Monthly Archives: May 2021

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Daily Broadside | War With Israel Isn’t the “Normal” Anyone Wanted

Daily Verse | Nehemiah 2:17
Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.”

Welcome to this edition of the Monday Daily Broadside. I sometimes get a headache trying to open a bottle of aspirin.

When Resident Biden was “running” for president by holing up in his basement and telling African-Americans they weren’t black if they didn’t vote for him (a totally not racist thing for a white man to say), he also promised to return us to “normal.” In this completely honest and unbiased objective report in the completely honest and unbiased San Francisco Chronicle, senior political writer Joe Garofoli wrote (back in January),

Many Americans will exhale at 9 a.m Wednesday, relieved to have survived the Donald Trump presidency. Four years of chaos and lies and the presidential encouragement of America’s most malevolent elements will end when Joe Biden takes the oath of office.

But is America ready for what Biden promised: a return to normalcy?

Ignoring the fact that the other half of the country can say that about the Obama years and will be relieved when this current illegitimate farce of an administration is gone, I’ve got good news for you, Joe: your man in the White House has returned us to normal, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Middle East.

The current conflict started when Hamas launched rocket attacks in retaliation for restrictions imposed by Israeli police near al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, in East Jerusalem. There was also action against Palestinians protesting home evictions due to a court case in Israel.

The Israelis and the Palestinians have been going at it since 1948 when the British Mandate officially terminated and the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel. The next day, U.S. president Harry S. Truman recognized the fledgling nation, which was immediately attacked by Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq as the British withdrew.

Miraculously, Israel defeated an overwhelming force against all odds and captured even more land.

Over the last 50 years their Arab neighbors have tried to defeat them militarily in conflicts like the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973). We’ve also watched as the Palestinians have launched intifadas, suicide bombers and missiles at Israel, supported by the terrorist state of Iran.

The Arab states and the Palestinian’s goal is to push the Jews into the sea. I know this for a fact not only because it’s been said so often, but because I’ve been to Israel a few times and I’ve spoken with men in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem. One older Palestinian man once told me they didn’t want “part of the land”; they wanted the whole thing, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. (He also told me that CNN sucked. We agreed on that.)

There have been promises of peace over the last many decades, too. The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979; the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (1993, 1995); the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan (1994). The peace treaties have held with Egypt and Jordan. Agreements with the Palestinians have not.

When President Trump brokered the Abraham Accords, he was beginning to isolate the Palestinians. The Arab states in the region had bigger fish to fry with a belligerent Iran pursuing nuclear weapons. The Palestinians had become an irritant, as a friend said, “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity” when it came to peace. On the other hand, Trump was squeezing Iran with a suffocating regime of sanctions and being a strong and unshakeable ally to Israel. The Arabs saw the wisdom in being allies with Israel with the threat of Iran being so close.

But because of Trump’s Mean Tweets and a stolen election, we’ve now got an escalating conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians — just like normal! — because the players in the Middle East know weakness when they see it. Slow Joe Biden is no match for the diplomatic strength that Trump had and the Biden administration is riddled with anti-Semitic sentiment, just like our Congress is.

Thanks Joe!

Any loss of life, on either side, is tragic, as is the economic devastation that war brings. But for the record, Hamas started the conflict and has fired more than 2,200 missiles indiscriminately into Israel (about 350 landed in Gaza, killing their own people; about 1,000 were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system). Israel has fired about 930 rockets back with pinpoint strikes at terrorist infrastructure.

It’s not that this couldn’t have happened if Trump were still in the White House, but what we learn from this is that we need a firm hand guiding the United States and its relationship with Israel, and we don’t have one. This isn’t the “normal” anyone wanted.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

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Daily Broadside | 3 Ways You Can Fight the Social Marxists Without Losing Your Job

Daily Verse | Ezra 9:13
“What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this.”

It’s Friday and while we can take a deep breath as we move into the weekend, we must not forget that the domestic enemies of the American people continue to work furiously around the clock to consolidate their gains and move their malicious plans ahead to make half the population Public Enemy Number One. Namely, anyone who supports historic, traditional American values, including personal responsibility and hard work, the U.S. Constitution, and anyone who questions the legitimacy of the junta now in Washington, D.C., whose figurehead is an incompetent blathering dementia patient propped up by Obama acolytes.

The most frequent question I’ve been asked is, “What can we do?” about the sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. I’ve asked that question myself many times and have expressed my frustration with opinion leaders and journalists who provide great depth and analysis on the situation in general and specific examples in particular, but don’t give us a list of practical actions and tactics that citizens like you and I can take to counteract the poison wending its way through our society.

Today I’ve got an article written by Trevor Loudon, an author, filmmaker, and public speaker from New Zealand who wrote a column for my current go-to news source, The Epoch Times. His commentary is called, “A New Zealander’s 9 ‘Starter Steps’ to Save America From Socialism.”

While the article is behind a paywall, I think it’s worth reflecting on a couple of the steps that might be useful for patriotic Americans to engage with. You may want to know what a New Zealander has to say to America about our internal conflict. Here’s how Loudon introduces his topic:

Though I’m a New Zealander, I know America and its people well. I’ve traveled to every state in the Lower 48 and have addressed more than 500 audiences across this amazing nation. My message has always been the same: The United States is heading toward a brutally tyrannical socialist revolution—and if America goes down, every free country follows.

Well, now it’s here, people, unfolding before our very eyes.

So, what can be done? Can the Republic be saved? Honestly, I don’t know.

However, I can suggest some steps that would at least give this country a fighting chance.

New Zealand is one of those free countries that will “go down” should America collapse, so he has a vested interest in America succeeding in its freedoms. That’s why he lays out his nine steps and writes some substantial commentary about each. Here’s the list:

  1. Face Reality
  2. Stop All Violent Rhetoric
  3. Restore Election Integrity in All Red States
  4. Close the Republican Primaries Immediately
  5. Organize a Compact of Free States
  6. Republic Review
  7. Form a Multi-State ‘America First’ Popular Alliance
  8. Boycott/Buycott Bigtime
  9. Remove Malign Foreign Influence at State Level

I obviously can’t reproduce the entire article here, but I don’t think I need to. What I’m interested in is what individual citizens can do without being a member of the political class. As I read it, there are three things he lists that we can do.

“Face Reality“
After explaining what the Democrats are trying to do (enfranchising illegal aliens, abolishing the Electoral College, voting “reform,” i.e. stealing elections), Loudan says,

“We’re undergoing a Marxist-Leninist revolution driven by China—right now, in real time. The military can’t save us, nor can Trump. On the contrary, it’s up to patriots to protect Trump and the Armed Services from unrelenting Democrat/communist attacks. When enough Americans face the unpleasant truth, then, and only then, can we talk about hope.”

This seems obvious. But, as I’ve written many times before, it took me some time over the last several years to come to the conclusion that the Democrats are enemies of the people. They, not patriotic Americans, are the domestic terrorists who weaponize not airplanes and cars, but the levers of government to oppress and control us. Refuse to entertain any guilt about questioning the integrity of the 2020 election; refuse to ignore the weaponization of the FBI, DHS, IRS, DOJ and other alphabet agencies that actively subvert our Constitutional rights; be vocal about it with those in your relational circles (without being a jerk) and don’t back down no matter the peer pressure they bring.

Unless you allow yourself to accept our bind as the reality, you will only fret and complain rather than taking action. If you’re not convinced, identify the questions you have and ask yourself what more it will take to convince you that normal Americans are under assault by an increasingly strident Marxist ideology.

Stop All Violent Rhetoric
What Loudan means by this is that violent rhetoric will only lead to defeat in a violent confrontation with the government. Here’s how he puts it:

“The left is praying for ‘right-wing’ violence. It will give them an excuse for a massive crackdown on patriotic Americans. This country will be saved peacefully or not at all. If significant violence breaks out, it’s over.

“Having said that, the Second Amendment must be preserved at all costs. An armed populace is at least some check on tyranny, even if useless in the face of biological warfare or nuclear attack. Americans should keep their guns and work every day to ensure they never have to use them against their own people.”

I’m not sure I agree with him that we can’t win a violent confrontation with the government. What I think he’s saying is that government forces will quickly stomp those who engage in violence and do to them what they did to the protestors on January 6 and charge them with inciting an insurrection. That was a bogus charge, to be sure, and we wouldn’t be free men if freedom didn’t include the right to challenge our government. The government has no intention of acknowledging that right without a fight; to assume the right to question our political class is to incur a cost that many men (and women) won’t want to make.

Regardless, I agree that we should stay away from violent rhetoric, but we should not back away from strong and candid language concerning the abuses that federal and state governments are engaged in. And if the resistance does go hot — again, see what’s happening in Portland and in parts of Texas — make sure you’re locked and loaded.

Boycott/Buycott Bigtime
I’ve always been a little mixed on boycotting for the simple reason that as woke orthodoxy makes its way through the culture, the boycotters begin to paint themselves into a corner. When all the telecommunications companies and all the home improvement box stores and all the technology companies and all the retailers go woke, where does that leave us?

To operate in today’s society, there are some things that we find essential to have and can’t avoid paying some woke behemoths for their services.

However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have options. For instance, I no longer shop at Target. I no longer buy Gillette razors. I no longer watch any movie starring or co-starring Robert De Niro (and I certainly wouldn’t pay for it if I did). I gave up Fox News and only watch Tucker Carlson occasionally (I mostly watch his monologues online). I don’t watch the NFL, NBA or MLB anymore, nor do I buy their merchandise. I used to watch U.S. Women’s Soccer, but I don’t anymore after Rapinoe started getting loud about how unfairly they’re treated (they’re not). I’ve given up Facebook and Twitter (although I have accounts, they’re both dormant — and I’m close to closing them both for good). While I still use Amazon for convenience, my wife and I are starting to think about buying more locally. I use Google and Chrome sparingly and prefer to use Brave as my browser of choice (they’re supposed to have a search engine coming soon that will compete directly with Google).

And guess what? I’m fine. Really.

Says Loudan,

“Patriots should be abandoning Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. for more honest platforms. They should also enthusiastically support efforts by DeSantis to heavily fine Big Tech operators who “cancel” patriots. If 25 or 30 free states did the same, Big Tech would soon be little tech.

“Patriots need to organize nationwide boycotts of unpatriotic companies and buycotts for loyal American companies like My Pillow and Goya Foods.”

The reason is that money talks the loudest to any organization. Why do you think the Left tried to “cancel” My Pillow and Goya Foods? If some company like Gillette, for instance, gets woke and starts churning out social propaganda that throws in with the progressive Left, my thinking is, “Let the progressives support them. I’d love to see how far they get subsisting on just progressive money.”

Loudan goes on to say,

“Imagine if 80 million MAGA patriots resolved to begin a nationwide boycott of one such company, starting now. The boycott would go on indefinitely until the target company was broke, or it apologized for “canceling” patriots. If applicable, every MAGA family could simultaneously commit to buying at least one of the canceled person’s products this year.”

That is some awesome purchasing power.

Here’s the reality: there are only a few things that we really “need.” Food. Water. Clothing. A roof over our heads. Almost everything else is discretionary. Start with those things, then wean yourself off of indiscriminate consumer spending. Then, be very specific about the companies you purchase from. An example I mention above is that I subscribe to The Epoch Times for a monthly fee rather than depend on Fox News or some other source for the latest news.

Also, don’t forget that advertising contracts are based on the number of eye balls they can get in front of. If you watch the NFL, for instance, you’re helping them negotiate contracts with advertisers that, in turn, gives them millions of dollars to operate an organization that has made standing proud for the national anthem a controversial act. Don’t do it. Starve them. Make them operate on the cash they can get from woke organizations and the progressive Left.

There are certainly other ways to fight back, like homeschooling your children. (Yes, it’s a sacrifice, but millions have done it, including me, and there are colleges that reserve slots for homeschooled kids.) But the three I mention above seem to be easily accessible to everyone. Start with those, and build from there.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | The Seventies Called and Want Their Crisis Back

Daily Verse | Ezra 6:12
May God, who has caused his Name to dwell there, overthrow any
king or people who lifts a hand to change this decree or to
destroy this temple in Jerusalem. I Darius have decreed it.
Let it be carried out with diligence.

Happy Thursday as we head toward the final day of the week. Neither G.I. Joe nor Barbie were anatomically correct.

So how is everybody liking this new administration? Are we all having fun yet?

I’m old enough to remember sitting in the gas lines of 1973 during the Nixon administration. The average price was supposedly about 38.5 cents per gallon, but I faintly recall seeing gas for .27 cents per gallon while sitting in line with my dad to fill up. I think we had an odd-number license plate which told us which day we could visit the gas stations.

The gas crisis is supposedly out on the east coast, but the Sam’s Club here in the Midwest had long lines, two of their pumps were locked, and it was $3.05/gal. I expect that we’ll soon see a run on gas as people hoard or rush to fill up before the wells dry up.

And inflation is rising at the fastest pace since 2008. Yippee! Biden is returning us to normal so fast, we missed Exit 2015 and wound up traveling back to five decades ago.

Some say that history doesn’t repeat itself. Maybe so, but if this isn’t a repeat, it’s a darn good impression. We’ve got a war starting in the Middle East, Iran is causing most of the trouble, Russia is meddling by hacking a U.S. gas pipeline within the borders of our country (but no one can hack an election!) and China is laughing its fortune cookies off over all the chaos they’ve sown with the weaponized bat virus.

But no more mean tweets!

As the country circles the drain, we’ve got an incompetent, drooling mediocrity pretending to have it all under control but calling a lid at 3:34 p.m. on Tuesday. Just a reminder that president-in-exile Trump only slept four hours a night and he got things done. Resident Biden has to take naps to let his brain reset and just lets the country (and the rest of the world) go to hell. I suppose that’s a form of getting things done.

But … no more mean tweets!

Hope all of you “Americans” who voted for Joe Biden are loving what you’ve brought down on our heads. Hope you virtue signaling whiners about how “racist” and “misogynist” and “xenophobic” and “nativist” Trump was are getting your third Obama term, good and hard.

No more mean tweets!

Fortunately, Republicans took a necessary step yesterday and ousted Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from her House leadership position. Republicans need to rid themselves of the #NeverTrump and other squish Republicans who act like Democrats. So-called “Republicans” like Cheney, Mitt Romney and Adam Kinzinger. Maybe they’ll all do us a favor and start their own par — hey, look at this!

More than 100 Republicans, including some former elected officials, are preparing to release a letter this week threatening to form a third party if the Republican Party does not make certain changes, according to an organizer of the effort.

The statement is expected to take aim at former President Donald J. Trump’s stranglehold on Republicans, which signatories to the document have deemed unconscionable.

Not “more than 100 Republicans”! Fey!

You know who’s on that list? People like Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey who governed like a Democrat. Tom Ridge, former governor of Pennsylvania. Crazy Barbara Comstock. And guess who’s organizing this pathetic effort? Miles Taylor, the former Trump administration low-level DHS official who wrote an Op-Ed and a book (anonymously) condemning Trump while still a paid member of the administration!

Nothing like being a traitor and then calling other traitors to join you in a new political party. Maybe call themselves the “Backstabbers.” Has a nice, authentic ring to it.

These are a bunch of washed up politicians looking for their next grift, who want to pull us back to the good ol’ days of pretending to fight the Democrats while living off the backs of taxpayers. I say, with all sincerity, good riddance.

Unfortunately, that’s the only really good news coming out of Washington. For now, the best we can do is ride the waves that the current occupant of the White House is creating, holding on for dear life and praying that there’s a red tsunami in the mid-terms.

That is, if the current regime isn’t successful in codifying into law the illegal tactics it used to steal the 2020 election.

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Daily Broadside | God Laughs at the Puny Efforts of the Wicked

Daily Verse | Ezra 3:13
No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

Welcome back, my friends. It’s Wednesday and the beat goes on.

We have foreigners pouring over our Southern border where drugs and human trafficking are revitalized. Thousands of children are being abandoned on the north side of the Rio Grande. We have Marxism in the form of Critical Race Theory consuming our governmental institutions, Wall Street corporations, the entertainment industry, and schools from Kindergarten through university level education, undeniably driving decisions in both state and culture. We have millions of people out of work but businesses can’t get people hired because the government is paying them to stay home. We have inflation starting to rise and hit consumer pocketbooks. Even though we had achieved energy independence for the first time in our nation’s history during Trump’s presidency, gas prices are skyrocketing because eco-nannies think they can control the climate by banning fossil fuels. We have civil unrest by partly violent protesters who are now brandishing guns at passersby in Portland and Texas. Internationally, Israel is under a barrage of missile attacks, Iran is hassling our warships and Russia just knocked out one of our largest pipelines. (Say, what have the FBI and DHS been doing since January that left us vulnerable to such attacks? Any ideas?)

The greatest, freest, most prosperous nation in human history is on the ropes as lawlessness runs rampant and we inch toward another civil war.

I sometimes wonder what God thinks when he looks at the chaos in the United States. I know for a fact that he isn’t surprised by it. In fact, he’s probably laughing at us right now.

12 The wicked plot against the righteous
    and gnash their teeth at them;
13 but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
    for he knows their day is coming.

— Psalm 37:12-13

This isn’t some kind of diatribe pitting Democrats against Republicans, or claiming that Republicans are “righteous” and Democrats are “wicked” (although there is plenty of evidence for the latter). This passage is about “the wicked” in general, that class of evil schemers whoever they are: Democrat or Republican, conservative or libertarian or progressive; socialist or capitalist, gay or straight, white collar or blue collar; black, Asian, Hispanic, white, or Indian; Christian, Muslim or Jew.

The point here is that God isn’t intimidated by the sinister plotting, conniving or conspiring of the evil men and women among us, especially when it is against the innocent, powerless or righteous among us. He laughs at their puny attempts to assert the power that alone belongs to him. He laughs as we would when a toddler attempts to assert their will over us as their parents. He scoffs because one day their pathology will be made clear as they face his judgment.

It’s futile.

I do think he is also grieved by the absence of righteousness. Part of the reason we are in the mess we’re in today is the outright rejection of God and his place in the public square. It used to be that the Church was central to a community. We taught our children from the Bible. We held them to a biblical standard in how we treated other people, how we conducted business, how we related to each other. We used to be a nation that had in common a set of transcendent values based on the Judeo-Christian religion. It didn’t matter if you believed in the Christian God, our society functioned well because our social contract grew out of those shared values. But not today.

40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
    and grieved him in the wasteland!
41 Again and again they put God to the test;
    they vexed the Holy One of Israel.

— Psalm 78:40-41

But all is not lost. God is sovereign and none of this fazes him as perhaps it fazes us. In fact, part of the reason he laughs is that he knows the outcome. In the end, God wins. It really is that simple. While we pray earnestly for God to reassert himself in our country, it’s equally likely that we are a dying nation and God may choose not to intervene. Either way, the test here is not about the country per se, but about how each of us handles our relationship with God and with others in the midst of the chaos.

Stand firm in your convictions. Trust God. Sacrifice where warranted. And know that one day, all will be made right.

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Daily Broadside | Climate Lies and The Liars Who Sell Them

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 33:9
But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.

Happy Tuesday, my friends. When this virus is gone, there are still some people I want to stay away from me.

Quick, tell me who’s the world’s worst polluter in the world? China? The EU? India? Russia? The United States? If you live in the United States, you could be forgiven for thinking that we’re the worst and we only have a few short years to turn it around before we cause the seas to rise and the continents to sink and all of mankind goes into a long winter of the cold sun.

But—turns out that China is actually the biggest polluter on planet earth. Not only that, but they are polluting more than all other developed countries combined.

Despite climate change alarmists who claim the U.S. has a problem with greenhouse gas emissions, a new report from the Rhodium Group exposes China as the world’s overwhelming leader of greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers said China was responsible for 27% of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, nearly three times the amount emitted by the United States and more than the entire developed world combined.

The U.S. contributed 11%, while India and the European Union were each over 6%.

The percentages reported by a different group in 2018 were China at 28% and the U.S. at 15%. Taking the numbers at face value, that means that the U.S. has dropped its output of CO2 by four percent while China dropped theirs by one percent. And we did it all without eliminating airplanes and cows. Liz Peek reports that,

U.S. carbon emissions will decline from 2023 to 2035 as we continue to shift away from coal and towards greater use of natural gas and renewable energy. After 2035, a growing population and consequent rise in energy demand will tilt emissions slightly higher; by 2050 our energy-related emissions will be roughly 5% more than the amount in 2020, which was severely depressed by Covid.

But that didn’t stop Resident Biden from pledging to rejoin the Paris Accords, which is, in fact, an international wealth transfer scheme that even Bernie Madoff could be proud of. That’s important because the point of Peek’s article is that the current occupant of the White House made an inadvertent admission while reciting the list of things he wants to buy with taxpayer money during his “State of the Union” speech.

It was a whopper that went unnoticed on Wednesday night; with just a few ill-chosen words Biden utterly toppled any justification for the Green New Deal, which plays a central role in his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan and which, without a doubt, puts our economy at risk.

This is what he said, according to a New York Times transcript of the president’s remarks: “The United States accounts, as all of you know, for less than 15 percent of carbon emissions. The rest of the world accounts for 85 percent. That’s why I kept my commitment to rejoin the Paris Accord, because if we do everything perfectly, it’s not going to matter.“

That was not in the version of the speech the White House handed out ahead of time.

[…]

And, for once in his life, Joe Biden was completely correct. Even if the Biden White House clobbers our economy, puts every last coal miner and oil driller out of work and drives down U.S. fossil fuel production and consumption, it will barely bend the curve on rising global emissions.

This isn’t new. Back in January, climate czar John Kerry said the same thing.

“He knows Paris alone is not enough,” Kerry told reporters at a White House press briefing, referring to Biden re-entering the US in the Paris Climate Agreement in one of his first acts as president.

“Not when almost 90 percent of all of the planet’s global emissions come from outside of US borders. We could go to zero tomorrow and the problem isn’t solved,” Kerry conceded.

We don’t need to be in the Paris Climate Accords. We don’t need to ban fracking, air travel or bovines. But Biden, doing the bidding of his puppet masters, “took executive actions to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and direct agencies to review and reverse more than 100 Trump actions on the environment.”

So why is the junta dragging us into this?

It’s not that we shouldn’t be aware of our impact on the environment. We should. But rather than pursue available technologies like nuclear energy and fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline, this administration is lying about the emergency, is surrendering our independence to an international organization of busybodies and grifters, and is ignoring the impact on us as gas rises above $3/gal. in the U.S.

Recent studies indicate that “68% of Americans wouldn’t be willing to pay even $10 more a month in higher electric bills even if the money were used to combat climate change.” And rightly so. Spending $10 trillion on the Green New Deal, as Biden said, won’t matter.

But solar panels! Electric cars! They’ll continue to sell it to you, just as CNN confessed last month in the latest videos from Project Veritas. More concerning is that banks are lining up behind this idea for a very familiar reason.

Why are banks so willing to go along with the left’s goals? This is just speculative – and there are many other potential reasons, including fear of regulatory retribution – but the catalyst most likely driving their decisions is that many banks, financial institutions and big Wall Street investors are convinced that the infrastructure and energy policies that Democrats are now attempting to put into place, as well as actions taken by central banks, offer a massive financial opportunity.

Yeah, it’s always about the money.

Keep that in mind the next time you hear climate alarmism. While we can do our part, it’s the rest of the world and their carbon output that truly matters.

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Daily Broadside | The Linguistic Birthing Person of All Bombs

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 31:21
In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

Happy Monday my friends, and Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who are moms. I hope that you had a nice day yesterday and felt honored. If you didn’t, I’m truly sorry and hope that someday that can be restored to you.

Mother’s Day was started by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia. On May 12, 1907, she held a memorial service for her late mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, who had herself been involved in supporting mothers. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made it a national holiday. It has since become one of the biggest holidays for consumer spending.

More than a century later, we can clearly discern that the early twentieth century was also an era when common sense was — er, how to put it? — common. Men were men and women were women and they didn’t have a problem differentiating between the two. I bring this up because last week our standard set of categories were assaulted again when the Demokrats (it’s always the Demokrats) employed absurd language to talk about mothers.

U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., testified at a House Oversight hearing about her experience with doctors who didn’t believe her complaints about pain when giving birth to her two kids and she went into preterm labor. She says the experiences smacked of racism and claimed that “Black birthing people and our babies” die every day because they aren’t believed.

“Every day” seems a bit exaggerated, but I have no doubt that the experience, as described, was traumatic. Without taking anything away from that experience, however, you have to wonder what is going on with her last sentence before yielding back to the chairman.

“And I am committed to doing the absolute most to protect black mothers, to protect black babies, to protect black birthing people, and to save lives.”

Clearly a nod to transgenders, since she includes both “black mothers” and “black birthing people” in the same sentence. On the same day, Rep. Ayanna Pressley tweeted with similar language, but without the term “mother” — just “birthing people” and “pregnant person.”

The comments received a lot of attention and mockery from the right and, of course, the Marxists immediately deflected and made it about Republicans “pouncing” on the issue. Said Rep. Bush,

“I testified in front of Congress about nearly losing both of my children during childbirth because doctors didn’t believe my pain. Republicans got more upset about me using gender-inclusive language in my testimony than my babies nearly dying. Racism and transphobia in America.”

Not only is this absurd, this is disingenuous in the extreme. Bush is implying that the word “mother” is somehow divisive when she accuses Republicans of being more upset about “gender-inclusive language.” It’s only become “divisive” because we’ve got people who claim to be the opposite of their biological sex and insist that the rest of us pretend that it’s true. Somehow this vanishingly small minority is punching above its weight.

Second, this is a classic subversive tactic she’s engaged in — tell a story that arouses sympathy (I’m a victim) and lowers the defenses. Then insert a controversial thought or topic or word, knowing that it’s hard to attack the controversial element without looking like you’re attacking the victim.

I remember in a church we used to attend that the pastor would briefly introduce something new (a change, a person, a topic) during the worship service—a sometimes strong emotional experience—when our defenses were naturally lowered. Once introduced without controversy, that topic or word or change would be referenced again, occasionally over time until it became “normal” and you could barely remember where it had come from. I was aware of the tactic, but it’s hard to tell how many others were.

Bush also attempts to guilt Republicans into being ashamed of themselves for not being “more upset” about her story than about her word choice. At the risk of stating the obvious, her story is subjective, personal to her, had a good outcome (both kids lived through the preterm labor and birth) and there’s the big unanswered assumption that her experience is actually the norm for black women “every day.”

Using the term “birthing people,” on the other hand, is objectively intentional, is objectively outside the norms of everyday language and is objectively challenging everyone who uses the term “mother.” No one uses the term “birthing person” except those trying to subvert our norms.

By the way, do you think that it’s only “Republicans” who think replacing “mother” with “birthing person” is absurd? Almost everybody else does, too. Bush may think it’s only Republicans who oppose her because she’s surrounded by an increasingly radical party that has abandoned any semblance of historical American norms.

NARAL helpfully piled on in defense of Bush’s use of the term. Same dynamic—”mother” is not and has never been divisive until recently.

Good for you NARAL. You use “gender neutral language” because you accept the lie that “it’s not just cis-gender women that can get pregnant and give birth.”

It’s an Orwellian state of affairs we’re faced with. But they’re only following the lead of the Speaker, Fancy Nancy Ice-Cream. Back in January the House approved the use of gender-neutral terms in its official language. “Here are the words found in various parts of the code [that] will change:

“— The term seamen will be replaced with seafarers.
“— Chairman will become chair.
“— Terms for familial relationships — such as mother, father, daughter, son, sister and brother — will be swapped with terms such as parent, child and sibling.
“— The phrase “submit his or her resignation” will be replaced with “resign.”
“— The phrases “he or she serves” and “he or she holds” will be replaced with “such Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner” serves or holds, respectively.
“— The words himself and herself will be replaced with themself.”

This is just more of the bizarre Ministry of Truth trying to force it’s Newspeak on the rest of us. Hopefully, common sense—what little is left to us—will prevail. Birthing Person of Nature; Mary, Birthing Person of God; and Birthing Person Hen are all a little hard to say.

I’m not optimistic, though, because when it comes to turning a free America into Venezuela el Norte, as they say, “Necessity is the birthing person of invention.”

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Daily Broadside | This Government Wasn’t Designed to Be Your Conscience

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 24:1
Joash was seven years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years.

It’s Friday and the end of the first full week of May. Spring is in the air but hasn’t landed yet.

One of my favorite quotes from our Founding Fathers is the one from John Adams that I referenced a couple of days ago. It is from a letter he wrote to the Massachusetts Militia on 11 October 1798. Below is the specific quotation in bold, situated in its paragraphical context.

While our Country remains untainted with the Principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many Parts of the World: while she continues Sincere and incapable of insidious and impious Policy: We shall have the Strongest Reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned Us by Providence. But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

This is a warning written by a man who was one of the central Founders of the United States form of government. Adams drafted the 1780 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which served as a model for the United States Constitution. Adams and others made edits to the draft of the U.S. Constitution before it was adopted by the United States.

John Adams was intimately involved with and intimately familiar with the structure and purpose of the U.S. Constitution. So when he makes an observation about it, we should listen to him. And he has plenty to say in this letter that both acknowledges and addresses human nature.

To set up the final sentences that comprise the quote, he starts by saying that if our country “continues Sincere,” remaining “untainted” by (political) practices that produce desolation in other parts of the world, that we will be most happy with our local lot in life. But he warns that should we become good fakers (“deep simulation,” e.g. pretending) with ourselves and other nations while, in fact, we are “rioting in rapine [the violent seizure of another’s property] and Insolence [rude, disrespectful; contemptuously impertinent],” our Country will become “the most miserable Habitation in the World.”

In other words, if we talk a good game to ourselves and to our friends but, in truth, we’re a country full of selfishness and greed, we will be a miserable people.

The reason for this is that the government does not have enough power to deal with human passions that run wild and unchecked by “morality and Religion.” Therefore, he concludes, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Right there seems to be the crux of the problem in the United States. The Founders understood human nature and were willing to assume that where government left off, personal responsibility guided by Judeo-Christian teaching would fill the gaps.

And therein lies the problem. God is no longer central to our shared civic life together. We have retreated into separate sects, each claiming his right to do what the hell he wants and complaining when he can’t. God has been forced out of the public square and many people believe He should stay removed from our civil discussions.

In the vacuum left by God, however, the government steps in to guide your life and decides what is “good” and what is “bad.” In the United States, the government is trying to do what it was never meant to do: act as your conscience.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | If You Love Jesus, Bring Your Gun to Church

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 23:11
Johoiada and his sons brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him; they presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him and shouted, “Long live the king!”

It’s Thursday my friends, aka Friday Eve. Whoop whoop! If who’s on first, how could he have let the dogs out?

I came across an interesting post yesterday (thanks to Instapundit) that added more knowledge to my continued reflections on being armed not only as an American, but first and foremost as a Christian man. There is much debate about whether a true Christian should resort to violence in any circumstances, or whether a true Christian has the discretion to use arms to defend himself and others when the moment calls for it.

The post, “Be A True Christian: Carry Your Gun To Worship,” goes a step further than just giving Christians the discretion to decide whether or not to arm themselves and instead claims that believers have a duty to be armed. The post draws heavily on a chapter in a book called “The Sabbath in Puritan New England” written in 1891 by Alice Morse Earle. The chapter is titled “The Church Militant.”

In it, Earle describes how men in Massachusetts in 1640 were required by law to arm themselves when they attended church “for public safety.” A few years later, in Connecticut, a law was passed in which men who neglected such laws were fined “twelve pence for each offence.”

In 1640 it was ordered in Massachusetts that in every township the attendants at church should carry a “competent number of peeces, fixed and compleat with powder and shot and swords every Lords-day to the meeting-house;” one armed man from each household was then thought advisable and necessary for public safety. In 1642 six men with muskets and powder and shot were thought sufficient for protection for each church. In Connecticut similar mandates were issued, and as the orders were neglected “by divers persones,” a law was passed in 1643 that each offender should forfeit twelve pence for each offence. In 1644 a fourth part of the “trayned hand” was obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the sentinels were ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in their match-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of “coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows.” In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks from the red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, the Connecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town to come armed to each meeting, and that nowhere should be present as a guard at time of public worship fewer than eight soldiers and a sergeant. In Hadley the guard was allowed annually from the public treasury a pound of lead and a pound of powder to each soldier.

What’s fascinating about this is that armed men were posted out of fear of Native Americans (e.g. Indians) attacking them while they were worshiping. As blog post author Herschel Smith puts it, “Men ready to protect themselves, their centers of worship, and the families” where they “are most vulnerable.”

While historical, this account will be perplexing for some believers. “How can you be a Christian and be ready to kill someone?” will be a common question. Or, “that was then, this is now” might be another response. Of course, we’ve seen how “this is now” is sometimes very similar to “that was then.”

WARNING: GRAPHIC

I don’t claim that this historical account somehow “proves” that being an armed congregant is biblical. It is simply an example from our early history on this continent that the use of guns was a common practice in vulnerable communities, even so far as to be enshrined in law. No one had any hesitation about firearms being a normal part of life, including the church.

That it was once such a practice but isn’t currently raises important questions such as, What did lawmakers and men in the seventeenth century know that we don’t? It’s this: they recognized that evil existed and that they had a moral duty to protect the vulnerable—women and children and the community as a whole—and to fight against those who would do them harm.

If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

Exodus 22:2-3 (New King James Version)

Perhaps if it was true then, it is still true today.

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Daily Broadside | Gun Sales Setting New Records Every Month

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 20:12
“O our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”

Wednesday and it’s Cinco de Mayo. I’m sure that someone out there thinks I shouldn’t mention it because that’s “cultural appropriation,” or something, but I live in the United States of America and I’m not appropriating it, I’m recognizing it.

In the wake of the mass shooting in Indianapolis last month, Resident Biden lashed out against gun violence after eight people were killed at a FedEx warehouse by a former FedEx employee. Here’s what he said:

And I strongly, strongly urge my Republican friends in the Congress, who refuse to bring up the House passed bill, to bring it up now. This has to end. It’s a national embarrassment. It is a national embarrassment, what’s going on. And it’s not only these mass shootings that are occurring every single day. Every single day, there’s a mass shooting this year in the United States if you count all those who were killed out on the streets of our cities and our rural areas. It’s a national embarrassment and must come to an end.

The folks who own weapons, the folks who own guns, they support universal background checks. A majority of them think we should not be selling assault weapons. Who in God’s name needs a weapon that can hold 100 rounds, or 40 rounds, or 20 rounds? It’s just wrong. And I’m not going to give up until it’s done.

I agree that the number of people killed by guns in the United States is a “national embarrassment.” I think it’s embarrassing that a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles and given the chance to govern themselves through self-control and belief in the inherent dignity of their fellow man has completely blown their opportunity.

The problem is not guns. It’s not “easy access” or “loopholes” in the laws. The problem is the human heart. By and large, the country has thrown God out of the public square and it shows. As John Adams wrote in a letter to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798, “Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“

I bring this up because yesterday we learned that U.S. firearms sales rose for the thirteenth straight month in April, according to The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). “In April this year, 1.694 million background checks took place, a 0.9% increase over April 2020, according to the NSSF’s adjusted data. The data also shows there was a 21.1% increase in unadjusted NICS numbers, compared to April 2020.”

One of the greatest increases in gun ownership has been among black Americans, which is up 58.2%.

The reasons for the continued spike in gun sales are pretty obvious. It doesn’t take a genius to watch the Burning Looting and Murdering over the last year as the anarchists ran wild in multiple cities or to realize that the junior commies in government want to take your guns away.

“Americans are buying firearms for concerns for personal safety and for White House and Congressional efforts to limit and deny the ability to purchase certain firearms,” NSSF’s Director of Public Affairs, Mark Oliva, said in a statement. “The continued gun control statements by President Biden, many of which have been fact-checked and debunked as false, are driving sales.”

So it’s clear that people hear Biden, but aren’t listening to what he’s saying. In spite of his adamant denunciation of gun violence and his promise to curb the violence, people recognize that in a culture that is demonizing the police, they may have to be their own first responder. And if they’re going to be their own first responder, they better get a gun now before the government finds a way to severely restrict having one.

The greatest danger, however, is that should guns be outlawed or severely restricted, the government then has no meaningful resistance to whatever malevolent plans they have for We the People. To answer Biden’s question, “Who in God’s name needs a weapon that can hold 100 rounds, or 40 rounds, or 20 rounds?”—We the People, do. To prevent you and your minions from putting us all in reeducation camps.

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Daily Broadside | What We Need Are Some Wise French Generals

Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 16:9
For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.

It’s Tuesday May 4. May the Fourth be with you.

You may have read last week that twenty retired French generals and more than a thousand lesser officers wrote an open letter warning that the country is close to civil war. From the introduction:

In France this week, 20 retired military generals, 80 officers, and 1,000 lower-ranking soldiers signed an open letter expressing concern over “mortal dangers” they say face the Republic. President Macron’s government has instructed the army chief of staff to discipline the signatories for inciting insurrection.

The letter bears close attention on several grounds. Although the signatories warn they wish to act only after the outbreak of civil conflict, Macron’s response shows the government understands the situation has already deteriorated to a point where a true coup or uprising—an event quite unlike the shambolic ordeal in Washington on January 6th—might erupt at the slightest provocation.

At the same time, the letter itself shows just what failures of statecraft and betrayals of representation run the inexcusable risk of provoking the kind of civil breakdown the signatories decry.

What they’re speaking of is radical Islam and the government’s refusal to hold jihadists to a common standard of law and order in their country.

Crumbling-apart through Islamism and the hordes from the Banlieues. Several patches of our nation have been detached and turned into territories put under submission to dogmas contrary to our Constitution. Every Frenchman, regardless of belief or non-belief, must be everywhere at home in France; there cannot and must not exist any city, any neighborhood, where the laws of the Republic do not have writ.

For expressing their deep concerns and predicting that “there will be an explosion, and our comrades in active military service will be forced to step in and undertake the perilous mission of protecting our civilizational values and the lives of our fellow citizens,” eighteen active duty servicemen were relieved of duty and all of the signatories were accused of “inciting insurrection.”

Being accused of inciting insurrection for expressing your concerns publicly seems to be the hot new trend in global politics and therein lies a problem. Resident Biden is allowing the FBI and DOJ to be weaponized in searching out anyone who opposes his administration or happened to attend the January 6 rally (seriously: click the link and read the story).

If we can’t express our dissatisfaction with our government for fear that we will be arrested for “incitement” or for some other made up charge, we will quickly find ourselves under the boot. That, or there will be a backlash against the lawlessness shown by our government.

What we need in America are current and former generals and lesser officers who are willing to rein in the current occupiers in Washington. Resident Biden is not enforcing our laws, such as we have about illegal aliens. In fact, he’s acting as though there is no law and no one can do anything about it. On the other hand, he’s prosecuting innocent Americans.

I’ll leave you with this: