January 31, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | How to Stay Calm Even as the Country is Wrecked by Our Leaders

Daily Verse | Exodus 33:11
The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.

Monday’s Reading: Exodus 35-37

Monday and one of my kids playfully asked me how she could have a good weekend after reading what I wrote on Friday. Truthfully, I’ve had the same thought at times: after laying out what we’re faced with in this country, isn’t it kind of cynical to wish someone a good weekend?

I don’t know how what I write lands on you, but I’m able to enjoy my weekend after surveying the wreckage that our ruling class is visiting on us a nation for one main reason. First and foremost, above all else, I trust that Jesus is who he said he is and that he will do what he said he will do.

I make no apology for believing that. I don’t minimize it, excuse it or dissemble about it. He is my hope, not Brandon. Or Trump, for that matter.

Jesus is the answer to every question that mankind has ever posed, including what is going on in the United States and around the world right now.

In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. —John 1:1-5

Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the future, either distant or immediate. Not you, not me, not anyone but God. The worst thing we can do is worry about it, since we can neither know what will happen nor control it. That’s something Jesus taught us in the gospel of Matthew.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. —Matthew 6:34

The word translated as “worry” literally means to be divided or to be distracted. In the context of Matthew 6, Jesus is saying that God knows our material needs and that we should prioritize pursuing him first, and the material needs will follow; therefore, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be divided or distracted in where we put our attention.

That doesn’t mean we can’t be curious or concerned about what we see taking place around us in terms of civic order and a safe society. When God sets up rulers (see Romans 13:1-7) they are expected to govern according to the laws of God. When they don’t, they are being untrue to their responsibilities as “God’s servants.”

I don’t know about you, but it’s clear to me that those God has placed in authority to govern this nation are not staying in their given lanes. Are they governing according to the laws of God? By and large they are not. They are immersed in deceit, grift, and immoral lawmaking. They are steadily bringing citizens under their control and demanding that we follow their dictates, no matter how they violate human norms, constitutional rights or the moral order God provided.

And that’s because they don’t fear God and they don’t respect the rights of We the People in the United States of America.

This blog is my attempt to call attention to the ways in which our governing elite are being untrue to the established law of the land and the ultimate laws of God. You and I can call it what it is, pray intelligently about it, then leave it in his hands without allowing it to become an unhealthy preoccupation.

With that in mind, let’s have a good week.

January 28, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | You’re Nothing More Than an Obstacle to Power

Daily Verse | Exodus 28:2
“Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron, to give him dignity and honor.”

Friday’s Reading: Exodus 29-31
Saturday’s Reading: Exodus 32-34

Friday and we end the week with more troubling news as the nation formerly known as the United States of America continues to stumble erratically like a stabbing victim in the slums of some third world stinkhole hoping he can make it to the hospital. Our government is secretly transporting young illegal alien males all over the country; a 26-year-old male child molester who pretends he’s a woman was just sentenced to two-years in a juvenile facility; almost two-million illegals have crossed our borders since Brandon ‘took’ office and arrests soared to the highest ever; the U.S. trade deficit just topped $1 trillion for the first time ever; vaccine and mask mandates continue to be pushed on unwilling citizens and therapeutics are being rationed based on race in one state; Americans, especially blacks and women, are buying guns in record numbers because of the crazy; American citizens are being held in confinement for almost a year over nothing more than walking through the halls of congress after being egged-on by a suspicious person who has not been arrested or charged; and we have dozens of agencies that act as an unaccountable bureaucracy impervious to the legislators who created them or to the people they rule.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

Add to that two stories that should anger every American and prove we’ve already crossed the Rubicon of now being a surveillance state. First up is your friendly ~~postman~~ USPS postal worker who shows up in rain, snow or sunshine to deliver your daily mail.

The social media surveillance program was uncovered early last year by an online news outlet that revealed the USPS has been quietly tracking and collecting the social media posts of Americans, including notes about planned protests. It is known as Internet Covert Operations Program (ICOP). Analysts dig through social media sites searching for “inflammatory” postings, which are shared across government agencies. Civil liberties experts quoted in the story questioned the legal authority of the USPS to monitor social media activity and one asked a logical question: Why would the government depend on the postal service to examine the internet for security reasons? “If the individuals they’re monitoring are carrying out or planning criminal activity that should be the purview of the FBI,” said one civil liberties authority in the piece, adding “if they’re simply engaging in lawfully protected speech, even if it’s odious or objectionable, then monitoring them on that basis raises serious constitutional concerns.”

The U.S. Post Office, which can’t keep its costs in check, is running a surveillance program on unsuspecting American citizens?

These clandestine operations within the nation’s postal service should create concern, especially for a troubled agency that has failed miserably to fulfill its mission. The USPS has long been a bastion of mismanagement and frivolous spending that has fleeced American taxpayers out of billions in the last few years alone. In 2021, the USPS reported a net loss of $4.9 billion and in 2020 a net loss of $9.2 billion. One federal audit slammed the USPS for blowing the opportunity to save nearly $22 million had it bothered to maintain its fleet of vehicles more efficiently. A few years before that the USPS blew hundreds of thousands of dollars on professional sports tickets, booze and fancy meals while it claimed to be crippled by an $8.3 billion deficit.

If there was any business being run like that, it would cease to be a business. But, like any government program, there’s an unending stream of “revenue” without consequences for poor performance, so you and I foot the bill—and in this case, they’re using our money to spy on us.

Then, there’s the U.S. Capitol Police, who shot one unarmed woman to death and may have beaten another to death during the Capitol Hill incursion on January 6 last year, and not one officer has been investigated or charged.

As part of their job in screening visitors to the U.S. Capitol (should the complex ever re-open to the public, that is), U.S. Capitol Police often rummage through backpacks and purses. Lately, they may also be rummaging through more than that: your tax records, real estate holdings, and social media posts. All without your knowledge.

Besty Woodruff Swan and Daniel Lippman broke the details this week of a new Capitol Police initiative that involves deep dives into the speech, background, and lifestyle details of who members of Congress are meeting with, including donors, Hill staff, mayors, state legislators, and other Americans exercising their First Amendment right to petition their government.

Oh.

Ohhh.

Do tell.

The Capitol, as well as the House and Senate office buildings, remain closed to visitors as they have been since early spring 2020, the longest stretch in the country’s history. It’s been longer than any closure for the Civil War, or even the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu.

What’s happening here is that our ruling elite are separating the wheat from the chaff, the rulers from the ruled, the bourgeois from the proles. They’ve closed the buildings to We the People, the very ones who built them, and are doing virtual cavity searches on anyone who has the temerity to complain to their U.S. Senator or Representative.

This isn’t the country I grew up in and it sure as heck is not the country my parents grew up in. It just resembles it superficially.

There are some signs of life. More than 31 million people worldwide are protesting the tyranny of the covid lockdowns and mandates, more than 150,000 participated in the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and people are starting to sue irresponsible and radical officials who let criminals off with little or no penalty.

I’d love to think that this is more than just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Nah.

We’re in trouble, my friends. You really need to be thinking about what you will do when you’re forced to choose: resist the power or bow before it?

Have a good weekend.

January 27, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | A Spot Opens on the Supreme Court and We Already Know Who Will Fill It

Daily Verse | Exodus 23:2
Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.

Thursday’s Reading: Exodus 25-28

Thursday and the big news is that Brandon will get to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court. Justice Stephen Breyer is stepping down at the end of the current Supreme Court term.

Breyer, who is 83, has been the subject of rampant speculation about his retirement. Liberal activists were calling for the justice to retire soon after Biden was inaugurated. Sources close to Breyer, however, said the justice made the decision on his own terms and was not forced out.

Breyer is a consistently liberal justice, so any pick by Brandon won’t change the make-up of the court. Observers currently assess the court as 6-3 conservative leaning, although with some of the more recent decisions, you could’ve fooled me (looking at you, Chief Justice Roberts).

Brandon promised to nominate a black woman to the court to secure Rep. Jim Clyburn’s, (D-S.C.), endorsement during the 2020 South Carolina primary.

“In the wake of Justice Breyer’s retirement, I want to voice my support for President Biden in his pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. The Court should reflect the diversity of our country, and it is unacceptable that we have never in our nation’s history had a Black woman sit on the Supreme Court of the United States,” [Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.,] said.

We’re now at that stage in our country’s dissolution when superficial characteristics, like skin tone, are a priority when choosing someone to fill a powerful and enduring role. Like VP (Virtue Pick) Kamala Harris, so this one will be. Rather than focusing on the person’s ability to objectively and impartially interpret the U.S. Constitution, identity politics has taken over and progressives will relentlessly push a radical who will give them what they want that they can’t get otherwise through the legislative process.

In other words, the person won’t earn the position based on merit.

Instead of a political appointment, what we need are ORIGINALISTS who interpret the constitution as it was written, not reading new “rights” into it like Roe v. Wade or Obergefell v. Hodges. Nor do we need picks who simply fulfill some aggrieved constituency’s demands, like Sen. Murray and Rep. Clyburn are demanding.

Speaking of Virtue Picks, Justice Sotomayor just wrote a scathing dissent over S.B. 8, “the six-week ban that allows virtually anyone to sue providers and their ‘abettors.'”

As she did during each previous encounter with S.B. 8, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a seething dissent from her colleagues’ refusal to provide relief. Her latest opinion reaches a new level of bruising, eloquent fury. It also conveys the very strong impression that the Republican-appointed justices are on the brink of overturning Roe outright, and there is nothing she can do but denounce its imminent downfall.

What did the “wise Latina” write?

I dissented in Whole Woman’s Health II because the Court’s dismissal of the most important portions of the petitioners’ claims, beyond being unfaithful to our precedents, left all manner of constitutional rights vulnerable to nullification. I explained that the Court had “clear[ed] the way for States to reprise and perfect Texas’ scheme in the future” in order to target this and other rights with impunity.

Today’s decision shows that any hope that Whole Woman’s Health II might protect the Constitution’s guarantees in this case was illusory. As it turns out, Texas did not even have to amend its law to sidestep the minimal relief this court left available. Instead, Texas wagered that this court did not mean what little it said in Whole Woman’s Health II or, at least, that this Court would not stand behind those words, meager as they were. That bet has paid off. Despite this Court’s protestations over the “extraordinary solicitude” it gave this case and the narrowness of any dispute, it accepts yet another dilatory tactic by Texas. As a result, the District Court will remain powerless to address S. B. 8’s unconstitutional chill on abortion care, likely for months to come.

This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies. I will not stand by silently as a state continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee. I dissent.

That doesn’t sound like a reasoned opinion. It sounds like a tantrum—a tantrum thrown by a liberal.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who is very concerned with the perception of the Supreme Court, once rebuked president Trump when he complained about decisions the court had made. “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them … That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.” He also once said, “We don’t work as Democrats or Republicans.”

That sounds noble and there’s probably some truth to it, but the greater truth is that the justices work as Liberals and Conservatives and sometimes as Swing Votes. Everybody knows it. Every pick is made with an eye on the nominee’s politics and judicial philosophy.

Breyer, 83, has served on the court since 1994, after he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to replace the liberal icon Harry Blackmun. One of the body’s most prominent liberals, Breyer consistently found himself at odds with the court’s conservative majority, and even more so during Donald Trump’s White House tenure after the Senate confirmed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

So don’t believe that SCOTUS is an impartial body. They’re not. And the Democrats will nominate as radical a pick as they think they can get through the Senate, with Virtue Pick Kamala Harris being the deciding vote.

If you want a peek at the list of Brandon’s nominees, look what The Babylon Bee found: Exclusive: The Babylon Bee Has Obtained Biden’s List Of Possible SCOTUS Nominees.

Don’t write me letters.

January 26, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | Old Man Swears at Reporter, Eats Ice Cream While Russia Starts WWIII

Daily Verse | Exodus 20:20
Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you and keep you from sinning.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Exodus 22-24

Happy Wednesday and we’re midweek as the squatters in the White House continue to wreck the country that was the United States of America before the election of 2020. The economy is in shambles, the stock market is heaving, inflation is up, the J6 protesters continue to rot in confinement, Russia is threatening world war, our borders are dissolved, murders are up across the nation, and we’ve got a demented old man in office swearing at reporters.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

The good news is that Brandon continues to crash in his approval ratings.

President Biden’s approval rating has tanked to a new low of just 39 percent as his administration contends with a number of domestic and global concerns, a new poll shows.

The abysmal rating was derived from the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll that was shared exclusively with The Hill.

“This is a new low for President Biden as he struggles to solve a myriad of issues,” pollster Mark Penn said, according to the report.

“He struggles to solve.” Got news for you: Brandon isn’t struggling to solve anything.

The big unanswered question of the Biden presidency: when—and where—will the Ice-Cream-Lover-in-Chief get his first local scoop? Turns out the answer is Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams on Barracks Row. The President made a quick pitstop at the ice cream shop this afternoon after a visit to neighboring boutique Honey Made, where he admired necklaces on the wall for “my wife,” examined a coaster with a German shepherd on it, and picked up a Kamala Harris mug, according to a pool report.

At least we got that “big unanswered question” out of the way. Now on to less urgent matters, like whether Russia will start World War III or if his fiscal policies will wipe out your life savings.

Daily Broadside | That Time Jesus “Transgendered Himself” in the Gospels

Daily Verse | Exodus 15:11
Who among the gods is like you, Lord?
Who is like you—majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory, working wonders?

Tuesday’s Reading: Exodus 19-21

Happy Tuesday and if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you know that it’s mostly focused on the crazy of our political class and its intersection with American culture. I also try to pay attention to where faith is making a statement in our culture, but come at all of it as an unapologetic conservative evangelical Christian.

With that in mind, I recently came across an article that showcases how the culture has, at least in one instance, twisted the very person of Christ himself in service to an agenda. In the following video, Simon Woodman of London’s Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church holds forth on his unique interpretation of Jesus’ activities. (Yes, I know it’s Britain, but “woke” is international and we know this stuff is here in the U.S.)

In case you don’t have time to watch it all, here’s what this misguided pretender said (my transcription):

So, if we think of Jesus as, um, the one who reveals God, uh, I was really struck by Angela saying earlier that “God is queer.” And, uh, I, I think, as humans we have a tendency to construct God in our own image, rather than to recognize that we are made in the image of God. And, therefore, the dominant expression of humanity ends up writing itself onto God, and making that God. And, and I think, in, in the story of Jesus, the stories of Jesus’ life, we, we find that being very condemned, um, in, in some quite radical ways, which is then having the ‘knock-on effect’ of altering the way we understand who God is in relation to humanity. So, I think Jesus, um, transgenders himself on a number of occasions. Um, I, I think, you know, just, just the little phrase, uh, Jesus is lamenting over Jerusalem, longing to gather Jerusalem as a mother hen gathers her chicks. Um, I think if you look at, um, the foot-washing from John’s gospel, foot-washing elsewhere in both Old and New Testaments, that it, it’s consistently done by, by women. And, yet, Jesus takes this on. People often cast that as being the servant’s role — it was the women’s role. And, and Jesus does it and becomes the woman at that point. And, and, I think, you know, we’ve observed that either he’s a marriage [sic], he’s childless, he defies gender and sexual norms of his day, he’s known for associating with those whose own sexual history or gender identity may be ambiguous. So, I think in Jesus, we’ve got a revelation of God as encompassing far more, than what historically and recently, at least, um, Christians have tended to construct God as being. And I think there’s a bit of an antidote to, uh, heteronormative idolatry hidden in the story of Jesus.

This statement is so full of holes and absurdities and contradictions and half-truths it’s hard to know where to start. But let me try. The logical flow of his argument is:

1) Jesus reveals God;

2) Humans “construct” God in their own image;

3) Therefore, the “dominant expression of humanity” makes God “heteronormative” (i.e. men attracted to women and vice-versa);

4) But, Jesus condemns that understanding of God by “transgendering” himself multiple times;

5) Ergo, Jesus reveals God as embracing transgenderism, which is an antidote to “heteronormative idolatry.”

So much theological nonsense, so little time.

We agree that Jesus reveals God. Jesus says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). We can also agree that people often imagine (“construct”) God according to their own ideas or “image.” After that, we disagree with everything else he says.

God Himself is not “heteronormative” nor “transgender” because he is Spirit and “not a man.” Woodman argues that the “dominant” practice of humanity is heterosexuality (true), which mankind has projected (or written) onto God. The scripture says otherwise from the very beginning: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). God “wrote” that onto humanity.

Woodman claims that Jesus “transgenders” himself. What the heck does that even mean? Nobody saw Jesus as a “transgendered” individual. For instance, the Jews were ready to stone Jesus in John 10:33 because “you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Is Woodman suggesting that Jesus “pretended” to be a man pretending to be a woman? And then went back to being a man?

It’s sheer nonsense.

Woodman also claims that foot-washing is done by women in both old and new testaments. This is not at all clear from the texts that mention washing feet. In fact, it seems like most of the time guests were expected to wash their own feet (see Genesis 18:4, 19:2, and 24:32 for three quick examples).

As far as Jesus hanging out with sexually “ambiguous” people — Woodman gives no examples of such people in scripture. However, the people that Jesus was most often associated with in the gospels were “sinners and tax collectors.” Some of the sinners were sexually immoral, like the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11) or the Samaritan woman who had five husbands and was living with a sixth not her husband. All heteronormative relationships, I might add, even if sinful.

What’s so ironic is that Woodman starts off his argument by admitting that “as humans we have a tendency to construct God in our own image,” and then proceeds to do exactly that. None of his arguments hold up under scrutiny.

This is a case of someone with an agenda who “writes” onto God what he wants to see. You know how I know? Count the number of times he says, “I think.”

I’ll save you the trouble: eight times.

Eight times in roughly 13 sentences Woodman starts his thought with, “I think.” His entire statement is what he thinks—not what God thinks and not what the scripture teaches.

And when he concludes with the charge of “heteronormative idolatry,” that gives away the game.

Wokeness is envy run amuck.

January 24, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | So Glad We’re Back to a Stable World

Daily Verse | Exodus 12:40-41
Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt.

Monday’s Reading: Exodus 15-18

Monday and we’re now into the first full week of Brandon’s second year as Resident as Russia! Russia! Russia! threatens to invade Ukraine at the invitation delivered last week by the dunce in the White House; “minor incursion” and all that. Do you know that Trump was the only president in the last 30 years to not start or escalate existing foreign conflicts or war? Barring some kind of intervention, that’s all about to change as our military service members in their high-heels, pregnancy flight suits and vaccines prepare to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression and mockery of our woke civilian military.

The US and its allies will deliver a “swift, severe and united response” if Russia invades Ukraine, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned on Sunday amid rising tensions.

Maybe. I don’t trust anything that Blinken says nor the administration’s competence to deliver or sustain a smack-down on the Russians. Perhaps their attitude is the same as Megamind’s:

The only reason Russia is even making the move on Ukraine is that Brandon is an empty suit who reads whatever is put on his teleprompter. He’s certainly not a geopolitical genius, as his catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan showed us. Effects of the invasion could be harsh for the U.S.

Treasurys are a traditional haven during periods of geopolitical and economic stress. A rally in Treasurys would pull down yields, which move in the opposite direction of prices. A Treasury selloff has pushed up yields, with the 10-year Treasury rate TMUBMUSD10Y, 1.778% finishing near 1.77% Friday after hitting a nearly two-year high earlier in the week.

The Swiss franc, another popular haven, could also rally, with the euro/Swiss franc EURCHF, 0.12% currency pair likely to fall to CHF1.03 “on a frozen rope if Russia moves,” Donnelly said. The euro bought 1.043 francs Friday.

Also:

If Russia invades Ukraine, inflation-weary Americans will likely pay even higher prices at the pump.Oil prices have already shot up to seven-year highs in recent days. A conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which the White House has warned could be imminent, would have the potential to drive them much higher.That’s because Russia is the No. 2 oil producer on the planet, behind only the United States. And Ukraine is a key energy transit hub, where a large amount of Russian natural gas exports to Europe flow through.

An invasion of Ukraine would trigger immediate fears of sanctions from Washington on Russia’s vast energy resources, damage to the region’s energy infrastructure and raise the specter of Vladimir Putin weaponizing exports of natural gas and crude oil.

Investors would buy first and ask questions later.

What does Russia want?

The Kremlin wants what it says: an end to NATO expansion, a rollback of previous expansion, a removal of American nuclear weapons from Europe, and a Russian sphere of influence. However, Putin may accept less. The Kremlin’s primary goal is a guarantee that Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia will never belong to a military or economic bloc other than the ones Moscow controls and that Russia will be the ultimate arbitrator of the foreign and security policy of all three states. In essence, this conflict is about whether 30 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, its former ethnic republics can live as independent, sovereign states or if they still must acknowledge Moscow as their de facto sovereign.

The G7 is threatening harsh economic sanctions that would severely hurt Russia, so it’s possible that an invasion can be avoided. But maybe not:

The United States has ordered the families of all American staff at the US Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened concern that Russia, which has massed troops on the border, is about to invade.

In a statement on Sunday, the State Department also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at government expense and that all Americans should consider departing immediately.

[…]

The US Embassy in Kyiv warned that “military action by Russia could come at any time and the United States government will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency, so US citizens currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly.”

Take them at their word, embassy staff.

A Russian invasion could lead to a much bigger conflict and pull focus away from Brandon’s problems at home and perhaps trigger aggression by China and Iran, two other foes who have, respectively, designs on Taiwan and avenging the loss of top commander Qasem Soleimani who died by a US drone strike two years ago. If either of them act while we’re dealing with Russia, all bets are off.

But at least the tweets are nice, right NeverTrump?

January 21, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | Brandon Locks Up Nomination for “Worst President Ever” in Just His First Year!

Daily Verse | Exodus 4:13
But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

Friday’s Reading: Exodus 7-11
Saturday’s Reading: Exodus 12-14

Friday and we’re officially into the second year of the catastrophic failure that is the Brandon administration. Joey Sugar Cone was, at best, a mediocre Senator during his years in the upper chamber, and even that’s being generous. He’s always been an empty, clueless, vacuous, talentless greasy fabulist in a suit without an original thought or spine, and zero leadership skills.

He’s an actor who’s fed his lines by a staff that is paid to make him look smart. But get him away from his script and he says things like, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” or “it depends on what [Russia] does [in Ukraine]. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion,” or “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the—of the United States from Afghanistan.”

Now he’s old and his mental acuity (if you can call it that), is in decline. Combined with his untalented, incompetent, pretentious buffoonery over the last fifty years and you get what we’re looking at today: an unmitigated disaster of a man who has no wisdom, no idea how to navigate the political waters he’s floating on, and is an empty vessel onto which the extremists he brought with him into the White House project their vomit-inducing ideology.

The result of Brandon’s empty rhetoric and yummy vanilla ice cream cones?

Brandon revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and killed our energy independence. That contributed to a 60 percent rise in gas prices, the highest since 1980.
Brandon botched our withdrawal from Afghanistan, getting 13 U.S. soldiers killed and abandoning thousands of American civilians and allies to the Taliban.
Brandon has U.S. inflation running at 39-year highs, with 6.8 percent year-to-year inflation, the greatest 12-month increase since 1982. December’s inflation rate was 7 percent.
Brandon can’t fix supply chain issues, causing a shortage of essential commodities across the country.
Brandon has created even more division than under Trump with his administration demonizing conservatives and Republicans as “domestic terrorists.” Brandon has also likened his ideological opponents as the worst of racist Democrats like Bull Connor and George Wallace while trying to wear the mantle of Abraham Lincoln.
Brandon promised that he would shut down the Peking Lung Pox, but its offspring are running rampant across the country. More people have died of the virus under his watch (426,000) than all that died under Trump. By his own logic, Brandon should resign: “220,000 Americans dead … anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.”
Brandon has presided over the collapse of our southern border, with 1.7 million illegal aliens apprehended crossing our border in 2021.
Brandon sits at a 42 percent approval rating with at least on poll putting him at 33%.

Has Brandon restored our norms yet? Is everybody quite at peace and harmony now that Brandon is Resident and Orange Man Bad is gone? No more mean tweets, right?

If you were looking for Jimmy Carter 2.0, you must be thrilled.

Have a good weekend.

January 20, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | Leftists Are Going Full Nazi and You Should Pay Attention

Daily Verse | Genesis 50:19
“Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

Thursday’s Reading: Exodus 1-6

Just before publishing I learned that Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), joined all 50 Republicans in voting down the federal voting rights legislation in the Senate. So not everything is awful. But most of it is.

Thursday and if you’ve been keeping up with the Bible reading plan, we’re done with Genesis—and it’s not even the end of January! Hopefully you’re finding new things you hadn’t known before as you read through the scripture. If you’d like to join us on the journey this year, you can download the plan here:

BibleReader_C2C2022 Download

I hope you’re reading it because you need to be sure of Who is unchanging and True in an age of deceit, betrayal and threats to the safety and freedom we’ve taken for granted in the greatest country ever founded. If you’re not sure in whom your ultimate confidence rests, let me jolt you into thinking it through.

Almost half of Democratic voters—48 percent—think the government should be able to fine or imprison individuals “who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.”

This is not the most astonishing finding of a poll just released by Rasmussen. Let’s go through the relevant points: Nearly the same percentage of Democratic voters—47 percent—think the government should be able to put a tracking system, like an ankle monitor or a locked collar, on people who refuse the vaccine. And 45 percent favor putting the unvaccinated in camps. Camps.

More than half of Democratic voters—55 percent—think people who refuse the vaccine should be fined. Fifty-nine percent favor confining all unvaccinated people to their homes. More than a quarter of Democratic voters—29 percent—think that the government should be able to confiscate the children of unvaccinated parents . . .

Is any of this Nazi enough for you yet? You are living next door to the people who would have turned you over to the Comité de salut public for opposing the “Law of Suspects”—the law that authorized the arrest of all suspected enemies of the Revolution and ushered in the Reign of Terror. You are living next door to the people who would have turned you over to the NKVD for “moral sabotage of the Soviet Union.” You are living next door to the people who would have called up the Gestapo and said, “My neighbor is hiding a Jew.”

Examine these historical personages from Revolutionary France or Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany (or Nazi France): It’s not just that they were following orders. On the contrary, they thought they were doing a positive good for society. They were eager to help rid their community of dangerous elements. They were proud of what they did.

Some of your Democratic neighbors will likewise be proud to lock you up, put a tracking collar on your neck, take away your children—all for the public good. These are people who would murder you for the public good.

This is the poisonous rot that has leeched into our culture over the last few decades. And, lest you think that the government is just rattling their sabers without intent to use them, The US Army is set to conduct a “guerrilla warfare exercise” later this month in North Carolina where troops will battle against “freedom fighters.”

The two week “unconventional warfare exercise” will take from Jan. 22-Feb. 4 on privately owned land in a remote location which remains unknown.

“Called Robin Sage, the exercise serves as a final test for Special Forces Qualification Course training and it places candidates in a politically unstable country known as Pineland,” reports the Charlotte Observer.

“These military members act as realistic opposing forces and guerrilla freedom fighters, also known as Pineland resistance movement,” said the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

Maybe they’re just practicing for when they help Ukraine defend itself against Russia?

As Chris Menahan notes, a similar Robin Sage exercise in 2019 showed resistance fighters displaying a flag that says “liberty.”

“They could tell these soldiers they’re battling the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, North Koreans or other foreign enemies but instead they have them training to kill “freedom fighters” with “Liberty” flags,” writes Menahan.

The exercise will do little to dampen concerns that the Biden administration is launching a de facto ‘domestic war on terror’ targeting patriots and Trump supporters.

Oh.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any good reason for our troops to be war-gaming a battle against us. I mean, besides BLM and Antifa, but they don’t wave the “Liberty” flag. On the other hand, Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. general and a senior advisor to the far-Left VoteVets, has reasons:

Eaton told NPR that military leaders needed to “war-game the possibility of a problem and what we are going to do” while warning that the United States is “compromised… as far as 39% of the Republican Party refusing to accept President Biden as president.” He suggested that a scenario in which the military is “compromised” needs to be “addressed in a future war game held well in advance of 2024.”

Remember when we held war games to fight our enemies rather than to purge our own people?

Eaton, a Hillary Clinton adviser, isn’t however worried about the 33% of Clinton supporters who claimed that Trump was not the legitimate winner right after the election, or the 56% of Democrats who viewed him as illegitimate a year later. Polls actually show that much higher numbers thought that Bush and Trump were illegitimately elected than the number that thought Obama and Biden were illegitimately elected. Should the military be purging Dems or holding “war games” to determine what will happen if Democrats try to live out their coup fantasies?

Hey, how come it’s only conservatives and Republicans that need to be purged?

Notice, too, that Eaton isn’t addressing an uprising with rioting and burning and looting and murder. He’s talking about 39% of Republicans who merely don’t believe Biden was legitimately elected. But that kind of thinking is now a threat that apparently needs to be addressed.

Are you awake? Don’t make the mistake of smugly dismissing all of this because “it can’t happen here.” It is happening here, right before our eyes.

Listen to Brandon and our current or “retired” military leaders when they talk about “domestic terrorists.” Pay attention when your military prepares to battle “freedom fighters.” We need to take them seriously because they’re telegraphing their intent. And you and I are the targets.

January 19, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | More Evidence That November Will Be a Blowout

Daily Verse | Genesis 47:1
Joseph went and told Pharaoh, “My father and brothers, with their flocks and herds and everything they own, have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Genesis 48-50

It’s mid-week as we grind on, one day at a time, toward the mid-term elections in November. Funny how when your guy is in office there isn’t enough time to get done everything you want, but when the other guy is in office time slows to a crawl and you can’t wait until his term ends.

January 2025 can’t come soon enough. However, Brandon is “in charge” for the next three years, so we still have plenty of work to do in opposing his and his Marxist stooges’ agenda to overthrow what little remains of the American experiment in self-governance. If they have their way, we’ll be little more than a third-world stinkhole, atop which they sit with the riches they’ve accumulated unto themselves.

I have some hope, as I wrote yesterday, that national sentiment is turning against Joey Sugar Cone and he’ll be hampered (legally) by a Republican majority House and Senate. If you want to troll the Left, suggest that the way that will happen is that Trump will be elected as a Rep. from his district in Florida, he’ll become Speaker of the House, which will then impeach Biden and Harris, removing them from office and leaving Trump to complete Brandon’s term since it was stolen from him anyway, and then Trump will run for another full term as president.

That won’t happen, but can you imagine the hysterics and complete meltdown of the Left if Trump was president for 11 years? I LOL very hard at the thought.

Still, one has to be heartened by the cratering approval ratings of the stuffed sock-puppet we know as the Resident.

Biden’s approval rating has suffered a similar decline, from 56 percent in the days following his inauguration to just 42 percent in recent weeks, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. A Quinnipiac poll published last week measured Biden’s approval rating at just 33 percent, which matched the polling firm’s lowest recorded approval rating for former president Donald Trump in the days after the storming of the Capitol building in January 2021.

Eighty. One. Million. Votes. Either the election was rigged or we’re seeing the greatest case of buyer’s remorse ever recorded in American history. Maybe both.

Put the nose-diving approval rating (could it go even lower?) together with the great evaporation of Democrat leaning independents, add the number of current Democrats who are bailing out ahead of the midterms—29, with only 18 Republicans not seeking reelection—and you’ve got the makings of a major blowout come November. While not getting cocky, this is good news if for no other reason than it can restrain the damage that the criminal enterprise known as the Democrat Party can do to the nation over the remainder of Brandon’s term.

Cultural Marxists have infiltrated and taken over nearly every facet of America that counts: education, politics, arts and entertainment, media, journalism, medicine, law, even certain quarters of the church. They may encounter resistance, but they are determined and indefatigable, always pressing forward, never retreating, never giving in, never giving up. They cannot be appeased, persuaded or bargained with. If they lose, they will come back at it again and again. They will never stop until they are in complete control or they are dead.

People need to wake up to the fact that we’re in a fight we didn’t choose, but it falls to us nonetheless. Winning the House and the Senate in November will help.

January 18, 2022 by Dave Olsson

Daily Broadside | November Is Looking Good to Deliver a Reckoning

Daily Verse | Genesis 43:30
Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep.

Tuesday’s Reading: Genesis 45-47

It’s Tuesday and in the midst of the catastrophic failure of Brandon’s administration and the assault on our nation by domestic Marxist forces there continues to be scraps of good news that we can point to that offer some hope of political relief. The latest comes from the Gallup organization with a report that shows a seismic shift in political preferences over 2021.

On average, Americans’ political party preferences in 2021 looked similar to prior years, with slightly more U.S. adults identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic (46%) than identified as Republicans or leaned Republican (43%).

However, the general stability for the full-year average obscures a dramatic shift over the course of 2021, from a nine-percentage-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter to a rare five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter.

How rare?

The GOP has held as much as a five-point advantage in a total of only four quarters since 1991. The Republicans last held a five-point advantage in party identification and leaning in early 1995, after winning control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the 1950s. Republicans had a larger advantage only in the first quarter of 1991, after the U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf War led by then-President George H.W. Bush.

The key here is independents.

Regardless of which party has an advantage in party affiliation, over the past three decades, presidential elections have generally been competitive, and party control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate has changed hands numerous times. This is partly because neither party can claim a very high share of core supporters — those who identify with the party — as the largest proportion of Americans identify initially as political independents.

Overall in 2021, an average of 29% of Americans identified as Democrats, 27% as Republicans and 42% as independents. Roughly equal proportions of independents leaned to the Democratic Party (17%) and to the Republican Party (16%).

The percentage of independent identifiers is up from 39% in 2020, but similar to the 41% measured in 2019. Gallup has often seen a decrease in independents in a presidential election year and an increase in the year after.

Statistically we have the same number of Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. So why do the Dems seem to have an outsized influence on our political affairs? It’s all about the independents.

Although a registered Republican, I philosophically became an “independent” during the 2016 presidential election and have only hardened my position because I’m disgusted by both parties; the Democrats for being a criminal organization akin to the mob, and the Republicans for being the political equivalent of the Keystone Cops i.e., a do-nothing squish foil for the Democrats.

I feel a lot like Kurt Schlichter who writes about the reckoning that the Republicans must deliver to the Democrats if they win back the House and Senate this November.

November is coming and what they have sown they shall reap. They have sown failure. They shall reap a House ruled by Kevin McCarthy and a Senate by the murder Turtle and the pain will begin – at least it better. The base is in no mood for hands across the aisle. Time to deal the pain.

Also, it will be fun to see Democrats fall in love with the filibuster again.

The reckoning begins in the House. We must have our vengeance, both to satisfy the reasonable craving for justice on the part of the base and to teach the Democrats that there is a price for crossing us. Ilhan Omar needs to get booted from her committees because she is as anti-Semitic as she is brother-curious. Toots Swalwell has got to go from the intel committee – you cannot have people who get suckered into tacky sex with mediocre-looking Chi Com honeypots on that board. And Adam Schiff must go too – he leaks worse than Biden’s colon at the Vatican.

But that’s not all. McCarthy must make the Dem poobahs pay. All the Democrats who worked for years and years to become ranking members of their committees? Throw them off their precious committees. Why? Because they let Pelosi screw Republicans. This is the price. All their dreams must die.

Exactly. I will be beside myself if the Republicans don’t deliver a smackdown on the Democrats. Not because I think it will change much, but because we live in an increasingly kill or be killed political world foisted on us by the ideological descendants of Stalin and Mao.

It’s long past time to clean out the rat’s nest that are the Democrats. Republicans may, once again, be given a chance to show some spine. They better take it.