Politics

Buy Today, Deliver Tonight

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Those “come on” deals always sound so tempting.  You know the ones.

Buy this entire room of furniture today, have it delivered tonight with nothing down, no interest, and nothing to pay until…….

Until.  That’s the rub.  The bills always come due.  And, if you sell your soul to the devil(or Tony Soprano types) they never end.

Do take our word for it, ask POTUS.

He promised it all, or at least his team did, to the left of the left inside of the Democratic Party to get elected.  They wanted that room full of furniture.

So, they took to the streets, lit fires, threw rocks, looted, had mostly peaceful protests, told you that Black Lives Matter, wanted to defund the police for social justice, complained about the rich getting richer, needed tuition debt forgiven, wanted free preschool, and need to end this pesky climate change(hurricanes included) all to get Biden in office.  And it worked in record voting numbers we are told.

All of this unrest when unemployment was at record lows, the stock market was at record highs, interest rates were at record lows, companies building new in America were at record highs, illegal border crossings were at record lows.  We could go on.

But, the Trump world was a terrible one and we need to Build Back Better they said.  And, now the bills are due.

So, with one enormous spending bill followed by another, he’s attempting to pay off the debts of gratitude.  Like hurricanes, each bill had(Covid relief) or has(Infrastructure, Reconciliation) a name to remember it by.

But, a funny thing happened these last several weeks.  Controlling the House, the Senate, and the White House the party in power can’t agree on how much, how fast, when, where, and why.

The further left you are, the more you “need” for all of the minions that elect and reelect and reelect you.

The furniture hasn’t even been delivered yet.  Yet, Bernie Sanders wants to remodel and nearly double the size of the room (5 tril he says).  AOC scoffed at 3.5 tril on the Reconciliation Bill sarcastically asking if this was rent to own by month money.  Nancy Pelosi wants until the end of October to appoint the joint.  She’s trying to get the kids to agree on adding the love seat and dropping out the recliner.

And two Senators (Manchin and Sinema)aren’t sure if we need all of this new free stuff.

One of them, Sinema, made the mistake of getting up from the sofa and heading to the bathroom where she was accosted by malcontents likely hired to act like imbeciles.

Biden said yesterday that all of this stalling was the Republican’s fault. He really did.  He also said that he needed them to get out of the way as our nation’s economy was at stake over this.  He actually may be so wrong about the economy that he is right.

With gas prices at seven-year highs, supply chain issues across numerous industries, food prices skyrocketing, labor shortages everywhere, and the Fed carefully considering when(not if) to raise interest rates perhaps the last thing we need to do is print more money to create more demand and higher costs of living.

At least soon enough we’ll be able to forget about these squabbles over money we don’t have and buy some Christmas presents for our loved ones with money that we don’t have.

On Monday Dr. Fauci said we could have Christmas celebrations this year.  That was a relief because on one of Sunday’s morning shows he said it was too soon to tell if we could gather with our loved ones.

He also said that his comments were taken out of context. His problem is a lot like Urban Meyer’s problem.  Roll the videos.  But, we digress.

For now, the conservatives can tell the woke that we are going broke and the woke can tell the conservatives that our country is broken.

Buy today and we’ll deliver tonight!

 

 

 

A Not So Hairy Recall.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In the 19th-century election ballots were counted by hand. Usually, when the count was first announced, the customary crowd of people that gathered to await the results cheered loudly. Oftentimes, this was a preliminary indication of who would win the election, hence the expression, all over but the shouting.

In California last evening it was over without any shouting.  And, in fact, the recall Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom election ballot was over before it started. BBR’s best guess is that the final tally will be at least 60% against combing back Gavin like his hair to under 40% in favor of a new dude with a new do.  That’s not close, and it never was.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a 2-1 margin these days in the Golden State.  With nearly 40 million residents it’s not too hard to get 1.5 million to sign a recall petition, but it’s really hard to get 51% of a vote when the sitting governor “identifies” the same as 67% of the state’s citizens.

“We said yes to science. We said yes to vaccines. We said yes to ending this pandemic,” said Newsom.  He controls none of that, but never mind.  “Economic justice, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice are values where California has made so much progress.   All of those things were on the ballot this evening,” he added.  That’s a lot of justice.  It makes you wonder why Cali is losing a congressional seat due to an accelerating population reduction even with immigration flowing in.

This brings us to a bevy of questions.  One, did Cali vote against Larry Elders (or anyone not deemed Progressive) or for Gavin Newsom?  Two, did America vote more against Donald Trump or for Joe Biden? If you say you voted for Biden and not against Trump, get some truth serum in your next booster vaccine, please. Three, did America vote against Hillary Clinton more than for Donald Trump?  Likely.  We could continue.

This brings us very prematurely to 2024.   Can America find a candidate that the very polarized public can get behind from both sides?  We HIGHLY doubt it.  The entirety of the process, more than ever before, sets up against it.  Lobbyists, big donor money, PACs, two-party dominance, fractured feelings, and several other major factors all set up against it.

America sees things more black and white than ever before and we aren’t talking about race.  Though, playing the race card is still a, ahem, trump card.  Either you’re with us or you’re against us.  Hatfields and McCoys.  Cowboys and Indians, though you can’t say Indians any longer.  Good cop, no cop.

Hey, how about Rand Paul?

Have you ever listened in detail to his orations?  He identifies as a Republican, but he’s plenty Libertarian.

Yesterday, without malice he took Secretary of State Antony Blinken apart limb by limb over what we did and didn’t do in Afghanistan, knew and didn’t, and what we are going to do, or not about it now.  Like Paul himself, it was a poised, unemotional, educated, evenhanded, intelligent drive down the middle lane.

Unelectable you say?  We agree.  Paul favors a balanced budget, not a ballooning deficit.  Strike one.  He favors independence over dependence on government.  Strike two.   And, three, his hair game ends where Gavin’s begins.  Strike three, you’re out!

Logic is as out of style as a perm on the national scene.  Emotion is all the craze.

Meanwhile back in Cali, Newsom can again dare to depart for the maskless, crazy expensive dinners that he doesn’t dare part his hair for.

After all, a part divides.

Slick.

 

 

 

 

Storm Clouds

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday President Joe Biden warned Americans that time had run out to keep global warming from causing catastrophic weather events in the United States.

“Climate change is real. We’re living through it now. We don’t have any more time,” Biden said.

Ida was the perfect storm for Biden and the Democrats.  It was terrible ripping through Louisiana, but the flooding it caused in the northeast gave Biden the platform to stump not once, but twice, for his left wing’s climate change initiatives. Hammer a red state, bad.  Hammer a blue state or two, hit the campaign trail.

And, how timely, they have hundreds of billions of the 1 trill infrastructure and 3.5 trill budget resolution earmarked for climate change at the ready for passage.

“Every part of the country is getting hit by extreme weather,” Biden said. “We’re now living in real-time what the country is going to look like.”  How many years have forest fires scorched the west in the dry and lightening filled summer? Four?  Or, forever?  Can you help us with how many hurricanes have hit the coast of Louisiana in the last, say, 10,000 years?  And, who knew that heavy rains could cause flooding over the banks of rivers, even in New York and New Jersey?

Biden said powerful hurricanes like Ida and wildfires in the West only proved that climate change was real.  Not really.  It only proved that it’s late summer again.

The next thing you know, some expert will tell us that melting snow from the nation’s heartland will eventually find its way next spring to the Mississippi River and threaten to flood states west and east of it from Iowa clear down to Louisiana yet again.  This happens every spring, doesn’t it?  There is a reason why the richest soil for farmers in America lies in the flooded lands of the mighty Mississippi.

“I think we’re at one of those inflection points where we either act or we’re going to be, we’re going to be in real, real trouble.”  Sometimes Biden is hard to understand with his occasional misspeak, flub, mispronunciation, and/or truncation.   Not this time.  Give me my spending bill or you and your loved ones are going to perish in all of this peril, he says.

Our kids are going to be in real trouble,” Biden said.  We’ll give him this one.  Biden knows a lot about troubled kids.

And he knows a tornado when he sees one.  Not really.  “Looks like a tornado, they don’t call them that anymore,” he said.  “They are wreaking havoc in our nation’s heartland.  Nevada, Iowa, our wetlands, etc,” he stammered.  “We’re in this together.”

US geography may not be a long suit of Joe’s.

Meanwhile back in Afghanistan, it’s not so sunny either.

But if you change the narrative, you can hide behind the clouds.

 

 

Here to Help

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In June of 1971, shortly after a publication of a special message to the Congress on drug abuse, prevention, and control, the American media popularized the term “The War on Drugs.”  Richard Milhouse Nixon declared the problem, as he put it, “public enemy number one.”

By 1973 our government was in such agreement with Nixon on the dire situation of the matter it created the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) to fight this war on any and all fronts.

A decade later cocaine had become so prevalent stateside that Nancy Reagan took the lead of the “Just Say No” initiative.

For crooks in the drug trade during the Reagan years and beyond, prison penalties skyrocketed.  Incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses increased from 50k to over 400k from 1980 to 1987.

A half of a century ago Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon declared war on drugs.  And drugs are as easy to get a hold of today and in many more dangerous and advanced synthetic forms than ever before.  And, the DEA manpower and budget are bigger than ever.

Now we want an early release for nonviolent offenders.

Has our government failed us?  When you throw a lot of money at a big problem and that problem is still staring you in the face today, the obvious answer is yes.

Twenty years ago this 9/11 America was attacked by Al-Qaeda, a broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the 1980s.

Twenty years ago this October America invaded Afghanistan.  Call it the War on Terror if you wish.

Meanwhile, the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, passed by the 107th Congress and signed on November 19, 2001, established Transportation Security Administration(TSA).

We spent the first ten years in Afghanistan looking under rocks for a devil named Osama Bin Laden.  Supposedly.  We spent the last ten nation-building and getting our soldier’s lives and limbs blown away by roadside bombs knows as improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

And, now we’ve come home.  Enough of this never-ending war Joe Biden said.  And, America agrees.

We got “90 percent” of the Americans out that wanted out, he said.   We also left untold numbers of Afghan friendlies to us (interpreters, snitches, and the like.  We left behind helicopters, planes, tanks, humvees, weapons, and ammo that are now in the hand of the very same people we attempted to beat back out of the bushes for two decades.  America disagrees with how we exited, not why.

The Taliban, and its numerous factions of terrorist groups, are in exactly the same spot where we found them.

Two decades and two trillion dollars later we’re in the same spot as well except we got one guy who was so good at hide and seek it took ten years to find him. When you throw a lot of money at a big problem and that problem is still staring you in the face today, the obvious answer is still yes.

How’s the TSA doing you ask?  Its budget is over six times larger than when it was first instituted.  Self-imposed tests by the TSA show a greater than 90% failure rate at stopping dangerous weapons from getting past them.   And, don’t forget to take your shoes off when going through.

At least we’re soon to put some money that we don’t have to good use here at home.  We can fix the nation’s decaying infrastructure for a measly one trillion dollars we are told and sold.

Surely you’ll only see orange cones littering your favorite routes for a short period of time.

The War on Roads and Bridges easily will be completed in a decade or two.

You can see the roadside sign in your head right now, “Your Tax Dollars at Work!”

Can’t you?

 

 

WSJBDN?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

What do a botched departure plan, a George Stephanopolous interview, two disastrous press conferences, and a thrice interrupted vacation all have in common?

That’s an easy one.  They’re all bad acts on the biggest international stage at a time that the brightest lights were shining and the world was watching.  And, they all occurred after the fact.

What fact is that, you ask?  That’s another easy one.  President Joe Biden decided to withdraw the last of the troops before providing all Americans (first), helpful Afghans (second), and journalists (third) a safe passage out of what’s left to Afghanistan is that fact.

With Kabul’s airport looking like Chicago’s O’Hare the day before Christmas in a whiteout blizzard, only the checkpoints to get there look tougher than the United Airlines reschedule flights line.

So, WSJBDN? What should Joe Biden do now?  Well, while you mull that over, realize that Kamala can’t be part of your answer.  She jetted off to Singapore a day ago for unknown reasons and likely unimportant ones as well.  When asked a question upon arrival that she should be plenty prepped for, her nervous laughter is a bad “tell” and makes for a poor poker player.  But, we digress.

What Joe Biden should do now, in between naps, is send roughly another 20k troops back into the occupied for 20 years and counting cesspool that Afghanistan is.  He’s sent 6k back in a mere two weeks after he pulled the last 2.5k out.

If you’re going to do a job, well, git er dun dammit.

You’re already pot committed.  Go all in to get all out.  Get it?  He didn’t get it then, but he desperately needs to now.

Saying that you’re negotiating with the same people you fought against doesn’t cut it.  Saying that you don’t trust them doesn’t cut it.  And, most of all, saying that you aren’t sure that you can provide safe passage out of Kabul for our trapped loved ones doesn’t cut it whatsoever.

Sometimes we’re called Ugly Americans.  At least we used to be.  If nothing else we expect strong confidence and dealing from a position of strength.  We have a weak hand right now.  We look even weaker.  Oh to be called ugly again. Those were the days Archie might say.

Then, when the last travel passport is stamped we can line up the flights for every soldier to head back too, but not before.

Only then can we get back to worrying about green new deals, pronouns of choice, infrastructure that isn’t infrastructure, temporary inflation, the resurrection of the insurrection, and most of all the vaccine passports.

Hopefully, Kamala will be back by then.  Because we could use a good booster shot and a laugh.

And soon.

 

 

Gov Ron Talks Green

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Getting a head start on a 2024 Republican presidential nominee run, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis didn’t have enough time to stop by the CNN World Headquarters yesterday.  But if he did, our guess as to how the Q and A would have gone on one subject that the left incessantly brings to the fore follows.  He gets right to the point for a politician, thankfully.

Governor DeSantis, do you believe in climate change?  And, if you do and are elected, what do you plan to do about it?  

I do believe in climate change and I have my entire life.

Have you ever visited Sedona, Arizona?   First of all, you should.  Sedona is absolutely beautiful.  It’s a well-kept American destination secret that should be on your bucket list.  Sedona has elevation changes in the many thousands of feet.  The desert mountains rapidly change color as the sun sets.  But millions of years ago, there were no mountains there.  An amazing fact is that the mountains are all quite flat on top because they were actually the sea bottom then. The entire area was 100’s of feet underwater. There was no desert there.  In fact, there was no Sedona.  The earth continues to evolve, we’re just uninvited guests sitting on it.

It’s remarkable and but one example of the fact that the climate has always been changing and always will.

Oh, and the sun is actually cooling a bit every day as well, but thankfully for us, it’s going to run pretty hot for a long while.

But, we’re talking about global warming, and Miami falling into the Atlantic, and fossil fuel emissions.

Look, let me get this straight.  Do you want your government to spend trillions of dollars to supposedly do the job now that our government failed to do in the last 100 years?  In other words, tax Americans, or spend money that we don’t have, to fund the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) the U.S. Forest Service (USDA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)?

That sounds like throwing bad money on top of more bad money to way too many agencies.   And, you want to offer great incentives to green new deal companies as well?  How about we let good old capitalism find its way.  If Americans want green they’ll pay for it.  Stop giving away money that we don’t have.

Also, understand this.  America’s carbon footprint is in the shadow of India and China’s.  If you want real change, you need real negotiations with our neighbors who share the planet and belch out several more times the carbon emissions.  Without them, any changes we make are window dressings on an open window.

But, Andrew Yang said last year in the Democratic primaries that we are running out of time and might have only 11 more years to save the planet.

Inventor of the Internet

Yang doesn’t know any more than Al Gore does. Al Gore said the same thing 30 years ago.  He lives in a 7000 sq foot mansion with six ACs.  Do as I say, not as I do.  Yang wants to give away money and is moving the goalposts.  At least Al Gore invented the internet.

What about all of the hurricanes? 

It’s August 2nd and I haven’t heard a peep out of the Gulf yet, have you?

It was 105 degrees in Portland Friday.

Did it slow down the mostly peaceful protests? The rioting? Looting?

Um, thanks for the time Governor. 

Thank you as well.  I’ve got a petroleum-based fueled 737 to catch.

 

This….Is…..CNN

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

CNN is at it again.  Haven’t you noticed?  That’s understandable if you haven’t yet returned to the gym or been through an airport post-Covid.

Yesterday, treadmill humming along, one of our staff members noticed the dreaded Covid new cases reported box firmly entrenched on the right side of their broadcast all over again.  In font normally reserved for DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, the readout showed 17,149 new cases of Covid last week in total and its fast-growing sidekick the Delta variant as the root cause.

The weekly total (17,149) represents a whopping 49% increase week over last week per the second CNN graphic.

“They” say that numbers don’t lie.  And, if you take “they” at their word it breaks down as follows.  Forty-nine percent sounds explosive.  Dog bites man isn’t a story.  Man bites dog is.

However, here is another way of looking at 17,149 new cases.  If you divide the cases into the population in America that we can count (approx 330 mil) your abacas will soon show that it’s about 1 new case for every 20,000 people living on American soil.  Numbers, even small ones, don’t lie.

Then the story took a turn.  Instead of blaming Trump for his poor leadership during the pandemic (he’s no longer in office in case you’ve been away for a bit), the announcers took turns slamming Republicans and Independents for being far less vaccinated than Democrats.   It’s not Biden’s fault now, but it was Trump’s fault then.

But, the funny/sad/confusing/outrageous thing is that the World Health Organization is recommending that all vaccinated adults continue to wear a face mask to minimize the spread.  Hmm.

This all may be news to you as CNN’s ratings, low v. MSNBC and FOX for years, have fallen even further post-election.

For example, 8 pm EST host Chis Cuomo garners only 15% of the three cable news networks’ total viewership.  You remember Cuomo.  He is the self-aggrandizing guy who emerged from his own basement to hug his family on live TV when he had heroically fought off the virus last year.  Fifteen percent viewership is an even deeper basement to climb out of.

But never let facts get in the way of a good narrative.  Enter Dr. Fauci, everyone’s favorite disease specialist.  Yesterday, the good doctor went on national tv and highly recommended that all children unvaccinated, but over the age of two, should wear a mask.  Two.   Good luck.

Fauci is 80 years old.  He may not remember how active two-year-olds were 78 years ago.  Or, today.

With no vaccine approval for ages 2-12 yet, doesn’t this set up well (if you like the narrative) or poorly(if you don’t) for a back-to-school fiasco?

If a teacher’s union or three refused to reenter the classrooms this fall Biden and Co. could fully support them and blame those lousy unvaccinated Republicans.

CNN likely is prepping the story now.

If you’re working out or flying you might even see it.

 

 

Cringeworthy

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Our readers always write.  And, as always, they are right.  BBR has been a bit light.

Words written in the virtual world are down as government stimulus checks are up.  Did Al Gore envision it this way?  Work at home in your pj’s, or better yet don’t work at home and stay in your pj’s.

As the old normal replaces the new normal that replaced the old normal previously, BBR is short-staffed.  Hence fewer articles recently.  We don’t mask our problems so to speak.

Staff decisions we’ve made a few.

One of those was to dispatch or not to dispatch our lead political writer to Geneva to cover the G-7 Summit.  We pondered this knowing that our staff isn’t on Biden’s staff’s shortlist of media to be called upon when he holds what his team calls “press conferences.”

But, funny thing.  There hasn’t been much to cover outside of the occasional times when Biden walks off of the stage in the wrong direction, or when he is scolded by Dr. Jill for not paying attention, etc.  One way to play offense is by playing defense.  Take the air out of the ball and run out the clock when #46 is exposed.

No one in the press is pressing Biden.  The same media that scolded Trump for not having daily press briefings, yet he was ever-present (too often) arm wrestling with the “fake news” fine folks, is ever so patient as Biden has called on them in a prearranged manner.

Trump never met a tough question that his ego told him that he couldn’t or shouldn’t answer, or put a reporter in his/her place.  Biden never meets a tough question.

Have you ever seen a U.S. President more closely guarded and scripted? He even announces out loud, as if he is ashamed of it. “Well, I better stick to the list of names I am supposed to call on, or I’ll get in trouble with my staff.”  Jeez.  There’s no freedom of speech or to choose available even in the highest office in the land.

Lapdog CNN personality Brian Stelter “interviewed” Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki last week.   The interview was mocked by critics on both sides of the political aisle after the CNN host asked her what the media gets wrong when covering the Biden administration while largely avoiding tough questions.

How rare is it in today’s political climate when both sides of the aisle agree on anything?

If Biden and Putin would have held a joint press conference it would have been one hot ticket.  Our working title for the article to follow was “Cringeworthy.”

For now, Biden’s solo post-summit presser, which he began by saying he had just met with Russian President Trump, will have to do.  The ever-doting press quickly pointed out that Biden quickly corrected himself.  We don’t need to change the title after all, thereby saving a virtual tree.  It’s all cringeworthy.

Of course, we’ll need someone to get out of bed to write it, which is another story altogether.

 

 

Hey Big Spender!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Dr. Fauci and the CDC have spent a year hard at work.  And, thanks to their great efforts now you can go back to work and pay some taxes.

Actually, Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson have spent a year hard at work, not your government, but we digress already.

But, now your government is hard at work attempting to spend more money that we don’t collect in taxes.  Actually, they have always been hard at work spending money that we don’t have.  US debt in 1990 was 3 trillion bucks.  By 2000 it was $6 trillion.  In 2010 it reached $12 trillion.  In 2020 it raced to $27 trillion.  And, by year’s end 2021 we’ll cross $29 trillion at a minimum.

Do you see a pattern of behavior from the math above?  Of course, you do.   But, notice that doubling the debt every decade is out of style.  If it were still in style the figure for 2020 would be $24 trillion.  But add another $5 trillion to that as well.

But wait, there’s more.

It’s the golden rule.  He who has the gold makes the rules.  Except in the American government, it’s the power rule.  He who has the power makes the rules.  And, they propose the budget.  Or, we should say they write the spending bills?

President Biden, aka The Big Spender, has proposed a $2.7 trillion infrastructure spend.  And, almost $700 billion of it has to do with infrastructure as you know it.  The rest is pork.  Green New Deal like pork.  Far-left pork.  You have to feed the hungry minds that got you there.

And, the Republicans are outraged.  “Way too much,” they say.  And, after a $700 billion counter from them, Biden countered at $1.7 trillion.  How so very nice of both of them to offer to spend less of what we don’t have.  And, now?  And, now both sides seem to be willing to dance at about $1 trillion.  How so very nice of them, we repeat.

The Republicans refuse to budge on the 2017 individual and corporate tax cuts as a bargaining chip to agree to $1 trillion.  Swell.  We’re ok to spend more, we’re just not ok to approve paying for it.  It’s not hard to understand why they are the minority party.  Mitch McConnell couldn’t sell bourbon to his Kentucky constituents.

Seems like Biden, aka The Great Compromiser, is willing to drop a few dimes off of the human infrastructure part(s) of the infrastructure deal.  What’s human infrastructure, you ask?  Really, it’s just a fancy way of saying pork, but not saying pork.

Notice, both sides of the aisle are ready to spend.  It’s only a matter of how much and when.

But, wait, there’s even more.

This AM The NY Times breaks a story, surely leaked by the Biden team, that his 2022 budget calls for $6 trillion in spending.  The 2021 spending side of the budget (a misnomer if we ever heard one) sits at a fat $4.8 trillion.

So, what do you say we ask Congress for a teeny itty bitty 25% increase in government spending?  Most year-over-year asks come in along the lines of the cost of living increases (roughly 2-4%).  Can’t you hear them?  “This isn’t the time to cut back, we’re coming out of a pandemic.  People are hurting.”  When is a good time?  We wonder?

The Democrats are always a step ahead.  While you’re debating the infrastructure, we’ll propose breaking the bank with next year’s spend.  By the time Congress gets to the budget,  the White House will propose, oh, say, that DC becomes a state?

It’s the largest proposed increase since WWII.

And, we’re not even at war.

At least, we’re not at war with another country, just our own.

 

 

Follow the Political Science

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

“Follow the science,” we were told by our political leaders.  “Ok,” we mostly replied.

“It’ll be two weeks to flatten the curve,” we were promised.  “Sounds good,” we begrudgingly replied.

“Two masks are better than one,” the power-hungry cried.  “Go to hell,” all but the most obedient sighed.

“No real change can occur until we can have the masses vaccinated,” came the disappointing announcement.  “Ugh,” we collectively uttered.

And, after a year and counting, last week the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that the science now provided a comfort level for them to make a proclamation.   People fully vaccinated against Covid-19 do not need to wear masks or practice social distancing indoors or outdoors, the director of the CDC announced Thursday.

“If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House Covid-19 briefing. “We have all longed for this moment when we can get back to some sense of normalcy.”
Calling it an “exciting and powerful moment,” Walensky said the science supports the updated CDC guidance.
But the science must not apply in Washington DC.  At least not yet.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy introduced a resolution to update the House’s mask policies in light of the CDC’s revised guidelines.  McCarthy introduced H. Res. 414, a privileged resolution that would direct Congress’s Attending Physician to update the House’s mask policies in light of the updated guidelines on masks.

Why is the resolution privileged?  Isn’t everything in DC privileged?  We digress.  Who knew Congress had an attending physician?  Isn’t everyone in Congress privileged?  We digress again.

Democrats blocked the resolution to update the House’s mask policies straight down partisan lines, with 218 votes cast against vs 210 Republicans voting in favor.

Not one Democrat followed the science.  Not one Republican disagreed with the science.  Amazing?  No.  Shameful?  Yes.

Resolution co-authors, along with McCarthy, released the following as part of their full statement after the vote.

After a year of lockdowns and restrictions, Americans are yearning for normalcy, and we should celebrate the progress the vaccines have helped us achieve in just a few months.

Vaccinated Americans should have the confidence to return to their pre-pandemic routines, and the federal government should help reinforce trust in the vaccine. This should start with our leadership in Congress. That is why we are calling on Speaker Pelosi to stop politicizing science as a personal vendetta against her political opponents. Instead, she should adopt the same mask guidance from the CDC, which the White House and Senate are using as the basis for their protocols.

As elected officials, we have a responsibility to send a message to the American people that we believe in the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

In other words, that same science that we followed at the outset of this pandemic should be followed now.
“The Speaker’s reluctance to trust the science will only help to sow distrust in the vaccines,” the Republicans concluded in their statement.
In other words, if you can’t trust the CDC’s recommendation on masks, why should you trust the recommendation to get vaccinated?  Sixty-three percent of Americans haven’t been vaccinated yet.
Last week BBR published the results of the Rasmussen Poll that asked Americans how much longer should we continue to wear masks.  If you recall six percent said indefinitely.   Was Speaker Pelosi one of those in that six percent polled?
No, she and her 217 followers in Congress were not.
They love watching the polls though.  Political polls.  Always.
We’re guessing one shows that a good bit of their vaccinated base isn’t quite ready to shed their baby blanket, er, mask.
Maybe it is about science after all.  Political science that is.