Engage. Enrage. Enjoy.

The Public Sentiment Pendulum

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

For the public sentiment pendulum to ever so slightly move in a direction opposite of its current one it takes only one net change of opinion. This move is barely discernable to the eye much less the national polls.

For the public sentiment pendulum to reverse course and begin an accelerating descent for the opposite side of the bottom/center “it takes a village” as Crooked Hillary used to say.

This course reverse is always aided by influencers.  They’re the ones that millions listen to and follow.

Ninety-five percent of our population are followers.  They want to be led.

Almost daily more coals are being dumped into the steam engine.  One big one was Elon Musk when he started speaking his mind and decided to buy Twitter so others can freely as well.   Make no mistake about it, the left inside and outside of the company has roared its collective concern.

It’s two for one.  Elon is an influencer.   Twitter and its shaping algorithms, bots, and suppression of expression are another.

But looky here, last week Netflix told its employees matter of factly that they had a choice.  They could work on the content that they don’t approve of, or they could leave the nest.

And, of all people, a now buffed Jeffery Bezos started pulling a bit right. In a tweet, Bezos accused Biden of ‘misdirection’ in response to the President saying inflation could be tamed by making wealthy firms ‘pay their fair share.’  “Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection.”

Like Twitter and Netflix employees, the White House full of Biden handlers didn’t like the pushback from a man who they thought was bought and paid for.

“It doesn’t require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the President is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share,” deputy WH press secretary Andrew Bates said.  That’s a WhataSize bite of a nothing burger.

When your presidential approval rating is at a first term low of either 33% or 39% depending on which of the latest two polls you prefer, you see the pendulum coming right down the track at you.

Other presidents’ ratings have sagged early on including young Bush, Obama, and Trump.  What to do?  Fight back.  Regain the nation’s confidence.  Call it the war with words.

Roe v Wade is a firestarter.  But PR agencies are strongly advising major companies to go quietly into the night on this.  They saw the Disney melt.

And, now unfortunately so is the Buffalo mass shooting.  As with all mass murders, this one is uncalled for and terrible.

But, Biden sees light where others see darkness.  And, he’ll tell you so today from Buffalo.  He’ll wax on about the progress made against racism during his 40 years of public service(as if he had something to do with it), but tell you how far we still need to travel.  He didn’t travel to Waukesha, but we digress.  He’ll castigate Congress, demanding a call to arms to call some arms too dangerous to be sold anymore in the US.

Then, he’ll board Air Force One and be back at the big house in time for dinner and Matlock reruns.

The nearing midterms will be the ultimate judge of where the sentiment pendulum is.  But, for Biden and the left that pulls his strings, if they want a last two-year rerun of the first two years, they have a lot of ground to make up.

And, dangerous big guns like Musk and Bezos are firing in the wrong direction.

 

iPods, Smoking, and Combustion Engines

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Did you or do you own an iPod?  Did you ever smoke cigarettes?  Will you trade in your gas guzzler when the time comes for an electric vehicle(EV)?

Yesterday the mother of all companies in tune with what people want/need, Apple, ended production on the tunes machine that changed how we listened to music-the iPod.

Why did they discontinue the iPod?  It’s pretty simple.  Apple and its competitors innovated.  You can listen to music, podcasts, etc. right from your phone from a variety of sources better known as apps.   The sound quality is amazing.

The life span of the iPod was a short but successful 20 years or so.  Innovation changed the game.

Cigarettes, regardless of brand, went from “smoke them if you got em” during WWII, to sexy in the ’60s, to the surgeon general warning us in the ’80s about how bad they were for your health, to frowned upon in the ’00s, to almost extinguished in the ’20s.

The lifespan of Winston, which “tastes good like a cigarette should,” was multiple generations.  Medical science changed the game.

In 1886, Carl Benz began the first commercial production of motor vehicles with internal combustion engines. By the 1890s, motor cars reached their modern stage of development.

The gasoline-powered car stands as one of the great inventions ever.  It revolutionized how we got around, how far we could go, and who we were.

And, a quick 130 or so years later it’s in the fight of its life.  EVs cometh.  And so does the government.

Sure, EVs are innovations to gas-powered cars and trucks like the phone is to the iPod.  Sure(we presume), EVs are healthier for our planet like not smoking is to smoking.

But this one feels forced.  Shouldn’t we let nature, innovation, education, and consumer preferences take their course?

“Biden admin’s new NEPA permitting rules will basically stop new oil and gas production,” wrote renowned economist Larry Kudlow yesterday.  “The Keystone XL pipeline is gone.  Alaska drilling is gone. Other smaller pipelines are gone. Those decisions have already been made by Biden’s Energy and Interior departments and his EPA.”

And, now new leases in the Gulf of Mexico have been canceled.  Additionally, Russian oil is off-limits and gasoline at the pump is already at an all-time high.

These new NEPA rules are so restrictive that they will slow down the $1 trillion infrastructure bill they passed including the green infrastructure (windmills, solar).  All projects will be subject to direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impact reviews.

So while we are in a rush to go green, far-reaching regulations were passed that will now make us inspect the government-funded (read as you funded) green infrastructure projects to ensure they’re green.  We’re spending a lot of green for all of this.

Are you seeing red yet?  Your eyes are fine.  It’s probably just all of that government red tape that you are seeing.

Like baby formula, we’d like to see the supply of gas catch up with the demand for gas.  It would lower prices.  That would allow us to keep a bit of what we earn so that when taxes are raised to pay for all of this that government can’t afford, we’ll be able to afford to do so.

Eventually, won’t EVs win out? Capitalism drove us this far so to speak.

Until then, we’d like to “fill er up” a time or two more without going into what’s left of our savings accounts.

 

 

 

 

A Leak Like No Other

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the case of Roe v Wade.  The majority opinion of the court made abortion legal nationwide.

Emotions about abortion ran high.  It was and is a nasty word for many.  So abortion was rebranded as pro-choice.  Pro-choice morphed into woman’s health.  Woman’s health was then repackaged as woman’s wellness.  It’s harder to debate woman’s wellness.

Eventually, the government was so concerned about women’s wellness that Planned Parenthood (founded in 1916) became a partially federally funded abortion, and woman’s wellness clinic.

Since we’re changing what we call things, should that part of the organization be renamed Not Planned Not Parenthood?

Fifty years later, there is a public debate as to who actually is a woman at the same time that we put a woman, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court.  Brown Jackson testified before Congress that she couldn’t define what a woman was either.  When pressed, she said, “I am not a biologist.”

So last night’s bombshell, the SCOTUS leak of the first draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito for the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization., has vaulted the issue to the front page of American discourse all over again.  Alito writes, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

That there is a leak is a bombshell unto itself.  And, is a very dangerous threat to a very important pillar of US democracy-the Justice System’s impartial operational sanctity.  Start the investigation today.

So why the leak?  It’s pretty obvious, and serves a dual purpose, doesn’t it?

Can enough pressure be applied to those siding with Alito to swing votes the other way to maintain the status quo?  And can the current political landscape be reshaped with this polarizing issue to the extent that the party in power can maintain that power by inciting and galvanizing its base?

Inevitably, the leak will spur Democrats to push for the passage of a bill to codify Roe.  To do so they would need to bust the filibuster rule or lower the threshold to end a filibuster from 60 yes votes to 51. That means all attention will immediately turn to, you guessed it, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The midterm vote is on 11/8/22, or six months and five days from today.

If you’re the party from the left would you like to run on inflation, food shortages, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the southern border, crime, Biden’s poll numbers, and Kamala’s incompetence? Or, would you like to run away from all of that?

Or, would you prefer to watch “mostly peaceful protests” in this coming summer of love to combat that nasty “war on women?” You could then bank on that being the galvanizer to get the vote out and turned in your favor.

Is it a coincidence that Kamala Harris is the featured speaker tonight at the 30th Annual We Are EMILY National Conference and Gala, a pro-choice event?  Is it a coincidence that President Biden is scheduled to deliver his thoughts from the White House today on Roe V. Wade?

Or, is all of this well planned by the party that plans well?

One thing is for sure, the Supreme Court has reunited the nation on the question of which gender gets pregnant and gives birth.

Or, chooses not to.

For now.

 

Imagine That

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Imagine a country governed by people who feel like a five-year-old understands gender orientation/identification but an 18-year-old doesn’t understand that if you borrow money for college you have to pay it back.

But for that to happen you’d have to imagine a country that has a president who said yesterday to teachers about their students at the White House Teachers of the Year Event, “they’re not somebody else’s children.  They’re yours when you’re in the classroom.”

Imagine studying, for example, art appreciation, and realizing at 25 years of age that your degree can’t afford a tank of gas much less a loan payback.

Some wake-up calls happen later than others, but all are part of life’s lessons.

Imagine that the keepers of the taxpayers’ money think it’s actually a good lesson to teach loan forgiveness.  Do car or house loans in the future come equipped with a ripcord too?  Why would we teach anyone to live within (or preferably below) their means?

Is this a downpayment for a vote in the midterms?

Imagine the understandable outrage of parents who scraped to save for their child’s college while watching another handout.

Imagine the understandable outrage of valuable blue-collar workers who learned a trade at their own expense and now inevitably realize that the student loan debt is transferred to their backs.

Imagine a party currently out of power that could succinctly “sell” against the shell game above, get elected, and actually do right by the everyday working man and woman in this country.

To do that you’d need to imagine that “man” and “woman” are words still recognized by men and women.

To do that you’d need to imagine a party that was conservative, not Republican that spends like the party in power.

To do that you’d need to imagine a party that did not have people named McConnell, McCarthy, Graham, Cheney, and Romney in powerful positions.

To do that you’d need progressive (not that kind) thinking.

Someone better think like that and fast.  Because progressive(that kind) thinking, in less than one week after Elon Musk finalized an agreement to buy Twitter the Department of Homeland Security, created what they are calling a Disinformation Governance Board’ dedicated to “countering misinformation.”

Lose control of Twitter? No problem!  We’ll wield a word ax over any and all spoken and written words.

A Ministry of Truth is what opponents are calling it.  Will the Disinformation Governance Board deem the characterization “Ministry of Truth” as misinformation?

Imagine someone running the Ministry named Nina Jankowicz.  Last week, Jankowicz said she opposes The First Amendment for apparently being bad for ‘marginalized communities.’  We’d imagine marginalized communities is gobbledy gook for “minorities.”

Now that we forgave student loans, let’s get back to the real problems in this country-equity, inclusion, and diversity!

Jeez. Wasn’t it just last week that Disney execs reimagined their imaginary characters to do just that?

Imagine that.

Basic Common Sense

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

A make-believe President Andrew Sheppard (actor Michael Douglas) interrupted a press conference in the movie An American President filmed in 1995 and said, “You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns.”

“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” shrieked Beto O’Rourke to roaring applause from a crowd at Texas Southern University during a Democratic Debate for a want-to-be President in 2015. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

Yesterday, our real president, though some would argue in title only, Joe Biden told us that he wants to rein in the use of untraceable firearms known as ghost guns that turn up frequently at crime scenes.  This attempt targets privately made firearms that can be assembled from purchased do-it-yourself kits.  The weapons lack serial numbers, which makes it difficult to trace the owner.

Commercial manufacturers of the kits will have to be licensed and must add serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver.  Commercial sellers of the kits will have to become licensed and will be required to run background checks on potential buyers.  It makes some sense as conventional retailers must do the same.  It just won’t stop anyone who wants a gun to find a way to get one.

“These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” Biden said in a Rose Garden ceremony attended by victims and families of gun violence. “We are going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”  Sounds like we’re not as interested in defunding the police as we were pre election.

Biden called the not call to arms “basic common sense.”  Except, it’s not.  Or, at least it’s not enough.

Well, it makes as much sense as Twitter employees who worry that Elon Musk, now Twitter’s largest shareholder, may turn their free speech platform into a platform that actually allows free speech, but we digress.

All together now- guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.

Adding serial numbers to parts will make illegal gun owners take a bit longer to file down the additional numbers to make them untraceable.  Also, stolen guns are stolen guns regardless of who cleared a background check originally.

There are over 330 million guns in this country that we can count. It’s the second amendment right.  If you don’t make another one, or file down another serial number, that’s enough for every man, woman, and child, regardless of their choice of pronouns, to pack heat.

Illinois and New York have the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  Ask the residents of Chicago’s south side or the Bronx how much that helps.

Criminal behavior starts way before someone puts a gun in their hand.  Once Veep Kamala figures out the root cause of illegal immigration maybe she can turn her attention to the root cause of criminal behavior.

Until then we can continue paying lip service to the problem as we do with China, Russia, inflation, debt, and the border.

 

X + Y = Z?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Remember way back when? Maybe it was the fourth grade?  What were you ten, then?

It was your first party with members of the opposite gender.  Spin the bottle someone said.  Suddenly you felt faint in the head.

You didn’t know why but you knew when.  And, when was right now.

You were terrified that the bottle might stop spinning while pointing in your direction.  You were mesmerized that it might though.  In short, you had no clue.

Ten.  That’s twice the age of what the latest name and blame game storm is all about.

Should public school teachers teach gender identity(or identity choices?) to pre-K and kindergarteners?  If you had no physical clue why you felt how you did at ten, what do you think the cranium power is to digest the complexity of the topic at five?

Kids get out of high school and are still confused by x+y=z.  How well do you think x and y chromosomes (give or take a few in these days and times apparently) will be understood by someone who cannot yet tie his or her (there’s that two gender thing again) shoes at five years of age.

And, do chromosomes even matter anymore?

Doesn’t the fact that this is even a debate enrage you?  If it doesn’t maybe you were “that guy” at the party that reached out to the Coke bottle and stopped it purposely and pointed it at you.  Or, maybe you should reconsider the debate.

We want to keep three-year-olds in masks but we want to unmask the bevy of sexual orientation/ gender identification choices supposedly available to them.  But, to cut to the chase, are there really choices?

We won’t solve the nurture vs. nature debate here today, nor are we qualified to do so.   But, we do know that it’s springtime in the south and there is a hell of a lot of birds making nests together, just like every springtime.

The debate isn’t nurtured v nature anyway.  The debate is when and who should have this discussion.

And, 76% of polled US parents think that this discussion is way too soon.  Over 50% think it should be left up to them at home as well.

Meanwhile, the left zealots in support cannot stand that they’ve been labeled “groomers.”  Did you ever see the guy sitting at the table in the middle of campus with a sign that says, “Groomers attempt to brainwash my kids?” Change my mind!”

Seems like the name game and the blame game is coming to a head again.

One answer seems clear, the “when” isn’t so soon after the babies leave the nest.  We repeat-doesn’t the fact that this is even a debate enrage you?  And, as far as the “who,” shouldn’t parents have the final say about what is taught in schools?  And when, as well?

The government should work for you, not against you.  The school system is part of the government.

You paid for it.  You elected the leaders of it.  It’s yours.

And, it’s time to take back what is yours.

 

 

Reimagine Tomorrow

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Just Tuesday we highlighted the war on women, the war on Ukraine, and the war on the wealthy.  But, what’re three wars without four?  Now the war on words has flared up yet again.

This time the attack and counterattack broke out in the woke Magic Kingdom.   In a leaked video from the company’s “Reimagine Tomorrow” summit top-level employees openly discussed Disney’s push to add more LGBTQIA2S+ content to its ever-growing library.

If you’re counting at home that’s six consonants, two vowels, one number, and a plus sign for 10 “outcasts” in all to be cast more frequently in Disney content.

Disney corporate president Karey Burke spoke, “I’m here as a mother of two queer children — one transgender child, and one pansexual child — and also as a leader.”  She wants a minimum of 50% of all characters going forward to be LGBTQIA2S+ and/or racial minorities.

This brings us to three questions.  One, why 50%?  Two, with all of the slang words that are now inappropriate, when did calling people queers gain traction all over again?  Three, if a character is both “queer” and a racial minority, does that count twice towards the 50 percent?

The leaked videos come amid Disney declaring open war (there’s that word again) on the state of Florida over its Parental Rights Law — which LGBTQ activists have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

At the bill signing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis explained that the measure simply bans sexual instruction for young schoolchildren, such as kindergarteners.  But, never let facts get in the way of a progressive narrative.

Disney is a huge company with huge brands that have enormous revenue streams.  They are the content, streaming, and amusement park kings.  But, when you start peddling your agenda directly at the hand that feeds you- parents of innocent children who directly object to the messaging aimed at such a young age, you’re playing with fire.  How big of a fire?  Time will tell.

Can you still say “kings?”  We ask because last summer Disney removed all of the gendered greetings and then some in live spiels. Prince and princesses are out. They no longer say ladies and gentlemen, nor boys and girls.   The Disney Diversion and Inclusion Manager said that they now welcome “dreamers of all ages” and noted that aligning language with “gender identity” dogma can make Disney “inclusive” and “magical and memorable for everyone.”

Who knew that it wasn’t memorable before?  Have you ever waited in line for the Space Mountain roller coaster?  And the lines are so inclusive they created fast passes to alleviate some of the wait times.

What’s funny about all of this is Disney’s presence in Communist China.  Well, it’s not funny at all.  It’s pure “turn your back” capitalism.  How many shirts, mouse ears, and souvenirs are produced there?  How many people visit their two theme parks there?

Is China’s government on board with all of the gender equity, inclusive, queer, pans, and so on there?  Of course, they aren’t.

Ironic that Disney owns ESPN which telecasts the NBA and WNBA and many other leagues worldwide.   The NBA loves China as well.

Can we meld the two leagues into one to be more inclusive, drop the “W” from WNBA to help with gender identity, and just call it the Dreamers of All Ages League?

No?  How about we “reimagine tomorrow” and rename it the LGBTQIA2S+WNBAonESPN sponsored by M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E then?

Does that include everyone?

 

 

 

Fair Share

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

If it’s not one war, it’s another.

Last week there was the war on women as Republicans unmercifully (the Washington Post called it the most grueling questioning/testimony ever) grilled Ketanji Brown Jackson for SCOTUS.

Every week for the last five the war on Ukraine marches on.  Joe Biden had a plan to stop it though.   He said Putin should be removed from power.  But then the White House said he didn’t mean it.  And, yesterday he said that he didn’t say it at all.

Someone once said, “even the best-laid plans go to hell when exposed to reality.”

This brings us to the newest war, and to reality.  Yesterday, President Biden made a renewed push to galvanize congressional Democrats to overhaul the nation’s tax code and dramatically raise rates on corporations and ultra-wealthy Americans.

The president laid out the tax hikes as part of his $5.8 trillion budget blueprint for federal spending in fiscal 2023.   Under his proposal, taxes would rise by $2.5 trillion, marking the largest increase in history in dollar terms. What can we give away for “free” that we haven’t already?  The deficit would be $1.15 trillion with a “t.”

Remember, it was but two weeks ago when both Biden and Madame Speaker Pelosi told us, idiots, that government spending wasn’t adding to our inflation problems, rather it actually helped curb inflation.

In fact, the mere notion made the President sick.  “I’m sick of this stuff,” Biden said at a Democratic retreat in Philadelphia, gesturing with his hands to suggest he’d had it up to his neck. “The American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money. Simply not true.”

We are reducing the Trump deficits and returning our fiscal house to order,” Biden said at the White House on Monday. He said the budget “makes prudent investment and economic growth, a more equitable economy while making sure corporations and the very wealthy pay their fair share.”

There you go.  It’s all in one sentence.  It’s straight from the left playbook.  Blame Trump, toss in “equitable,” and close with “fair share.”

Everybody supports “fair share.”  It’s fair after all, how could you be against it?  It might matter who decides what is fair, that’s how.  What it really means is that someone’s coming for someone else’s wallet.

The taxes outlined on Monday include a minimum 20% tax on the incomes of U.S. households worth $100 million or more even if the government made you dip into unrealized capital gains.  That’s current worth, not earned in the fiscal year.  You could call that Robin Hood.

That would raise taxes (aka government revenue-a terrible phrase if ever there was one) by about $360 billion over the next ten years. When you stack that up against increased spending it reminds us of the proverbial shooting a bb at a destroyer.

Biden also proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% as part of his budget request.  He’s banking on you not understanding a simple truism. If you raise corporate tax rates, corporations raise their prices to you.   And, that leads to higher inflation no matter how high Nancy Pelosi raises her painted-on eyebrows when spewing her revised version of Economics 101.

Under his envisioned budget, the nation’s deficit would shrink by more than $1 trillion over the next decade.  Or, stated differently the nation’s debt would increase from over $30 trillion to over $40 trillion.  Ouch.

And, no one in their right mind would think that anyone’s vision, and especially his, for the next decade could be clairvoyant.

Hopefully, the war on stupidity starts soon.

 

The King of Queens

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

BREAKING NEWS–

While you were likely sleeping overnight BBR has confirmed that LeBron James is leaving the NBA to join the WNBA!  Lebron tweeted, “my life and the WNBA ratings are forever changed for the better.  Going forward I want to be known as LeBronny’a James or Queen James.”

The King Says He’s Out!

In reality, this shouldn’t be a big deal, but it will be. Hell if you believe in equality, you should wonder why we even have two leagues.  Shouldn’t all genders just play together in one league?

As you know, Lia Thomas made history last Thursday as the first known transgender athlete to win a US college swimming championship when she took the title in the 500-meter freestyle in Atlanta.  Again, you have to wonder if equality really exists as we are striving for.  Why didn’t Lia simply swim in the men’s competition?

You know why.  It’s political theater at its finest.  And its finest was on display yesterday in the Senate confirmation hearings for Kentanji Brown Jackson as well.

The CNBC headline captures it well.  “Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson wraps tense two days of Senate questioning as confirmation path clears.”  The path was always clear as 50 Democrats were always going to vote for her and our esteemed VP Kamala Harris would make 51 assuming she knows how to push the correct button, but we digress.

But, first Judge Jackson faced that aforementioned tense moment.  Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge point-blank: “Can you provide a definition for the word ’woman’?

After a short back-and-forth, Jackson ultimately said: “No, I can’t.”  “You can’t?” Blackburn asked.  “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist,” Jackson said.

So it turns out that two X chromosomes have been deceiving us all along.

This is quite weird as Biden quite loudly promised a black woman as his first Supreme Court nominee if the opportunity presented itself.  How does he know?

Would the world have gone bonkers if Sen Blackburn followed up with “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘black’?

It makes you wonder why the left has been so vociferous in defending abortion, now known as women’s wellness, formerly known as a woman’s right to choose if they cannot define what makes a woman a woman.   Why call it women’s wellness?  How about just wellness?

And, all of this comes as we are celebrating Women’s History Month in March.  The first paragraph of Joe Biden’s Proclamation says so.  It reads, “Every March, Women’s History Month provides an opportunity to honor the generations of trailblazing women and girls who have built our Nation, shaped our progress, and strengthened our character as a people.”

So who are we celebrating if we cannot define who a woman is?  Did we mention political theater?

Fashion Is Strictly a Matter of Opinion.

That theater reached one of a few peaks back in 2017. The Women’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. It was prompted by several of Trump’s statements being considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive to women.

It’s pretty simple, almost cro magnon simple.  Trump bad, Biden good!  Gin up the base, let’s tear this place down.

It was originally billed as the Million Women’s March, but it drew 470,000.  Do you wonder if 530,000 bowed out when they learned of the suggested headdress?

Per the website, the goal of the annual march is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, disability justice, reproductive rights, the environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers’ rights and tolerance.

That sounds like a lot more than just women’s rights to us.

And that’s why we mention political theater for a final time, we promise.

 

 

The Sky Is Falling

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Know why Chicken Little crossed the road?

We’ll give you a hint.  It’s the same reason why John Kerry flew to Houston this week and spewed out all of those carbon emissions behind his plane.

It was to tell the uninformed that “the sky is falling, the sky is falling!”

President Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, said that while the Ukraine refugee crisis is a “problem” amid Russia’s invasion, it pales in comparison to the wave of migration that will come if climate change is not addressed.

“We’re already seeing climate refugees around the world,” he said. “If you think migration has been a problem in Europe in the Syrian War or even from what we see now, wait until you see 100 million people for whom the entire food production capacity has collapsed.”  Climate refugees, who knew?  See the sky really is falling.

And as fictional character Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City would say, “and just like that” the great reset has revved up its political engines.

President Biden told reporters Tuesday that he “can’t do much” about rising gas prices and blamed the situation on Russia’s war against Ukraine.  But, what we can do is send out the machine that the Democratic Party is and preach climate change.

Wise politicians always say, “you never want to let a crisis go to waste.”  And, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats all come to roost behind a common cause like the wise owls that they are.

Never mind Afghanistan, worthless boosters, late covid tests, the stock market, Ukraine, China, and rampant overall inflation.   Change the national narrative.

Specifically, do you want to fix the gas price problem?  Go green.  Now.

With Kerry running point for Biden, Jen Psaki said yesterday about drilling permits, “what additional permits do they need?  I don’t think that they need an embroidered invitation to drill.”    Does that sound smug or dismissive?  There are 4600 permits to drill pending approval on Biden’s desk as of this AM.  Tick tock.

We could ask Saudi to help, but they won’t answer Biden’s calls.  How about Venezuela?  They’re as bad as they come to humankind but never mind that.  Why would we help increase domestic production a day after cutting off Russia?

Maybe if we all just don’t drive for two weeks straight we could flatten the gas demand curve.  Follow the science.  Like wearing worthless masks what a fracking mess this is.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was ripped by critics Monday after he argued that more Americans should purchase electric vehicles so that they “never have to worry about gas prices again.”

The former South Bend, IN mayor claimed on MSNBC’s “Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart” that families who own electric vehicles would see a “$12,500 discount” in transportation costs.

Conversely, AAA has estimated that owning a new, compact electric vehicle costs about $600 more per year than a gas-powered compact vehicle despite lower fuel and maintenance costs.  Never let facts get in the way of a good narrative.  And, this estimate is given with the full knowledge that electricity prices would likely climb significantly as demand soars.  Never let, well, never mind.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed giving state residents some relief in the form of a tax rebate, as rising energy costs have led to the Golden State having the highest gas prices in the nation.  How nice an idea is that?  At an average of $5.75 per gallon in Cali the good governor might give you back some of which you shouldn’t need to pay in the first place.

But, he too is against increasing that nasty domestic production.  “At a time when we’ve been heating and burning up, one thing we cannot do is repeat the mistakes of the past by embracing polluters, drilling even more oil, which only leads to even more extreme weather, more extreme drought, and more wildfire,” Newsom said.  Drilling leads to extreme weather.  Again, follow the science.

But the coup de grace was delivered by US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm yesterday in Houston with Czar Kerry at CERAweek (the global energy conference) yesterday.  She said, “we are on the cusp of the most important transition that human society has ever seen.  And, I hope that we’ll look back on 2022 as the year that the world took giant steps to improve energy security and tackle climate change.”

Fourteen months ago America was producing more gas than it consumed.  MORE!

We had all of the security we needed.  It was called energy independence.

But, that was so 2020.  And, now the script is flipped.  And the party in power can follow a script like no other.