SCOTUS

A Country Divided….

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In the divided country that we live in does anything divide us more than our stances on abortion?

National elections come close.  To go to or not go to war might come even closer.  Might.

But, reproductive rights, formerly known as women’s wellness, formerly known as women’s healthcare, formerly known as pro-choice, formerly known as abortion is the greatest divider of us all.

A SCOTUS ruling in 1973 in Roe v. Wade effectively made abortions legal in all 50 states.  Almost 50 years later the SCOTUS majority opinion returned the decision on its legality to the individual states.

And the for abortion crowd roared its disapproval.  And, the for abortion crowd will continue to roar its collective throaty disapproval.

President Joe Biden said last week, “Roe is on the ballot come November.”  Unfortunately for Democrats, his job performance is also on the ballot come November.

The right to a peaceful protest is guaranteed by our First Amendment.  Protest away.  Elect who you want to help shape the future going forward.

What isn’t necessary are emotional train wreck-type people suggesting emotional train wrecks.

Take Maxine Waters, please.   We ask in our best Henny Youngman voice.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet. Women are going to control their bodies no matter how they try and stop [us]. The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them,” said the far-too-long in power Ms. Waters.  She continued, “Black women will be out in droves. We will be out by the thousands. We will be out by the millions. We’re going to make sure we fight for the right to control our own bodies.”

It took her about 20 seconds to suggest we ignore the Supreme Court and injected obvious racist overtones into the good fight.  She’s quite the leader.

A few pro-life centers got torched this weekend in the mostly peaceful protests.  A few more are sure to follow.

Former President (and some say current) Barrack Obama called the move an attack on “the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”  He also famously said in 2008 that “elections have consequences.”  In 2016 America elected President Trump.  Trump nominated three new Justices.  You know the rest.

If you’re old enough or studied history before it was revised, you’ve seen a few laws and rulings fall in and out of favor.

Alcohol was once consumed freely until 1920, prohibited from then until 1933, and legal again thereafter.

The war on drugs has gone so well that we have hoisted the white flag and either legalized or decriminalized marijuana in most states.

Heck, if you read enough opinions you know that breast milk, raw eggs, mercury, and ivermectin are either good or bad for you depending on the decade the opinion is written and how the wind blows.

Oil and gas went from one of the main drivers of the industrialized and now advanced standard of living we have, to a nasty fossil fuel that’s going to end the world very soon.

Windmills are in.  Exxon is out.

Obama said climate change is a fact.  We cannot even debate its merits anymore.

The number of Justices on the Supreme Court changed six times before settling to the present total of nine in 1869.  Recently we wanted to stack it.  Now we want to abolish it.

Some women are so incensed that they are marching in Washington exclaiming that they are going to go on strike and abstain from sex because of this ruling.  Inadvertently, they brought logic into their emotional eruption.

Right about now we could use more logic in the country, inadvertent or not.

The only thing that is constant is change.

And, a lot can change in a quick 50 years.

 

 

 

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Please seat yourself.  Labor shortages in the restaurant biz are acute.

BBR is committed to replacing all plastic straws with paper by 2030 assuming any trees are left.

  1.  We have a quick quiz to start us off.  Q- In 2012 who said, “Life begins at conception?”  A- Joe Biden, VP.
  2. The FBI is starting an investigation into the SCOTUS leak source.  It took a dozen agents two weeks to figure out the rope in Rusty Wallace’s garage was a door opener.  BBR’s guess on the conclusion date of their Supreme Court deep dive is 11/9, or 24 hours after the midterm vote.
  3. There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that O.J. Simpson pledged a cool million to help find the leaker.
  4.  We got from “you must socially distance, wear at least one mask, stay home, and get vaxxed four times” to “don’t tell me what to do with my body” quicker than Russia could gain control in Ukraine.
  5.  And just like that everyone 2 weeks ago who was not a biologist is now a biologist.
  6. The honorable Congressman from Cali, Eric Swalwell tweeted last evening, ” The Republicans won’t stop with banning abortion.  They want to ban interracial marriage. Do you want to save that?  Well, then you should probably vote.”  He really did.  Justice Clarence Thomas is holding on line two.
  7. Do any of the fine citizens of the great states of California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Hawaii realize that the possible(probable) overturn of Roe V. Wade will have zero effect on the ability to abort in their state?  As fast as Florida, Texas, Alabama, and South Dakota ban it or limit it, the above-mentioned states will pass legislation to protect it. The SC ruling would only return the decision-making to the states.
  8. Bernie Sanders knows what to do.  “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes,” he tweeted.  So he wants to pass a law changing a centuries-old filibuster law to pass a law that the SC said should be a state’s choice.   Why not?  Bernie “Smooth” Sanders.
  9. While more than six in 10 registered voters continue to believe the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade, the latest Fox News poll also finds over half favor banning abortions after 15 weeks.  Conflicted we are.  A state-by-state breakdown, if Roe v. Wade gets tossed, would be interesting.
  10. All 22 Trump-endorsed candidates for office in yesterday’s Ohio and Indiana won their primaries.  RINO’s will be as scarce as lanterns and pitchforks this fall.  Mitch McConnell, are you listening?

You’ve been served.

 

A Leak Like No Other

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the case of Roe v Wade.  The majority opinion of the court made abortion legal nationwide.

Emotions about abortion ran high.  It was and is a nasty word for many.  So abortion was rebranded as pro-choice.  Pro-choice morphed into woman’s health.  Woman’s health was then repackaged as woman’s wellness.  It’s harder to debate woman’s wellness.

Eventually, the government was so concerned about women’s wellness that Planned Parenthood (founded in 1916) became a partially federally funded abortion, and woman’s wellness clinic.

Since we’re changing what we call things, should that part of the organization be renamed Not Planned Not Parenthood?

Fifty years later, there is a public debate as to who actually is a woman at the same time that we put a woman, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court.  Brown Jackson testified before Congress that she couldn’t define what a woman was either.  When pressed, she said, “I am not a biologist.”

So last night’s bombshell, the SCOTUS leak of the first draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito for the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization., has vaulted the issue to the front page of American discourse all over again.  Alito writes, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

That there is a leak is a bombshell unto itself.  And, is a very dangerous threat to a very important pillar of US democracy-the Justice System’s impartial operational sanctity.  Start the investigation today.

So why the leak?  It’s pretty obvious, and serves a dual purpose, doesn’t it?

Can enough pressure be applied to those siding with Alito to swing votes the other way to maintain the status quo?  And can the current political landscape be reshaped with this polarizing issue to the extent that the party in power can maintain that power by inciting and galvanizing its base?

Inevitably, the leak will spur Democrats to push for the passage of a bill to codify Roe.  To do so they would need to bust the filibuster rule or lower the threshold to end a filibuster from 60 yes votes to 51. That means all attention will immediately turn to, you guessed it, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The midterm vote is on 11/8/22, or six months and five days from today.

If you’re the party from the left would you like to run on inflation, food shortages, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the southern border, crime, Biden’s poll numbers, and Kamala’s incompetence? Or, would you like to run away from all of that?

Or, would you prefer to watch “mostly peaceful protests” in this coming summer of love to combat that nasty “war on women?” You could then bank on that being the galvanizer to get the vote out and turned in your favor.

Is it a coincidence that Kamala Harris is the featured speaker tonight at the 30th Annual We Are EMILY National Conference and Gala, a pro-choice event?  Is it a coincidence that President Biden is scheduled to deliver his thoughts from the White House today on Roe V. Wade?

Or, is all of this well planned by the party that plans well?

One thing is for sure, the Supreme Court has reunited the nation on the question of which gender gets pregnant and gives birth.

Or, chooses not to.

For now.

 

The King of Queens

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

BREAKING NEWS–

While you were likely sleeping overnight BBR has confirmed that LeBron James is leaving the NBA to join the WNBA!  Lebron tweeted, “my life and the WNBA ratings are forever changed for the better.  Going forward I want to be known as LeBronny’a James or Queen James.”

The King Says He’s Out!

In reality, this shouldn’t be a big deal, but it will be. Hell if you believe in equality, you should wonder why we even have two leagues.  Shouldn’t all genders just play together in one league?

As you know, Lia Thomas made history last Thursday as the first known transgender athlete to win a US college swimming championship when she took the title in the 500-meter freestyle in Atlanta.  Again, you have to wonder if equality really exists as we are striving for.  Why didn’t Lia simply swim in the men’s competition?

You know why.  It’s political theater at its finest.  And its finest was on display yesterday in the Senate confirmation hearings for Kentanji Brown Jackson as well.

The CNBC headline captures it well.  “Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson wraps tense two days of Senate questioning as confirmation path clears.”  The path was always clear as 50 Democrats were always going to vote for her and our esteemed VP Kamala Harris would make 51 assuming she knows how to push the correct button, but we digress.

But, first Judge Jackson faced that aforementioned tense moment.  Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge point-blank: “Can you provide a definition for the word ’woman’?

After a short back-and-forth, Jackson ultimately said: “No, I can’t.”  “You can’t?” Blackburn asked.  “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist,” Jackson said.

So it turns out that two X chromosomes have been deceiving us all along.

This is quite weird as Biden quite loudly promised a black woman as his first Supreme Court nominee if the opportunity presented itself.  How does he know?

Would the world have gone bonkers if Sen Blackburn followed up with “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘black’?

It makes you wonder why the left has been so vociferous in defending abortion, now known as women’s wellness, formerly known as a woman’s right to choose if they cannot define what makes a woman a woman.   Why call it women’s wellness?  How about just wellness?

And, all of this comes as we are celebrating Women’s History Month in March.  The first paragraph of Joe Biden’s Proclamation says so.  It reads, “Every March, Women’s History Month provides an opportunity to honor the generations of trailblazing women and girls who have built our Nation, shaped our progress, and strengthened our character as a people.”

So who are we celebrating if we cannot define who a woman is?  Did we mention political theater?

Fashion Is Strictly a Matter of Opinion.

That theater reached one of a few peaks back in 2017. The Women’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. It was prompted by several of Trump’s statements being considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive to women.

It’s pretty simple, almost cro magnon simple.  Trump bad, Biden good!  Gin up the base, let’s tear this place down.

It was originally billed as the Million Women’s March, but it drew 470,000.  Do you wonder if 530,000 bowed out when they learned of the suggested headdress?

Per the website, the goal of the annual march is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, disability justice, reproductive rights, the environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers’ rights and tolerance.

That sounds like a lot more than just women’s rights to us.

And that’s why we mention political theater for a final time, we promise.

 

 

Churn and Burn

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

If it’s Breyer’s, it’s got to still be good!  Any ice cream company founded in 1866 and still churning today has to be good.

But, with FDA government regulations, even good goes bad when it gets old.  Use by this date or discard the label says.

Yesterday, someone somewhere in the government decided that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s discard date had come up as well.

Breyer’s retirement was reported by the press before he himself made it.  This led to speculation that it had been leaked by a White House eager to appease left-wing critics after its recent legislative failures and court defeats.

Might the party in charge be worried about Republicans winning the Senate in 2022?  Might the party in charge be worried about another Ruth Bader Ginsberg situation?  Out with the old and in with the new.

Multiple sources told multiple members of the press that Justice Breyer was not planning to announce his retirement yesterday. They describe him as “upset” with how this has played out.  Breyer prides himself on not being partisan.

Apparently, the White House prides itself on not caring what Breyer cares about.

Did Demand Justice, a left-wing group formed to oppose Trump’s Supreme Court picks have a hand in forcing Breyer’s hand? The group proudly launched a “Breyer Retire” campaign just weeks after Biden took office.  Demand Justice is quite open about its goal of seeking to overhaul the federal court system to advance progressive goals.

Both WH press secretary Jen Psaki and Paige Herwig, Biden’s point person on judicial nominations, previously worked for Demand Justice.  Coincidence?

Breyer was good until a new flavor, but with similar tastes in thinking, can head to the Supreme Court.  And the new appointee needs to head that way before November.

The White House had little to say about Breyer’s retirement because they said it wasn’t “official” yet.   Odd?  Though they did quickly add that the Biden Administration would follow through on his campaign promise to add a black and female jurist to the highest court.  Odder?

Why not choose whomever they thought was most qualified regardless of gender and skin color?  As a Senator Joe Biden voted against the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas, probably because he thought that he was unqualified.  Oddest?

Will the administration throw Breyer a retirement party?  If so, will they let him in on when it is?

And, most of all, will they serve Breyer’s Ice Cream with the cake at Justice Breyer’s going away party?

It’s likely, but only if the use-by and discard date hasn’t come and gone like the justice’s has.

Because remember, it’s got to still be good!