Monthly Archives: December 2021

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Daily Broadside | Joe is Perfect and This is Fine

Daily Verse | Hebrews 6:19
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

Friday’s Reading: Hebrews 8-10
Saturday’s Reading: Hebrews 11-13

It’s Friday and as we head into the weekend, some good news for those of us who can’t wait for Joe Brandon to be kicked to the curb in 2024.

As Stephen Green reported in this article at PJ Media,

Gallup recently updated its long-term party affiliation poll, which asks American voters one or two simple questions:

– In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?
– (If they ID as independents) As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?

Currently, 31% say they’re Republicans, up slightly from the usual mid-20s to 30%. 41% told Gallup that they’re independent voters, in line with the average swing. Only 27% self-ID as Democrats, which is down from the more typical 29-32%.

[…]

But it’s the second question that should have Washington Democrats changing their shorts.

Indies, asked whether they lean towards the Democrats or the GOP, broke for the GOP 47% to 41%.

If you’d like to see for yourself, here’s the link.

Half of all independent voters leaned Democrat as Resident Biden was [criminally] inaugurated on January 20. Since then, the Democrats have lost 9% of Indies. Conversely, Republicans started with 41% of independents in January and have picked up 6% since.

This is, of course, due to the flagrant incompetence and moral corruption of the current administration, which has left normal Americans bearing the financial cost of raging inflation.

In another poll conducted by Morning Consult/Politico, they found that more independent voters support Trump running for president in 2024 (31%) than they do Brandon (23%). Of course, the flip side is that 67% of independent voters say Biden should not run for a second term while 59% don’t believe Trump should seek reelection.

With independent voters abandoning Democrats, Republicans should feel the wind in their sails. As Green says,

At this time in Barack Obama’s first term, the breakdown was a much more Dem-friendly 25R/41I/32D. And the Indy swing was exactly reversed, 41R/47D.

Yet the Democrats still lost a whopping 63 seats in the House and seven more in the Senate in the following midterm election.

In yet another sign of how Democrats have lost their grip on the electorate, Biden’s support among Hispanics has also cratered. In their article, “Biden Has Lost Support Across All Groups Of Americans — But Especially Independents And Hispanics,” FiveThirtyEight found that,

Recent polling suggests that Hispanic approval of Biden’s handling of the pandemic and the economy has fallen sharply. The latest poll from The Economist/YouGov found just 45 percent of Hispanics approved of Biden’s handling of the pandemic, compared with 65 percent in early June. And Politico/Morning Consult’s new survey found Hispanic approval of Biden’s handling of the economy has dropped to 42 percent, compared with 60 percent back in June. Hispanics are also frustrated with how Biden has dealt with immigration — long one of Biden’s weakest issues in the public’s eyes — and although it isn’t the most important issue for Hispanic voters, it is often a highly salient one. Earlier this month, Quinnipiac University found that only 23 percent of Hispanic Americans approved of Biden’s work on immigration, down from 49 percent in late May. Even if that might be on the low end for Biden, the new Politico/Morning Consult survey also found him performing more poorly on the issue among Hispanic voters, as just 40 percent approved, compared with 51 percent in June.

I … am … laughing!

The Democrats and cultural Marxists (but I repeat myself) are flooding the country with Hispanics, believing that they will vote Democrat and keep the progressive commies in power. But it’s looking like it might be backfiring spectacularly. Wouldn’t that be poetic justice if in abolishing We the People and replacing them with another, the Dems still lost power?

In another article about the same poll, MSNBC writes,

But it’s possible that no political development worries blue America’s operatives more than Hispanic voters’ rightward drift.

Biden’s approval rating has declined with just about every demographic. But no racial or ethnic group has soured on the president more than Hispanics, according to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregation of all available polls.

In one recent survey from The Wall Street Journal, Hispanic voters were about evenly split between Republicans and Democrats on the question of which party they intended to support in next year’s midterms. And in a hypothetical Biden versus Trump rematch, the two candidates were statistically tied among Hispanics. The poll is an outlier, and its sample of Hispanic voters is small. But such a result would scarcely be possible in a world where Hispanic support for the Democratic Party was at remotely normal levels.

Of course, all this comes in the wake of an election that saw the GOP gain eight points among Hispanic voters, according to the Democratic data firm Catalist.

Finally, the most recent Rasmussen Reports “finds that, if the elections for Congress were held today, 48% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 39% would vote for the Democrat.”

The nine-point edge for Republicans in the latest poll is still larger than Democrats enjoyed at any time during the 2018 midterm campaign, due both to greater GOP partisan intensity and a 17-point advantage among independents. While 87% of Republican voters say they would vote for their own party’s candidate, only 80% of Democrats would vote for the Democratic candidate. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 44% would vote Republican and 27% would vote Democrats, while nine percent (9%) would vote for some other candidate and 20% are undecided.

On top of all this, 20 House Democrats are not seeking re-election in 2022, which means that keeping their majority just got that much harder.

Yeah, everything right now is looking like a political tsunami is building that will completely wipe out the Democrats in 2022. Yet Nancy Pelosi can gush at a Democratic National Committee holiday celebration,

And Mr. President, it is an honor and, of course, a pleasure to be here at this time of challenge — and with the coronavirus, the national insecurity for families, natural disasters.

Our country could not be more — it could not be better served, than with this most experienced, capable hands than yours, President Biden. He’s just perfect! The timing couldn’t be better.

Nancy as a meme:

Right. Don’t get cocky. But enjoy the general downward trajectory of all things commie Democrat.

Have a great weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Willful Ignorance is No Way to Go Through Life, Sisters

Daily Verse | Hebrews 3:14
We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at first.

Thursday’s Reading: Hebrews 5-7

Thursday and the nonsense emanating from Washington just keeps surpassing my capacity to be surprised. This week Nancy Pelosi expressed shock — shock, I tell you! — about the wave of crime in her home district of San Francisco, including organized retail theft.

“It’s absolutely outrageous. Obviously it cannot continue,” Pelosi said. “But the fact is that there is an attitude of lawlessness in our country that springs from I don’t know where… and we cannot have that lawlessness become the norm.”

An “attitude of lawlessness,” you say?

No idea where it comes from, you say?

She knows where it comes from. We all do. It comes from her progressive minions who have led the nationwide agitation to defund the police. It comes from progressive policies that refuse to prosecute theft valued under $950 and activist DAs who reduce bail for criminals. This go-soft on crime not only undermines law and order, but signals criminals that they can get away with crime that used to be punished.

Even the mayor of San Francisco has had enough.

Mayor London Breed launched an emergency police intervention in San Francisco’s crime-ridden Tenderloin neighborhood Tuesday, targeting a pipeline of illegal drugs that has been fueling a surge in gun violence and deadly fentanyl overdoses.

Breed’s anger and frustration over the crime surge in the city were on full display at her noon news conference.

“It’s time the reign of criminals who are destroying our city, it is time for it to come to an end,” she said. “And it comes to an end when we take the steps to more aggressive with law enforcement. More aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerate of all the bull**** that has destroyed our city.”

How stunning! And brave! She even threw in a swear to prove How Serious I Am!

Funny, I’m old enough to remember when she supported the movement to defund the police, and when she actually proposed defunding the police.

The Mayor’s proposed budget acknowledges the structural inequities impacting the city’s African American community, resulting from generations of disinvestment. The proposed budget reinvests $120 million in funds over two years, predominately from the City’s law enforcement departments, towards efforts to repair the legacy of racially disparate policies on health, housing, and economic outcomes for African Americans. …

Mayor Breed’s budget is informed by that process and recognizes that the African American community must continue to be involved in determining the specific allocations of the funding. Therefore, the Human Rights Commission will continue leading a community process to determine how the $120 million will be allocated.

That was then, this is now. The next mayoral election is in 2023, meaning that she will have to ramp up her reelection efforts in … [checks calendar] … 2022!

How conveeeeenient!

Hey, I’m all for cracking down on criminals, no matter the motivation. But both the mayor and Nancy Pelosi are cynical politicians who change positions to preserve their power.

Pleading ignorance insults our intelligence and tells us all we need to know about Pelosi’s own attitude of lawlessness.

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Daily Broadside | Don’t Look Now But What You Can Plainly See Isn’t There

Daily Verse | Hebrews 2:3b
This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him.

Wednesday’s Reading: Hebrews 3-4

Good morning, my friends. Wednesday and everybody but the current Resident and the other squatters in the White House have noticed that the price of everyday goods and services are rising faster than a hot air balloon filled with the vapid musings of Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg.

Since I’m no expert on economics, let’s let David Catron give us the details.

This is the largest 12-month increase in the CPI since 1982, and it is hitting Americans where it hurts most — the cost of energy, food, and transportation. This suggests that there is indeed a “huge disconnect,” but that it is between the fiscal fantasies of the Biden administration and the financial realities faced by the voters. Unfortunately for the White House, inflation isn’t as susceptible to spin as are most issues debated inside the Beltway. Americans encounter the truth every time they pay their heating bills, fill up their gas tanks, and buy food. Friday’s report merely confirms what they see in their daily lives. The worst news involves how much more they now spend on energy than they paid last year:

On energy: The energy index rose 33.3 percent over the past 12 months with all major energy component indexes increasing sharply. The gasoline index rose 58.1 percent over the last year, its largest 12-month increase since the period ending April 1980. The index for natural gas rose 25.1 percent over the last 12 months, and the electricity index rose 6.5 percent.

On food: The food at home index rose 6.4 percent over the past 12 months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending December 2008. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs increased 12.8 percent, with the index for beef rising 20.9 percent. The index for dairy and related products posted the smallest increase, rising 1.6 percent over the last 12 months.

Everything else but food and energy is up 4.9 percent over the past 12 months, its largest 12-month increase since the period ending June 1991.

From Ronna McDaniel at Fox News:

Meanwhile, the latest data from the Labor Department shows consumer prices skyrocketed 6.2% in October – the largest spike in more than 30 years. Rising prices are making everything more expensive: gasoline is up almost 50% since last year and used vehicles have risen by 26%. And if you hosted a holiday dinner last month, you might’ve emptied your wallet: according to the Farm Bureau, Thanksgiving dinner cost families 14% more than last year.  

Despite Biden’s assurances that inflation was temporary, the latest numbers indicate that inflation is here to stay – and will likely get worse. Economists project that high inflation will last well into 2022. 

Yet Biden and company want you to believe that this is all nothing to worry about and, in fact, are lying about it with straight faces.

Rather than actually tackling inflation, officials are more interested in explaining why those prices aren’t the full story. Biden chief of staff Ron Klain decided that the best response was a flip chart explaining that everything was actually great. It is one thing to tout your economic achievements, it is another to deny the existence of any problems. On inflation, the White House too often finds itself telling voters not to believe their lying eyes.

This is standard operating procedure for the Democrats:

But American voters aren’t having it:

The Economist/YouGov poll taken prior to last week’s release of the Consumer Price Index showed that 53 percent of Americans say the economy is getting worse. Just 15 percent say the economy is getting better.

Inflation is a the heart of economic concerns. Fifty-six percent of Americans say inflation is a very serious problem. Another 27 percent say it is somewhat serious, while nine percent say it is only a mild problem and two percent say it is not a problem at all.

All of this portends a disaster for the Democrats in 2022 but, just like their attitude toward inflation, they’re in denial.

President Joe Biden spoke at the Democratic National Committee holiday party on Tuesday night and expressed optimism that his party will prevail in next year’s midterm elections.

“We have to keep making the case,” Biden told a crowd of about 400 in Washington, D.C. “Let me say this again: From the president, we’re going to win in 2022.”

“I want to tell my Republican friends: Get ready, pal. You’re in for a problem,” Biden said, explaining that Republicans are “against everything” and challenging the crowd to name something the GOP is “for.”

OK “pal.”

Don’t forget: these clowns are the ones in charge. It’s up to us to relieve them of that burden in 2022 and 2024.

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Daily Broadside | All I Want for Christmas are the Four Virtues of Advent

Daily Verse | Philemon 6
I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

Tuesday’s Reading: Hebrews 1-2

It’s Tuesday and sorry for the miss yesterday. We had a dear friend who was close to death on Sunday and we spent several hours late into the night with him. He died Monday. Fortunately, he knew the Lord and understood “every good thing we have in Christ.”

Many Christians participate in the Advent season, which are the four Sundays preceding Christmas. This year they started on November 28 and will continue through December 24. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming,” which is a translation of the Greek word parousia which, in modern theology, invariably means the Second Coming of Christ.

Of course, the way Advent is practiced today doesn’t anticipate the Second Coming of Christ as much as it reminds us to anticipate and celebrate His first coming as a baby. Traditionally there are four themes (or virtues) correlating with the four Sundays: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

Our church ordered them this year as Joy, Hope, Peace and Love. As I reflected on those four virtues in that order, I was struck by the relationship between them.

Joy is the perpetual gladness of the heart that comes from knowing Jesus. Yes, it is an emotion that expresses delight in something, but it is also a deep-seated contentment that is unshaken by its circumstances, whatever they might be.

The shepherds heard about joy from the angel that said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). We’re even told that when the Magi “saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matthew 2:10).

Finding out that a Savior had been born was sure to lead them and, eventually us, to Hope.

Our church says that “Hope is the confident expectation of a better tomorrow based on the character and promises of God.” If you know that a Savior has come, you are suddenly filled with hope that you can be saved, based on the fulfilled promises of a coming Savior and King who would defeat death and the consequences of sin and lead us into an everlasting relationship with God Himself.

And once you have that hope, you’re filled with Peace. No longer are you anxious about whether or not you’re “saved” or if you even can be “saved.” No longer do you hang your head in shame because you’re not as good as the religious professionals who seem to have it all together. No, you live in peace, resting in the knowledge that you are “in Christ” and that he will “lose none of all those [God] has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:39).

If we are at peace, then, we are free to Love others. If we are anxious and unsettled and worried about our own life, we are preoccupied with what is wrong and soothing our anxieties. We become selfish and self-centered, making sure we are taken care of first.

Instead, being at peace allows us to focus on the well-being of others around us. We can seek their good without worrying about whether our good will be sought. We can treat them well because we realize that we have been treated well.

We are able to love because we are at peace.

We are at peace because we have hope in God’s promises and character.

We have hope because of the joy we’ve found in the Savior who has come and promises to save us from the consequences of our sin.

And we have joy because we’ve been told that it’s true.

It is Jesus who is our Savior — the entire line of dominoes falls with this first one.

Jesus has come, which leads to Joy, which leads to Hope, which leads to Peace, which leads to Love.

May those virtues be found in abundance in your life and in the life of your church this holiday season.

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Daily Broadside | Another New Poll Confirms We’re Done With Biden

Daily Verse | 1 Timothy 6:6-8
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

Friday’s Reading: 2 Timothy 1-4
Saturday’s Reading: Titus 1-3

It’s Friday and we’re headed into the weekend, although the communist junta running our country never rests. You can be assured that they’re aware they only have so much time to inflict maximum damage on our nation through lawlessness, lies, and the perversion of our core institutions like the military, our congressional norms, the Executive Branch, commerce, education, law enforcement, and the judiciary before the voters throw them out, (hopefully forever, but don’t bank on it), starting with the midterms in 2022.

Resident Biden continues to poll in negative territory, with more just-released polls:

[Resident] Biden‘s standing with Americans remains in negative territory heading into the final few weeks of 2021.

The [so-called] president stands at 43% approval and 51% disapproval in a NPR/Marist national survey released on Thursday. A day earlier, a national poll from Monmouth University indicated a 40% approval and a 50% disapproval. Both surveys were conducted in recent days.

An average of all the most recent national polls compiled by Real Clear Politics puts Biden’s approval at 42% and his disapproval at 52%. The average included a large survey from The Wall Street Journal conducted last month that had the [resident] well underwater, at 41%-57%.

In the NPR/Marist report, they found that:

The [so-called] president’s approval rating was just 42% in this survey, tied with a late November poll for the lowest Marist had found since Biden took office.

What’s more, the intensity of disapproval is high — 38% said they strongly disapprove of Biden. That’s close to the territory that President Donald Trump resided in during his term. [Yeah, but Trump had a hostile media, the deep state, and Russia collusion working against him; not so with Biden. — dlo]

While the numbers are a sign of a deeply polarized society, there’s also evidence of lackluster feelings for the [resident] among even people in his own party.

For example, in the survey, while 76% of Republicans strongly disapproved of the job Biden is doing, only 38% of Democrats strongly approved.

Don’t forget that NPR is a left-wing mouthpiece, so any data they share is suspect. Plus, most polling groups oversample Democrats in order to skew results in favor of the Left.

Nonetheless, there’s no getting around just how hard Biden is failing. And don’t forget that only 22% of voters want Biden to run for reelection, and only 12% want Value Pick Harris to run again. Those are unfathomably grim numbers.

Biden’s poll numbers are about the only thing that’s encouraging about this administration.

Of course, we’ve had a couple of successes in blocking some of his more radical moves. His nominee for comptroller of the currency, Saule Omarova, withdrew her name from Senate consideration. “The comptroller of the currency,” writes CNBC, “regulates about 1,200 nationally chartered banks with total assets of around $14 trillion, representing two-thirds of the U.S. banking system.”

You may have heard that Omarova was born in the Soviet Union, attended Moscow State University, called for the destruction of the oil, gas, and coal industries and the elimination of private bank accounts in favor of the Fed holding your money. She’s a straight-up Marxist-Leninist.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong were she appointed to the office?

Then there’s all of Biden’s vax mandates that have taken it on the chin as court after court has blocked them because the U.S. Constitution doesn’t give him that power. Now it sounds like all his mandates have been blocked.

Although we might call them “wins,” they’re really only tactical victories, not strategic victories. Biden assaults the public with his extremist nominees and policies, and we have to act on the defensive to turn them aside. With a presumed Republican House and Senate after the midterms, he’ll be dead in the water (assuming we don’t get more Fake Conservatives like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney). In order to really get something done, we need to hang onto the majorities for the next couple of years and then win a convincing victory in the 2024 presidential election.

Unfortunately, there’s no guaranteeing a win because our elections have been compromised and the Democrats have tasted the spoils of cheating and foul play. You think they’re going to sit back, especially if Trump is the nominee?

Nothing seems to change by voting harder … but, still, we vote in the hopes that we can wrest our country from its enemies and avoid the inevitable bloodshed that will come if we don’t.

That’s not hyperbole, my friends.

Finally, I leave you with another bit of evidence that even though we live in dismal times, there are pockets of hope that some of our institutions can occasionally function and do the right thing:

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | The ‘Don’t Drive Into the River’ Edition

Daily Verse | 2 Thessalonians 3:1
Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you.

Thursday’s Reading: 1 Timothy 1-6

Happy Thursday, my friends. My plants never seem to have the will to live.

Today’s post is a little off-brand for me, since I tend to talk faith, culture and politics. But I caught a story the other day that raised some questions for me and then saw another one yesterday that raised the same questions. I’d say they fall in the category of “human interest” stories.

Both stories are about “cold cases” — investigations involving missing persons who were never found — that seem to have been solved with a discovery of a car and human remains submerged in small water ways. The first story is about two Tennessee teens who disappeared more than 20 years ago.

Erin Foster, 18, and Jeremy Bechtel, 17, were last seen on April 3, 2000, after leaving Foster’s home, White County Sheriff Steve Page said in a news release. For years, there had been no new evidence in their case.

YouTuber Jeremy Beau Sides, who creates videos in which he uses sonar technology and dives underwater to track down evidence in missing persons cases, shot a video Nov. 24 showing his discovery of a 1998 Pontiac Grand Am that belonged to Foster.

You can watch Jeremy’s discovery here:

The other story is about a 22-year-old who went missing in 1976 — and remained missing for more than 45 years.

Authorities searching for a Georgia college student who’s been missing for more than 45 years got a big break after his car was found in an Alabama creek — along with his wallet, ID card and suspected human remains.

Kyle Clinkscales, a student at Auburn University, was last seen on the night of January 27, 1976, when he left his hometown of LaGrange, Georgia, to drive to back to campus in his 1974 Ford Pinto, said Troup County, Georgia, Sheriff James Woodruff at a Wednesday news conference, a day after the discovery.

The 22-year-old never arrived at the Alabama school and neither he nor the car were seen again — until, perhaps, now.

I find it fascinating that these missing people stayed missing for so long and then, suddenly, they are found. It reminds me of misplacing something and then suddenly finding it when you least expect it. I just had that happen to me the other day when I found a gift card sandwiched between two books. I had been looking for it the last couple of months.

Both stories moved me to a degree. I mean, here’s two teens who simply disappeared, leaving their families to wonder what happened to them. I’m sure there’s relief mixed with renewed grief (Kyle Clinkscales was an only child and both of his parents have died over the ensuing 45 years). But at least they know and aren’t left imagining the worst.

But why weren’t they found earlier? How did investigators miss searching in those spots?

“For 45 years, we have searched for Kyle and his car. We have followed hundreds of leads and never really had anything substantial develop from those leads,” Woodruff said.

He said they’ve drained lakes and conducted numerous searches in hopes of finding Clinkscales.

In the case of Erin and Jeremy, how did an amateur vlogger manage to piece together the locations to search, while the professionals were stumped?

How many people drive off the road into rivers every year? In the most recent article I found the estimate was “that about 350 to 400 people a year drown in their cars in the United States and Canada after their vehicle falls into a body of water or becomes stranded in flooding.”

And here’s two more cold cases involving similar circumstances:

A car and identification belonging to Judy Chartier, a teen who disappeared in 1982, were found this week in a Massachusetts river in some of the first discoveries in an almost 4-decades-old cold case. Authorities also found as-yet unidentified human remains in the same location.

New Hampshire Fish and Game search divers found human remains on Friday in a submerged car believed to belong to a woman who has been missing for 43 years. A preliminary investigation determined that the car may have belonged to Alberta Leeman, who went missing in 1978, according to a post on the New Hampshire State Police Facebook page.

And irony of ironies, this is from yesterday at Niagara Falls, where a car was submerged in the Niagara River about 50 yards from the top of the falls.

One person is dead after a car plunged into the Niagara River, with pictures showing the car was close to the brink of the top of Niagara Falls.

A U.S. Coast Guard diver recovered the woman from her vehicle on Wednesday afternoon after being lowered from a helicopter, according to the New York State Parks Police. It was not clear if she was alive when she was recovered.

I find this all fascinating, especially since these stories all sort of showed up for me around the same time.

What does it mean?

I suppose the lesson in all this is to learn from the mistakes of others and be very careful when you’re driving around bodies of water.

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Daily Broadside | New Poll Says “Anybody But Biden”

Daily Verse | 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Wednesday’s Reading: 2 Thessalonians 1-3

It’s Wednesday and thanks for checking in this morning. I don’t know why, but sales of my Velcro jello mold have stalled.

Remember when Joe Biden “won” the 2020 presidential with a record 81 million votes? LOL I know, I know.

Just when it seemed President Joe Biden could get no lower in the public’s political esteem, a new I&I/TIPP Poll of Americans’ preference for the 2024 Democratic presidential ballot is a shocker: Just over one out of five want Joe Biden back at the top of the Democrats’ ticket in three years.

A number of recent I&I/TIPP Polls (here and here) have documented Biden’s sharp decline in favorability with the public due to a number of issues, ranging from his leadership of the military, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the recent inflation surge and supply-chain crisis, the border crisis, and a number of other vexing White House issues.

Even so, no favorite has emerged among the large field of potential challengers to run against Biden in the 2024 primaries. The I&I/TIPP Poll gave respondents the names of 16 other possible candidates, asking “Who do you want to see run for president on the Democratic ticket in 2024?”

As mentioned, Biden was named by just 22% of those asked, while 12% mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris, whose abrasive style, lack of preparation and revolving-door personnel changes have drawn criticism even from formerly friendly Democrats and the left-leaning media.

Biden and Harris with their corruptocrat commie cronies operate like they have a political mandate from the people to blow up America as we’ve known it. But whatever support they had has evaporated like coverage of Darrell Brooks from the MSM.

In fact, I’d wager that even 22 percent is higher than their actual base of support.

That number is easy to believe since it matches the number of people in a recent NBC poll who say that the country is headed in the right direction: “Just 22% of adults say we are headed in the right direction.” (I posted about that here.) I’m not insulting your math skills when I say that means that 78% of adults think we’re headed south.

Let’s go, Brandon!

Plus, small business owners are letting the Resident have it, too.

Just 34 percent of small business owners say they approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president, down from 40 percent in the previous quarter and 43 percent at the start of the year, according to the latest CNBC|Momentive Small Business Survey.

Small business owners tend to be Republicans learning, so its no surprise that Biden is more disapproved than approved. What makes the fourth-quarter polling results so startling is that virtually all of the decline in support for Biden came from independents.

Just nine percent of Republican small business owners say they approve of Biden, while 89 percent of Democrats do. Those figures are nearly unchanged from previous surveys.

Among independents, however, support for Biden fell from 51 percent to just 33 percent.

Fifty-nine percent of independents say Biden has been bad for small businesses and 60 percent say he has been bad for the economy.

It was a Democrat, James Carville, who famously said during the 1992 election between incumbant George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Clinton 1992 campaign white board

Thirty years later, it’s still the economy. Hit people in the pocketbook through inflation and taxes, and you’ll lose their support every time.

Still, it’s hard to have much sympathy for those who voted for Joey Ice Cream Cone. They deserve what they’re getting. The rest of us, not so much.

On the other hand, imagine if Trump had been allowed to expand on his successes. We’d be energy independent, China and Russia would not be the military threats they are (although China always had the bioweapons at their disposal), the economy would be expanding and we’d have recovered our position as a superpower.

bUt … BuT … nO moaR mEan tWeeTs!

Only three more years to go.

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Daily Broadside | A date living in infamy 80 years later

Daily Verse | Colossians 3:8
But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

Tuesday’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1-5

Happy Tuesday my friends. Cleaning my vacuum cleaner makes me a vacuum cleaner.

Today, December 7, is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. On this day eighty years ago, Japan conducted a preemptive attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. Just before 8:00 a.m. that morning, and continuing for the next 90 minutes, the swarm of 353 Japanese planes dropped bombs and torpedoes, sinking, destroying or severely damaging our fleet of battleships, killing over 2,400 soldiers, sailors and civilians, and pulling the United States into World War II.

Above: Photo of the attack from a Japanese plane. Battleship Row is in the upper center of the photo where the white splash from an exploding torpedo can be seen. Ships are anchored in pairs.
Today in History: Dec. 7 | WTOP News

The day of remembrance is good. WWII is a distant memory now, and we’re still losing those who fought in that conflict. Former Senator Bob Dole died this past week at 98-years-old.

“It is with heavy hearts we announce that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died early this morning in his sleep,” the Elizabeth Dole Foundation tweeted. “At his death, at age 98, he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years. More information coming soon. #RememberingBobDole”

Dole very nearly lost his life in Italy after being shot, and bore the resulting scars and paralysis for the rest of his life.

“Some high-explosive bullet entered my right shoulder, fractured my vertebrae in my neck. I — I saw these — things racing — my parents, my house. I couldn’t move my arms, my legs,” Dole recounted in a 1998 campaign video of the injury he endured.

The injury shattered his right shoulder and damaged his neck and spine, leaving him temporarily paralyzed, and caused him to lose a kidney. 

He was given morphine on the battlefield and a medic marked him with the letter “M” in his own blood on his forehead. He then remained on the field for more than six hours before he was evacuated and not expected to live. 

We also lost the last surviving member of the “Band of Brothers,” Edward Shame. He was 99.

Shames enlisted in the Army in 1942, parachuted into Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge as part of the “Easy Company,” 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

Their combined efforts – and sacrifices – made in the name of freedom inspired the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

These men were part of the “Greatest Generation” and fought against the enemies of freedom here and around the world. Given the soybois of today and our woke military, we could use a good dose patriotic inspiration from these men.

Take a moment today to remember those we lost at Pearl Harbor on that day which will live in infamy, and the men and women who gave the last full measure of devotion in service to liberty during the war (some 400,000 dead and 600,000 wounded Americans). You and I are beneficiaries of their sacrifice.

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Daily Broadside | An Odd Turn of Phrase May Be The Key to Appreciating Christmas

Daily Broadside | Philippians 3:17
Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.

Monday’s Reading: Colossians 1-4

Happy Monday, my friends. I think this is the part where I’m supposed to raise the curtain for the announcer.

My wife and I “put up” Christmas this weekend. If that sounds odd to your ears, what I mean is that we decorated the house.

When I was growing up we talked about “putting up” the Christmas tree, as in, “We put up the Christmas tree yesterday.” But never did we put up “Christmas.”

Now we do.

But how do you “put up” a concept? “Christmas” isn’t a physical object. It’s a season, a celebration, a holiday. Those are immaterial ideas that are expressed through things like Santa, lights, trees, presents, music, words, snow and cards. “Put up Christmas” is a time saving phrase that encompasses all of those things.

It’s an effective phrase, but it’s curious how the meaning of words shift over time. How did we get to where we talk about “putting up Christmas” as if it were a wall or a barricade? Who started using that phrase?

When I searched the question, “How did we get the phrase ‘put up Christmas’?” I got about 287,000 results with the top one being, “Why Do We Put up Christmas Trees?” Even Google doesn’t know where the phrase came from. And if Google doesn’t know …

I’m left to speculate and here’s what I think. We live in an era when the amount of time between desire and fulfillment has shrunk to the size of the space between a mosquito’s ears. You can sit in bed at 11:00 p.m., order an item from Amazon using your phone, and have it delivered the next day. Don’t ask me how I know.

That’s nearly “instant” gratification. The smaller the gap becomes between wish and fulfillment, the “faster” life moves. The longer we experience that speed, the more conditioned we are to expect it.

That conditioning leads to things like “put up Christmas.” Why take the time to say, “We put up the Christmas tree, then we put up the lights, and after that we put up the garland and wreaths”? We’ve got things to do, people to see, places to go. Much faster to drop the common nouns and just summarize everything in one big, happy word: we put up “Christmas.”

I may be wrong, but maybe I’m right. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, maybe not. The point is that we’re moving fast and even Christmas isn’t immune to the hurry of today’s life.

But Christmas is the very time we need to slow down. This is the season when we pause — PAUSE — to reflect on the fact that God initiated a rescue mission. The mission: to save mankind from the consequence of their sin, which was the unbelief and rejection of God.

That rescue mission had a Rescuer who showed up in the form of a child named Jesus. He’s the “reason for the season.” He’s the focal point of the celebration. He’s why we give gifts, decorate trees, string lights, and gather with family.

Without Jesus, we would be left to our own devices and face the consequences of our sinful condition, which is eternal separation from God. Faith in Jesus saves us from that dreadful fate.

Incredible.

This Christmas, don’t let the hurry whisk you past the significance of why we celebrate. Intentionally slow down. Give yourself time to genuinely reflect on the meaning of Christ’s birth. Sit in awe of the magnitude of what the Bible tells us.

There’s plenty of time to “put up Christmas.” Just don’t put up with hurry.

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Daily Broadside | Justice Sotomayor, Not the Fetus, is Braindead

Daily Verse | Galatians 5:14
The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Friday’s Reading: Ephesians 1-6

Happy Friday, Broadsiders. I’m learning to say “crochet” in 35 other languages because you never know when you might need it.

A short post this morning as we head into the weekend in follow up to the arguments yesterday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. In particular, I want to point out that Justice Sonia Sotomayor was not only hostile to Mississippi Attorney General Scott Stewart, who challenged Roe’s standard of viability; she was illogical in her responses.

I mentioned yesterday that Sotomayor questioned the State of Mississippi’s compelling interest in the viability of an unborn baby by asking, “How is your interest anything but a religious view … that’s a religious view … because it assumes that a fetus is life.”

First, no where does our Constitution say that religious motivations or views are not permitted when considering a decision. Second, her accusation that “a religious view … assumes that a fetus is a life” can be applied to her secular view that assumes a fetus is not a life.

That wasn’t the only thing Sotomayor said that got a strong reaction. She compared a fetus feeling pain to a braindead person responding to stimuli.

Mississippi Attorney General Scott Stewart challenged Roe’s standard of viability: that the state does not have an interest in protecting the life of a child until 24 weeks (six months) into pregnancy. Stewart argued that babies’ ability to feel pain before viability should play a role in determining whether the state should protect their lives.

“I don’t see how that really adds anything to the discussion, that a small fringe of doctors believe that pain could be experienced before a cortex is formed,” Sotomayor said while interrupting Stewart repeatedly.

In response to Stewart’s assertion that babies recoil from surgical instruments at as young as 15 weeks, Sotomayor argued that braindead people, who are considered officially dead in most states, can still sometimes respond to stimuli such as being touched on the feet.

“I don’t think that a response by a fetus necessarily proves there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness,” she said.

Her full comment comparing a live baby in utero and a braindead person in a hospital bed was, “Yet, the literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dead responding to stimuli. There’s about 40 percent of dead people who, if you touch their feet, the foot will recoil. There are spontaneous acts by dead brain people. So I don’t think that a response to — by a fetus necessarily proves that there’s a sensation of pain or that there’s consciousness.”

Is that your opinion, Judge? This woman is showing how weak the arguments are for Roe.

It isn’t a “small fringe of doctors” who believe a fetus can feel pain. Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, “It is well-established medical practice to provide anesthesia to the unborn child regarding medical procedures performed before 24 weeks because the nerve endings, which generate pain, are well-developed.”

Sotomayor is uninformed and biased, allowing her political views to color how she views this case. Not very smart for “a wise Latina woman.” In fact, sort of “braindead” if you ask me.

Have a good weekend.