Author: thependulumswings staff

2025 Has Arrived (part 2)

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Tuesday we forecasted the first six months of 2025.  Today we tackle the back half.

Tuesday night Trump rallied behind Mike Johnson, so prediction number one might ring true even before the New Year begins.

July

The Arizona Diamondbacks open a nine-game lead over the LA Dodgers as Shohei Ohtani misses five straight games attending a Lamaze retreat.  Trump pardons all but the last six J6 convicted felons.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau goes public with his relationship with RuPaul.  Ann’ecdote, the first named hurricane of the Atlantic season scrapes Key West and fizzles.  Aaron Rodgers announces his retirement.

August

The NY city trash workers strike enters week three.  Mayor Eric Adams finds the situation untenable saying, “This place stinks worse than our pro football teams.”  JD Vance casts the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to institute voter ID laws consistent in all 50 states.  California says it won’t comply.  Number one overall NFL draft pick Sheddur Sanders holds out of the NE Patriots camp threatening to enter the transfer portal seeking more money.

September

Shohei Sadaharu Oh Ohtani, 12 pounds 10 ounces and 24 inches long, was born two weeks early.   Droughtaggeddon finally relents in Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa but a nationwide corn shortage worsens.  Bill Gates peddles Beyond Corn.  Kamala Harris’ book Aged Like Fine Wine debuts at number one on the NYT bestseller list.  President Trump awards The Village People the Congressional Medal of Honor.

October

Vivek Ramaswamy resigns from DOGE citing irreconcilable differences with Elon Musk.  The Yankees offer Son Oh Ohtani a three-year minor-league contract for 60 million.  The Arizona Diamondbacks win the World Series.  Elon announces xPhone 1 will go on sale for Christmas and include free internet access for life.  The 2026 federal budget is presented with spending requests planned down 11.7% and tax cuts galore.  Wall Street rallies the Dow back over 44k.

November

The Washington Commanders end Oct 9-0 but fall to the Carolina Panthers ensuring no team goes undefeated yet again.  The bird flu spreads to turkeys causing a nationwide beef shortage around Thanksgiving.  Bill Gates peddles Beyond Turkey.  Hunter Biden is detained trying to enter the White House, yelling, “I left some valuables here a while back.”  Karine Jean Pierre enters the book biz with Say It Ain’t So, Joe.  America takes the Panama Canal back.  Trump Enterprises purchases 12 acres from the US for $1 along the canal to build a mega hotel and casino complex.

December

The CFP Committee selects 5 SEC and 4 Big Ten teams for the expanded 16-team playoffs.  ESPN buys a financial stake in Alabama football.   Barron Trump launches a podcast.  The US Department of Defense says that the drones over New Jersey are mostly contained.  Trump’s executive order renames Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley.  Two days later bright orange lava erupts for the first time.

Happy New Year!!

2025 Has Arrived

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Twenty-twenty-four is all but out of the door.  Our fearless 2025 predictions have arrived.

The first six months follow.

January

Mike Johnson retains his House Speakership.  The Oregon Ducks capture Natty #1 in their school’s history beating Georgia 34-28.  Joe Biden wishes Jimmy Carter luck for the next four years on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration.   Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that the H-1B Visa is a variant of the Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2 KP.2.3 virus, that must be taken seriously.  Taylor Sheridan signs on with Paramount Plus to develop yet another series, this one tentatively titled New Jersey Drones.

February

Philadelphia and Buffalo send Super Bowl LIX to overtime before the Bills win their first Lombardi Trophy 34-28, oddly the same score as the CFP Championship.  President Trump begins the deportation of illegal immigrants and is forced to call out the National Guard in Chicago.   Troublesome interest rates sink the Dow Jones under 40,000.

March

Doug Emhoff and Kamala Harris announce their pending divorce declaring they both wish to be “unburdened by what has been.”  Florida beats Auburn to capture the NCAA March Madness Basketball National Championship in an all-SEC final.   Canada agrees to become a US Territory and is renamed North of North Dakota.

April

An EF3 tornado rolls through northeast Oklahoma causing 10 million dollars of improvements.  The World Health Organization recommends the removal of all birdhouses as the bird flu caseload reaches nearly 200 worldwide.  Mitch McConnel abruptly resigns from the Senate.  After spring practices conclude the NCAA transfer portal has more players in than out.

May

Donald Trump says that the US is exiting the WHO calling its leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus a bird brain with a long name.  California Angels OF Mike Trout is placed on the 60-day disabled list with a chronic hangnail.  Ukraine signs a treaty with Russia ceding Crimea over to Putin.  When Joe Biden was asked to comment from his Delaware beach chair, he says “ah, Crimea, crime,a, ah, crime” was already declining in the US under his watch.

June

Hollywood, CA one way UHaul rentals surpass all previous records as the Epstein List is set to release on June 25th.  The OKC Thunder beats the Boston Celtics 4-1 to capture their first-ever NBA Championship.  LeBron James retires and concludes his presser by saying “I diddy the best I could.”  Elon Musk, feeling the power from his non-government, government position says Mars is not the final destination.  He wants to launch a rocket aimed at Uranus.

 

July through December prognostications will hit Al Gore’s internet by week’s end.

Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Donald J. Trump wrote The Art of the Deal in 1987, which sold over a million copies and was number one on the New York Times best-seller list for 13 straight weeks.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was fifteen years old then.  Likely, The Art of the Deal was not on his high school English class reading list.  Perhaps it should have been, along with a speed reading course.

Though Johnson’s House Continuing Resolution blew up faster yesterday than he could have read it.  The 1500-plus page bill is was longer than three War and Peace novels.

When Elon Musk starts a Twitter war there is no peace.  Elon and Vivek dissected the bill.  In 280 characters or less, they told us that it was more Washington pork being force-fed to the American people who just voted to stop the DC hogs and their special interests.

Mike Johnson brokered a deal with the devil that offered everything from a Congressional member pay raise of 73k per public servant to a three million dollar study on molasses testing.

How about a new three-billion-dollar NFL stadium in DC?  If you have a House seat on the hill you get a sweet suite seat in the stadium.

All he needed and all America needed was funding to keep the government open till Trump got his feet under the Oval Office desk and some additional disaster relief for the two devastating hurricanes the southeast endured in September.

Instead, he chose to include Democrat-driven pet projects.  After the dawn of DOGE he should have known better.

Vote the straight party line on the lighter version of the bill and send it to the Senate.  The Senate is controlled by the Democrats until 1/2/25.  If they reject the bill and shut the government down it’s on them.  Government shutdowns aren’t shutdowns anyway, but politicians like to scare us.

Instead, he tried to please everyone which pleased no one once the richest and smartest man in the world spoke, er, tweeted.

Notably silent yesterday were the RINOs that would have voted with the Democrats to deliver the slab of bacon and run home for the holiday break.  Elon’s watching.  He has the money to primary you, fine folks, soon.  Don’t get him started.

Mike Johnson is gone sooner.  He won’t survive his 1/2 casting call.

Johnson didn’t read Trump’s book.  And, he wrote the wrong bill.

He didn’t read the will of the American people.  Enough already adding shamelessly to the debt.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

 

 

Droning On

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s been a quick, but busy, 30 days since Kamala Harris stopped droning on about being “unburdened from what has been.”

Now we’ve got drones over New Jersey airspace unburdened by any American government department.  Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense said they don’t know their origin or purpose, but there’s nothing to worry about.   Comforting indeed.

Perhaps the Chinese “weather balloon” that traversed across the sky high above us for days on end 18 months ago was deemed a trial success.  Before you know it Boeing 737 MAXs will be airborne again as well.  Hallelujah, we think.

President Joe Biden’s been flying high too.  His trip to Africa was a long but successful one.   Biden’s visit, the first to Angola by a U.S. president, is meant to promote billions of dollars of commitments to the sub-Saharan African nation for what he called the largest ever U.S. rail investment overseas.

“The United States is all in on Africa,” he said between naps in meetings.

This comes a day after his 50-billion-dollar loan pledge to Ukraine.  Hell hath no fury like a President scorned. Dr. Jill was back stateside openly mocking Kamala beginning her speech by asking everyone to have “joy.”  Hell hath no fury like a First Lady scorned.

Christopher Wray is wrapping up his tenure as FBI Director.  He knows that a new sheriff is coming to DC soon.  If Mickey Donovan had the same sensibility for his son Ray Ray a lot of hubbub could have been avoided.

Wray’s wrap is ahead of the parade.  When the Kings of DOGE hit DC the real towel-waving begins.

The “experiment” of lesser government wrapped up one year in Argentina. It should be viewed as a blueprint.

President Javier Milei announced a tax reform plan to eliminate 90 percent of existing taxes after slicing 18 government ministries to nine reducing the country’s inflation year over year from 25.5% to 2.7%.  It’s terrible to subject citizens to such bloat for so long.

It’s also terrible that more than a few zealots took to social media to cheer the murder of the head of UnitedHealthcare exclaiming that you have to challenge the medical establishment.  Weren’t some of them the same ones wanting you dead for criticizing Pfizer, the vaccine that wasn’t a vaccine, and the booster that wasn’t a booster?

Maybe permanent social distancing isn’t a bad idea.

 

 

 

 

A Political Joke

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Do you know what George Washington and Joseph Biden have in common?  Nothing.

George Washington told his father he could not tell a lie, “I did cut down that cherry tree.”  Hunter Biden’s father repeatedly told the US he would not pardon his son.

There is no truth to the rumor that Joyless Behar defended Joe by saying on The View yesterday, “Well, he didn’t say which son he would not pardon.  Maybe he was talking about Beau.”

Too soon?  In today’s world, it’s never too soon.

What’s really curious is the fine print.  The Big Guy took out the Mont Blanc.  He absolved Hunter “For those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted.”

In other words, he went back eleven years and covered any crimes Hunter may have committed but hasn’t yet been charged with.  Hmmm.

Does this make one curious about the Burisma “work” Hunter did?  It shouldn’t.  After all 51 public servants within the DOJ and the CIA swore that Hunter’s laptop which may contain incriminating evidence of “pay for play” didn’t exist.  They wouldn’t lie either.

If you believe in the Deep State you can see why so many folks around DC are a bit edgy as Donald Trump’s inauguration looms and new sheriffs will be in town snooping around.

Yesterday, a tweet trending on X concluded, “Joe Biden did what any loving father would do by protecting his son and giving him a second chance.”

The problem is that only one loving father in the US would have such a chance.  You have to be President.  Talk about white executive privilege.  Also, Hunter has had way more chances than two.

Did Hunter celebrate by making snow angels on the WH lawn until the wee hours?

Biden handed Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy another two billion yesterday.  But the clock on the ruse is winding down.  Biden’s reelection got short-circuited.  Biden publically endorsed a laughing hyena before the Dems in the shadows could anoint their next puppet.  That ensured Trump got reelected. Trump already has Putin publically saying he wants a peaceful resolution.  The laundering stops here.

The no-pardon lie wasn’t Biden’s first.  He had to withdraw from his first Dem presidential nomination race back in 1988 for lying.  His incredible run as a public servant, train conductor, and 18-wheeler driver has included another falsehood or three.

Do you know how a politician is lying?  See if his mouth is moving.

The funny thing is the joke’s on you.

And only Hunter is laughing.

 

 

Ten Reasons to be Thankful

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s that time.  It’s time to be thankful for all of our blessings.  Below we count 10 of them.

  1.  We ugly Americans complain a lot, but who has it better than you? Maybe Canada does. Several Hollywood types threatened to move to Canada if former President Trump was reelected.  Thankfully no news outlet has reported that the traffic at the northern border going out is similar to the traffic at the southern border coming in.
  2. However, Ellen Degeneres and her wife said thanks for the memories and flew over the pond to the UK.  She says the move is permanent.  TPS is attempting to clarify if the memories referenced were days in America or nights at P Diddy’s.
  3.  Covid 19 is no longer.  Walgreens is still advertising COVID-19 vaccination shots.  Or, are they called boosters these days? They should be thankful that they ar closing only 500 stores next year.
  4.  About 4 million illegal immigrants from 2020-2021 will celebrate Thanksgiving here because the pandemic was never bad enough to shut down the border.  Will it be their last here?
  5.  Thankfully no legacy media outlet will need to interview James Carville for another four years.  Hopefully, his LSU sweatshirt will have dry-rotted by then.
  6.  Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have made nice with Donald Trump just in time to pass the gravy.  They say they will call it right down the middle from here on.  Weren’t they before?  They’ll be thankful if NBC still owns MSNBC in a year and Elon Musk doesn’t.
  7.  The tariffs are coming!  The tariffs are coming!  Thankfully Donald Trump understands the Art of the Deal better than most.
  8.  On Turkey Day while watching America’s Team (how bout dem Cowboys?) you won’t be interrupted by a message from a cackling hen dressed in a pantsuit.
  9.  Donald Trump will sleep way better in the cozy White House than a penitentiary cell.  “Now even Jack Smith admits the Left’s lawfare against President Trump has failed,” David Bossie, president of Citizens United, said.  Both federal cases are being put on ice.
  10.  Speaking of sleeping, turkey does not make you so.  While the big bird does contain tryptophan, there isn’t enough in the gobbler to have an impact. You would have to eat about eight pounds of turkey to have a high enough level to make you sleepy.

Give it a go!

Gobble, gobble.

Night, night.

In Plain Sight

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Two political campaigns culminated two weeks ago today.  One spent roughly 1.5 billion bucks and is 20 million in the red. The other spent about one-fourth of that and is headed to the White House.

How did we get here?  Perhaps you should saunter down your driveway this AM to retrieve your newspaper and “read all about it.”  It’s chilly.  Be sure to double-cinch your robe and put on the furry slippers first.

Maybe you don’t “take” the paper anymore.  “Anymore” might mean 20 years or so.  Maybe you don’t even watch the evening news anymore.

Each quarter Nielsen ratings show fewer Americans watch than the previous one.  Combined ABC, CBS, and NBC reach about 18 million views nightly these days.

And for two months if you turned on your TV you saw a Harris/Walz political ad.

How many views on YouTube did Joe Rogan’s three-hour podcast with Donald Trump have in the three days following its cast?  Thirty-eight million.  As Joe Biden would say, “Not a joke, folks!”

Harris was offered “free” airtime with Rogan and declined.  But, Saturday Night Live called and she was there in a New York minute.

Donald Trump and his team aggressively used social media platforms to refute Kamala Harris’ claims at her rallies in real time.  While Walz was waltzing on stage Team Trump was typing.  Social media posts cost very little.

Share research shows 46% of young people aged 19-29 voted for Trump, up from 36% in 2020.  That’s yuge.  They’re dancing the “Trump dance” from coast to coast nonstop.

Dour MSNBC reported this morning that nearly one in five Americans consider social media their first source for news.  In the important 19-34 age bracket two out of five do too!

MSNBC show anchors spent weeks calling Trump a fascist and comparing him to Hitler.  Morning Joe with Mika in tow spent last Friday at Mar-A-Lago making nice with President-Elect 47.  They say they want to call it down the middle now even if they still differ with many of Trump’s policy initiatives.  They won’t say if they kissed the ring or bent the knee.

Morning Joe’s producers woke up and smelled the coffee.  What’s brewing is a viewership shift from one platform to another and a philosophical shift from far left to some normalcy.

As usual, all of this was hiding in plain sight.

As usual, Musk saw it first.  He bought Twitter.  Free speech was unburdened from what had been.

Trump mastered the media manipulation game way back when.

Together they took down all seven swing states.

They may have taken down the legacy media with it.

Next, they tackle DC.

The WH press room will never be the same.

 

 

 

Feeling Jilted?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

When you woke up a week ago today were you feeling jilted?  Maybe a week later you still do?  Don’t despair.

Why?  That’s an easy one.  For one, you’re still alive.

“No, not enough,” you say.  “Give us another reason.”  Rather than give you another reason, you could talk to 10-15 million whose names we may or may not know, and they’ll explain why they fled parts unknown, jumped fences to get in, and entered our country illegally for a better life.

“But, but, it’s the end of our democracy.”  Is it?  Can someone explain how DJT’s election will end democracy and why it didn’t end in 2020?  Far too many buy into hysteria that never materializes.  Do you remember Chicken Little who said the sky is falling?

Speaking of chickens, every potential voting block was promised one in their pot.  Student loan forgiveness, increased child care credit, 50k to start a biz, 25k to first-time homebuyers, one million “forgivable loans” to black entrepreneurs, and no tax on tips were all side dishes to the chicken.

What a feast.  But, Kamala didn’t get a chance to serve that Thanksgiving spread.

It’s ok.  There are many government agencies here to help- for now.

The departments and their public servants(reminds us of jumbo shrimp) will need to dodge DOGE.  What’s DOGE?  It’s the Department of Government Efficiency.

Perhaps these ground-shaking last seven days sent you to bed early last evening.  If so, you missed the smoke spewing from the Mar-a-Lago chimney.

DJT anointed Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as “department heads” of an independent initiative to recommend to President 47 where waste can be cut from the bloviated government.  This leaves more than a few career DC folks jilted as well.  Take the Department of Education, please.

The hope is to cut two trillion from yearly spending and finish the surgery by July 4th, 2026.  That coincides with our nation’s 250th happy birthday.

Still not happy?  You have 36 trillion reasons and counting to be.

Maybe all of this caused you to turn off FOX News years ago.  If so, you may not know Pete Hegseth, a weekend anchor.  Former President Trump will nominate him as Secretary of Defense.  WHAT?

Before you say that’s not fair or balanced, realize he’s an Iran and Afghanistan veteran with two Bronze Stars, a National Defense Service Medal, and a Global War on Terrorism Medal recipient.  He holds degrees from Princeton and Yale.  He believes in merit-based assignments, not DEI.   DC doesn’t like outsiders but loves DEI.

If all this upheaval leaves you feeling like an outsider, remember midterms are just two years away.

Because there is NO threat to your democracy you’ll have a say again then.

It’s beach time for Dr. Jilted and Joe.

America has spoken.

Give it a chance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Empty Suit

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Shortly after the Stone Age and way before Black Lives Matter, neckties mattered. They were the perfect piece de resistance for a suit, whether a man or a woman wore them.

Suits were mandatory for any serious businessman or woman, which led to the occasional utterance, “Empty suit. ” What’s that? “Empty suit” describes someone whose outward appearance qualified them, but there was little substance to the person wearing the suit.

West of the Mississippi the adaptation was “all hat, no cattle.”

Fast forward to the forensic examination of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Written here time and again, the loser of this race would go down in the history books as one of the worst candidates ever.  Kamala lost.  Barak O famously said, “Elections have consequences.”

Why was Kamala so bad?  Willie Brown aside, it’s not hard to figure out.

The teleprompter is her best friend

A lawyer then a district attorney became the California Attorney General.  She said during the campaign she realized “with the mere stroke of a pen she could send a person away for life.” Power.   From there she became one of two Cali Senators.

That all seems impressive.  But was it?  What got her promoted and elected?  Willie for one.  Maybe a bright smile with shiny white teeth for another?  Cali likes actors who play roles.  Ronald Reagan became governor. The Terminator too.  Pepsodent Gavin’s taking a turn.

What did she stand for?  She was tough on crime then.   During the George Floyd riots, she started a website to fund bail money for those arrested.

Kamala.  Chameleon.  Kameleon?

A run to be the Democrat nominee in 2020 had its moment.  During the first debate, she accused Joe Biden of being a racist all the while saying he wasn’t a racist.

She garnered less than 1% in the polling before the first primary and folded her suit and tent.

Biden, beholden to the far left to get the nomination, told the world he would pick a woman as his running mate.  How about killing two birds with one stone?  Kamala is black and female.

Willie aside, politics makes strange bedfellows.

Elected and soon appointed to be border czar Kamala went about being the VP.  But what did she do?  At the border, nothing.

She always had a freshly laundered business suit.  The title is VP.  Her job responsibilities and accomplishments are fleeting.

She helped hide Biden’s declining cognitive abilities until late in the game.  Voila, she became the nominee, once again with no votes cast her way.

No interviews for 60 days weren’t helping her.  America wanted to know who she was.

What would you change about the Biden/Harris run?  “Nothing,” she said.   What’s your plan for the economy and inflation?  “I come from a middle-class family.”

Trump offered no taxes on tips.  Kamala followed.  With a straight face she blamed the Republicans for the border mess.

She was running the joy campaign.  “Trump is a Nazi.  A fascist.”  Joy.

After multiple interviews, Americans still didn’t know.

Our democracy is at stake,” she bellowed.  Per exit polls, people agreed with her and chose Trump over her to preserve it.

The Republican base showed up at the polls.  They’ve had it with inflation, the border, and the world ablaze.  So did others.  Blacks and Hispanics voted more than ever before for the right.  Young peeps did too.

Trump was a flawed candidate.  Kamala was worse.

Politicians matter, but policies matter more.

Is her political career over?

She has the wardrobe to soldier on.

But, what’s inside?

 

 

 

 

 

It Swung Quite a Bit

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Whether your “team” won or lost last night it’s time to go to work for all of America.

America spoke.  Once when Barrack Obama spoke he said elections have consequences.

Speaking of work we hope this website’s glitches are behind us.  It’s beginning to feel like Arizona ballot counting around here.  If you’ve read this far we’d love a comment below from you saying that you “got the email” from The Pendulum Swings directing you here.  It’s important to our crack IT staff.

Below are ten random thoughts about last night.  The new TPR deadline mandates brevity.

  1.  Speaking of mandates, with a divided country, this strong move to the right of the center is about as close as you can get to one.  When it’s all counted Trump will be over three hundred electoral votes.  The Senate might be as high as 54-46, and the House should stay red.
  2. The country decided to be unburdened by what has been.  The border and inflation “trumped” abortion.  Men voted in droves.  The black vote was stronger for Republicans than in 2020 and the Hispanic vote was much stronger.
  3. Elon Musk might be this century’s Ben Franklin.  Additionally, his purchase of Twitter paved the way for noncensorship and was the anti-mainstream media.  His campaign work and campaign donations were significant.   He went into PA Amish Country and got the vote out and it was red, red, red.  Who would have thought it?
  4.  There was not a single county (parish if you’re talking Louisiana) in America where Kamala outdid Biden by 3% or more.  She was tied to the last four years as she should.
  5. Oklahoma has seventy-seven counties and every one of them is red.
  6.  Donald Trump has been called every “ist” in the book many times.  The most common one that Dems try to pin on him is “racist.”  His team’s performance in the Black and Hispanic demographic was amazing.
  7. Two former McDonald’s workers squared up.  At least we think it was two. The orange octogenarian grabbed the golden arches.
  8. Joe Biden gets to play president till 1/20.  Joe is done as a politician. Is Kamala done as a politician?  You’d think so.
  9. Trump has taken down Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris.  He’s now neutralized Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell(sort of), Liz Cheney, and George Bush.  And, suddenly even Barrack Obama seems less relevant.   That’s an outsider doing inside work.
  10. Speaking of outsiders, or at least peeps who think outside the box, Tulsi Gabbard, Megyn Kelly, Elon Musk, Ron Paul, Tucker Carlson, and Danica Patrick have some work to do.
  11. Rand Paul needs to be the Senate Majority Leader.  He’s even-keeled, open-minded, and steady.  Mike Johnson might keep his gavel.

Hopefully, they all hit the ground running and use Argentina as the blueprint.

The debt clock alarm is screaming.  Wake up America.  Yesterday you did.

The pendulum swung quite a bit.