National

Debating the Winners and Losers

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

So, who won the debate last night you ask?  We’d like to ask the question differently.  Who lost?  America.

So, you persist.  Who won the debate, you ask again.  We are at least willing to narrow it down to two people.  We have some obvious clues.

We think the winner was an old white angry male who hurled insults, lies, and zingers before, during, and after his allotted time.  The question is, was it the some of the time “interrupter” or the all of the time “interrupter?”

Spanish speaking broadcaster Telemundo asked it’s viewers an hour after the debate.  Those that hadn’t turned off the TV midway through the donnybrook, nor after it mercifully ended, nor took Pepto Bismal actually selected Trump by a wide 66-34% margin.

The score has little practical meaning, partly because Telemundo’s respondents were not a scientific sample and may have been organized themselves to skew the results.

In 2016, for example, “Hillary Clinton was deemed the winner of Monday night’s debate by 62% of voters who tuned in to watch, while just 27% said they thought Donald Trump had the better night,” according to a CNN poll of voters who watched the debate.  All that proved was who watches CNN.

In 2020, that same instant poll last evening has Joe Biden the winner by a 60-28% margin.  All that proved was who still watches CNN.

Moderator Chris Wallace had to feel like he was herding cats.  But, that stopped neither side’s supporters from criticizing him.

At one point the sometimes interrupter Biden exclaimed, “What was the question? I can’t remember because of all his rambling.”   Wallace retorted, “I’m having some trouble myself.”  And the left screamed that Wallace needed to regain control.

A bit earlier the incessant interrupter Trump spared with Wallace when questioned over the lack of a health care plan.   “First of all, I guess I’m debating you, not him, but that’s okay, I’m not surprised.”  And the right tweeted all night that Wallace was very left minded in his 90-minute task.

That task must have felt like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

So how is a debate winner actually determined?  Ultimately, it’s by how many undecided voters or opponents voters they swayed with their performance.

What was said took a back seat to how it was said for the most part.  Policy, principle, and vision took a back seat to uppercuts, sucker punches, and low blows.

Because of that, we strongly doubt that any MAGA’s or never Trumpers were so moved.

How about the undecided?  Who, in this unraveled, strongly divided country, is undecided?

Our call?  Wallace lost. He had no chance.  Trump didn’t convert anyone.  He missed a chance.  Biden held serve.  He needs to stay upright twice more.

And, America took it on the chin yet again in 2020.

 

Don’t Shoot the Messenger.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Any sophomore student majoring in communication can tell you that there are many parts that need to work together for there to be good communication.  But, two of the most important are the message itself and the messenger who delivers it.

After all, it’s who is selling, what is being sold, and how.

The Movement was selling social justice, race equality, and police reform at the outset, just shortly after George Floyd perished in Minneapolis.  Some criminal behavior, when you look back on the outset of it probably could be understood or at least overlooked.  Emotions were running as hot as the fires that the protesters were setting.

Buring cars in March and spray painting walls in April seem like so long ago.  It seemed like the nation was listening then or at least trying to.

But, what good became of it?  The message seems lost now in the continued bad behavior of a few but of a few too many messengers.

How bad is it?

Rochester, New York, police officers have received permission to cover their name tags in an effort to avoid harassment from far-left protesters.

Rochester Police Chief La’Ron Singletary who is set to retire soon, approved the move after protesters targeted a number of officers who shouted out their home addresses, the names of their children and their schools, and made phone calls to their parents.

Bad.

As you know by now two LA police officers, sitting in their marked patrol car were targets of a seemingly random assassination attempt.

What else can you call it but an assassination attempt?  So, you might ask, “could it be totally unrelated to The Movement?”  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” you say?

The “jump to conclusions” ship sailed long ago.  What America sees on video suffices for judge and jury, unfortunately, today.

Bad became worse.

But worse was about to become the worst.

Word spread in the LA community of Compton of the attack and of where the officers were taken.  Outside of Lynwood Hospital “peaceful protesters” shouted, “we hope they die.”  They chose the up ramp to the emergency room to deliver the less than positive well wishes.  This blocked the path for other emergency transport vehicles and their very ill occupants, utterly unrelated to this crime, to quickly and safely enter the hospital.

Indeed, worse behavior became the worst behavior.

And with it, logic left the conversation once more, and perhaps forever.

The message has value.

But, the messengers have no values.

 

School Daze

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

America is back in school, be it virtual, part-time virtual, or full time in person.

We’ve been told to “follow the science” so many times in the last six months, though, that it seems like we never left school.  It might be wise to “follow the math” while we are back at it as well.

But, the teaching methods change as fast as The Movement moves.   It would be wise to keep up with the “new” science and “new” math.

Louisiana Tech went back to school and the university’s football team was following the old science quite well. Tech athletic director Tommy McClelland said that the Bulldogs had only one positive COVID-19 test in the three weeks before the Hurricane Laura as they huddled and studied together.

But, along came a bad storm, and the new science took a turn for the worse.

“It is obvious that the impact in our community a few weeks ago really sparked our significant increase in numbers,” McClelland said. “With 95 percent of our city losing power for days our student-athletes were forced to find places to stay, and some even had family from south Louisiana that came northward to stay with them. So many things that we were able to control for the month of August became out of our control.”

The count of positive tests within the team soared to 38 yesterday.  The season opener v. Baylor has been postponed, and likely will be canceled.

Seems like the science favors playing football and staying together based on the above.  Although the Big 10 and PAC 12 still seem to think otherwise.

Meanwhile, there is some new math out on the campaign trail.

A few new polls from both the national level and prime swing states indicate President Trump is outperforming his 2016 numbers among Latinos, and sits currently at the highest share of the demographic for Republicans since 2004. The trend has increased over the past week in two different polls.

The first, conducted by Emerson University found that in a head-to-head matchup, Trump was favored by 37 percent of Latinos, compared to 60 percent for Biden. Similarly, a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University has the commander-in-chief taking 36 percent of the Latino vote v 56 percent for Biden.   Both were taken shortly after the Republican Convention.

But their results closely mirror those found in a Pew Research study released in mid-August well before the convention.  At the time, Pew found that Trump polled at 35 v 63 for Biden.

35,36,37.

If accurate, the results do not bode well for Biden and Democrats. In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 66 percent support among Latino voters, compared to Trump’s 28 percent.  The drop-off in support, coupled with Trump’s populist appeals to blue-collar voters, was significant enough to deny Clinton victory in the electoral college.

Maybe the stay at home and/or work from home suburban moms will provide even more “new” math when they vote.  They’re getting an over their kids’ shoulder look at the two subjects daily via Al Gore’s internet.  And, they seem to be leaning Biden’s way in 2020 as they did for Trump in 2016.

The COVID-19 science and the 2020 election math are quite intertwined at a minimum, or a tangled mess if you prefer.

Biden’s and Trump’s GPAs are hanging in the balance.

The final exam is scheduled for November 3rd.

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.

 

 

We’ll Know Soon Enough

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday was historic for this fractured country.

The Big 10, founded in 1896, has never postponed or canceled an entire football season. Its schools have played through two world wars and the 1918 flu pandemic.  But, the Big 10 Conference won’t be kicking off this fall for the first time ever.

For the first time ever, a woman who identifies as African American (her father is Jamaican born and her mother is Indian born) accepted the offer to be the VP running mate for the presumptive Democrat candidate for President, Joe Biden.

Oh, and the PAC 12, with four of its teams from California, which is the home of Senator Kamala Harris, opted out as well.

What do these decisions have in common?  Maybe nothing.  Or, maybe they reflect the mood of the nation.  If so, Donald Trump’s future as our President is in trouble.  But, it seems, isn’t it always?

Biden said during the debates that if he were nominated he would select a woman as his VP choice.  He one-upped that along the way saying he would select a black woman.  Voila!

So Black Lives Matter to him.  Or, at the very least, black votes matter to him.  Or, the female vote matters to him.   Or, Ms. Harris is the best-qualified candidate to lead our nation should something happen to 76-year-old Sleepy Joe along the way.  Maybe it already has.

As for the Big 10 and PAC 12, young lives must matter to them.  Or, avoiding litigation matters to them.  What happened to “follow the science?”  It will tell you that student-athletes are safest while being isolated on campus and the practice field.

Biden delayed his decision time and again.  The conferences delayed their fall season, then yesterday postponed it until the spring.

Did they all make good decisions?  By November 3rd of 2020, the most challenging year of the 21st century, we’ll know.

If the SEC, Big 12, and ACC have successful seasons, measured by health, fan perception, and TV ratings, the Big 10 and PAC 12 will surely regret their choice.  For now, that choice is perceived by some as the right one and the safe one.

Is the choice of Harris, perceived by some as a safe one given the mood of the nation, the right one?

One dissenter voiced his opinion yesterday.

President Donald Trump’s campaign swiftly responded to Biden’s selection of Harris, branding the pair: “Slow Joe and Phony Kamala.”

“Kamala Harris ran for president by rushing to the radical left, embracing Bernie’s plan for socialized medicine, calling for trillions in new taxes, attacking Joe Biden for racist policies,” the Trump campaign said in a video tweeted by President Trump. “They smartly spotted a phony — but not Joe Biden. He’s not that smart,” the ad continues, before adding Biden “is handing over the reins to Kamala” if the two win in November.

A reduced number of teams NCAA football season kicks off next month.  We think.

The political football is always getting kicked around.  We know.

And we will know if the right decisions were made soon enough.

 

 

 

And the Winner Is?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

We have interesting developments to share as the “peaceful” protesters continue defacing buildings, looting, committing bodily assaults, and toppling statues.  President Trump has sent in the “federal police.”  Except that isn’t the development of interest.

The Democrat mayors of 15 cities across the United States have signed a letter asking Attorney General William Barr and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to remove or not send federal law enforcement officers to their municipalities, calling the deployments an “abuse of power.”  Except that isn’t the interesting development either.  For now, the deployment is limited to the most unruly of all-Portland.

In the countdown of most interesting, the action of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot finishes a strong third.  “I’m calling on all Chicagoans that if you see something that doesn’t look right, please, don’t hesitate to report it,” Lightfoot said during a press conference. “We are going to remain diligent.”

Finally, she is urging residents to take action to take back their beloved city from its year’s long violent crime wave.  Isn’t she?  Nope.  She continued,  “if we see any steps out of line, particularly with DHS or Border Patrol, we are not going to hesitate to take the president to court and stop any unconstitutional actions.”  Let the crime wave roll all the way to Waveland Ave.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined a violent demonstration in his city Wednesday night at which “protesters” threw flaming bags of garbage at a federal courthouse.  He also was jeered by the crowd before being tear-gassed by federal officers.  How woke is Wheeler?  In one day’s time he marched with the offenders and got mocked by them.  Then he got gassed by the federal officers he had signed a letter against earlier in the day.  His wokeness finished a close second.

But the hands-down winner is Hiden Joe Biden’s hot take.  Wednesday during a remote union town hall meeting, the Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President called President Trump the country’s “first” racist president.  This should save the few statues that still stand that have George Washington or Thomas Jefferson atop the pedestal.  It seems like just days ago we were told they were racist.

All of the peaceful protesters are now free to go back home to mama’s basement, but we digress.

Long live Mt. Rushmore too?

 

It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s over!

A Quinnipiac Poll released Wednesday showed Joe Biden leading President Trump nationally by double-digits, widening his lead over the last month.

The former vice president leads Trump 52 percent to 37 percent.  That’s up from the eight-point lead he saw in the June 18 poll.

And, it gets worse for Trump when you look at the underlying responses.  Biden even overtook Trump according to respondents as best to handle the economy 50-45%.  And, that’s the best of the worst.  For handling a crisis it’s Biden 57-38.  For COVID-19 it’s 59-35.

And, the worst of the worst is when it comes to addressing racial inequality.  Biden gets the nod by a whopping 62-30.  Of course, he does.  Trump is a racist.  Everyone has been telling us that for four years and counting.

But, is it over?  Is the poll as accurate as the August Quinnipiac 2016 poll that showed Clinton dominating Trump by double-digits as well?  Trump hopes so.

“We are starting to hear the faint rumblings of a Hillary Clinton landslide as her 10-point lead is further proof that Donald Trump is in a downward spiral as the clock ticks,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said at the time.

Malloy still has a job with Quinnipiac.

Yesterday he said that the survey provided a “very unpleasant real-time look at what the future could be for President Trump.  There is no upside, no silver lining, no encouraging trend hidden somewhere in this survey for the president.”

If you take a deeper dive it turns out that Quinnipiac surveyed 1,273 self-identified registered voters across the country.  Republicans only made up 24 percent of the respondents.  Democrats were 34%.

He pondered in the late summer of 2016, “wow, is there any light at the end of this dark and depressing chapter in American politics?”  Given where we are in 2020, he at least was prescient on that one.

It’s Biden’s election to lose.  We heard the same about Hillary.  There are conventions (maybe virtual), debates(maybe very bad for Biden), stump speeches (where Biden always stumps himself), and the sheer rigor (Biden would be older entering the presidency than any other predecessor when they left it) of conventional state to state campaigning left.

Singer, not pollster, Lenny Kravitz might have it right.  It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over.

Pollster, not singer, Tim Malloy might have it wrong.

Again.

 

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

CNN’s Don Lemon called for former President Barrack Obama’s chiseled likeness to be added to Mount Rushmore last evening.  “I think, listen … if they are going to put someone on Mount Rushmore, considering the history of the country, the first black president should be front and center,”  he reasoned.

The anchor that he was handing off to, Chris Cuomo added,  “Add to Mount Rushmore. I think that’s first of all, it’s a more salable idea than the idea of taking away Founding Fathers.”

The exchange continued.   Lemon said, “So what’s wrong with all of us together thinking or reshaping our country so that more people rethink our country in the way we think and where priorities are so the country it belongs to everyone.”

Cuomo said, “Nothing is wrong with it.”

Except everything about the premise is wrong with it.  If statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln don’t deserve to be in town squares anymore, they why should they be on Mt. Rushmore?  If you can find a statue of Roosevelt let us know.  If Barrack Obama deserves to be on Mt Rushmore, start carving out the stone.

The conversations should be 100% independent of one another.

America strives for greatness.  America demands greatness.  America applauds greatness.  America builds libraries, museums, monuments, statues, and mountainside likenesses to honor distinguished men and women who helped America achieve its status as the envy (regardless of what some might want you to believe) of the world.  You might have heard that it is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”

America got to where it is with little compromise. Why start now?

It’s easy to be average.  It’s hard to be excellent.

It’s great that America has now had a black president.  He was voted in as qualified by its citizens to lead us.   Soon enough it will likely have it’s first female president as well.  She will need to be deemed qualified to lead us as well.   May there be a day when these occurrences are commonplace.

But having a certain skin color or being a certain gender doesn’t make you great.  And being the first this or that doesn’t make you great either.  It just gets you noticed more than others.  Accomplishments and leadership of all of its people do.

So, did the four presidents accomplish enough for our country, in spite of any shortcomings, flaws, or mistakes along the way, to deserve to be forever admired in stone?  America said yes then.  Does it still say yes now?

Did Obama do the same?  America will, or will not, mull that over for years to come.

But don’t keep one(or four) up as a negotiation ploy to get another.

Can’t you just see Ronald Reagan shaking his head, coiffed hair and all?

The Silence Is Deafening

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Monday afternoon’s BBR staff meeting provided a look back to give us a look at what might happen going forward.  One staff member told us his story about the 2012 and 2016 elections.

In early October 2012, he moved into his new (old) home.  Driving down the street in the UHaul he realized that 14 of 22 homes had Romney/Ryan yard signs.  One had an Obama sign.  It almost sounds like this neighborhood enjoys white privilege, but we digress.  Obama won.

In 2016 that same street had but one Trump/Pence sign.  Just one.  One neighbor had a Hillary/Kaine sign.  Just one.  Trump won.  Did the silent majority speak back then?  We don’t know because they are silent.  But we have a hunch.

And now 2020 arrives at the doorsteps of this very same street and streets all across this fruited plain.  The fruited part is being bolstered by the “guerilla gardening” inside of the compound formerly known as CHAZ, but we digress.

What do you have to say silent majority?  Oops.  We forgot.  The silent majority doesn’t speak.  It watches and listens.  And we have another hunch or five to share.

Putting Russian collusion, impeachment, Covid-19 handling, lockdowns, and other attacks (from the right’s point of view) or deep concerns (from the left) aside do they see a picture being painted along the road to November 3rd, election day?

We submit they do.  And we submit that they have been watching all along and were listening and open to meaningful reforms as well.  In order to listen you have to be silent.

And, now, we surmise that the silent ones have stopped listening because The Movement won’t stop screaming long enough to listen.  And, it was going so well at first.  But, burning down cities aside, it’s now gone too far.  Arson wasn’t enough.  Looting wasn’t.  Beating innocent people wasn’t either.  Making death threats against Drew Brees and his family wasn’t enough.  The hell with free speech.   Coast to coast cries of “defund the police” wasn’t enough.

Even actual murder and attempted murder on the police that started weeks ago isn’t.  And, now you’ve armed yourself and taken over six square blocks of Seattle in this Summer of Love.  Now you’re the police.  Good luck.

Don’t use excessive force or maybe the silent majority will come and riot in your new city(named CHOP as of this AM).  Actually, they won’t.  They’ll just watch it self implode.  And self implode it will.  It’s only a matter of when.  Then, they’ll vote.

CNN had a weekend poll that showed Joe Biden had a 14 point lead on Donald Trump.  Didn’t Trump trail Clinton by 11% per the polls in 2016?  How did that turnout after the voters turned out?  Polls, schmolls.

The silent majority doesn’t speak to pollsters either.

But they’ve listened, learned, and likely become disgusted.  They’ll hit the voting booth in record numbers.

The election could be held today.  Is anyone in America undecided?

Brees and Knees

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Drew Brees exercised his right to freedom of speech yesterday.  And, immediate reactions and overreactions poured in from around the sports world.  Woke Nation told everyone who tags, follows, trends, hastags, Snaps, or Instagrams that Saints Nation was ablaze because of it.

The BBR staff sat around a Zoom happy hour last evening.  Dixie beers straight from NOLA were aplenty.  Rather than fret about the short term, we asked “what does this mean long term for Brees’ legacy in New Orleans?”

Our conclusion?  We think that Drew Brees will be the mayor of predominantly black New Orleans the very first time that he runs for the post.  And, we think that he should.  We’ve long thought that he would.  And, we think that eventually, he will.  He has always wanted to make a difference outside of the hash marks.

When you boil it down, Brees said that he stands with his teammates and many others seeking racial equality and justice, but that he would not kneel during the presentation of the flag during the National Anthem that honors many who protected us and fought for our freedom along the way.

Woke Nation was outraged because it’s always important to be immediately outraged.  You cannot break through the massive clutter of social media and stay there unless your take is edgy, passionate, immediate, and progressive.

Former ESPN talking head Jemele Hill tweeted, “Drew Brees is why people shouldn’t assume that just because someone white is around black people that they understand black issues.”  Jemele Hill is why people who have no idea what Brees does off of the field say that they understand Brees.  Do you know what Brees and his Brees Foundation did for many minority families and causes post-Katrina?  No, you don’t.  He wants it that way.  And, his list of charitable efforts and contributions is quite long.

LeBron James tweeted that Brees was still ignorant as to why Kaepernick took a knee and said it had zero to do with the flag.   Thankfully we’ve heard little from LeBron since he told Daryl Morey that he was ignorant about the Chinese (communist) culture and that his words could be so hurtful. That was just after they occupied Hong Kong, but before their China virus broke out, was covered up, was lied about, was contained but wasn’t, and interrupted his NBA season.   We wonder if LeBron is ignorant to the fact that Brees donated about $250k to build a state of the art special needs playground smack dab in the middle of a park in the city last year.

Aaron Rodgers stated, “It has NEVER been about an anthem or a flag. Not then. Not now. Listen with an open heart, let’s educate ourselves, and then turn word and thought into action.”  It sounds like good advice.  Maybe he should listen to what Brees is saying.  Per Packer sources, Rodgers has a difficult time listening with an open head, much less a heart, to his teammates and coaches.  The Green Bay brass like his leadership so much that they traded up, reached, and drafted what they hope will be his replacement with Rodgers still in his prime.

We could go on.  But, what does the three of Jemele, LeBron, and Aaron have in common?  They don’t know Brees.  His family, friends, business associates, teammates, civic leaders, and coaches do.  Ninety-nine percent of them hold him in the very highest regard on and off of the field.

Star receiver Michael Thomas tweeted, “He don’t know no better.”

The nation known as America protects free speech even when it contains double negatives.   It used to embrace it.  The nation known as Woke only embraces it when you speak their language.

Maybe they don’t know no better.