Politics

Hurricane DC

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

If you’re still driving around wearing a mask have we got good news for you?

The White House on Friday launched the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, half a year after Congress instructed the administration to set up a new arm in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

It is a now-permanent installment in Washington and will first be led by retired Major General Paul Friedrichs, a longtime biosecurity official. It comes roughly two months after the Covid-19 public health emergency ended and weeks after Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha stepped down, reflecting an overall wind-down of the administration’s coronavirus efforts.

Just in time!

Pandemics are like hurricanes.  You know another one is coming.  Best be prepared.  You don’t know exactly where and when it will hit.  And, they both get named by the government.

There was Alpha and our favorite Delta AY.4.2 amongst many other COVID-19 variants that caused us to run to CVS for a booster or three.  Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, and Sandy needed no boosters, strong on their own accord.

Permanent installments in DC grow like hurricanes as well.  They start small, grow into an unstoppable fury, and leave a mess behind time and again.

After 9/11 the Transportation Security Administration was created.  It’s now a permanent installment as well.

As of the fiscal year 2020, the TSA operated on a budget of approximately $7.7 billion and employed over 47,000 Transportation Security Officers, Behavior Detection Officers, Transportation Security Specialists, Federal Air Marshals, and other security personnel.  The FY 2023 Budget is 34% higher at $10.3B and manned(or womanned) by 60,652 positions or 29% more fine government workers.

That’s Bidenomics!  Grow the government from the bottom up and the middle out.

Don’t you feel safer?  Remember to take off your shoes before going through the airport gauntlet, please.

You’d think that the combo of WHO, NIH, FDA, and the CDC would be able to handle the next time some Chinese bats take flight.  Or did it escape from the lab Anthony?

But, no.  It is time, or past time really, for another arm to be added to the many in DC there to serve you.

Thank goodness Biden and Kamala are urging the wealthy to pay their fair share.  As they remind us, there is still work to do.

Maybe the government is the virus, after all, it spreads just like a pandemic does.

Unfortunately, like COVID, there does not seem to be an effective vaccine to eliminate its growth.

 

 

 

Win Big and Go Home.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s right below the Republican elephant’s nose trunk and they can’t see it.  It’s the winning ticket for 2024.

No, it’s not Trump and Kari Lake.  No, it’s not DeSantis and Tulsi Gabbard.  Oh God no, it’s not Pence and anyone.

It’s term limits.  That’s right.  Run against yourself.  Limit your time there.

Think about it.

Any poll that you can find shows a great majority of Americans feel that Biden is too old or incompetent or both and should not run again.

Octogenarians are everywhere in DC.  Bernie Sanders is older than Colonel Sanders.  Nancy Pelosi participated in the original test group for Poly Grip.  Mitch McConnell is the older brother of the Smith Brothers Cough Drops brothers.  Maxine Waters was there when Moses parted the red sea waters.

Joe Biden is an original signer of the Declaration of Independence.  “No joke.  Listen, folks.  I’m serious.  John Hancock and I used to go to black churches together.”

It’s all quite stale.  And, old.

Even polarizing Ted Cruz sees it.  He introduces a bill in the Senate every two years post elections to limit both sides of the House to 12 years in office.  And every two years congressmen and congresswomen and those who identify otherwise vote to keep their jobs for longer than that.

And, as Americans, we sit around and complain about the cronyism.  Yet, we don’t demand action.

The Dems smartly will have their big issues front and center.  You know them.

Let’s end racism!  This a battle for our democracy.  The rich should pay their fair share.  Abortion is a right!  The LGBTQA+2 deserves equal rights.  It’s a war on women.  Teachers deserve a raise!  Let’s pass sensible gun legislation!  We have to build an economy from the bottom up, and the middle out (can anyone, anyone explain that one?).

The Republicans could run on “you don’t like us and you don’t like them.  Let us do our job and send us home.”

That’s what they did in the horse and buggy days.  They voted as quickly as they could and got back home to tend to their real job.  Representing was representing. It wasn’t a permanent meal ticket in and out of Dulles International and in and out of lobbyists’ pockets.

Say it loud and proud, “Vote for me, and I’ll go to Washington to vote against me!”

Inflation, border, foreign policy, debt issues, and Biden’s mental and physical health issues are there for the taking.  We can (maybe) assume they’ll get that messaging right.

But, it’s past time to up the ante on keen marketing.

And, it is past time for term limits.

$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.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

M-M-M Good

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Stodgy old Campbell’s Soup Company is missing a great opportunity to reconnect its brand and its market share-challenged Alphabet Soup recipe to today’s generation.

One simple call to Dylan Mulvaney’s agent could do it.   Don’t lead.  Follow nike and Bud Light.  Dylan has put those two brands front and center this week.

One Mulvaney commercial can take the alpha right out of the can of letters.  It’s a sure bet.

Another sure bet is the effective strategic drive by people that are either labeled left, progressive, woke, fair-minded, and most of all inclusive to unrelentingly bring the letter T up to par with the letters L, G, and B is on.  Whether you agree or disagree, make no mistake about it-it’s on.  And, “they” are very good marketers.

Shoot six people in Nashville.  Make sure they label “they” who did it correctly.  Throw a Trans Vengeance Day. Hooray.  Drag queen shows are good for children.

It’s never too early for gender reassignment surgery.  Recruiting gets younger and younger in all sports these days.  Heck, men can even swim against women now.

You can’t spell mainstream without the “T.”

But, here’s another sure bet.  While the non-progressives are spending time and energy showing their outrage over this phenomenon another is on the way.  You just don’t see it yet.

Next in line is the letter Q and it feels left out of the party.   Who is “Q?”  The most trusted name in news, CNN, has the answer.  “The Q can stand for “questioning” — as in still exploring one’s sexuality — or “queer,” or sometimes both,” writes the trusted leader.

It’s the most inclusive letter of all.  Still seeking answers, no problem.  We can all identify with that.  You identify that you don’t yet identify.

So, if you feel left out of what you don’t know you are being left out of we have your back.  Oh, and we want your vote.

Don’t think for a second that those stodgy old Republicans that still eat Alphabet Soup give a darn about you.  You can see this coming in the election cycle in 2024 like a derailed train in East Palestine, OH.

Don’t trust BBR?  Ask federally funded National Public Radio (NPR).  They feel left out too.  They actually had to cut some staff last week.  They aren’t the first journalism type biz to face the music, are they?

And, now the horror of horrors has occurred.  Elon Musk and Twitter labeled them as “state-affiliated media.”  John Lansing, NPR’s president and CEO, called it “unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way.”

It sounds like they might not know who they are either.  Should they be called NPRQ going forward?

There has to be a supply chain shortage of letters around the corner.

2024 is going to be m-m-m good!

Nothing to See Here.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

The bodies of the six victims in yesterday’s Nashville Christian School shooting hadn’t even cooled down yet before the rapidly evolving and bickering US public began throwing haymakers assigning blame for this latest senseless loss of life.

Using “hadn’t even cooled down yet” to describe the deceased would have been looked at as a macabre way of writing just a decade or so back.  But, in today’s desensitized and divided world, it’s just another keystroke or 24.

And, therein might lie the root of our problems.  We can see almost anything live thanks to cameras and streaming video everywhere, jump on our favorite social media platform and comment, lie in wait for the side that opposes us to counterpunch, then remark in horror that “they” could be so insensitive to our way of thinking.

Three years ago during those early coronavirus times, every dumb commercial told us that we were “all in this together” and this was our “new normal.”

Well, we’ve all always been in this together and our new normal is the same as it has always been.  It is what we as a society are willing to accept or encourage.

We accepted the two weeks to break the curve and jabbed a vaccine that did little good.  Now we are learning that it might have done us more harm than good.

Some are still wearing a mask.  Normal?

For years now we have fed the homeless, clothed the homeless, and on cold nights sheltered the homeless.  Prez Biden should whisper, “folks, we have a mental health problem, no joke!”   A few cities even put some up in hotels and charge the taxpayer.  That’ll solve it.

We video fistfights in an attempt to be the first to post them on Instagram.  Why would you attempt to break it up before someone gets seriously hurt when likes and clicks are at stake?  You can’t pray in the classroom but you can video your teacher having to go a few rounds with an aggressive student.

We see countless numbers of videos of in-store mob thefts, see store employees trained to let the culprits go, and have DAs from coast to coast that won’t charge anyone for crimes.  Society’s inaction encourages more of this behavior.  And, more we will get.

We accept that people want their own pronouns.  It’s now “normal” for two genders to have 44 different pronouns.

Some even identify as various animals.  Sounds fine.    No attention seekers.  No mental disorders.  Nothing to see here.

Last week Jane Fonda went on national TV and encouraged people to kill Christians.  Yesterday it happened.   Was that why this happened?

CNN spent half of the day trying to figure out which pronouns to use to describe the sick one that killed six someones.   All 1,459 of their viewers deserve accurate reporting.  This is CNN!

The trans community was supposed to hold a Trans Vengeance Day this weekend.  One started early.

Many pointed out that Tennessee has taken a strong stance against development-blocking meds and early gender reassignment surgery.  Was that why this happened?

He/she/they/them and all of us are wrong when complying.

After his afternoon nap and some drivel about his favorite ice cream, Joe Biden asked Congress to pass that important assault weapon ban bill all over again.  Remember, it’s the guns that kill, not the mentality that we embrace and accept of the shooters that kill people.

We yearn for the good old days of orange-dyed hair, tattoos from head to toe, gauges in lobes, piercings galore, war protests, social injustice, CHAZ, and mostly peaceful protests(but not J6).

One bright spot is that VP Kamala Harris is in Africa this week.  She’s searching the globe to find the root cause of the immigration crisis facing our southern border.

She does identify as she doesn’t she?

 

 

They’ve All Got It Wrong

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In a quest to make you think their side is right, they’ve all got it wrong.

To put it mildly, January 6th, 2021 wasn’t the best day in our country’s history.  We doubt that you need a reminder, but it was what is now called Insurrection Day.

What went wrong leading up to the angry mob entering the Capitol Building, while in the building, and afterward?  Everything.

Then President Trump put himself before the country by denying the election results.  We’re still waiting for credible evidence of that at a level that would be meaningful.

Too many of his followers are followers and not clear thinkers and decided to cross a (fence) line.  Once there, there is no going back.

Trump knew as much and asked Nancy Pelosi days before if she wanted him to activate the National Guard to help with the protest control.  She declined.  Trap set.

Once inside the building, more of them looked like the joggers that ran behind Forrest Gump when old Forrest decided to stop in the middle of nowhere.  Now what? Stupid and harmless.

Did the government actively participate in whipping the crowd into the fervor it took to storm/push/walk casually in?  Was Ray Epps a paid FBI informant?  The select committee of all Democrats plus Liz Cheney says no.  The hard right says yes and supposedly Epps will testify as such in the new House’s investigation.

Have numerous judges doled out sentences for what amounts to trespassing for some participants seem harsh?  When you watch the daily blatant theft and violence that numerous cities now fail to arrest much less prosecute for the answer seems like “hell yes.”

Did the Dem stacked committee shape the story by selectively showing us footage inside?  You bet they did.  It’s called political theater.

Rep Josh Hawley is seen running for his life in the committee’s opportunistic edited video and laughed at for doing so.  It turns out that he was following a crowd, not leading nor acting independently, that was following the police’s command.

The repeated and repeated story that Capitol Police Officer Sicknick was shot and killed during the riot(do you prefer insurgence?) is not true. Footage shows him alive and working through the day.

His family will tell you that the stress that this caused in turn caused him to stroke and die the next day.  That may be the true cause of his passing, and it may not.

Once Kevin McCarthy got the gavel after four failed votes he released all of the thousands of hours of video.  He released it exclusively to Fox Show Host Tucker Carlson. His standing with the far right needed a boost.

Tucker and the team created a two-part special examining the video from his point of view.  Surely his ratings will get a boost, too.

In other words, the Dems hired a former TV producer (yes they did) to help them televise the hearings that weren’t hearings, but the Republicans effectively hired a TV show with a producer to televise what they want you to see and hear.

And, like the minions that they are, the not fair and balanced networks immediately attacked Tucker’s talking points.  They said he omitted the violent confrontations but showed the protester’s calmness once inside.  They’re right.

But, they’re the same ones that have a TV reporter on the ground in St. Louis telling you that the protests are mostly peaceful all the while a now windowless Mickey D’s is ablaze in the background.  And, for that, they are wrong.

Everyone wants to tell you that they’re right because the “other side” is wrong.

See it my way.  See it my way.  It’s the only way.  Otherwise, I’m offended.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Neither do two dozen.

 

 

Trial Balloon

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

The story doesn’t end when the air went pssst from the Chinese Spy Balloon(CSB) late Saturday afternoon.  The story behind the story is really the story.  And, it has just begun.

Journalism 101 teaches that four questions must be answered along the way.  Who?  What?  When?  Where?  It also teaches us that two other questions should be answered as well.  Why?  How?

The American public has few answers.  The American public still has many questions.

First, we pose some serious ones.

Why wasn’t the CSB shot out of the air as it first entered American air space?  Was it for the safety of those below due to the debris field?  The balloon traversed over Alaska first. It doesn’t get much more uninhabited than for long empty stretches of Alaska.

When did American intelligence first know about it?  If it was launched from China’s mainland as was floated(pardon the pun) yesterday then was it close to two weeks ago?

When was President Biden first informed of the CSB?  He was braggadocious telling the eager press yesterday that he “ordered” the military on Wednesday to take it out as soon as they felt it was safe.  How long did it take for him to decide?  And, why?

Would this all have been kept hush-hush until citizens in Montana spotted it and local TV ran with it?  Only Karine Jean Claude Van Damme Pepe Le Pugh Pierre knows and we’re guessing she’ll “have to circle back with us on that.”

Why was it strategically steered to avoid Russia?  This one is easy.  It would have been shot down immediately with the one bullet Putin has left from the war in Ukraine.

Why was it steered to avoid Ukraine?  This one is easy, too.  It would have been shot down immediately by Zelenskyy with one of the millions of bullets we paid for in the war with Russia.

Was the apparatus equipped with transmitting devices?   Did it capture everything it needed by the time it left the South Carolina coast yesterday?  Of course, it was.  And, of course, it did.

Why did we use a missile to obliterate the CSB?  Wouldn’t it be better if the parts weren’t smashed to smithereens and scattered over a seven-mile debris field 45 feet under salt water?

Why cancel Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned trip this week to China?  We blinked.  Sending him over to go face-to-face is stronger than folding your cards.

And, now a few not-so-serious ones.

Would Biden have acted sooner if he knew the balloon was unvaccinated?  Maybe he would have ordered multiple shots.  Boosters too.

Is this the first time in two years that Biden has paid any attention to inflation?

Is Border Czar VP Kamala Harris headed to China to find out the root cause of this border breach?

Did we fear that it was a modern-day Trojan Horse and thousands of Chinese soldiers with parachutes would drop out and invade?

Did the one military general who jokingly suggested that it might be a giant pinata get sent directly to diversity, inclusion, and equality training?

Did the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, endorse the hot air balloon as clean energy travel?  Or, did he call the balloon “racist infrastructure” due to its lily-white color?

Did we even get a chance to learn what pronouns the balloon goes by before it went bye-bye?

It’s better for the mind and the soul to poke fun at this when we take seven days to poke a hole in a spy balloon.

But, seriously, how does China feel about the end result of the trial balloon it floated to test Biden’s strength and resolve?  Mission accomplished.

But, write this down.  On Tuesday, during his State of the Union address, Biden (aka the Big Guy) will take credit for his swift action and strong stance against China.  And, 200-plus members of Congress will stand, cheer, and clap fervently.

It’s all a bunch of hot air.