Get vaccinated, get boosted.  Now!”

We wonder if it works, why do we need to keep taking it?  If it doesn’t, why do we need to keep taking it?

Apparently, mothers (you can still use that word in the safe space of BBR) are questioning it as well.  The approved vax for 6-month to 5-year-olds has plenty of supply and little demand, unlike baby formula.

Will we have another variant creep into our lives before the midterms?

Old Joe swears that he’s running for reelection in 2024.  Given the above and throwing in Afghanistan, Wall St, and crime he has a tough hill to climb.

An in-depth Civiqs poll now has Biden with a historic low 29% approval rating.  Only 63% of Democrats and 36% of Hispanics approve of the job he’s doing.  Artificial intelligence aside, getting back to 81 million is going to be a stretch.

But, never count the career politician out.

As the old saying goes if you fall off of a horse, you get right back on it.

It’s the same as if you fall off of a bike, you get right back on it.

Joe remembers the old saying.

He’s living the new one.

 

 

 

 

Island Getaway

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Oprah really knew how to capture an audience.  Way back on December 22, 2010, her spell may have reached its zenith when she shouted out to her live audience, “you get a car, and you get a car!  Everyone gets a car!”

Just about a decade later our president channeled that giving feeling as well.  President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan(ARP), a coronavirus relief package, in the Oval Office of the White House on March 11, 2021, in Washington.

It was a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed without one “yea” vote from the stingy Republicans.  The Democrats, fresh off of a Capitol and Oval Office sweep felt compelled to give back.

Not everyone in America got a car to help beat that pesky virus.  But, some institutions and good citizens got more, way more, after having to shove a Q-Tip halfway to some remote island.

Take the Oral History Association for example.  They received $825,000 in ARP funds for a grant-making project titled, “Diversifying Oral History Practice: A Fellowship Program for Under/Unemployed Oral Historians,” which provided eleven year-long fellowships of $60,000 each for oral historians “from communities that have been historically marginalized in the field,” such as “Indigenous peoples, people of color, people with disabilities, and working-class people.”

Are you wondering what exactly is an Oral Historian?  Let Google be your friend.  Oral historians document the past by preserving insights not found in printed sources. The skilled practitioner must remain impartial, listen, and stay in the background.  Got it?

One of the recipients of the 60k giveaway was Elizabeth “Beth” Castle, a “Shawnee-ancestored anti-racist educator.”  This inspired her to create “A Collaborative Oral History of the Fight Against Mineral and Uranium Mining in the Black Hills, the Origins of the Global Indigenous Movement, and the Ongoing Struggle to Protect the People who Protect Mother Earth.”

We kid you not.

Want another? And, another?

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) received $135 million from the plan and proceeded to hand out half of the handout.  The NEH awarded $50,000 in ARP funds to a nonprofit organization in the Northern Mariana Islands called 500 Sails for “reopening programs that teach Indigenous canoe-building and explore pre-colonial sea life.”

The NEH also helped the Science History Institute in Philadelphia.  They were awarded $359,097 by the NEH to create a “multiplatform project exploring the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine.”

As inflation hit 8.6% in May some economists, including former Obama administration economic advisers, have blamed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package for overheating the economy.

President Biden didn’t feel that way when he signed the bill.

“We need Congress to pass my American Rescue Plan,” the president said at the time. “Now, critics say my plan is too big, that it costs $1.9 trillion. So that’s too much. Well, let me ask them: What would they have me cut?  What would they have me leave out?”

Where are the Northern Mariana Islands anyway?

Here is a hint.

Five dollars per gallon of gas and a free car from Oprah can’t get you there.

And, the freebies should have been electric vehicles.

 

A Country Divided….

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In the divided country that we live in does anything divide us more than our stances on abortion?

National elections come close.  To go to or not go to war might come even closer.  Might.

But, reproductive rights, formerly known as women’s wellness, formerly known as women’s healthcare, formerly known as pro-choice, formerly known as abortion is the greatest divider of us all.

A SCOTUS ruling in 1973 in Roe v. Wade effectively made abortions legal in all 50 states.  Almost 50 years later the SCOTUS majority opinion returned the decision on its legality to the individual states.

And the for abortion crowd roared its disapproval.  And, the for abortion crowd will continue to roar its collective throaty disapproval.

President Joe Biden said last week, “Roe is on the ballot come November.”  Unfortunately for Democrats, his job performance is also on the ballot come November.

The right to a peaceful protest is guaranteed by our First Amendment.  Protest away.  Elect who you want to help shape the future going forward.

What isn’t necessary are emotional train wreck-type people suggesting emotional train wrecks.

Take Maxine Waters, please.   We ask in our best Henny Youngman voice.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet. Women are going to control their bodies no matter how they try and stop [us]. The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them,” said the far-too-long in power Ms. Waters.  She continued, “Black women will be out in droves. We will be out by the thousands. We will be out by the millions. We’re going to make sure we fight for the right to control our own bodies.”

It took her about 20 seconds to suggest we ignore the Supreme Court and injected obvious racist overtones into the good fight.  She’s quite the leader.

A few pro-life centers got torched this weekend in the mostly peaceful protests.  A few more are sure to follow.

Former President (and some say current) Barrack Obama called the move an attack on “the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”  He also famously said in 2008 that “elections have consequences.”  In 2016 America elected President Trump.  Trump nominated three new Justices.  You know the rest.

If you’re old enough or studied history before it was revised, you’ve seen a few laws and rulings fall in and out of favor.

Alcohol was once consumed freely until 1920, prohibited from then until 1933, and legal again thereafter.

The war on drugs has gone so well that we have hoisted the white flag and either legalized or decriminalized marijuana in most states.

Heck, if you read enough opinions you know that breast milk, raw eggs, mercury, and ivermectin are either good or bad for you depending on the decade the opinion is written and how the wind blows.

Oil and gas went from one of the main drivers of the industrialized and now advanced standard of living we have, to a nasty fossil fuel that’s going to end the world very soon.

Windmills are in.  Exxon is out.

Obama said climate change is a fact.  We cannot even debate its merits anymore.

The number of Justices on the Supreme Court changed six times before settling to the present total of nine in 1869.  Recently we wanted to stack it.  Now we want to abolish it.

Some women are so incensed that they are marching in Washington exclaiming that they are going to go on strike and abstain from sex because of this ruling.  Inadvertently, they brought logic into their emotional eruption.

Right about now we could use more logic in the country, inadvertent or not.

The only thing that is constant is change.

And, a lot can change in a quick 50 years.

 

 

 

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Sports, Guns, Rants

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Ready?  Set?  Chew!

  1. When Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll spoke highly of quarterbacks Drew Lock and Geno Smith during this month’s mandatory minicamp, you knew it was on.  What’s that?  Let the Baker Mayfield to Seattle trade watch begin.
  2. Meanwhile, the speculation revolving around how long and when DeShaun Watson will be suspended intensifies.  Watson, through his attorney, has settled 20 of 24 civil suits.  Watson admits no wrongdoing.  He is shelling out about 100k per suit for each instance of doing nothing wrong.
  3. If, and it’s a big if, Watson got a year-long suspension it would be over two full years in 2023 since he put on pads for a real game.  Adam Schefter and Ian Rappoport both think the league will hit Watson with an all-of 2022 penalty.  Does Cleveland regret mortgaging their future for a guy without an immediate future?
  4.  Some years teams just have “it.”  The 2022 Yankees have “it.”  Sporting the best record by far in the major leagues, they overcame a 6-3 deficit last evening in the ninth to send the Houston Astros and their closer Ryan Pressley back to their Manhatten hotel as losers 7-6.  A late June game doesn’t mean much you say?  The Yankees thought otherwise.
  5. How hot are the Yankees?  They’re 52-18 for a 74.3 winning percentage.  That torrid pace extrapolates out to a 120-42 record.  What’s the record for the most regular-season wins in a year?  The 2001 Seattle Mariners won 116 and lost 46.
  6. Rob Gronkowski is retiring. Again.  “I will now be going back into my retirement home knowing I gave it everything I had, good or bad, every time I stepped out on the field,” Gronkowski wrote.  Tom Brady said the same about 6 months ago, then “unretired.”   “It would not surprise me if Tom Brady calls him during the season to come back and Rob answers the call,” Gronk’s agent Drew Rosenhaus told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.   Why sweat through training camp when the GOAT can drop a dime at any time during the cooler regular season?
  7.  There was a lot to keep up with on the gun ownership front yesterday.  The Senate passed a safety bill including red flag provisions and more extensive background checks.  Meanwhile, SCOTUS handed down a 6-3 opinion that New York’s regulations that made it difficult to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun were unconstitutionally restrictive, and that it should be easier to obtain such a license.  So, it’s harder to get a gun, but it’s easier to open carry once you get one.
  8.  The SCOTUS ruling didn’t sit well with washed-up, bitter Keith Olbermann.  The far-left, ex-MSNBC host tweeted it has “become necessary to dissolve the Supreme Court of the United States. The first step is for a state the ‘court’ has now forced guns upon, to ignore this ruling. Great. You’re a court? Why and how do you think you can enforce your rulings? #IgnoreThe Court.”  Dissolve the Supreme Court?  Wasn’t the idea just months ago to pack it with more robes?
  9.  Once upon a time, the US was/is a rule of law country.  The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws.  Olbermann’s immaturity at 63 years of age is not a good look.  If you don’t like stopping at stop signs, don’t.  Make sense?
  10.  Olbermann wasn’t flying solo. The ruling represents “a middle finger to New York,” Whoopi Goldberg said on ABC’s The View.  “Truly a disgraceful ruling,” Barbra Streisand tweeted.  Do you wonder if Whoppi and Barbara’s bodyguards are packing?  No need to wonder, you know they are.

Speaking of packing, get out of the heat and head north.  Bring your firearm if you wish.

Very Interesting

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Way back when people now in their seventies watched a #1 rated TV show in the early 1970s called Laugh In.  The fast-moving, one-of-a-kind show featured never-ending quick skits, one-liners, and brief physical comedy performed by a troupe of talented actors.

One such actor was Artie Johnson.  Like the others, Artie played a wide range of characters.  But, without doubt, his two most famous were 1) a soldier who emerged from a bush to utter the line, “very interesting, but stupid!” and, 2) a grown adult on a tiny tricycle who “biked” briefly until he always unceremoniously crashed.

This brings us to the 46th President of the United States- Joseph Biden.  How?  Well, he’s in his seventies.  Sunday while biking at roughly two miles per hour he fell down.  And, later that day safely away from the bike he uttered something very interesting, but some say stupid.  Actually, he uttered some things, plural.

When doting reporters following his every Delaware vacation move asked about inflation and the economy, Biden bristled.  “A recession isn’t inevitable.  We have a chance to make a fundamental turn toward renewable energy, electric vehicles, and not just electric vehicles but across the board,” Biden countered.

Inflation is at a 40-year high.   The national average of gas prices crossed over the $5/gallon threshold, the highest ever.   Second place was $4.11 back in 2008.

Post-Covid transitory inflation that transitioned to Putin’s price hike is now not leading to an inevitable recession.  Unless we are already in one we suppose.

Biden followed up this exchange in Delaware by telling a reporter that “his team” would sit down with oil executives to demand they produce more oil and question their high profits.

The great unifier, who suspended multiple domestic oil leases, is now blaming greedy oil companies. So, while none of this is his fault, at least it gives us a chance to buy an electric car with batteries made from fossil-fueled plants.

But wait!  There’s more!

The President said Monday he is considering creating a federal gas tax holiday, which could save Americans as much as 18.4 cents per gallon.  His ex-boss, former President Barack Obama, was against such a move on the campaign trail back in 2008, the last time prices were near this high.

Obama said at the time that a gas tax holiday was a “gimmick” to save Americans half a tank of gas over the summer so that lawmakers could “say that they did something.”

With gas at five bucks a gallon, the tax is not even 4% of the total cost to Americans to fill up.  Gimmick indeed.

It also suspends the collection of said tax money that is supposed to keep up the nation’s roads and bridges.  There go the roads that we can’t afford gas to drive on!

At least we printed a trillion a year ago that we don’t have to repair our infrastructure.  That trillion wasn’t inflationary either, was it?

We have windmills to fall back on.  We do unless the wind isn’t blowing.

Not to worry, in Washington the political winds are always blowing.  At the moment they’re straight out of the left.

Maybe we should all just try to ride bikes from here on out.  How about that idea?

Very interesting.

But………….

 

 

Hail to the Red Faced Commanders

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Once upon a time, they were the Washington Redskins.  No more.  Once upon a time, they were the Washington Football Team.  No more.  Now they are known as the Washington Commanders.

Free speech was previously known as free speech.  No more.  Now it is known as either disinformation or expensive or both.

Commander’s defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio likely had no idea the dust-up he would cause when Del Rio called the 1/6/21 Capitol assault a “dust-up” at the team’s minicamp last Wednesday.

Head Coach Ron Rivera released a statement through the team’s official Twitter account. He called the events of Jan. 6, 2021 “an act of domestic terrorism.” Rivera said Del Rio’s comments were “extremely hurtful to our great community here in the DC area.”  Calling DC a great community might be disinformation unto itself, but we digress.

Del Rio also compared the Capitol insurrection to the sometimes violent protests (but labeled mostly peaceful by the left) of systemic and racial injustice in 2020.  “Our organization will not tolerate any equivalency between those who demanded justice in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the actions of those on January 6 who sought to topple our government,” Rivera continued.

Those “who demanded justice” could also be read as “those who murdered, rioted, stole, assaulted, and set fires.”  Well, actually that was way back when free speech was free.

Del Rio was fined 100k and later apologized for his “transgression.”

Rivera said Del Rio has a right to voice his opinion, but added, “Words have consequences and his words hurt a lot of people in our community.”  In other words, free speech is expensive.

And, if some had their way, it would be even more expensive.

Those comments resulted in NAACP president Derrick Johnson calling for Del Rio to resign or be terminated. “You can’t coach a majority Black team while turning your back on the Black community. It’s time for you to pack up and step off the field,” said Johnson.  Could you coach a majority white team and turn your back?

Oh, the irony.

All of this stench emanates from a franchise that staunchly refused to change its “racist” Redskins nickname for decades on end.  The smart money will tell you that the name change only happened after the NFL launched an investigation into front office boy’s club multiple sexual harassment allegations, claims, and lawsuits.

Owner Daniel Snyder was and is front and center.  It was time to give a little to get a little so to speak.

Heck, as a further sign of goodwill, they even hired the first non-pale face in Redskins history in Rivera in 2020.

And, then late last year news broke that Snyder and company were possibly skimming(under-reporting) some local revenue before sharing it with the other 31 team owners and franchises.  A former VP publicly claims the practice has been in place for over a decade.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee in the “great community” of DC is investigating.

Or, should we say, “oh, the hypocrisy?”

Blame it on (Del) Rio!

The Swamp and its football team are made for one another.

 

 

 

 

Get Your Popcorn

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Lights!  Camera!  Action!

That’s what is going down tonight up on the hill.  The curtains go up at 8 pm EST.  It’s a political play directed by James Goldston, a former president of ABC News.  Prime Time.

It’s not really very different than what happened on 1/6/2021- a day that will live in infamy according to some.  It’s been compared to Pearl Harbor, Watergate, and 9/11 as one of the darkest days in our country’s history.

The House convenes tonight for its committee hearing on Insurrection Day.

What happened on 1/6 was bad for America.  It was ugly, too.  But, insurrection?  Busting through the doors and windows of The Capitol Building was dumb and unlawful.  But, it wasn’t an insurrection.

Usually, malcontents bring guns to an insurrection.  You know the ones- weapons of war as the Democrats now collectively and harmoniously call an AR-15 and the like.  And, they usually put up more of a fight.  Often they try to stay longer.

Nonetheless, it was stupid when it crossed a line.  And, tonight’s hearings, led by the Dems and Dem wanna-be Liz Cheney will cross a line or two as well as they try to deliver a line that makes it to the evening news as a favored sound bite.

Grab the remote, relax in your favorite recliner, and pop some kernels.

Cameras will roll just like the body cameras on the police officers did during Paul Pelosi’s DUI arrest.  The difference is that you’ll see today’s video.

All of this has but one purpose.  It’s to take center stage and tell you how our democracy is at stake here and Donald J Trump is a bad guy.

Trump was a bad actor on that day as he could have done more to ensure that the crowd did less.  But, it was bad acting, nothing more and nothing less.

There will be more of that today-bad acting.

The further you suppress/impeach/impugn Trump and his followers the more likely you are to remain in power you see.  Dems fear people like Trump and DeSantis.  Why?  It’s because they actually appeal to what a lot of Americans want, not what the gullible are told what they want.

Dems embrace people like McConnell and Graham.  They’re really Dems acting like Republicans. They are necessary, good, obedient bit-part actors of a great production.

And they enjoy a good show.

Get your popcorn.

Ten Piece Nuggets

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Nuggets!  Git yer 10 Piece Nuggets right cheer!!  Hot off of the press or depressed if you prefer.

  1.  It’s important to be more open-minded these days than ever.  As you know with gender ID the country is struggling to define what a woman is.  It’s not having such problems with men though.  And, as you now know, men can get pregnant.  Keep up with the changing times, please.
  2. But, when it comes to proper identification, California, as always, is ahead of the pack.  In comes a fishy ruling from the Golden State.  A Cali court has ruled that bees can legally be considered fish.  The reversal of an earlier interpretation means bumblebees can now be eligible for listing under the California Endangered Species Act. The conservation win comes as bumblebees have faced a serious decline throughout the United States due to climate change.  How do we know that?  Well, we have heard of flying fish.
  3. Over the weekend a shootout in Tennessee and another in downtown Philadelphia left multiple people dead in both locations.  The two fracases involved multiple gunmen in each incident.  Are we as upset about this as we are when a lone deranged lunatic mows down folks in a supermarket or a movie theater?  We get the outrage in schools, but wonder why the indifference nationally on the other.
  4. Speaking of which, the Uvalde parents of the victims will apparently sue the gunmaker of the AR-15 used in the shooting.  The premise we presume is that the manufacturer puts out a product knowing it can cause death.  It seems like the landmark cases against tobacco companies in the seventies.  Can we also sue alcohol producers?  Car makers?  Plane manufacturers?
  5. We empathize with their grief certainly but wonder about this attempt.  While they have the lawyers’ attention they should sue the stand-down Uvalde police department.  We’re sure they will.  And, we’re sure that they’ll get a big settlement.
  6.  Does the country feel hopelessly split to you?  On migration, a May poll informed respondents, “By the year 2050, a majority of the population will be made up of people who are Black, Asian, Hispanic, and other racial minorities.”  Respondents were evenly split: 22% said the demographic change would be a “very” or a “somewhat” good thing,” while 20% said a “very” or a “somewhat” bad thing.
  7. How about along party lines?  Thirty percent of people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 say it would be “a very good thing,”  Just 3% of President Trump’s voters said it would be a “very good thing.”  We ask again, does the country feel hopelessly split to you?
  8.  Do you know how lucky you are to have such low gas prices? Huh?   White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to questions yesterday about high gas prices during the daily briefing by noting it was “really important” that people understood that prices were higher across the globe.  She noted that gas prices in the European Union were $8.15 a gallon, prices in Germany were $8.88 a gallon, and prices in Canada were $6.23 a gallon.  Lucky you.
  9. She repeated an earlier WH position that “everything was on the table” to deal with high gas prices but said that she did not have any information on actions the president would take to help lower gas prices.  “I don’t have anything to preview,” she said.  If we weren’t so dumb we’d be insulted.  It’s Putin’s fault anyway, isn’t it?
  10. As expected Phil Mickelson, he of foot in mouth disease, announced that he was joining the new LIV Golf series backed by the Saudi-Arabian government. It’s widely reported that Tiger Woods has turned down a low nine-figure offer to do the same.   Mickelson joins another big name, Dustin Johnson, in making the same move.  Will they still be big names in five years?  Apparently, they don’t care as big money talks and fame walks across the pond.

Enjoy the heat.

Swim Fast

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Here at the world headquarters of BBR.com is a rather attractive 175-gallon fish tank.  Mature fish of all shapes and colors are plentiful.  And, now we have the tiniest of babies.

It’s so small you can see straight through it.  Peril awaits behind every rock and plant.  So far so good for the young un.  You watch in wonder with each passing day as the odds are quite slim.

The odds for the average American human baby born in 2022 aren’t as slim, but you have to wonder if the big fish are out to get them as well.

The first obstacle is, of course, being born at all.  In 2019, the most recent year that we have a semi-accurate count, nearly 1 million abortions were performed in the U.S.   Apparently we count abortions as expeditiously as we count votes in Pennsylvania.

And, now we have a baby formula shortage.  President Biden, responding to questions yesterday about how quickly the administration acted, claimed: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the impact of one facility — of the Abbott facility.”

Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on the comments from manufacturers that they knew immediately what the impact would be, Biden responded: “They did, but I didn’t.”  Apparently we react to formula shortages as quickly as we do oil and gas shortages.

When the infants reach school age at least they can begin to learn which gender they are, aren’t, might be, or want to be one day when they grow up.  Our public school system sees to it.

That public school system, which you pay for, does not allow you to choose which school your children attend, however.  Apparently pro-choice and school choice have little in common in these 50 United States.

At least we took the worthless masks off of the little ones(except NY which knows better than the rest) late this spring semester.

We teach them science.  We follow the science.

And, we have a better science-based solution right around the corner.  News broke this AM that both Pfizer and Moderna have applied for final approval of their three and two-shot vaccine series for children aged 6 months to five years.  Science tells us that they aren’t actually vaccines, but we digress.

How timely?  How worthless you ask?  It’s estimated that 0.001 percent of children under 12 have any serious symptoms from the dreaded Covid-19.  That’s 1 in 100,000 if you do the math of the science.

Roaring ahead to middle and high school we have a safety problem that no one wants to address with any old school logic.  We have gun-free zones where only criminals have guns.  And, we have armed police officers who want no part of criminals with guns.  Uvalde wasn’t the first time for the men and women in the blue.

Well, at least we can take comfort that if the very young adults make it all of the way to and through college that they can emerge from the other side debt-free and ready to contribute to society.

How’s that you ask?  Prez Biden, “I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction, but I am in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness.”

That’ll usher the new graduates into a world of even higher inflation.  Biden’s plan to cancel student loan debt could lead to higher inflation and perceived inequality, several experts warned.

Inflation?  It’s likely transitory.

Inequality?  Jeez.  We’ve done so much good there, haven’t we?  Haven’t we?

If you paid off your loans you get nothing back except a pat on the back.  If you didn’t go to college but learned a valuable trade, you get to pay off the debt of those who did but haven’t paid it back.

If you haven’t paid a silver dime back, or are delinquent, you get a free pass.  That’ll teach them responsibility, won’t it?

That little fish has a lot of swimming to do.

At least fish swim in schools that aren’t controlled by the government.

Not yet, anyway.

 

Just Stand There!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Don’t do something!  Just stand there!

We admit it.  We borrowed this line from an avid reader who borrowed this line from Jack Bogle.  Bogle is a sage old-school investor and founder of Vanguard Investments.

A lot has happened in the last week after Uvalde.  Nothing has happened in the last week after Uvalde.

A few examples of the diligence and inertia follow.

President Biden and the First Lady flew to Uvalde and said something like this can never happen again.  Then they flew back to Delaware to enjoy some fine BBQ and a day on the beach.

Second Amendment proponents hid behind the Second Amendment and like Puxatawny Phil seems content to stay underground for six more weeks while the rancor subsides.  Should an 18-year-old be allowed to buy a gun?  The argument that we send them to war with guns doesn’t justify individual ownership unto itself.  Eighteen-year-old sane males don’t make good decisions daily.

The Uvalde police were exposed.  The very ones with the guns that are supposed to protect the ones without failed miserably ever so slowly.  And, they lied about it as well.  Protect and serve they did not.

America actually has bigger murder number problems than mass shootings on school grounds.  They stem from too much domestic violence, drug-fueled violence, armed robbery, mental health issues, and on and on.

Frankly, as a society, we’ve failed miserably in addressing all of those issues.  The War on Drugs is a multidecade loser.  We spent two years yelling in city council meetings to defund the police. Three years ago we ended the three strikes and you’re out punishment for serial criminals.  Homelessness is near or at an all-time high.  Locking people out of their daily routines for two Covid-19 years has put more than one flying over the cuckoo’s nest.

But, one that we could address is the in-school one like Uvalde.

But, our leader Joe Biden has put forth no plan to help ensure “that nothing like this ever happens again.”  How about at the least forming a blue ribbon, bloated government committee to examine the cause and effect, and suggest a remedy or three?

Yesterday through his press secretary, the Biden administration shot down (bad pun) any desire to “harden” our schools.  What does that mean?  It means that he doesn’t support arming anyone on school grounds as a means to prevent anyone from coming onto school grounds armed.

Apparently, gun control is the problem, not controlling the behaviors of people who are armed.  He dove deeper yesterday.  He wants to ban “high caliber” 9mm handguns. “There’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection.”  Somebody should tell him that it is the gun of choice for the Secret Service.

Last week we wrote comparing the changes in the airline industry post 9/11 to make it safer vs. the “just stand there” mentality of the on school grounds problem.  There are some layups to be had.  America just has to take the shot (damn, again).

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is doing something.  Yesterday, he announced the introduction of a bill that would place a national freeze on handgun ownership across Canada.  Way up in our nation’s attic he’s riding on the tragic coattails of Uvalde. And, he’s after the handguns, not the long guns.

Trudeau subscribes to the “never let a good crisis go to waste” mantra.

To summarize: bad people have guns, police don’t use theirs when needed, good people rightfully aren’t letting go of theirs, Canadians are screwed, and Biden has no plan.

Don’t do something!  Just stand there!