Author: thependulumswings staff

Rodney, Again, on 2020

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Alas, another week has come and gone in these COVID-19, new normal, #apartogether, rioting, unprecedented times.

Enough of the heaviness already.  We think that a peaceful protest is in order.

Who better to do that than one of the best comics ever.  We take a swing at what Rodney Dangerfield would have to say today if he were witnessing these daily train wrecks.

  1.  These ANTIFA kids are stupid you know, very stupid.  Do they even know what they are fighting about?  I can relate though.  I come from a stupid family myself.   During the Civil War my great uncle fought for the west!
  2. Looking at all of this rioting and looting makes me sick.  Not as sick as my mother was once though.  Are you kidding me,  my mother had morning sickness after I was born.
  3. There’s too much hate in this world.  Too much I tell ya.  It’s been festering a long time.  How long?  I’ll tell you how long.  My parents hated me so much that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.  Ah, don’t give me that BS, it’s a funny line!
  4.  I wish so many people weren’t dying needlessly though.  My uncle had a wish way back when as well.  His dying wish was to have me sitting on his lap. He was in the electric chair!   No respect.
  5. The police are in a tough spot.  They are in a very tough spot, that I can tell you.  The situation reminds me of way back when for one of them.  Once when I was lost I saw a policeman and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, “Do you think we’ll ever find them?” He said, “I don’t know kid. There are so many places they can hide.”
  6. You get to a point looking at the tv that you feel like you can’t take it anymore.   You need help.  I know the feeling.  I remember I was so depressed years ago.  I was going to jump out a window on the tenth floor. They sent a priest up to talk to me. He said, “On your mark…”
  7.  It got worse.  I met the surgeon general. He offered me a cigarette.
  8.  And worse.  I was making love to this girl and she started crying. I said, “Are you going to hate yourself in the morning?” She said, “No, I hate myself now.”
  9.  And it finally bottomed out.  My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.
  10.  I needed help.  I got the advice of a professional.  My psychiatrist told me I’m going crazy. I told him, “If you don’t mind, I’d like a second opinion.” He said, “All right. You’re ugly too!”

No respect at all!

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Greetings from the middle of the country.  It’s 20 degrees cooler here than at the world headquarters of BBR.com.  Regardless, we have some hot takes below.  Ten Piece Nuggets, as random as they come, are served.

  1.  Biden’s reluctance to denounce violence after his party has all but encouraged it is a losing hand.  Polls told him so.  That’s why he reluctantly, finally said as much, ever so meekly earlier this week.  The public opinion for who is to blame for the “peaceful” violence shows up strongly in the latest JP Morgan Chase poll.  It shows an 8 point swing to Trump from Biden and advises investors that they see the race as 50/50% with a 5-6% unknown of respondents perhaps duping them by stating that they were Biden supporters but in fact are Trump supporters.  Hmm.
  2. Remember when Hillary famously said, “if you get him, you get me?”  She was referring to William Jefferson Clinton when he was running for President.  Well, if you get Joe Biden you get Kamala Harris.  And you get all that’s behind curtain number three says Monty as Joe is doing his best Weekend at Bernie’s impersonation of Bernie.  No, not Sanders.
  3. So who is Kamala (comma la)?  Is she the aggressive States’ Attorney General of Cali who drew significant criticism for throwing the book at criminals and refusing to hear appellate claims?  Or, is she the person who asked for donations through a fund set up to provide bail money for arrested “peaceful” rioters in Minnesota? Or is she a political chameleon?
  4. Nearly four years ago America rejected, first in the Republican primaries, then in the general election, all career politicians.  Like him or not Trump disposed of Graham, Rubio, and Bush first.  Then after Bernie (this time Sanders) stayed too long and wore Hillary Clinton down, Trump took her out.  Four years later you have a government career of 40 plus years in Biden and a career of approaching 30 years in government in Harris.  Will the pendulum swing back that far that fast?  The general election is nine short weeks from today.
  5. The President has momentum from the GOP convention and the above-mentioned polls on national violence.  Will Biden emerge from the basement and actually campaign or debate in person?  Incumbent Governor of Washington Jay Inslee (D) won’t.  Rush Limbaugh speculated yesterday that Inslee would be the first of many Democrats on the undercard to duck a face to face debate in an attempt to give cover to Biden to stay hiding.  Muhammed Ali emerged from a few rounds of “rope a dope.”  Will Biden?  He actually campaigned in person yesterday in Pennsylvania, home of Punxsutawney Phil ironically.
  6.  Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is in so far over his head that he doesn’t even know which side of the narrative to take, so he takes both.  Take a look at his succession of tweets here.
  7. Madame Speaker Pelosi had her head in a washbasin yesterday.  She must have needed a wash prior to a dye of those pesky 80-year-old grey roots popping up again.  She also forgot her mask.  San Francisco, home of the speaker and the beauty salon, is a county that has not yet allowed salons to reopen.  Oops.  “It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work,” salon owner Erica Kious told Fox News.  Will she blame it all on Trump today?  Surely some of the greys are his doing.
  8.  Would the Saints trade Alvin Kamara (should it be pronounced “comma ra” like Kamala?)?  You bet.  They likey won’t, but savvy GM Mickey Loomis and long time head coach Sean Peyton are wheeler-dealers and have a good deal of house money stored up with ownership.  They’ve never viewed Kamara as an every-down back and they aren’t going to break the bank accordingly.  His year-long nagging injury last year was a great equalizer to his vaunted elusiveness and furthered their view.  His three-day holdout ends today after they floated his name around the league.
  9. The NFL will follow the NBA and MLB’s lead allowing/encouraging social justice slogans and victim’s names on unis, and the playing field itself.  In fact, Commish Roger Goodell weighed in yesterday.  Citing a police officer shooting Jacob Blake in the back on Aug. 23 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Goodell said the incident has “brought forth more feelings of anger, frustration, anguish, fear for many of us in the NFL family.”   NFL “family” member Colin Kapernick refused to comment when contacted by BBR.  Family.  Roger Roger.
  10. Rumor has it that the BIG 10 is strongly considering reconsidering their hasty decision to forgo fall football as well as all fall sports.  In fact, it is more than a rumor.  It leaked late last evening that Kevin Warren, Bug 10 Commish might now try for an early October start.  What’s the difference between Spring(as planned), October (as might be planned), late September (as the SEC. ACC, Big 12, and others have planned), and early September ( as the NFL is doing)?  Nothing.  Politics.  Power.  It’s all based on following the science we are told.  It’s never been based on science.

Time to for a walk in the cool breeze.

 

Preacher Pete and His Sheep

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Give NFL Seattle Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll credit.  He knows how to run through a hole when he sees one and put it all out there.

He just didn’t see fit to call a play to create a hole for his “Beast Mode” running back Marshawn Lynch way back in Super Bowl XLIX in 2015.

You remember, don’t you?  The Seahawks had second-and-goal at the 1 with 26 seconds remaining. Seattle was 1 yard away from securing a second consecutive championship.   But instead of handing the rock the most powerful goal-line runner in football, Carroll called a pass play, causing double-takes on his sideline and in sports bars all over the football-watching world.  New England intercepted the ball, took a knee(not like Kapernick), and won the Super Bowl.

Seattle was left to second guess their coach for a failed call for the ages.  They were still so upset that years later they almost renamed the city CHAZ to erase some of the bad memories, but we digress.

Pete said after the game to let the criticism flow. “I can take a punch,” he said.

And, this past Saturday, after canceling the Seahawks practice in the wake of the Jason Blake shooting he delivered a punch or three as well.  In his comments about why he chose to cancel Saturday’s practice, Carroll made it clear that his goal was to educate “white people” about “racism in America.”

“This is about racism in America that white people don’t know,” Carroll said in a press conference. “And they need to be coached up and they need to be educated about what the heck is going on in this world.”

“White guys came over from Europe,” the coach explained. They had a “great idea” about freedom and equality that has never come to fruition. “And they put together a system of slavery.”  “It’s never gone away. And the really amazing thing that I’ve learned is Black people know the truth. It’s white people that don’t know.”

It’s important to keep the locker room united you know.  Pete saw the hole, and Pete ran his time.   Don’t take our word for it, ask Drew Brees if you need to.

Pete Carroll, a rich white coach, gave America a lecture about its ignorance.  Has Carroll ever exploited black guys on the football field for his benefit?  You know them.  They are the league minimum yearly 500K and often so much more black guys.  We should all be exploited so.

Has Carroll ever exploited soon to be educated (on scholarship money) or rich (on NFL money) college players?  Have you ever heard of Reggie Bush?  Carroll coached at USC, arranged for Bush’s parents to live rent-free in LA for three years, won a national championship, and rode the hell out of Dodge on a Trojan horse before the NCAA dropped the hammer on the program of exploitation.

Has Carroll ever used the Colin Kaepernick saga to his advantage?   Carroll on a June 3rd podcast,  “Kapernick took a stand on something, figuratively took a knee, but he stood up for something he believed in — and what an extraordinary moment it was that he was willing to take.”  We couldn’t hear Carroll audibly back when it happened though as the fire was too hot.

As the riots began last week, Kaepernick jumped to social media to tell rioters that the riots were the “only logical reaction” and that they need to “fight back.”  The next day, Kaepernick offered to pay for the legal fees of any Antifa rioter who gets arrested during the unrest.  On the podcast, Carroll added that Kaepernick’s “mission of what the statement was, such a beautiful” statement.

Carroll said that he regretted not offering Kapernick a contract to play for the Seahawks when he had a chance to do so.  The point is he didn’t. Do you regret not investing in Apple stock in 2000?

Carroll concluded on Saturday, “Let’s step up. No more being quiet. No more being afraid to talk to topics. No more, you know, I might lose my job over this, because I’ve taken a stand here. Screw it.”

Preach Pete.  Do as I say, not as I do.  Sheep.

Brees used Carroll’s logic above.  Abraham Lincoln had more success watching a stage play.

It sounds like Carroll would be wise to finally run with his own advice.

Because in the 2015 Super Bowl and numerous times before and after when it mattered, he chose to pass.

Screw It!

 

 

The Jury Is Out on BOYCOTT-2020

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In the last few months for the NBA, the NHL, and MLB great preparation and an abundance of caution have been taken for players’ safety to minimize or prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease.  Lessons were learned from this an applied to try to get the NFL and NCAA football teams in camp and able to start the 2020 fall seasons successfully.

The jury is still out, but the preponderance of the evidence seems promising that success can be had.

Little did anyone know that another problem could and would spread faster through the leagues than even COVID-19 could.

It’s called BOYCOTT-20.  It’s not as deadly, but its actual root cause is to prevent deaths ironically.

It started three days back in a meeting of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks team meeting.  They decided collectively that they had had it with the continued unnecessary deaths of black men at the hands of white cops.  Indeed, that is a valid concern.

Quickly, the BOYCOTT-20 festered in the NBA bubble.  All playoff games for Wednesday were boycotted.  The Clippers and the Lakers, led by the King, decided in a Wednesday PM meeting that they were done with the season.  And, Thursday’s games were canceled as the league tried to find agreeable ways to combat the warp speed virus.

The damn thing jumped out of the Orlando bubble and hit MLB like a Nolan Ryan beanball and the NHL like Gordie Howe slapshot.  They went dark last evening too.

And yesterday the SEC Kentucky Wildcat football team boycotted practice. Other SEC teams may follow today.

The PAC 12 and the Big 10 want desperately to boycott their football practice too.  Unfortunately, they succumbed to the deadly CC-20 (cancel culture) weeks ago. Unfortunate.  RIP.

The jury is still out on the success of these boycotts as well.

As a matter of fact, the jury hasn’t even been empaneled for the state v. Rusten Sheskey, the cop that shot Jacob Blake seven times.  As a matter of fact, Rusten Sheskey hasn’t even been arrested.

But, The Movement moves fast.  They’ve seen enough.  A black man shot in the back SEVEN times.  It’s all there on video.  It’s all there on video except all of the facts that led to that moment or those seven moments.

As a society we haven’t learned yet from the deaths or shootings of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL, or Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD, or Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, LA, or Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, or George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN, or now Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI.

We want change and we want it now.  If we don’t get it, we’ll take our ball and go home.  No more games.  That’ll show America.

Except it won’t.

America wants change too.  America doesn’t want more police interaction with criminals who disobey their commands.  America doesn’t want chokeholds.  But, America wants peace.

Acting like a petulant child spraypainting a building, shooting fireworks, or much worse won’t help.  Boycotting won’t help.

America wants an America where The Movement recognizes that multiple time offenders like Floyd and Blake aren’t good people.  Should they have been killed or nearly killed?  No.  But, they’re bad people-period.  In fact, they are really bad.  Look up their police records if you have 45 minutes to spare.  Maybe some will want to boycott armed robbery or sex offenses.

Boycott for the next ten seasons if you wish.  But on your way to the woke walkout take a minute to realize how very bad actors put themselves in very bad positions where very bad things can and do happen.

With all of the extra time off that boycotts bring, athletes can ask their woke self what they would do in an instant when you fear for your life even when you have the gun and the badge.  Then ask yourself if it would be better for those resisting arrest to avoid the situation altogether.  Again, and again, and again.

But BOYCOTT-20 might be subsiding.  Rumor has it the NBA told the remaining playoff players that their income might be clipped by 25-30% should they cancel culture their livelihood.  Sounds like sneakers will be squeaking on the hardwood floor as soon as today.

At a bare minimum can America wait for a jury to hear all of the facts?

It worked for OJ.

 

Loud Statement, Next Step, Deaf Ears

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s always important to give credit where credit is due.

You have to give it to the NBA, they always go the extra step or three.

Years ago they loosened the rules and now three, four, and even five steps carrying the ball are no longer considered traveling.

This late Spring they actually traveled to the Orlando ESPN/Disney bubble taking the extra step of precaution to maximize player safety by minimizing outside exposure to the invisible virus.  By anyone’s measure that was a great idea that has been successfully executed.

And, yesterday they actually took extra steps to bring further attention to the systemic racism, social injustice, and the racial inequality plight that minorities (read that as black) face.  They had to because efforts to this point haven’t been enough.  The players and coaches boycotted all of the day’s scheduled playoff games.  The WNBA did as well, but no one knew that they were playing to begin with.

The Milwaukee Bucks took or should we say led the charge to boycott.  Other teams followed the Bucks lead.  Milwaukee is less than an hour from Kenosha where yet another video was shot of a white policeman and a black wanted suspect encounter going very wrong this past Sunday.

They tried hard for the prior ninety days after George Floyd’s death.  They painted Black Lives Matter on the court.  They wore it on their warm-ups.  They wear it on the back of their jerseys.  They take to an open mic to further educate America.  But it wasn’t enough.

And more steps seem inevitable after last evening’s “in the bubble” meeting.  Players from the remaining playoff teams met.  Lebron James spoke on behalf of the LA Lakers and LA Clippers.  Then he walked out.  The LA contingent followed the King.  The Lakers and Clippers say that they are now done with the season, period.  Will the league bow to the King?

And so the season that was, then wasn’t, then was, is now on the bubble while in the bubble.  Clearly the players think that this next and final step is needed to show America how serious they are about this.

But, does ending a professional basketball season do anything to aid the cause they stand united against?  It’s either a reaction or an overreaction to a video prior to all of the facts surrounding the event coming to the fore.  But The Movement moves too fast to wait.

The Attorney General of Wisconsin admitted in a presser yesterday that Blake was a wanted felon, had 911 called on him, had a knife (Blake’s own admission), was tased, refused police commands, and went into his car face first for unknown reasons prior to being shot.

Should he have been shot seven times?  No.  Should the police(all police) have body cameras?  Yes.  Should the city riot?  No.  Did they?  Yes.  Were additional lives lost needlessly because of it?  Yes.  Is Blake, the victim, at all to blame for repeatedly running afoul of the law?  Yes.  When guns and knives are involved can bad outcomes on either side happen?  Hell yes.

If 90 days of riots, and paintball guns, and looting, and shooting, and painting BLM in 2000 font on 5th Ave. in NY, and NBA messaging didn’t work then, will an all-out boycott of the players actually matter whatsoever now?

Clippers Head Coach Doc Rivers apparently thinks it might.  He emotionally said yesterday, “All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear.  We’re the ones getting killed.  We’re the ones getting shot.  It’s amazing.  We keep loving this country and this country does not love us back.”

Does Rivers have a lot to be thankful for?  He dribbled a basketball and now coaches it and is living the American dream, or so it seems.

And, be sure to always blame Trump because none of these worries existed before he took office.  So shallow.  So shallow.

Former MNF lead analyst Booger McFarland chimed in on Twitter.  “Black athletes are tired of entertaining America when that same America doesn’t seem on so many levels to give a damn about black people.  The NBA players are making a loud statement.”

Black athletes are free to stop entertaining America whenever they so chose.  All athletes are. In America, you can choose your profession.  It won’t do ANYTHING to get to the very core of the problem.  And, are the NBA players making a loud statement? Maybe.  Many won’t listen and many others won’t see any connection.

What happens when the next black wanted felon is shot or killed by a white cop?  Does the league disband? It’s the logical next and final step.

And, that is the very point.  We will say it again.  When Antifa, and the BLM, and the woke mayors of violence enabled cities want to sit down with local and national civic leaders, police unions, policemen, government, victims and victims families to make a real difference good came come of all of this.

We suppose that the NBA means well.  That loud, mostly well-intentioned, and very misguided statement likey just falls on deaf ears.

 

 

 

 

Blowing Smoke Following the Science?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Follow the science.  That’s been an often-used narrative since mid-March in the year of COVID-19.  It’s been the “go-to” when you are told to not go to bars for example.  It’s also been the barometer to gauge success in reopening America to the degree that it has in the regions that have.

It’s taken the place of ” we don’t have enough ventilators.”  Or, ” we don’t have enough ICU beds.”  Or, “we don’t have enough tests.”

Which brings us to the restart of the sports world.  In general MLB and the NBA have restarted with few problems save a rogue Miami Marlin who broke from protocol and infected a dozen or so Marlin teammates.

The NFL teams are in week two-plus of a delayed fall camp.  As of this AM, the NFL has administered 58,397 COVID-19 tests to 8,573 players between August 12 and August 20.  How many tests were positive?  Zero.

Remember, follow the science.  And, it seems if you do you will find that humans who test negative will continue to test negative while in close proximity.  And,  if they follow mask, social distance, and good hygiene practices when they are elsewhere they will continue to test negative.  The NBA even eliminated the “elsewhere” except for Lou Williams who went elsewhere for a brief gentlemen’s club social (not distance) gathering, but we digress.

So, “following the science” of the above seems to bellow “play ball.”  Except the BIG 10 and PAC 12 pouted, took the ball, and went home at least until Spring.

No one in the PAC 12 has been heard from and it seems that few care.  But, in the BIG 10, they care.  And, they’re mad.  Actually this long ESPN expose’ on how the BIG 10 came to an abrupt U-turn on the road back to football and all fall sports states that players, coaches, parents, some presidents, and administrators aren’t just mad, they’re furious.

So what brought them to this cancellation?  The new commissioner, Kevin Warren, has been nearly silent since the announcement but admitted that he should have been more communicative.  Supposedly the school presidents voted to shut down.  Those same presidents have been quite reluctant to speak on the record about the vote, if one actually took place, and how they individually voted if there was a vote.

The league went from an Aug 5 schedule announcement to an Aug 11 cancellation.  Pancakes don’t flip that fast.

As one Big 10 coach told ESPN, “We’re just left in the dark. Why wouldn’t you communicate? Why wouldn’t you respond? I don’t get it. Something’s just off.”  So much for transparency.

“Been in this league for 20-plus years,” a league source told ESPN. “This has been embarrassing.”

More directly from the article- “Warren on Wednesday sent an open letter providing more details about what the league considered, including troubling trends of COVID-19 spread, contact tracing difficulties and concerns about having reliable rapid tests.”

He went on to reiterate that the decision to postpone “will not be revisited.”   You’ll get no football and you will like it.

The father of one player called the open letter “just a bunch of regurgitation and smoke-blowing.”

All of this makes the state of Iowa the state of confusion.   BIG 10 member Iowa isn’t playing.  Big 12 member Iowa St is.  Make sense?

In a week or two, or in a month or two, the SEC, ACC, and the BIG 12 might regret their attempts to put on the proverbial shoulder pads.  Ask them now and they will tell you that they are following the science.

Does the “follow the science” argument in the passionate BIG 10 and in the dispassionate PAC 12 seem like, well, just a bunch of regurgitation and smoke blowing?

A short time will tell.

 

 

 

 

 

Kneeling and Nielsen Numbers

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

The commissioner’s job in the major American based sports is a lucrative one.  It’s lucrative because it comes with great responsibility.  It’s difficult on many fronts.

One of those fronts is that they work for the owners, yet need to keep the players happy, with great TV ratings always an end goal.  TV broadcasting rights are the source of greater than 50% of the income that the leagues take in.

And in these “unprecedented, new normal, COVID-19 times” some of the other 50% isn’t ringing the cash register either.  The turnstiles are silent, and, therefore the stands are empty.  This makes TV ratings more important than ever.

So, it’s interesting that Adam Silver, NBA commish, and Roger Goodell, NFL commish, have taken the stances that they have with regards to the Black Lives Matter organization (and/or Movement) as well as the kneeling during the presentation of the flag and national anthem.

Ethan Strauss of The Athletic notes that the NBA ratings are coming in well under the pre-COVID break numbers.  In Feb., before COVID hysteria shut the league down, Sports Business Daily reported that the league had seen a 12 percent loss in viewership compared to 2018-19.  All of this is on top of a recent release of the numbers showing ABC’s NBA broadcasts in 2019-20 averaged 2.95 million viewers, down from its 5.42 million during 2011-12.  That is a 45 percent drop off.  Strauss also reported that TNT’s viewership is down 40 percent since the 2011-12 season, and ESPN has seen a decline of about 20 percent during the same time.

Other leagues are about breakeven comparing the now to the 2011-12 timeframe.   It should be noted that live streaming, a growing segment of viewership after cutting the cable cord, isn’t included in any metrics.

The NBA Commissioner tried to dismiss the sliding ratings early this year.  “I’m not concerned.   In terms of every other key indicator that we look at that measures the popularity of the league, we’re up,” he told the Washington Post in December.

What to do, what to do?

Enter Roger Goodell.  Goodell said that he wishes “we had listened earlier” to what Colin Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to when he began kneeling for the national anthem in 2016.  He expressed remorse about the lack of dialogue with the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, saying that the league would have benefited from a conversation with Kaepernick.

Goodell also said that players kneeling is “not about the flag” and that their intentions are being “mischaracterized.”  He is entitled to his opinion.  He may indeed be right.  However, if NFL TV ratings tumble along the lines of the NBA’s he may be right in his characterization, but wrong for his league’s coiffures.  Jerry Jones is holding (impatiently) on line three.

You would think that an America starved in 2020 for escape would be looking at the sports on TV in record numbers.  Instead, they are masked and standing in long checkout lines at Home Depot.

Could it just be that the NBA season is very disjointed?  It started.  It stopped.  It played a week or two of the regular season when it resumed.  Now it’s in the first round of its playoffs.  Or, could it be that a portion of America, bigger than the league is willing to admit, cut the cord in a very different way than described above?

Soon the NFL viewership will give us further insight.  It dropped 10-15% a few years back when Kapernick knelt and wanted everyone to listen.  It recovered that and then some through 2019.

But, 2020 always surprises us.

The next thing you know they’ll be two hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico at the same time for the first time since 1959.

Are you ready for some football?

Ten Piece Nuggets-Sports, Random, and News.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s Friday.  And it’s time to get your happy hour started a bit early.  We’ve got ten hor deurves.  You need to make a beer run.  And, do not forget your mask.  To the Ten Piece Nuggets we go.

  1. Joe Maddon, manager of the 8-18 and last place LA Angels, is mad.  He’s tired of seeing SF reliever Shaun Anderson throw at Mike Trout’s head.  “Enough is enough,” Maddon said after Thursday’s 10-5 road loss dropped the Angels’ record to 8-18. “This is the major leagues. There’s a level of accountability here also.”  Just wondering, who should be held accountable for the 8-18 record?
  2. Do you remember when we all used to sing happy birthday to a family member or friend and then have them blow out all of the candles?   Then you would all have a slice of that cake.  Turns out that singing and a strong exhale or two (blow them all out!) might not be what the doctor advises in 2020.  Maybe in 2021?
  3.  The Washington Football Team continues to be in the news.  A few days after hiring the first-ever black President, this time the news isn’t so good.  Washington coach Ron Rivera has been diagnosed with cancer but plans to continue coaching.  Rivera was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma located in a lymph node, the team said in a statement. Rivera said the cancer is in the early stages and is considered “very treatable and curable.”   That part is good news.
  4. It’s way too early to deem the NFL protocols a success in holding  COVID-19 at bay.  But, a few days into 32 training camps a total of only four players have tested positive.  It’s a start.  And, there is a long way to go.  The NFL is pretty adamant about starting the season on time.
  5. No so fast NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.  His league is likely to delay its planned Dec. 1 start for the 2020-21 season.  The hope is to get paying fans back into arenas.  The league’s gross revenue is roughly 8 billion with a “b.”  The fans in the areas account for 40% of that, or 3.2 billion still with a “b.
  6. MLB has postponed 34 games this season because of positive tests and counting.  Two Mets’ games this weekend are postponed after two members of the traveling team tested positive yesterday.  MLB soldiers on though.  And, that is a good thing.
  7. The NFL Kansas City Chiefs are putting in place new policies during games at Arrowhead Stadium with regard to Native American imagery.  Fans are now prohibited from wearing headdresses into the stadium. Face painting that is styled in a way as to imitate Native American cultures is also prohibited.  The Arrowhead Chop and the pregame beating of a drum, often by a former player or coach or other local celebrity is also on the chopping block.  Maybe they can announce if the “chop” stays or goes by beginning with, “after further review, the ruling on the field….”  So, let’s see, keep the stadium name of Arrowhead, and keep the arrowhead logo, and keep the name Chiefs is fine.  But the fans, those dreaded creatures, they can’t be allowed to do anything to offend anyone.  After further review, this makes no sense.
  8. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended the Chicago Police Department’s ban on protesters being able to demonstrate on the block where she lives.  She told reporters yesterday that she and her family require heightened security because of threats she receives daily.  If it’s a peaceful protest, as we’ve been told repeatedly by the good mayor,  why worry about safety?  It only takes 51% of the voting population to put someone into office.  Does anyone have a tent big enough to put over the Chicago circus?
  9. Meanwhile, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms suggested that the GOP is using the Chinese coronavirus pandemic to “spread misinformation and interfere with voting,” forcing many to “risk their lives” to exercise their right to vote. Risk their lives?  Really?   It only takes 51% of the voting population to kick someone out of office as well.
  10. Joe Biden’s acceptance speech last night was only 24 minutes long.  But, most analysts and reporters thought it to be quite effective.  Hillary’s was twice as long four years prior.  Fans of the nominee turned out to watch the speech.  The DNC built security walls to barricade supporters and voters into a specific outside area to watch Biden’s speech.  The walls were set up to keep both progressive and conservative protesters at arm’s length.  Again, there was no word on why this was needed for the “mostly peaceful” protests that have been popping up across the country.

Have a peaceful weekend.

 

A Cure For What Ails Us

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Roses are tough to grow you know.   A green thumb helps.  And, watch out for those thorns.

In spite of those obstacles, everything seems to be coming up roses for the hottest political couple of the summer of 2020.  Joe Biden and Kamala (comma la) Harris are having the virtual convention of their lives.

Have you watched it? If you haven’t we can tell you that what you’ve missed is a lot of the “what Trump has done wrong, and why he shouldn’t be reelected.”  A couple of folks named Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton went so far as to say he shouldn’t have been elected in 2016 either.  Trump remains quite the thorn in their side it seems.

But, last night Harris actually shed some light on what Biden would do if he got to prune the roses in the garden on Pennsylvania Ave. for the next four years.  We probably shouldn’t use the words “Biden” and “prune” in the same sentence, but we digress.

“Joe will bring us together to end this pandemic and make sure that we are prepared for the next one,” Harris said during her VP acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) on Wednesday night.  We knew there was a doctor in the Biden home, but we thought that was Dr. Jill.

Biden must be quite the medical miracle worker.  It turns out that he vowed to cure cancer during a campaign stop in June 2019. “I’ve worked so hard in my career that, I promise you if I’m elected president you’re gonna see the single most important thing that changes America. We’re gonna cure cancer,” Biden said.

That campaign stop was before his campaign stopped traveling.  Maybe that doesn’t matter anymore either.  Joe has been slow to get to a few states, including a vital swing state, Wisconsin.  He hasn’t seen any Cheeseheads in person in the last 660 days.  The doctor no longer makes house calls.

But, there is only so much time in a day or week, or month or year or two.  Joe’s been doing yeoman’s work in his basement which must closely resemble the Johns Hopkins research lab.

He repeated this cancer cure vow during his Super Tuesday victory speech and also added that he would find cures for Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

“We’re gonna invest billions of dollars to find, and I promise you, cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes,” he said.  Who knew that you could throw money at a problem and fix it that easily?

Harris also has her eyes on a different virus.  It’s actually one that is so ugly that you can see it.  The first black woman to be nominated to a major party’s ticket, also described racism as “a virus” in her speech Wednesday night.

“This virus has no eyes, and yet it knows exactly how we see each other — and how we treat each other,” Harris said. “And let’s be clear — there is no vaccine for racism. We’ve gotta do the work.”

If Biden and Harris can cure COVID-19, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and racism between now and 2024 they deserve our vote.

Period.

End of story.

Almost.

Hopefully they’ll find some time to stop the pesky climate change too.

 

 

The USPS Mess

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

The BBR staff has been rolling through some states in the Deep South for the last few days.   While there we managed to take only a glimpse at the news.  And, voila, it seems like the “deep state” is alive and well.

The quest to oust Trump is nearly four years old and going strong.  It sounds like the plight of the United States Postal Service is the latest raging problem that the left is placing the blame for at the feet of the President.

It’s so bad that Trump’s two months ago appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will be beaten up like a USPS package by the time he is finished testifying before Congress next week.   Nancy Pelosi is so concerned about the Post Office all of a sudden that she decided to call the House back to Washington and back to order.  The House hasn’t been in order in years, but we digress.

TV networks will cover it like it’s the next Russian Collusion.  And, that’s because it is.  The Post Office’s problem isn’t Trump.  The Post Office’s problem is the Post Office.  And, it’s been that way for a long time.  Actually, it’s been that way for far too long.  A few facts, none of which will be brought up by the left as the excoriate DeJoy follow.

The Post Office, if it were a business would be out of business.  It’s insolvent and has been for a long time.  It lost 2.2 billion dollars last quarter to add to the 78 billion its lost since 2007. The government’s own Accountability Office wrote a May report and said that “the USPS current business model is not financially sustainable.

The Wall St Journal article last week called it a Blockbuster service in a Netflix world.  That about sums it up, doesn’t it?

In 2006 mail volume peaked at 213 billion pieces.  It’s down 33% and counting as of last year from that high.  But, during that same time frame, the number of delivery points (addresses) served by them increased from 146 to 160 million.   In other words, costs continue to rise while revenue shrinks.  Hello?

Walk-in retail customers are down 23% from the 2010 all-time high.  During that same time, USPS locations shrunk only 4%.

They have an exclusive right(monopoly) to your mailbox that carries a universal obligation or promise to carry a letter anywhere for 55 stinking cents.

One route in Montana serviced 6 days a week like all others, covers 191 miles to hit 272 mailboxes.  In extreme northern Arizona, mules take mail down an 8-mile path to the base of the Grand Canyon.

The USPS workforce is 600k people strong and organized by seven different unions.  Congress in 2013 rejected a proposal to save 2 billion a year back then and in every subsequent year by stopping Saturday regular service.  And, remember next week, this will all be the current administration’s fault.

The USPS retiree health care plan has billions to invest but is mandated to invest those Washington’s only in U.S. Treasurys.  Ten-year Treasury note returns have been falling for years and return about 1/2 of 1% per annum currently.  Do you think health care costs only rise by about 1/2 of 1 percent per year?  If so, we have a jackass to sell you that walks 16 miles a day in the Grand Canyon.

DeJoy reassigned 23 top-level managers while citing a substantial decline in volume, a broken business model, and a management strategy that has failed to address these issues.  It sounds like he is doing his job, so it’s no wonder Congress is mad.

Let the conspiracy theories begin.  Former President Barrack Obama said last month that “those in power are undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to the election that is going to be dependant on mailed-in ballots.

The Democrats, in their latest House relief bill, want to give the Post Office $25 billion to compensate for “revenue forgone due to coronavirus.”  The sickness of the financial state of the post office isn’t due to coronavirus.  It’s due to Al Gore’s invention called the internet.

What the USPS needs is major reform at a minimum.  Would you mind if your mail only came three days a week as but one example?

That will be lost in the name blame game next week.  The House will kick DeJoy around, blame Trump, and kick the mailbox down the road.