covid19

Less Carbon, More Vax, Way More Money

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

“Follow the science,” we’ve been urged to do over and over.  We wonder if that should mean “follow the money,” though.

For example, yesterday, John Podesta, the senior adviser to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, said with a straight face from the White House podium, “We have cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about.”

One, global carbon emissions are up.  Two, how does a trillion-dollar spending bill reduce inflation?  Three, at least he admitted the reduction act is all about spending on his and Al Gore’s favorite pet projects.

Who pays for the above?  You.

As another example flash back to 2021.  Anthem/Blue Cross/Blue Shield had a COVID-19 Vaccine Provider Incentive program.  Dr. Robert Malone obtained a copy of it and dropped it on Twitter last week.  It provides documentation of what many have believed to be going on with physicians’ and hospitals’ obsession with administering unlicensed medical products which have proven neither safe nor effective.

Anthem/BlueCross/Blue Shield was offering docs and hospitals money per administered jab to its members. For example, if 30% of the participating office’s Anthem patients got one vaccine, the doc got a $20 bonus per member.  This increased rapidly all the way up to $125/patient if 75% rolled up their sleeve. This bonus opportunity ended on 9/1/21.

But if you got a new patient to get vaxxed(it wasn’t and still isn’t a vaccine) between 9/1 and 12/1/21 you got $100/patient for 30% and $250 per lemming for 75% participation.

Remember when you were told the vax was free?  The government paid pharma for each shot, and your indebtedness (the government) went up.  Meanwhile, insurance companies were incentivizing free injections.  Who pays for insurance inevitably?  You.

And you wonder why Ivermectin was labeled horse medicine only?  No incentive, no Ivermectin.

And for the piece de resistance, how about we bury CO2?

Louisiana will receive $603 million in Department of Energy grant funding to create a direct air capture hub in Calcasieu Parish.   Huh?  Dubbed Project Cypress the direct air capture hub will attempt to pull more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide annually directly from the atmosphere and sequester it deep underground, according to the Department of Energy.

Talk about climate change.  What possibly could go wrong?

It’s not nice to fool with mother nature.  Hey, but at least it’s supposed to create  2300 jobs. Who pays for those jobs?  You.

Joe Biden has done all of this for us.  Yet, he claims to have reduced the debt by $1.7 billion, or trillion, or million, depending on his misspeak du jour, since he took office.  And, wait, there’s more. He’s done that, yet not raised taxes on anyone making under 400k annually per his campaign pledge, he says.

That’s damn near a Houdini act.  You wonder if he could make the CO2 go away all by himself.

What does, “You’ve blinded me with science,” mean?

Fall is near.  Have you been boosted recently?  It’s free.

 

 

 

 

Wouldn’t You Like To Be?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Believe it or not, Barry Manilow was the original singer of the very popular Dr. Pepper commercial jingle that had the refrain “I’m a pepper he’s a pepper she’s a pepper we’re a pepper wouldn’t you like to be a pepper too?” back in the late 1970s.

Fast forward to the early 2020s and your US government is singing the very popular jingle “I’m a victim he’s a victim she’s a victim we’re a victim wouldn’t you like to be a victim too?”   

Don’t believe it?  Consider a few examples.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was asked yesterday if her gender and race had anything to do with her getting trounced in her mayoral bid for a second term.  She explained away her Tuesday election loss as a result of her being a “Black woman in America.”  She’s a victim.

If there were any credible journalists left in America the follow-up should have been, “then how did you get elected the first time with over 50% of the vote if everyone is so prejudiced?   Tuesday she garnered a miserable 17%.  Was crime on the ballot?

Chicago’s crime rates on serious offenses (murder up 59% for example) and overall crime (up 33%) skyrocketed under her watch.

She talked negatively of the police.  She recommended that vendors have no cash.  She told retailers to hire private security.  They aren’t the victims of the crimes perpetrated.  She made the perpetrators the victims.

When caught only 1900 of the last 20,000 felonies charged in Chicago have been prosecuted.  The other 18,100 dismissed must be victims of the system.

You’re a victim of a worldwide pandemic.   As a victim, Congress and President Trump enacted temporary SNAP enhanced allocations in March 2020 as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act to “address temporary food needs” during the pandemic.

Temporary has lasted three full years.  Never mind that unemployment has been at a multi-decade low for the last 18 months.  Don’t forget your “free” shots and boosters aplenty to avoid another such disaster.

Can’t pay your federal student loan debt?  No worries, you were a victim of signing up for the money to begin with.  Uncle Joe wants to forgive you to the tune of 10k a person immediately costing taxpayers over 400 billion in the process.  Who reads the fine print saying that you have to pay it back anyways?

You would be a better reader but were neglected by not having access to preschool.  We could get “free” preschool if big corporations would just pay their fair share.  Can anyone define what “fair share” means?  Government can.  It means more.

Is climate change disproportionately affecting you and yours?  Relax.  The Inflation Reduction Act is here to help.  Huh? What’s in a name anyway?

And, you’re a victim of slavery even today.  Never mind that no one alive, nor their parents, owned slaves or were slaves.  Let’s get those reparations rolling. Don’t worry about who qualifies and how.  Just identify as being wronged and big brother will make it right.  Elizabeth Warren is rechecking her 23andMe results.

The government is here to help, always.  Unfortunately, that dependency creates a culture that perpetuates itself.

Actually, the government feeds off of feeding you.

How about a chicken in every pot?

Surely our trusted government can get those hens cranking out eggs again and soon.

You can depend on it.  Or, choose to not.

 

Good Night Everyone

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

John Fetterman stumbled and bumbled through his debate last evening with Dr. Oz for the Pennsylvania Senate seat.  At least he has an excuse.  If his family, friends, and for that matter the DNC had a conscience, they would follow the science.

Speaking of doctors and following the science, Joe Biden, the CDC, and the NIH seem to be stumbling and bumbling with this pesky covid 19 pandemic.

It started about a year ago right now when the President, who stumbles and bumbles a bit himself, said, “For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm.”  Looking back that seems overstated.

By June of this year, he was promoting a safe vaccine for children ages five and under.

The President then pivoted in a 60 Minutes interview in early September. “We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.”

And, yesterday, in remarks on Covid, before he rolled up his sleeve for yet another booster he said, ” Americans have a choice as to how bad COVID-19 could be this winter.”  He also warned, yet again, that more people are likely to die.    Maybe we aren’t in pretty good shape?

Giving a boost to the booster effort he continued, “It’s incredibly effective, but the truth is, not enough people are getting it,” Biden said.  “Now we need a shot just once a year.

Noticeably absent was CDC Director Rochelle Walensky from the group gathered to support Biden and his remarks.   Last Friday night the good Dr. Walensky tested positive for COVID-19.  She is up to date with her vaccines.  Consistent with CDC guidelines, she is isolated at home.

Remember, it’s incredibly effective.

Dr. Anthony Fauci was behind the President and smiling from ear to ear.  He misses the spotlight ever so much.  With Cuomo and Lemon off of CNN at night and Rachael Maddow seldom seen on MSNBC most evenings now, his path to a live camera to tell us “I am the science” is tougher.

Will Dr. Oz defeat Fetterman in two weeks?  If he does, the Senate is one big step closer to Republican control.

And, if they get that control, another good doctor will find a path to a live camera.  Dr. Rand Paul promises a full Senate investigation by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions into the origin, treatment, payouts, and results of the last three years of the virus and the subsequent billions of jabs to save us all.

Susequently, that will get Dr. Fauci plenty of the live air time he covets whether he wants it then, or not.

“Goodnight everyone,” Fetterman said as the debate began last evening.

Kudos to him for stumbling into correctly reading the exhausted American psyche.

We’re all looking for a few good nights right about now.

 

 

Taking the Bad With the Good

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

So there’s bad news, more bad news, and even more bad news, and good news. Then there’s bad news and good news.  Which do you want first?

Ah, yes.  Understood.  Let’s get most of the bad out of the way first to get on to sunnier days.

The first bit of the bad is that those long lines that you’re standing in to get tested for Covid -19’s latest variant Omicron aren’t going to get shorter anytime soon.  New cases have exploded to surpass the previous highs of the late Spring of 2020.

And when you finally get to the front of the line and assuming they haven’t run out of test kits, the results might not be accurate so says the FDA.  “Covid-19 antigen tests may be less capable of detecting the fast-spreading Omicron variant,” the Food and Drug Administration cautioned on Tuesday.

If you test negative but exhibit the symptoms, stay home they ask.  Sure.

The new warning is based on preliminary studies by the National Institutes of Health’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative using patient samples with the live virus — analysis that “represents the best way to evaluate true test performance in the short-term,” according to FDA.

The good news is that help is on the way.  The Biden administration has signed a $137 million contract with a pharmaceutical company for the purpose of building a factory for COVID-19 test strip materials, a White House official confirmed yesterday.

But it’s going to take a while.  The new facility will not start churning out the materials for three years, according to the company.  Never mind that the administration is under fire for reportedly rejecting a deal in October that would have strongly ramped up the supply of COVID tests available now.  Remember, Biden always says, get vaccinated, NOW!  Maybe his new command will be, “Get tested, LATER!”

Of course, the bad news is that the three-year timeline also signals that the administration expects the need for tens of millions of such tests per month into 2024 or 2025 and beyond.

So, Covid-19 has plans to have a sixth and seventh sequel called Covid-24 and Covid-25?  How many Friday the Thirteenth’s can you watch?

At least $137 million is cheap money for such non-entertainment in these inflationary times.

Further, the multi-department cooperation by our government is heartening.  The Department of Defense issued a press release stating that it had awarded the contract in coordination with the Department of Health and Human Services.  It was funded through the American Rescue Plan Act.

Got that?  Government red tape never has supply chain issues.

The White House inked the agreement with MilliporeSigma, a subsidiary of German firm Merck KGaA, not to be confused with U.S. company Merck & Co.

“The money will allow the company over three years to build a new facility to produce nitrocellulose membranes, the paper that displays test results, in Sheboygan, Wisconsin,” the outlet reported. “That, in turn, will allow for 85 million more tests to be produced per month.”

Well, at least that’s some good economic news for Wisconsin.  After the Kenosha riots that never should have happened, the subsequent trial that never should have happened, and the SUV in Waukesha that ran down its citizens at a parade, they could use a dose of good news.

And, based on the above we could use another dose or two from Pfizer to boost our spirits as well.

 

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Life

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Like Joe Biden, the BBR staff took the last several days off for vacation.  Biden went to Camp David, while BBR went through the deep and mid-south on a trip to nowhere.  Nuggets await you.

  1. Speaking of a trip to nowhere, American citizens yesterday were told in writing as a response to their formal request to be airlifted out of Afghanistan, and reinforced by a noncommital verbal answer from Press Secretary Jen Psaki, that their exit from the tumult could not be guaranteed by 8/31 nor guaranteed that it could be done safely.  The words shameful and pitiful come to mind.
  2. Has anyone seen the most unpopular VP in decades recently?  Anyone?  Maybe the official Border Fixer Czar is toiling down on the Rio Grande?  Buehler?
  3. The USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy are being prepared for deployment “as needed to assist potentially overwhelmed communities with acute patient care,” Jonathan Rath Hoffman, assistant to the defense secretary for public affairs, said during a news conference today at the Pentagon.  Actually, that was on 3/18/2020.  Do we need them again?  Actually, we didn’t need them then.  So far no governors, including the ones from California and New York that asked 17 months ago, have inquired.
  4. Of course, those two might be too busy seeking their own comfort and asking for mercy for other reasons.  The NY governor resigned a week ago after claiming that his Italian heritage was partially to blame for his inability to keep his hands and thoughts to himself.   The Cali gov is taking on water in a recall election and may need his own lifeline.
  5. What is going to be needed to assist potentially overwhelmed communities with acute patient care is progress on vaccine compliance.  And, we aren’t speaking on the need for all to get jabbed a time or three.  We’re speaking of the state, local, or medical community’s insistence on health care workers getting poked, poked, and poked.  The backlash is real, growing, and about to explode.  Doctors and nurses, like Intel chips and potato chips, will soon be in even shorter supply in certain areas of the country as they walk out, quit, or move.
  6. If a nurse wants to move to Phoenix one hospital chain announced opportunities that pay $5,500 per 48-hour workweek starting immediately.  You read that right. If you like your nurse you can keep your nurse. Not.  It’s estimated that between 70-75% of the medical professionals in NY are or plan to get vaccinated.  It’s a dry heat.
  7. One baseball adage is that the baseball always finds the weak link on the team.  Gas prices, border crisis, crime waves, Afghanistan missteps, etc.  Hey, how’s the covid thing coming along?  Oh, it’s not Biden’s fault?  Of course, it isn’t.  Back then it wasn’t Trump’s either, but the media put it on him and he put some of it on himself.  Now, it’s the Republicans who won’t mask up, or needle up. Or, the media just calls it Texas and Florida.  It’s never too early to start discrediting DeSantis, is it?
  8. How will the narrative metastasize when the northern states go back to school (and the weather sends everyone indoors more often) and they light up as well?  Queue the “we need all Americans to get a booster” battle cry.  If one was good, and two was better, a third will make it best.  You can expect the CDC to announce any day now that anyone who got shot #2 more than eight months ago should get a booster.
  9. What percent compliance is reasonable to expect for a third shot?  The guess here is that no more than half of the vaccinated will go the booster route.  So while the noise loudens for complete vaccination, will the noise crescendo against it simultaneously?
  10. How will those states, counties, and cities that will require a vaccine passport enforce it?  If you have a two-shot vaccine passport it’s good till eight months after your last shot?  It will be like walking into a 7/11 store.  “You must be born after 8/18/2000 to be able to purchase cigarettes.”  Maybe CVS can start stamping the passport like when you leave for France.  All aboard.

Buckle up.  The fun is just starting.

Yesterday’s Questions, Today’s Thoughts

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Questions we had a few.  Fifteen actually.  That was so yesterday.

Thoughts, we have a few.  Today.  Five only.

But first a request.   BBR management has been actively seeking council both from the medical and legal community with concerns for our loyal reader’s safety.  As a result, beginning 8/1 it is our policy that we respectfully must require you to be masked when visiting this website.  Advances in internet interaction have reached a point where concerns about the ability of our virtual community to spread the dreaded Covid-19 or its variants are real.  Al Gore is both proud and saddened at this development.  Thank you for ensuring your safety and the safety of others.

We have a few observations.

  1. President Barrack Obama and his foundation joined forces to promote NBA Africa.  In a joint statement, the league and Obama look forward to promoting equality, wellness, social reform, and opportunity on the continent.  The NBA took it a step further by awarding the Obama Foundation a minority ownership position in NBA Africa.  That all sounds hunky-dory.  We wonder when Obama will use the enhanced pulpit (as if he needed an enhanced one) to denounce the NBA’s romance with and of Communist China.
  2. Eighteen Republicans signed on for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure Senate bill sight unseen. The needed 60 votes are there.  The bill actually hasn’t even been written yet.   The country’s debt is $30 trillion and counting.  The infrastructure bill will inevitably have as much to do with pork for representative’s pet projects as it will coast-to-coast infrastructure.
  3. One of our staff members is often asked what the difference between conservatives and Republicans is.  The answer in part is that no true conservative would vote for the above measure for a multitude of reasons.  Leading the charge is the biggest spending RINO(Republican In Name Only) of all, Mitch McConnell.  Lapdogging at his heels are Bill Cassidy, Lindsey Graham, and Mitt Romney.  Conservatives should and will vote against these bloviated elephants in their next bid for reelection.  Incumbents rarely lose in primaries.  We are in rare times.
  4. Since when does a vaccine need to be administered to 100% of the population for it to be effective?
vac·cine
vakˈsēn
noun
a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease.
      5. President Joe Biden used a visit to a Mack Truck facility in Pennsylvania on Wednesday to roll up his sleeves and assert solidarity with the workers, telling                them “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man.” He offered no evidence to support the boast.  Should we call this a gaffe?  Or, an outright lie?  Does it matter?
In the movie The Karate Kid, did Mr. Miyagi tell Daniel Son, “wax on, wax off,” or was it “mask on, mask off?”  TGIF is only 15 hours away.

 

Dinner Is Served

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Guess who’s coming to dinner? Well, the answer depends if you are talking about short-term or long-term.

In the short run, it should be your family and close friends.

In the long run, it could be your new neighbors.

Should be, we said, family and friends in the short term.  But, the honorable Dr. Fauci weighed in on Sunday.  “It’s still not OK” to gather indoors. He cited the “level of infection” as “still really disturbingly high.”

“So, if you’re not vaccinated, please get vaccinated as soon as vaccine becomes available to you, and if you are vaccinated, please remember that you still have to be careful and not get involved in crowded situations, particularly indoors where people are not wearing masks,” he stated.

“And for the time being, until we show definitively that a person who’s vaccinated does not get this subclinical infection and can spread to others, you should also continue to wear a mask.”

Who knew?  Now the vaccinations might not work.  All of this free government advice (coercion) comes from a man who just over a year ago said wearing a mask was not necessary.

But if you can wait for the $2.5 trillion infrastructure bill, which has little to do with infrastructure, to pass you could invite your new neighbors over for some indoor mask-wearing chow time.   Neatly tucked inside of the bloated bill is a measly $20 billion designed to turn current single-family dwelling neighborhoods upside down.

You’ve heard of Section 8 housing, haven’t you?  Stated simply, if you don’t have enough income to afford a certain home or apartment for rent, the government will provide the difference based on income or lack thereof qualifications.  The new bill would take that concept into a neighborhood near you.

The infrastructure bill, also known as the American Jobs Act, would remove the zoning that exists for single-family homes across the nation and allow tear-downs of them to build multi-unit apartments next to them or to convert existing single-family homes into multi-family dwellings.  Anywhere, anytime.

What a concept it is.  The government hands out money.  Jobs are created in the construction industry.  Landlords get paid.  Renters get better housing in any neighborhood of their choosing.  Corporations get taxed at a higher rate to pay for some of this plan.    Consumers pay more for what corporations make. Debt continues its climb.  And, you get new neighbors and plenty of them.

Viola!  Easy peasy.  No wonder it’s called the American Jobs Act.

And, now you can have all of the new neighbors that you want, or don’t want, over for dinner.  Hell, throw a block party.

The fact that we don’t choose our neighbors (and now not our neighborhood either) doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be good neighbors.

Invite Dr. Fauci too.  But, insist that he wear a mask, dammit.

 

$pring Break

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In case you missed it, and we hope you did, the University of California, Davis offered its students $75 to not travel during spring break.

How so very thoughtful of them.  Let’s break it down.

They used mom and dad’s tuition money and gave it to mom and dad’s kids to get in an attempt to control the kid’s actions.

Does that sound at all like the government taking your tax dollars and then spending them in any fashion they deem necessary in an attempt to control your everyday life?  Stay home, we have $1400 on the way as a minuscule part (9%)  of the $1.9 trillion we just spent.

Power is a drug more powerful than any approved COVID-19 vaccine.  Control is the by-product high.

What better way to enjoy the $60k tuition school year is there?  Hey kids, listen up.  How about we have virtual classes and a virtual spring break?

Some other colleges, including The Universities of Michigan, Tennessee, and Baylor amended their calendars to do away with spring break altogether.

The predictable responses are flowing from the CDC and the honorable Dr. Fauci almost as fast as the beer from the taps of the millions that ignore them.

“Last year at this time spring break travel may have led to the super spread of the virus,” says a Ball St study.  Dr. Fauci said yesterday, “this is no time to let your guard down based on what may happen.”   May.

“The behavior of Americans in the months of March and April will be critical in preventing another surge,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month.  Who knew that the CDC had a flying Walensky?  But we digress.

Next thing you know they’ll be telling us there are variant strains that will require us to, well, nevermind.

Speaking of flying, the TSA screened 1.3 mil and 1.2 mil passengers this past Friday and Saturday, a sure sign that Americans and spring breakers are moving on with their lives.

If you are/were somewhere between the ages of 18-22, what would you do?  You could take the $75 bucks that your parents paid the school.  Or you could go risk it all on a beach chasing fun in the sun with a 99.99999% chance that even if you contract the virus you’ll dispense of it as quickly as you got it.

Or, you could take the $75 and still fill the Volkswagen love van with petro and drive to the beach.  Ah hah.  Who said education doesn’t pay?

Remember when we needed to shut down for two weeks to slow the spread?  That was a year ago.

California, home of Cal Davis, is still mostly shut down.  How’s that working out?

For Gavin Newsom not so well.   He felt free to move about while instituting the lockdown and now he might get ousted.

Remember, feel free to stay home as long as you like.

And, you used to feel free to go to the beaches as well.