Author: thependulumswings staff

You Might Live…

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

This morning we examine some things old, versus some things new.  We borrowed the below and it has us feeling a bit blue.

You’ve heard the Jeff Foxworthy diatribe about “You know you’re a redneck if….”  Well, enjoy or cry at his similar take on “you might live in a nation (state) that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots” below.

If plastic water bottles are okay, but plastic bags are banned, you might live in a nation (state) that was founded by geniuses but is run by idiots.

If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for entering and remaining in the country illegally, you might live in a nation…

If you have to get your parent’s permission to go on a field trip or to take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion, or change your gender, you might live…

If you must show your identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book and rent a video, but not to vote for who runs the government, you might live…

If the government wants to prevent stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines that hold more than ten rounds but gives twenty F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt, you might live…

If, in the nation’s largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not one 24-ounce soda, because 24 ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat — you might live…

If an 80-year-old woman who is confined to a wheelchair or a three-year-old girl can be strip-searched by the TSA at the airport, but a woman in a burka or a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched, you might live…

If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more, you might live…

If a seven-year-old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is “cute” but hosting a sexual exploration class in grade school is perfectly acceptable, you might live…

If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government regulation and intrusion while not working is rewarded with SNAP cards, Medicaid benefits, subsidized housing, and free cell phones, you might live…

If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big-screen TV, while your neighbor buys iPhones, timeshares, a wall-sized TV, and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage, you might live…

It was quite lazy of us to blatantly cut and paste this.  We wonder if America is getting lazy as well.

At the very least is America paying attention yet?

 

 

$31,802, 940,127,334

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Rule # 1.  Follow the Money.

Rule # 2.  See rule number 1.

A week from today America either defaults on its debt obligations, or it doesn’t.   It won’t.  The worst case is that both parties will agree to kick the can down the road as it has many times before.

Whether the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-occupied (when not in Delaware) White House come to an agreement or not boils down to who gets what, as in who gets how much funding for what in the coming budget year(s).

Then that team can declare victory.  Usually, both teams declare victory even in defeat.

It’s a modified version of a previously modified version of The Golden Rule.  This version is he who makes the rules hands out the gold.

And, for the last three decades, we’ve been handing out a lot more gold than we’ve taken in.  Thirty-two trillion ($31,802,899,784,128 to be exact when we began writing) more and counting.

America doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.

Who’s fault is it?  It’s everyone’s fault.  Too few folks from all walks of life and the government demand action.

Money buys votes.  Money buys more money to campaign with when you give it to industries.

The House has already passed a bill to fund the debt.  With it comes freezes on spending in the coming years at the level we spent in 2022.

Democrats run out to the always-available mainstream media hacks microphones and scream that the elephants are going to starve children, kill the homeless, and give tax breaks to the rich.

Elizabeth Warren has no reservations(except where she should qualify to live) about asking for a wealth tax.  We need more gold.  That boils down to taxing what has been taxed.  It’s Robin Hood all over again.

Democrats call freezes “cuts.”  They aren’t.  They just aren’t increases.  And, they will still add to the burgeoning debt as the budget has more spending than revenue (which should always be called tax money received, not revenue).

Republicans, predictably, have no orator, no marketer, and few vessels to explain what they’ve done is indeed pass a bill to extend debt payments.  They can’t sell.

Karine Jean Claude Pepe de la Pierre said just yesterday, “This is something that the president has been saying for five months now, how it is important for Congress to act…”  They have acted.  What percent of America knows that?  Cares?

We don’t even want to keep what we haven’t spent.  Covid ended 18 months ago, but the nation’s Covid emergency status and funding didn’t end until this just past April.  “So, if COVID is now a thing of the past, why is it controversial for us to reclaim the billions of unobligated COVID funds?” asks Rep. Lauren Brobert.

That’s an easy one.  The money can be turned into pet projects which garner election-day votes.

Want to “save” 10k on your next car, buy electric.  More electricity means less gas.  Less gas means fewer Texans with big cowboy hats full of money.  Fewer hats means less money funding the heathens.

Want 10k of your college loan debt reduced?  Raise your hand.

Want more votes?  Reduce border security spending.  Open the border like a sieve and hand the new illegals 300 bucks a week and a hotel room.  Give them paperwork that states that they have a court date in 2027.  No rush.

Let them vote meanwhile if you can.  Maybe Texas will turn blue sooner than later.

It’s all working well.  Ask Joe himself.  “My agenda is bringing back good-paying jobs to communities that’ve been hollowed out and left behind for decades. We’re building an America we can take pride in.”

Meanwhile, Biden walks around telling assembled groups that he’s cut the deficit by 1.7 trillion.  Sometimes he says 1.7 billion.  Sometimes he says 1.7 million.  Big numbers can be confusing.

A pathological liar tells lies and stories that fall somewhere between conscious lying and delusion. They sometimes believe their own lies.

Take a look at any chart over time and see if you can see any year that we haven’t had an increase in the national debt since Clinton.  But don’t take long. You’re wasting your time.

Speaking of time, the national debt clock increased by 41 million dollars since word one above was typed.

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s past time to drop ten more at the virtual door.  Plus one.  They’re as random as random gets.

  1. Many many years ago Ronald Reagan exclaimed, “The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”  As the two parties squabble down to the deadline to extend the debt limit, ALL involved should ask themselves if there might be anything at all in the government that we could cut back or eliminate.
  2. William Buckley said many years ago, “I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard.”  You have to be old enough to know what a phone book is to fully enjoy that one.
  3. It seems like Joe Biden has been in government for nearly 2000 years.  Twelve years ago in 2011, Biden said those with a “my way or the highway” position on the debt limit will “learn that they have to compromise” because “you can’t govern that way.”  Times are changing.
  4. Karine Jean Claude Van Damme Pepe Le Pew Pierre slammed any bans on trans treatment for minors yesterday, “These are our kids, they belong to all of us.”  Incorrect.  She’s the worst Press Secretary ever.  Second place is as far behind as the horse that trailed Secretariat in the Belmont 50 years ago this June. She’s a parrot.  And, unfortunately, the press lets her babble on to Babylon and back.  Shameful.
  5. In Portland, Oregon, a 15-year-old can elect to have their genitalia removed and/or a mastectomy without or against their parent’s wishes but thankfully minors are protected from getting a tattoo until they are 21.  Makes sense.
  6. Jordan Neely, the NY subway mentally deranged rider who unfortunately died after a good samaritan tried to protect those who he threatened, has been arrested 44 times in his life. You read that right.  Forty-four.  One arrest was for kidnapping a seven-year-old, and another was for beating a 67-year-old woman.  Do you know who killed Jordan?  Jordan killed Jordan.  Stop with the white killed a black narrative.
  7. Heads up for the ever-changing way that we classify peeps.  A few progressive media folks called Neely unhoused.  You read that right as well.  Unhoused.  Once bums, hobos, homeless, underserved, and now unhoused.   Maybe that means being released from jail?  Doubtful.
  8. Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swim star who has turned into an activist to keep women’s sports fair and equal, and Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., were among those Wednesday who took issue with the male model advertising a woman’s Adidas swimsuit as part of the company’s pride collection.  You have to admire her willingness to take a stand.  America needs more women like her.
  9. We’re anxiously awaiting the first female model in a male swimming suit.  Meanwhile, move over Dylan Mulvaney.  The adidas male model could certainly work for the UNTUCKit Company if called upon.
  10.  We took a deep dive into the Latin dictionary.  Turns out that Fetterman is an old-world term meaning Young Frankenstein, er, Young Feinstein.  If you haven’t seen his interaction on the Senate Finance Committee here it very painfully is.  pic.twitter.com/XGuGQtDEpe
  11.  Adam Schiff should be thrown in jail.  His cellmate should be Eric Swalwell.  And, Barrack Obama was apprised of the entire operation.

As Joe Biden would say.  That’s all folks.  No, I’m serious.  I signed the Declaration of Independence.  Give me a break.  Come on man.  My mom was part Irish, African American, French, Jewish, and Mexican.  I slept with wolves when I was a boy.  No joke.

TBH

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

One of our senior writers was sitting poolside last evening with a cigar in one hand and two fingers of Maker’s Mark in a glass in the other.  And, it dawned on him.

That’s what they want.  “To be honest, I all but forgot about the 2016 election stink about Trump and his team colluding with the Russians.”    That’s what they want us to do.

Four years of work, sixty million of your taxpayer dollars, and a whole lot of virtual trees produced a “remember all of that subterfuge” moment yesterday.  And to be honest the Durham Report flat out states that a lot of agencies and people involved weren’t too honest.

It’s important to separate the Mueller probe from the Durham Report.

One found that the Russians attempted to influence the presidential election, but found that the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it.

The second one found that the FBI, the DOJ, lovely Hillary Rodham Clinton, Christopher Steele, Peter Strzok, his mistress, and others actually were the ones colluding in an attempt to trump Trump.

If you get enough people to rally behind a cause all willing to lie and you repeat the false claims enough times and with enough volume you too can influence American politics and, more importantly, elections.

Adam Schiff fed CNN weekly.  How many times did he state, “We now have verifiable evidence that Donald Trump conspired with the Russians to influence the election?”  Many.  Minion Eric Swalwell parroted the same time and again.

The author of this debunked 2016 Hillary Clinton lie is currently sitting inside the White House as President Biden’s National Security Advisor.   That’s Jake Sullivan.  He took the Steele Dossier hook, line, and sinker to Team Clinton.

HH, or honest Hillary, tweeted on 10/31/16, “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

How about the DNC?  The Durham report states that Clinton General Counsel Marc Elias “declined to be voluntarily interviewed by the Office.” Elias was recently severed by the Democratic National Committee from representation. The campaign was fined by the FEC for his hiding the funding of the whole mess.

Enter the FBI and the DOJ, just not your father’s FBI or DOJ.  The Department of Justice and the FBI did not have “any actual evidence of collusion” between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and began their Crossfire Hurricane probe of Trump’s campaign based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence.”

Operation Crossfire Hurricane, as most hurricanes do, left a lot of destruction in the path of its uncontrolled fury.

But they have learned much from this.  “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented,” the FBI said yesterday.  Timely.

Reforms?  How about doing your job honestly and thoroughly?  No reform is needed, just good people without political agendas.

So what comes of this?  Trump was impeached for a “perfect call” to a guy we’ve since given 200 billion to and again for a messy January 6th insurrection that really wasn’t an insurrection.  Dems don’t play around.

You would like to think that smart people, regardless of affiliation, would recognize the atrocity of all of this and take congressional then legal action against the perps.

But, trust your gut.  The Dems will not.  After all, Schiff needs the Senate seat that Dianne Feinstein doesn’t know that she occupies anymore, Hillary is yesterday’s news, the FBI says it fixed all of its problems, the DOJ doesn’t take kindly to whistleblowers, Biden likely doesn’t even know who Jake Sullivan is when they pass in the White House halls, and Marc Ellis already extended his middle finger.

And the Republicans?

Mitch McConnell will mumble in front of a podium and no one will listen.  Speaker McCarthy will sport a fresh haircut and speak eloquently in front of a podium and not do anything.

And, a splintered party will eventually nominate the target of all of this.   It’s loaded with baggage.  It’s Trump.  And, it is mission accomplished.

Nothing to see here and soon you’ll forget about it anyway.

To be honest.  Or, not.

 

 

 

Good Evening! And Welcome to….

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

A visionary is someone who can see further down the road or higher in the sky than the next.

An example of the road analogy is Tesla.  When you combine an environmentally friendly great ride with soon-to-be driverless-ready capability fostered by a huge helping of cash from your government you’ve got an industry changer.

An example of the sky analogy is SpaceX.  Its stated goal is reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars and eventually other planets.  Last month a forty-story-high rocket flew beyond the company’s expectations.  That’s not huge that’s YUGE.

Can Elon Musk go three for three?  He bought Twitter to ensure that there was at least one platform where free speech was indeed free.  Noble.  But, it’s doubtful that he bought it for just that or to lose money.

You’ve heard it uttered before.  “He’s playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.”

Once upon a time, people gathered around a radio in their living rooms to hear their news, sports, and entertainment.

The television changed that. Three black-and-white networks became three colorful ones.

Cable changed that.  Three networks became hundreds of channels and even some premium ones like HBO.

Satellites changed that.  And soon the choices were too many to choose from.

Enter Al Gore’s internet and streaming started.  Now you can stream any platform on many platforms.

Watch what you want, when you want, how you want, and on whatever you want.  Jump into your La-Z-Boy and click on an app, any app, or many apps.

There’s vision and there’s television.

And then there is Twitter and Elon.

After cutting dead-weight employees and charging for blue check marks, the next shoe is dropping.  Enter Tucker Carlson.  And, with that, we enter yet another new era.

Will it be called a podcast?  A live stream?  Premium content? Pay-per-view?  It matters not.

Can you imagine Twitter on TV?  Of course you can, it’s already there.  You can watch live programming from Twitter on Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. Xbox and Android TV users can enjoy Twitter by launching their web browser and going to twitter.com.

So, is Twitter TV, or is TV Twitter?  Yes and yes.  Or for that matter call it whatever you want.  There is content and there is distribution.  And there is a vacuum when it comes to unfiltered content.  The free market gets to decide what misinformation and disinformation is.

The “networks” will soon remind you of the pay phone.  Once upon a time, you could make a long-distance call on a pay phone thanks to long-distance providers.  ABC, NBC, and CBS soon will have much in common with Sprint, Cingular, and MCI.

Twitter has the distribution, subscribers, tweeters, followers, and advertisers, and now has its first piece of serious content worth taking from the old world.  It won’t be its last.

It must have promise.  CNN wrote yesterday, “Who will fact-check Tucker now that he is on Twitter?”  AOC tweeted (oh the irony), “Twitter, brought to you by MyPillow.”

Wait till Don Lemon signs on with Elon.

Checkmate?  Not yet.

But content is king.

And, soon Elon will be wearing a crown.

 

 

Mis and Dis

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

George Washington once confessed, “I cannot tell a lie father, I chopped down the cherry tree.”  Or did he?

Multiple checks on Al Gore’s internet this AM seem to universally debunk the claim calling it a myth.  Apparently, someone fibbed telling you as a child about old wooden tooth slave-owning first prez George.  Except they called it a myth.

Fast forward two hundred years to the early 70s and another president took it a step further. “I am not a crook,” said crook Richard Milhouse Nixon.  That was no myth.  That was a big fib at a minimum, or a flat-out lie if you prefer.

Joe Biden’s first bid for the American presidency ended abruptly. In his closing remarks at a Democratic primary debate, he lifted passages from one of Brit Neil Kinnock’s most moving speeches without attribution. The resulting plagiarism “scandal” sank Biden’s campaign.  He wasn’t lying, he was just cheating.

Bill Clinton was cheating.  ” I did not have sex with that woman,” he shrilled with intense eyes.  He upped the entire game.  He lied about cheating.

All of those scoundrels and scandals paved the way for today’s “misinformation” and “disinformation.”  It’s hard to distinguish between the two and who is missing and dissing.

For the record, misinformation is false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive.  Disinformation is false information that is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to the media. 

Got that?  Sounds like it’s hard to tell a lie from a lie.  That’s because it is.

America is now being told myths, fibs, lies, misinformed, and disinformed daily.

Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, said under oath this week,  “Let me be clear.  Our border is not open!”

Mask on, mask off.  They work, they don’t.  Bill deBlasio liked them so much that he recommended two at a time.

Vaccines work.  Get more.  Get more than two boosters.

Karine Jean Claude Pepe Von Damme Pierre stood before the press yesterday and reminded us, “Kids have lost so much in the pandemic.  This is why when the president walked in, he made it a priority to open schools.”   She redefines the word falsehood every time she steps before the mike.

Then the President really did walk into a presser and said that his economic plan is working.  “We’re building an economy that works from the bottom up and the middle out.”  Whatever that means.  “Inflation is down.  Jobs are plentiful.”

At least those little white lies(not a big fat whopper) were his own words this time.

He forgot to mention that the stock market is down, interest rates are up, real wages are down, and a recession looms.

We call those ommissions, not lies nor plagiarism.

 

 

 

 

Finish the Job!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s a year and a half until the November 2024 Presidential Election.  Yet, one of the two parties has already put the hay in the barn.  The other is searching for a pitchfork.

In a carefully choreographed way, the Democrats hitched their wagon to current President Joe Biden.  They want it to be all happy trails before he himself rides into the sunset.

Late last week the Dems announced that there would be no debates within the party whether that meant on stage or not.  Apparently, they can’t count on another pandemic to keep Joe off of the stage so they eliminated the need.

Characters like cowboy Bernie Sanders got the message, complied, and likely got another ranch bought and paid for. The Wells Fargo Bank stagecoach will make only one stop and that’s in Delaware.

Meanwhile, it’s the wild wild west on the Republican side and the battle hasn’t even begun on the movie set yet.  But, behind the scenes, nothing is OK at the corral.

The party is fractured.  There are the MAGA folks firmly behind Trump who is quick on the draw.  And, there are the non-Trump folks firmly behind whomever he winds up stepping off against inside of the party.

Team Trump is likely busy thinking up nicknames for Noem and Haley.  They already labeled Ron DeSantis as Ron DeSanctimonious. Also under consideration are “Meatball Ron” and “Tiny D,” we kid not.

The GOP debates will likely be haymakers a la 2015-6.  Why wouldn’t they be?  They’ll beat each other up while Biden rests at the beach house.

The contrast between the two parties is stark in governing philosophy and campaign strategy.

The Dems have a president that has low marks across the political surveyed board.  He’s there for the taking. He’s old now and will be a very old 86 by the time he would leave the White House after a second term.

But, they’ll make the race anti-Trump and anti-Republicans.  And, they aren’t good at it, they are great at it.

One lies and the other swears to it.  Daily.

The anti-Trump weapons are numerous and have already inflicted many wounds.  Also, Trump suffers self-inflicted wounds.  Weekly.

Abortion(now called women’s health), misogyny, racism, billionaires, transphobia, social security, Ukraine, and many other bullets are loaded in their guns aimed at the Grand Old Party.  And, they’re the ones firmly against guns- for sure another plank on the platform so carefully rehearsed and well played.

Biden’s campaign jingle is “Finish the Job!”  He told us so yesterday.  He also said our democracy is at stake.  Then, one by one, Hillary, Obama, Kamala, Schumer, Jeffries, and others spread the word.

Today, MSNBC, USA Today, The View, NBC, CBS, ABC, THE NYT, and CNN will parrot it.  Where is Tucker when you need him?

It’s a long time till 11/24 and a lot will transpire.

For now, the Republicans look like they are shooting themselves in the foot trying to circle the wagons.

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Spring is in the air.  It reminds us of spring chickens.  Spring chickens remind us of nuggets.  Ten are waiting for you below.

  1.  Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for regulating conservative news.   She opined on Sunday’s MSNBC, “When you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence. Very clearly.”  Free speech and the First Amendment say otherwise.
  2. Say what you want about Ted Cruz, but every January when the new Senate convenes he puts forth a bill calling for strict term limits.  And every January it finds the round file in the corner of the room.  AOC on one end and Mitch McConnell on the other are two prime examples of why term limits would help us all.
  3. It won’t happen until the American public demands it though.  You can’t get 60% of Congress to agree on anything much less eliminate their job(cash cow).
  4. A poll revealed on NBC”s Meet the Depressed that voters are depressed having Uncle Joe in the White House four days a week and in Delaware three.  53% of Biden’s 2020 voters say he shouldn’t run again in 2024, and a whopping 75% of Biden voters under 35 think likewise. Will Joe Biden be the weakest incumbent president running for re-election in any of our lives?
  5. “Stunning he didn’t get a major primary challenger,” says Clay Travis.  Or, is it?  “Stunning that he got 81 million votes” is more like it.  Not stunning is that he and his handlers will do anything to minimize his exposure to questions, debates, news conferences, etc.  The basement awaits.  Time to order up another pandemic if you are a conspiracy theorist.
  6. Travis was on a roll on the weekend.  Another tweet,  “DC public schools are requiring all students and staff to provide a negative covid test in order to return to school after spring break. These people are batshit insane. Covid broke whatever functional brains they had.”
  7. That tweet reminded us of watching Morning Joe about three years ago.  They interviewed visionary Bill DeBlasio in the middle of the covid paranoia.  He suggested that we all wear two masks. He really did.  Maybe he was educated at the aforementioned DC public schools?
  8. “Today proves yet again that you can’t buy class but you can buy a blue check mark,” said Dan Rather.  We wonder if Dan knows that his salary was paid by those watching him by watching ads every five minutes.  Multiple sites believe that Rather’s net worth is north of 70 million.  You’d think he could afford the $8 bucks a month.  Or maybe he could just stop complaining while you’re still tweeting without it.
  9. Alyssa Milano wonders with the blue check removal, “Does that mean Twitter and @elonmusk are liable for defamation or identity theft or fraud?”  The DC public schools must have been very crowded.
  10. Exxon Mobil isn’t going all in on green just yet.  Near the Gulf Coast just east of Texas’ oil-rich Permian Basin, nearly 2,000 ExxonMobil contractors are making sure the company’s latest project – which includes 26 miles of piping, 35 miles of electrical wiring, and 875 tons of steel is pumping oil at full capacity.  Fill er up.

And we hope that you are filled up after the nuggets.

You’ll Get Nothing and Like It.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

If you put 100 red ants and 100 black ants in a jar they peacefully coexist.  If you shake the jar they fight each other till death.

This sounds a lot like America today.  Who is shaking our jar?

Power-hungry politicians and click-hungry social media types come to mind.  Together they’ve told us repeatedly why their side or opinion is the only way and by the tens of millions we’ve followed like sheep to a shepherd.

The examples are plentiful.  Here is a simple one delivered yesterday.  It comes via tweet courtesy of the Minority Leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries.

“More than 50 million Americans are food insecure.  President Biden and the Dems are working hard to address the hunger crisis.  Extreme MAGA Republicans are doing the exact opposite.”

Let’s break this down.

  1.  Do you really believe that more than 50 million Americans are food insecure, formerly known as hungry?  There are about 330 million of us, not counting the illegals that walk across unfettered.  That’s 15% or about one in six.  Unemployment is historically low at 3.5%.
  2.  Do you really believe that President Biden and Dems are working hard to address this crisis?  What are they doing exactly?  We see no bread lines, nor should we.  What’s the plan?
  3. It must be very hard work seeing as Biden has been in government since Moses parted the Red Sea.  Can we get a chicken in every pot already?
  4. We never ask for personal accountability because stupidity and dependency are the recipes to getting reelected, not cooking food.
  5. “Extreme” was a word that must have tested well when added to MAGA.  Joe Biden tossed it out about a year ago.  It used to be that MAGA folks were considered extreme.  Now we apparently have extreme extreme MAGA folks.  The great unifier he says he is.
  6. These extremists are doing the exact opposite.  Hmm.  That means that they are working hard to make sure 50 million people stay hungry.  How do you do that?  Does anyone really believe that?
  7. Predictably, thousands and thousands of tweeters lined up to share their two cents (with inflation that means about one cent now) about this carefully crafted Jefferies tweet.  Our guess is 50% think Jeffries is great, and 50% think he’s talking out of his hat again.

And, that’s how it works if you call that working.  Divide to conquer.  Ask for more money(we love when they call it resources) to throw at a “problem.”

Next thing you know they’ll tell you that the oceans are rising.  Let’s put more “resources” against it before lightning strikes this summer and causes a forest fire of all things.  Damn, hurricanes will be here before you know it as well.  Happens every year.

We’re picking on Jeffries, but we could pick on oodles of these mangy poodles.  He’s the leader of the minority party that represents nearly one-half of one-third of the three most important branches of government arguably in the world.  And, in that very important position, he lies daily for a living.

The Republicans get no pass here either.  Doesn’t it feel like all but one uni party?  It does because it is.

The biggest problem America has isn’t a lack of food.

It’s a lack of the basic understanding that you are an ant(maybe red, maybe black) in a jar that is being shaken daily.

 

Limbo

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

How low can you go?

Limbo got its start as a traditional dance contest on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

But, here recently, it looks like the contest has moved to the U.S.   And, it looks like the bar is being lowered at an accelerated pace in an uncontested manner.

People from many walks of life and responsibilities are playing.  The wonder is if their responsibilities combined with their sensibility, or lack thereof, has us dancing to a new unpleasant tune.

Take for example Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson.  Downtown Chitown was taken over Saturday night by hundreds of teen thugs smashing windows, jumping on occupied cars, pulling drivers out to fist fight, etc, etc. He ever so briefly condemned the violence of the teen mob before lashing out at those criticizing the criminals.

“It is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities,”  he said.  How does he know where they are from?

And, whose fault is that?  The community?  The city?  The parents?  Or, is it just now normally accepted behavior to commit a crime without fear of retribution?  Barrack Obama, who hails from Chicago himself, told us that “elections have consequences.”

Maybe it’s the fault of the road construction crew on the very roads that they disrupted.  Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg told Al Sharpton on MSNBC Sunday that “the way roads are designed and built makes minorities a lot more likely to die in car crashes and pedestrian vehicular crashes.”  The Reverend Al even looked speechless for once.

A Washington State bill that would strip parents’ rights to intervene in their kid’s medical care in certain circumstances passed the House Wednesday, clearing its pathway to be signed by Gov. Jay Inslee.

“An act relating to supporting youth,” or Senate Bill 5599, allows host homes for runaway youth “to house youth without parental permission.” Furthermore, the host homes do not need to notify parents about where their kids are or if they are getting medical interventions.  The “protected health care services” included “gender-affirming care.”

It’s “relating to” as long as you are not “related to.”

“Supporting youth” sounds so helpful.  Next thing you know we’ll have a “sounds so helpful” Inflation Reduction Act that adds trillions to the nation’s debt so that pet green projects can continue to be fed.

So to recap, your parents can go to jail for child neglect if you aren’t fed.  It’s the law.  But they have no right to know where you are when other adults know where you are and what medicines you are prescribed.  It’s a new law.

As a minor you aren’t old enough to drive.  But you can stomp on a car’s hood and hit the driver in the face.  You wouldn’t want to drive on those racist roads until Mayor Pete fixes their prejudice anyway.

You can’t vote.  But you can elect to cut off your body parts to change your identity.

You have no choice but to attend school.  But, you can beat your teacher up especially if the state-funded drag queen performer falls short of your expectations.

In some Christian beliefs, limbo is an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution.  The Catholics used to call it Purgatory.  Maybe you get to push the up button on the elevator to Heaven, or maybe you push the down button to Hell.  Time will tell.

Maybe we can do away with Hell soon, too?

Maybe.

But this doesn’t feel like Heaven on Earth right now.

How low will we go?