kamalaharris

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.

 

 

 

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?

 

 

Happy Shwanza and New Year, Part 2

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday we laid out the way the first half of 2023 will go.  Today we tackle the last half.  The glass is half full.

July

Prez Biden celebrates our nation’s independence on July 4th with a socially distanced, mask-wearing picnic on the WH lawn.  He reminds America that he was one of the original signers of the Declaration back in 1776.  Aaron Judge suffers a torn patella tendon rounding third on his 49th HR trot, ending the Yankees season and his chase for the single-season all-time record.  One hundred and seventy-five billion in, Zelenskyy gives Biden a stiff arm as China agrees to rebuild Ukraine for considerations TBD.

August

Bette Midler fills in for vacationing WH Press Secretary Joy Behar and actually sings her inept responses.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott files paperwork with the US Government announcing the state’s intent to secede from the country.  Marc Zuckerberg resigns from FB and joins Elon Musk at Twitter sending the lib community into mass hysteria.  Back in March, the National Weather Service predicted 21 named storms by 8/31.  To date, only two have been named.  Kamala says, “climate change is all about climate change and climate change is so bad that it is preventing storms from being formed in this climate.”

September

The San Diego Padres end the MLB season with 111 victories and secure home-field throughout the playoffs.  AOC intros a bill to change Labor Day’s name.  She says, “it’s misogynistic to people who identify as having given birth.”   Tom Brady makes his debut as starting quarterback for the Las Vegas Raiders.  LeBron James tells Cleveland, “I’m coming home for the third time” as the Lakers work out a trade with the Cavaliers for him.  23andMe outs Pete Buttigieg as Pee Wee Herman’s nephew.

October

Canadian PM Trudeau signs a bill banning all guns in Canada.  Stacy Abrams is appointed as Georgia State Election Commissioner.  She pledges to count every vote cast in the great state at least once.  The Houston Astros defeat The NY Mets four games to two and are back-to-back WS Champions.  The buzz in H Town is louder than the one Jose Altuve never wore.  All J6 prisoners are freed when video surfaces of a high-eye-browed Nancy Pelosi saying it was her greatest ruse ever.  Home Depot severs its association with Paul Pelosi the next day saying Nancy’s revelation was like getting hit over the head.

November

Canadian geese no longer migrate and overrun Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.  The FBI finally releases the last of the JFK files.  They are heavily redacted but have the names Carlos Marcello, Lucky Luciano, and Giuseppe Magliocco up, down, and all around the documents.  Mitch McConnell announces that he had corrective Lasik surgery.  Trading in shares of eyeglass maker companies was halted on Wall St for the remainder of the day.

December

Joe Biden formally announces for 2024.  He beamed, ” Yes, I am running for a second term as Vice President.  Much has been done, but is much is, um, is, well you know the deal man.”  Putin invades Poland with the three tanks he has left.  A ceasefire is proclaimed the next day.  Biden vows to rebuild all of Poland and sends Kamala over there to announce the aid.  She opens her remarks, “It’s so great to be here at the North Pole.”  Santa shakes his head but saddles up the reindeer and rolls the sleigh a day early to beat the next bomb cyclone.

 

We have a lot to look forward to.  See you next year!

 

 

It Says Here

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Someone never once said, “Opinions are like fingers.  Most everyone has ten.”

  1.  It says here that the nontransitory inflation that was called transitory led to the recession that is no longer called a recession.  Biden told us so yesterday and then refused to take any questions on the word salad game his administration is playing.
  2. It says here that these word games serve no positive purpose other than leading the less informed down the wrong rabbit hole.  Remember in 20 years or less we got from “abortion” all of the ways to “woman’s reproductive rights,” a misnomer if ever there was one.  A few stops along the way included pro-choice, woman’s health, and women’s wellness.
  3. It says here that Joe Manchin is the savviest politician in Washington DC.  And, that is saying something.  West Virginia, are you watching?
  4. It says here that the Dems and a dozen and a half Republicans gave away 52 billion yesterday to the American chip manufacturers.  Fifty-two billion hardly is a blip on the screen when 800 billion went to green deals, West Virginia, subsidized health care, and more.
  5. It says here that calling the bill the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 takes conviction.  You have to be a skilled and indifferent liar to stand at a podium and tell America that the handouts will reduce inflation.
  6. It says here that Hunter Biden’s laptop content is going to get much more attention from the mainstream press after the November midterms.  If a red wave comes ashore, the “Big Guy,” aka Joe Biden is neutered.  Dems will officially begin the campaign to replace him before the campaign.
  7. It says here that the Democrats have to have two things happen to keep the White House in 2024.  One, Joe can’t get the nomination.  And, two, Trump must get the nomination.
  8. It says here that with 75% of polled Democrats saying that Biden should not run for reelection that behind the curtains a think tank is playing out and polling out alternatives.  Think Buttigieg, Newsom, etc.  Thankfully, don’t think Beto again.  Abbott will use him to mop the floor this fall.
  9. It says here that Kamala Harris’ obedience will need to be in hand to have this occur.  She was a lapdog in Cali before, so she does understand the commands.  Speaking of word salad, no one can match her jibberish.
  10.  It says here that the weekend is upon us.  It might be a good idea for one of our staffers (and maybe you) to turn off Fox, CNN, and MSNBC and enjoy the heat wave.

An SPF of 50 or more is recommended.

What’s in a Name?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s business as usual in Washington DC.  Except, unfortunately, it’s not business it’s government.

Falling one “yea” shy for over a year on the bloated Build Back Better boondoggle, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer negotiated directly with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va to no longer fall one vote shy.

So, without further adieu and with inflation running at a half-a-century high, the Senate will use a back door tactic to get around filibustering and present to you the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

What’s in a name?  “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet,” wrote William Shakespeare.

In this instance that which we call yet another spending bill would smell just as rotten to those who are willing to read all about it.  You see, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has nothing whatsoever to do with combating the pain you feel at the grocery store or the gas station.

It’s the third wild spending bill in 18 months as the country stands at $30 trillion in debt and counting geometrically.  We printed money, gave it away, and devalued the dollar making us chase products and services with more dollars.  That’s inflation.

Rather than risking more inflation with trillions in new spending, this bill will cut the inflation taxes Americans are paying, lower the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, and ensure our country invests in energy security and climate change solutions,” Manchin said.

One, someone needs to stick a microphone under Manchin’s chin and ask what “inflation taxes” mean.

Two, the unaffordable Affordable Care Act just got more expensive for those who pay for it.

Three, it’s a slimmed-down version of the Green New Deal, but it is by no means slim unto itself.   At least the summer heat wave will go away, won’t it?

But wait, this comes with a corporate tax increase and a minimum corporate tax as well.  Doesn’t that make it a pay-for-itself bill?

“It will ensure that the biggest corporations and the wealthiest few pay their fair share,” Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic lawmakers.  Can someone define “fair share for us?”  Tax laws are tax laws. Fair is in the eye of the beholder, period.

So, we just increased taxes on businesses.  Do you know how businesses will offset those increased tax burdens?  They’ll increase their prices to maintain their bottom lines.  That means you pay more.

The Inflation Reduction Act will cause more inflation.  What’s in a name?

It doesn’t sound so rosy anymore, does it?

Didn’t Romeo and Juliet have a tragic ending?

Basic Common Sense

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

One of our short order cooks(staffers) decided to take an unannounced 7 day trip to Florida last week.  Regrettably, this left us short-handed, and BBR went dark for the week.

However, our chef is back.  And in short order we’ve got some ready-to-consume nuggets below.  They’re filled with facts, opinions, and some spicy satire sauce as you like them.

  1.  Having not flown in a quick three years, we learned quickly when we did that some things don’t change.  Does the TSA work for the government, or do they work for us?  The correct answer is us.  We are the government.  We pay them to work for us.  Rude, indifferent, commanding, demanding, disorganized, and sloppy are words that come to mind to describe the power-tripping men and women in the blue unis.  It’s a thankless job and because of how they perform it no one will say thanks.
  2. It’s a special treat to hear one of them barking to the minions waiting in line the commands about what to do and not do.  They are hard to understand to begin with, but the monotone delivery is even less effective from behind one of those temporary light blue masks. There are so many ways to more effectively communicate than this rabbit hole that we’ve jumped down for the last 20 years.
  3. Did you know that the legislative branch of our federal government is the only branch that creates federal law?  It is.  And, it hasn’t made wearing a mask in airports nor on airplanes a law.  Good sheep we are as we are herded on and off the aluminum tubes.  “Be sure to put your mask back in place between bites and sips” might be the dumbest utterance on a plane ever.  And, that’s saying something.  The “mandate” is extended and in place till 4/18, and no one knows why.
  4. By 4/18 we likely will have scared ourselves back into the covid corner again.  The subvariant omicron BA.2 has been classified as a “variant of concern” according to the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  It’s either more or less transmissible than the last one, going to get you more or less ill as the booster does or does not help.  The CDC will let you know what it thinks after the wave has passed and they’ve followed the science.
  5. That’s the same CDC that says now that it accidentally inflated children’s COVID death numbers in “coding logic error.”  Terrible!  Maybe it wasn’t a coding logic error, but an error in logic to make you want to jab your child?  The UK will be ready for BA.2.  Around 5 million people are eligible for an additional COVID jab in England, with fifth jabs hinted at as Britain rolls out its ‘Spring Booster’ campaign.
  6. UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid is not the first government official to hint at the possibility of a fourth and a fifth vaccination(that’s not a vaccination), however.  The good doctor Anthony Fauci said this past weekend, “We may need to boost again. That’s entirely conceivable. But before we make that decision about another boost, we want to determine clearly what the durability of protection is of that regular boost, that third shot that we’re talking about.”  Third, fourth, fifth.  Who’s counting?  The WHO is counting.  So is Pfizer’s CFO.
  7. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Monday on MSNBC that at the Senate hearing today for Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, he “felt the emotion flowing through me from ancestors and generations that made this day possible.”  And, that sounds good.  He then went on to say, “Biden said it’s about time we reach deep into the well of quality and genius and talent and create credentials for black women and show she’s like Jackie Robinson, except probably overqualified.”  Did Cory Booker ever crack a history book?  Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas are curious.
  8. When 81 million of us voted for student loan forgiveness did we realize that we also were voting for $6/gallon of gas and WWIII?
  9. What are we doing foreign policy-wise with Ukraine anyway?  The country was and is corrupt.  They’re non-NATO.  Why do we have to stick our nose in every global dust-up?  Russia is wrong to attack a sovereign nation.  We told them as much.  We’ve sanctioned them.  We’ve frozen assets.  Enough.  We don’t need to send money or planes and certainly not troops.  Send us some of the Ukrainian refugees and we’ll look after them with free food, blankets, medicine, and masks, plenty of masks.  And, as a reminder that’s free to them, money to you.
  10. Like airplanes, time flies when you’re having this much fun.  If you don’t take our word for it at least take VP Kamala Harris’ word for it.  She spoke to the passage of time four times in 30 seconds yesterday.  Click on the link, open the video, and lose thirty seconds of your life that you’ll never get back. Say what? Harris has had a difficult time retaining employees in her communications department. At the beginning of 2022, her communications team was undergoing a second political reset before she had served even one year in office, the Washington Post reported.   Say what?

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Our style is to have no style in this random nugget format.  We think it, we write it.

  1. Yesterday was President’s Day, but today is President Biden’s day.  Putin finally punched his dance ticket at the Ukrainian border.  What will Joe have to say after saber-rattling about severe actions?  Some European countries have acted already this AM with sanctions.
  2. Biden puffed his chest out and said during his campaign for President that Putin wanted nothing to do with old angry Joe.  In fact, he said in 2019, “Putin knows that when I am President his days of tyranny and trying to intimidate the US and Eastern Europe are over.”  Well, that didn’t age well as the kids say.
  3. Funny thing is, the last time Putin’s troops visited west of the Ukrainian border was when Biden was VP under Obama.  Now he gets to huff and puff again.  Hopefully, it’ll have some teeth in it and not some troops in it.  Could you even find Ukraine on a map without an assist from Google?  Be honest.
  4. Whatever he says let’s hope it’s better than what our multitasking VP and US and Ukraine border czar said on the weekend while in Europe.  Responding during a Euro press gaggle to whether or not the sanctions implied could deter Putin or if it was too late, Madame VP offered, “And within the context then of the fact that that window is still opening, altho-open, although it is absolutely narrowing-but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open, the deterrence effect, we believe, has merit.”  We wish we were misquoting her, even if by a little bit.  Maybe that worthless mask masked the message a smidgen?
  5. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell said last evening on-air that Biden has a lot of confidence and ego in his foreign policy and feels up to the task of the Putin test and gets defensive about his performance.  Maybe that’s partially due to Robert Gates, the former defense secretary under Obama?  He said a few years back that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
  6. Let’s hope he gets it right this time.  Remember, when Obama pulled the trigger on Osama Bin Laden, Biden voted thumbs down in the Situation Room on the decision.  You wouldn’t want him making the heads/tails call in an NFL overtime game.  He’s defensive about his defense policy, and you’d be playing defense right after the coin flip.
  7. Former WH Press Secretary and now CNN commenter, Joe Lockhart has confidence in Biden’s confidence. “Whatever happens in Ukraine we shouldn’t underestimate the fact the United States has retaken the adult chair in the world,” Lockhart tweeted. “Biden has restored American leadership so damaged by Trump. The world needs us and we have a President who can and does lead.”   Why doesn’t it feel like that to nearly 75% of polled US adults last week?
  8. Speaking of coin flips, is Tulsi Gabbard, who ran for the 2019 Democratic Presidential Nominee, a Democrat?  Or, is she an Independent?  Or, is she, thankfully someone that blazes her own path? The four-term former US Rep from Hawaii is confirmed as a speaker this week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  Principals and actions speak louder than affiliations.  Where is this all going?  Only 2024 knows.  Fox News is interested.  She’s on the network a time or two each weeknight these days.
  9. And then there was one. Hawaii stands as the final state with a mask mandate, over two years after the start of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Every other state in the country has ended (some long ago) or announced plans to end their respective mask mandates in the very near future.  What a waste of the fresh air that surrounds the islands.  They’ll get wind of what’s right though, and soon.  The trade winds are blowing and so are the 2022 midterm political winds.
  10.  Soon, but not soon enough, we’ll forget words and phrases that dominated our lives for two years.  Here are just a few, but also way too many.  Social distancing.  N95.  Two weeks to flatten the curve.  Spikes.  Horse pills. Hydroxychloroquine.  NIH.  FDA.  CDC.  The new normal.  Antivaxxer.  Provaxx.  Ivermectin.  And the most absurd, we’re all in this, together.  Correction, the most absurd, follow the science.  Nugget 10 would not be possible without a shoutout to Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Thanks, Tony.

As a reminder, today is 2/22/22.  We cannot wait for 2:22 PM.

We Come Bearing Gifts!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Tis the season for gifts.  And, yesterday, while you were returning those one size too small pj’s, your government and its agencies were bestowing a few other gifts for you to try on for size.

The biggest gift of all was Joe Biden giving the states the responsibility to solve this pesky virus problem.  On a teleconference with governors, he said, “There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level.”

This seems odd.  A year or so ago, Kamala tweeted out that the first thing she and Joe Biden were going to do when they got to the White House was to solve this virus problem.

And, just a week ago he coughed through a White House speech telling us all that the federal government was ordering more testing, mailing in-home test kits, putting Army doctors into needed states, and telling us to get vaccinated, NOW! This Omicron variant must have really snuck up on them.

And with that, he clicked his heels and walked to his helicopter to depart to his Delaware beach house that you and some lobbyists gifted him for all of his roughly 94 plus years of loyal government service to the people and counting.

But wait!  There’s more!

The CDC gave you new social distance guidelines reducing the stay-away zone from six feet to merely three.  Retailers love selling gifts, so across America they are busy this AM scraping the old 6 ft. floor signs off and sticking new 3 ft. ones down.  Our best guess is that two years into this we can’t sneeze quite as far as we used to.  It happens to the best of us.

And then the good doctor, Dr. Fauci, weighed in.   He was and wasn’t in the gift-giving mood Monday.

First, he wanted to mandate that we give you the jab or three in order to get on airplanes.  “When you make vaccination a requirement, that’s another incentive to get more people vaccinated,” Fauci said on MSNBC. “If you want to do that with domestic flights, I think that’s something that seriously should be considered.”  Could he help with all of the cancellations, too?

But, then he wanted to take away your fun this New Year’s Eve. “When you’re talking about a New Year’s Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating. You do not know the status of their vaccination, I would recommend strongly staying away from that this year.”  Isn’t he the dud bottle rocket that never leaves the bottle?

He wasn’t asked directly about the 50-80 thousand fans in the stands at the roughly 25 bowl games between now and the New Year thankfully.  For now, it’s game on, if you can field a team that is.

The NFL is giving its players reduced return to work requirements after consulting with the NFLPA starting this weekend.  The new protocols are more lengthy and complicated than War and Peace.  There’s not enough virtual ink on Al Gore’s internet to relay them.  The New Orleans Saints needed a dose of this last night.

And, last but not least, the CDC gave us this statement yesterday.  “Given what we currently know about COVID-19, CDC is shortening the recommended time for isolation from 10 days to 5 days, if asymptomatic, followed by 5 days of wearing a mask when around others.”  Mask and ye shall receive a 5-day reprieve!

What’s better than the gifts that keep on giving?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

 

 

 

An Empty Suit?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Pre Zoom and pre casual Friday there were offices, typewriters, secretaries, liquid paper, ties, and suits.  The suits may have been two-piece or three-piece, wide lapel or not, with a matching pocket square or not, but everyone wore them in the workplace.

Surely you’ve heard that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.  But, ultimately it was what’s inside of that suit that counted.

One of our senior staff members had a dyed in the wool suit wearer of a father, complete with a fedora most days.  When he thought less of a person’s abilities than necessary to competently carry out the duties of their job, he called them an “empty suit.”

An empty suit might have looked the part or tried to talk the talk, but they couldn’t walk the walk as we twist Jimmy Johnson’s battle cry.

Today, we have a Vice President of the United States who regardless of her choice of clothing might have reached “empty suit” status.  Her name is Kamala Harris, and her accomplishments after one year are, well, we aren’t so sure.

But, she seems so sure of her abilities.  “Anything that I handle is because it’s a tough issue, and it couldn’t be handled at some other level.  And it has actually been part of my lifelong career to deal with tough issues and this is no different.”

Sounds like she’s talking down to the minions at levels below the VP to us.  We also note that there is no “I” in “team” as you may have heard.

And, actually, there may be no team in DC named team Kamala soon as well.  Her key staff departures are growing by the week.  Rumors of lack of strategy, lack of preparedness, and outright finger-pointing by the VP abound.

So what does a VP really do?  And what should/or does this VP really do?  POTUS named VPOTUS as the lead on the border crisis for one.  She’s resisted going there and says that she’s working on the “root causes” of unprecedented illegal crossings.

Don’t we all know what the root cause is?  It’s an open border policy driven by this administration of course.  Close the border, fix the problem.  Boom!  “What’s next?” she could ask.

She did fly to France and back.  The reasons for which are still unknown.  She does laugh a lot.  The reasons for which are called nerves.

Could she tackle this tricky virus thing?

She’s not the first VP and won’t be the last to be a punching bag.  The list and the list of failures/shortcomings are long.  VP nominee Spiro T Agnew, for example, never made it to the office for all of the right reasons.  Dan Quayle ran headlong into a tough word in a spelling bee.

But, Kamala might have made it to the office for all of the wrong reasons.  Joe Biden moved left and further left in each passing week on the road to the nomination. During Democratic debate #2 he announced that if nominated he would have a woman as his running mate.  During debate #3 he announced that she would be black as well.

There’s nothing wrong with being black or being a woman.  But, those aren’t qualifications.  They’re vote-getters.

There is plenty wrong with being over-jobbed.

What to do?  What to do?  Ah, yes.  Play the race card.

The Daily Mail reports that Ms. Harris has told her confidants that she would get better press coverage if she was a white man.  Joe Biden isn’t feeling too good about his press coverage right about now.   Donald Trump took a daily beating in years prior.  And, George Bush doesn’t send Dan Rather any Christmas cards.

So, is it down to whether Joe chose wrong, or a serious operation is forthcoming?

As a reminder, Harris was polling at less than 1% before dropping out prior to the first primary in Iowa when gunning for the highest job in the land back in 2019.  Basically, her own party doesn’t like her.

Now, with her all-time low VP poll numbers in 2021, she’s turning to none other than Hillary Clinton for advice to reverse the dire poll numbers.

Maybe the “vast right-wing conspiracy” theory will get dusted off?  There’s a great Bleachbit joke possible there too.

This will get interesting.  You now have an “empty suit” asking an “empty pantsuit” for advice.

What could go wrong?