Category Archives: Daily Broadside

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Daily Broadside | Sleeper Hit “Sound of Freedom” Makes Its Money Back While Championing A Cause Hollywood Ignores

Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.

My wife and I went with another couple to see Sound of Freedom, the movie starring Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) that outperformed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in it’s opening day sales.

Elsewhere, and in nearly 2,000 fewer theaters than Dial of Dud (2,850 compared to 4,600), Sound of Freedom, AKA the Little Christian-Themed Indie That Disney Dumped, hauled in another $15.2 million. By Monday, this $14.5 million budgeted movie — THAT DISNEY DUMPED – will have grossed close to $40 million.

Sound of Freedom — THE MOVIE DISNEY DUMPED – came in number three at the box office and – UNLIKE DISNEY’S DIAL OF DUD — is already making millions in profit. In its second weekend, Sound of Freedom trounced the opening weekend of Joy Ride, a woke comedy—he wrote as though “woke comedy” is not an oxymoron—that belly-flopped in 2,850 theaters with just $6 million.

How’s that for justice? Disney acquired 20th Century-Fox in 2019 and immediately shelves Sound of Freedom, which wrapped in 2018. Why would Disney shelve a $14.5 million Christian-themed film when Christian-themed films make money? Easy answer: it’s a Christian movie. Also, Sound of Freedom sounds an alarm about child exploitation, and as we now know, Disney is pro-child exploitation.

I’d call the film a “docudrama” because it is based on a true story but it is more drama than thriller, and there’s no doubt that Sound of Freedom is a compelling movie. It’s based on the true story of Tim Ballard (Caviezel), a U.S. Homeland Investigations agent hunting pedophiles who quits his job in order to rescue children from global sex traffickers.

As a visual experience, the cinematography is excellent. The acting throughout is believable, and of particular note is the performance of Bill Camp (12 Years a Slave; Joker) who plays Vampiro, a former cartel boss trying to expunge the evil he has himself engaged in by rescuing trafficked children.

POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD

The story is provocative and gripping (although a bit choppy in the beginning), even though it depicts nothing explicit. The violence and cruelty are all implied, allowing it to keep its PG-13 rating (language, smoking, drug and sexual references). Even a scene of hand-to-hand combat that ends with the death of a trafficker is mostly done in the shadows and we’re only shown his lifeless legs.

That reticence to more fully depict violence leads me to my only real complaint about the film: it feels “flat” because there’s no real emotional rhthym of build and release. Caviezel shows plenty of tears, but his character portrayal comes across as a strictly one note grim, with only one notable moment of humor to break the monotony.

The subject matter is sobering and tough to watch, but the gut-wrenching agony of losing a child and the terror of what they have been through would seem to elicit more grief from the parents and the children. The prospect of being reunited with a child thought to be lost would also seem to generate overwhelming emotion, but it remains very reserved throughout.

END POSSIBLE SPOILER

None of that is to dissuade you from seeing the film; far from it. Not only does it tackle a topic that Hollywood largely avoids, it has the noble purpose of trying to raise awareness of a global business that does $150 billion in transactions annually. This despite the film being completed in 2018 and then being shelved by Disney. Freedom only gained its freedom after a crowd-funding effort.

That’s too bad because there’s obviously an audience for it. While some film critics have been unnecessarily harsh in their reviews (looking at you, Rolling Stone), at least one recognized that one doesn’t have to be a Christian to appreciate what the film tries to accomplish.

In a largely positive review, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Let’s assume that, like me, you’re not a right-wing fundamentalist conspiracy theorist looking for a dark, faith-based suspense film to see over the holiday weekend. (The movie opens July 3.) Even then, you needn’t hold extreme beliefs to experience ‘Sound of Freedom’ as a compelling movie that shines an authentic light on one of the crucial criminal horrors of our time, one that Hollywood has mostly shied away from.” Other critics seemed to agree, giving “Sound of Freedom” an impressive 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Go see it. And take someone with you.

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Daily Broadside | Ben & Jerry’s Dumb Tweet Costs Unilever $2.6 Billion (So Far)

I don’t know about you, but I was shocked when the Bud Light boycott took off and Anheuser-Busch lost $31 billion in market value as their stock price plunged since April 1.

Shares of Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD), the multinational brewing company behind Bud Light, have also taken a hit. Since April 1, when Mulvaney first promoted the beer on social media, the New York Stock Exchange-listed BUD stock has tumbled about 15%.

Most analysts think that those losses are irreversible. In light of the catastrophic losses of Bud Light, Target, Disney and the NBA, you would think that businesses would tread a little more carefully when it comes to political messaging — especially “woke” messaging.

Apparently Ben & Jerry’s didn’t get the memo.

The idea that we sit on “stolen indigenous land” is an affront to all patriots, but publishing such an offensive message on July 4 when we celebrate our country is (intentionally) maximally rude and obnoxious. It is also an incredibly stupid message. Everybody the world over is sitting on what was once someone else’s land.

The uncomfortable fact behind Ben & Jerry’s propaganda is that pretty much the entire world is stolen land at this point. Human history is a history of conquest and occupation. The idea that the United States is somehow uniquely stolen land while the rest of the world is occupied by native peoples is naïve and ahistorical. If Ben & Jerry’s were to follow through on its determination to return land to its indigenous owners, it will have virtually no place anywhere to sell its ice cream.

Stephen Kruiser over at PJ Media agreed:

The “stolen land” thing is the weakest of all leftist “GOTCHA!” crap. Yeah, it feeds their brain-dead faithful a lot of non-meat red meat. Winning land via colonization is not “stealing.” It’s HISTORY. Leftists can’t grasp this because every part of their emotional and ideological development is stuck in toddlerhood.

Ben & Jerry’s has long been an activist for radical left-wing causes, including defunding the police and extreme climate change policies.

However, unlike Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch, Ben & Jerry’s has posted nakedly political messages for decades. The company, based in Vermont, has often supported left-wing causes—especially those championed by self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

In June, Ben & Jerry’s announced it wouldn’t pay to advertise on Twitter and claimed that “hate speech” is on the rise across the platform since Elon Musk purchased the company last year. In a blog post weeks ago, the company wrote that changes at Twitter are causing it “great concern” and that “hate speech is up dramatically while content moderation has become all but non-existent.”

The firm also faced boycotts from consumers after saying it would not sell ice cream in Israel’s Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which it described as “occupied Palestinian territory.”

The decision was denounced by Israel supporters as well as state governments. Eventually, Ben & Jerry’s filed a lawsuit against Unilever after the firm sold its Israeli division to a local franchisee before the issue was settled in December.

And in March, company co-founder Ben Cohen spoke out about the U.S. government providing military assistance to Ukraine, saying that the United States should instead try to negotiate and end to the war.

In the wake of their absurd July 4 message, the market value of their parent company, Unilever, is taking it in the groin.

Since sending out the message on Tuesday, Unilever, which has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000, has lost $2.6 billion in market capital. Those shares were down .5 percent on Wednesday and down 1 percent at the start of trading on Thursday. 

At the time of writing, the company’s market capital is down to $131 billion from $133.5 billion.

All I can say is, “Good!” The blowback has come fast and furious. The Washington Examiner posted an opinion piece that summarized a lot of the reaction.

But it is safe to assume this is not only the company’s most bizarre political stance, it is also its most hypocritical.

If Ben & Jerry’s was truly committed to the “Land Back” movement it describes as “all about restoring the rights and freedoms of Indigenous people,” then surely it could be a leader and return its own corporate offices to the Native Americans first.

Ben & Jerry’s headquarters is in South Burlington, Vermont, which was home to the Abenaki tribe before the British colonists came and before America was founded. Considering what the company is calling for, it does not seem too unreasonable for us to expect it to step up, be the first to give the land back, and presumably return to Europe.

After all, Ben & Jerry’s wrote that this “Land Back” movement is “about dismantling white supremacy and systems of oppression and ensuring that Indigenous people can again govern the land their communities called home for thousands of years.” I doubt Ben & Jerry’s would want to, in its own words, be a part of perpetuating white supremacy and preventing Native tribes from governing their own land. In fact, it would be quite cruel for this huge corporation to simultaneously advocate “Land Back,” acknowledge the harms of not returning the land, yet not actually give back the land it occupies.

It may be fun to imagine, but, of course, Ben & Jerry’s will never actually give back the land its corporate office sits on. It will simply exert pressure on others to give up their land.

As always, vote with your pocketbook. It should be obvious by now that if millions of us just stop patronizing these political organizations masquerading as businesses, we can do some significant damage to their brands and their bottom lines, with the goal of making them think twice before taking sides.

Have a great weekend.

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Daily Broadside | It’s Trump and DeSantis with Ramaswamy Polling Third

We’re 17 months away from the next presidential “election” in 2024. I put scare quotes around the word “election” because I’m no longer confident that event is what we think it is. The current Resident was installed in a 2020 election “fortified” by a cabal of businesses, state legislatures, judicial activists, social media titans and local election organizers. Add to that the dreadful SCOTUS opinion handed dow last week that state legislatures do not ultimately control policies around federal elections—despite the clearly worded clause in Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution—and maybe I should be writing the word like this: “””election”””.

Any poll taken a year-and-a-half prior to any kind of election should be taken with a grain of salt. But it’s still an interesting exercise to see exactly what the populace is thinking with respect to candidates for the 2024 presidential election. We on the Right should take seriously who our nominee will be because, just like the last several national elections (2016, 2018, 2020, 2022), the next is also an existential one.

By 2024, Barack Obama’s Marxist-infused Democrat Party will have held America hostage for 12 out of 16 years.  This nation cannot survive if the Democrats are in control for another 4-8 years with what will become an irreversible stranglehold on the federal bureaucracy and judiciary (including the Supreme Court).  If the Republicans do not win the presidency and Congress in 2024, this nation may well have passed the point of no return.

While I hold some hope that we will weather our national identity crisis, every election is now critical. The Democratic Marxists know it, too, and so do the Deep State and the lapdog media—which is why we can’t count on our future “elections” to be free and fair.

Yet, we must choose a candidate.

Trump, who has dominated U.S. politics since he came down the elevator in 2015 to announce his candidacy, is by far the 2024 presidential candidate to beat.

Former President Donald Trump holds a commanding 34-point lead over his nearest competitor in the Republican primary field, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), according to a Fox News poll. 

Most of the registered voters self-identified GOP primary voters sampled, 56 percent, support Trump for the nomination, while 22 percent back DeSantis. The margin between the pair had grown 19 percentage points since February when Trump led 43 percent to DeSantis’s 28 percent.

Even a key DeSantis advisor admits as much.

A top spokesperson for Ron DeSantis’ super PAC is sounding a decidedly dour note on the Florida governor’s presidential prospects, saying his campaign is facing an “uphill battle” and is trailing badly in the key nominating states.

Steve Cortes, who previously supported Donald Trump, also heaped praise on the former president, calling him a “runaway frontrunner” and “maestro” of the debate.

“Right now in national polling we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,” Cortes said in a Twitter spaces event that was recorded on Sunday night. “I believe in being blunt and honest. It’s an uphill battle but clearly Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner.”

I’m not sure Trump is a “‘maestro’ of the debate.” His off the cuff bluster and free-wheeling style gets him into a lot of trouble because of his imprecision. But he does know how to shut down his opposition while on stage, which makes him a formidable combatant.

Surprisingly, Vivek Ramaswamy is now in double digits, polling third behind Trump and DeSantis with support at 10 percent.

Similar to other national surveys, the poll finds former President Donald Trump with a strong lead in the primary race at 49 percent support. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis falls 33 points behind with 16 percent support. Ramaswamy comes in a close third place at ten percent support, just six points behind DeSantis, making him the only other candidate to break into double-digit territory.

I like Ramaswamy’s anti-woke message. In particular I like his promise to use the military to secure our southern border. I also like the fact that he’s the son of Indian immigrants, who legally migrated from the subcontinent through our front door. That kind of story will drive the Left nuts.

All other candidates are polling at less than 5%.

The nominee won’t be Pence, Haley, or Christie. The second-tier candidates, for the most part, are running vanity campaigns. They don’t have the support to mount an effective challenge to Trump or DeSantis.

Who do you like at this point in the process?

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Daily Broadside | Do We Have the Heart to Resist Unconstitutional Rule?

Happy Wednesday and I hope you enjoyed your time off yesterday for Independence Day. One of the foundational truths that has been lost over our years as a nation is the notion that “we the people” are in fact the locus of self-government.

The question to ponder on Independence Day is, simply: Where do our rights come from?

In any system of government ultimate authority, or sovereignty, must be located somewhere in the system for it to function. For most of history, in most places, sovereignty has been located in the ruler: the king or queen, warlord, military commander, party chairman, or the like.

Where sovereignty is located in the ruler, the personal embodiment of legitimate state power, the rights of individuals have been understood to be little more than the malleable artifacts of the ruler, with their scope and substance and tenure entirely dependent upon the ruler’s determinations and dispensations. The economic and social status of persons, their property, their liberty, their very lives are understood to be contingent upon their relationship with the ruler.

In 1776, our Founders turned this traditional concept of state sovereignty, and the relation of the ruler to the people, upside down. For the first time in history, a nation was founded on the proposition that the people themselves were sovereign, endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights that the government was bound to recognize, respect, and protect.

With their property and person protected by a Constitution enacted to secure the natural rights affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, the creative genius of a free American people produced unparalleled progress and prosperity.

Our rights, correctly understood, are given to us by God. They are not conferred on us on the whims of the president, congress, or by an elite “ruling class.” We are endowed by God “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

If rights come from God, the ultimate Authority, then no man has the authority to take away or otherwise impede my enjoyment of those rights. Nevertheless, we are experiencing the diminishment of our enjoyment of these rights under the oppressive rule of the “managerial class.”

Americans should understand the meaning of their own founding documents and history.  The type of government contemplated by the founders prioritized “self-government,” one that obtains the “consent of the governed” by its nature.  The current regime is a progressive-era holdover, an undemocratic managerial state ruled by putative technocrats and experts.

Progressive era managerialism claims legitimacy because it imagines the discovery of verifiably correct public policy.  Having discovered technocratically correct policies, these policies may be advanced without regard to public opinion.  After all, if the policies are correct, any expression of opposition is mere “misinformation” serving no purpose.  Thus, the administrative state’s managerial heads will ignore, deceive, and manage public opinion to pursue policies that they have determined are the fruit of authentic political and managerial science.

There is more than one type of threat to liberty.  Just as foreign occupation is incompatible with independence, rule by homegrown aliens, with whom one does not share the same interests, values, and pieties, can threaten independence as well.  Arguably, the distance between ordinary people and the Washington D.C. government sector is more profound today than that of the American colonists from the English in 1776.

And, like those colonists, we live under a kind of occupation, complete with a new flag.

My question is, “Do we have the heart to overthrow the oppressors?” should it come to that? I’m not confident we do. But I’m inspired by an interview conducted with a man who fought at the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775.

Captain Levi Preston, a minuteman who fought at the Battle of Concord, demonstrated the power of sentiment to spur one to action. Many decades after the battle, historian Mellen Chamberlain asked him, “Why did you go to the Concord fight?” Why did this Massachusetts farmer decide to leave his plow, pick up his musket, and join the fight against the British? Chamberlain suggested possible motivations, each of which Preston denies. Was it “intolerable oppressions”?

“Oppressions?” asked Preston. “I didn’t feel them.”

The Stamp Act? “I never saw one of those stamps.”

The tea tax? “I never drank a drop of the stuff; the boys threw it all overboard.” Chamberlain then mentioned the great seventeenth-century philosophers. “I suppose you had been reading Harrington or Sidney and Locke about the eternal principles of liberty.”

Preston’s reply: “Never heard of ‘em. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts’s Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanack.”

Perplexed, Chamberlain then asks, “what was the matter? And what did you mean in going to the fight?”

Preston’s answer: “Young man, what we meant in going for those red-coats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”

Preston’s instinctual attachment to self-government drove him to fight to defend it. Chamberlain considers Preston’s statement “the ultimate philosophy of the American Revolution,” writing that, “the attitude of the colonists was not that of slaves seeking liberty, but of freemen—free men for five generations—resisting political servitude.” Preston had no knowledge of the American Revolution’s legal and philosophical underpinnings and had not suffered from the “long train of abuses and usurpations” that Jefferson describes in the Declaration. He chose to fight out of loyalty to his community’s self-government and was willing to die to preserve it.

We think we have an attachment to self-government, but the truth, as I see it, is that we merely think that if we elect someone, then they have the power to do whatever they think best, even if it means boxing us in and diminishing our God-given rights to self-determination. Our “self-rule” consists of voting for people who may or may not be interested in preserving your God-given rights.

As we think about July Fourth, we should remember that America was first in human history to establish a free and independent constitutional republic based on two political and moral principles. First, the government was required to protect its citizens’ inalienable God-given freedom and rights, which would later be formalized in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Second, it was the first country to establish that the legitimacy of government resides exclusively in the people, who elect their leaders.

Modern Americans need to remember that prior nations around the world for thousands of years were undemocratic and hierarchical, with rulers and their inner circles at the top having the power and privileges while people at the bottom had few rights. Before America was established, freedom and rights as we understand and experience them simply did not exist. We must never forget the courage, determination, and godly principles that were necessary to establish the United States.

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Daily Broadside | Somebody’s Lying About the Coronavirus

I’m not one to post content that I know little about, but I want to recommend that you watch the following video that features Dr. Dr. David Martin in an address at the International Covid Summit in the European Parliament in Brussels. I’m sharing a shortened version of his remarks that’s available for free on YouTube. However, you can learn more at London Real, a media site that says about an inteview with Dr. Martin,

What David has uncovered is mindblowing information that suggests Covid-19 was far from being an overnight phenomenon, but has actually been orchestrated over the course of more than five decades! It is a remarkable narrative, the timeline of which David outlined in detail at the recent International Covid Summit in the European Parliament in Brussels.

David believes that Covid-19 was and remains an act of biological and chemical warfare perpetrated on the human race, and explains that coronavirus was first identified as an infectious replicable viral model that could be modified for “a whole host of reasons” in 1965.

I can’t vouch for all (or, if I’m being candid, any) of what Dr. Martin says in the video below. But I can say that what he says seems to fit the facts that we know better than the stories we’ve been told by the government. For example, why did Dr. Anthony “I’m the Science” Fauci and other “experts” continue claiming that we should all get vaccinated, boosted, then boosted again and again, when it became apparent that the Covid vaccines didn’t do anything?

Millions died of the disease, including people I knew personally. None of what we’ve been told makes any sense unless Covid was a deliberate act of violence against innocent people.

Watch the whole thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJoi4hGpqa8
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Daily Broadside | SCOTUS Rulings Offer Mixed Bag of Results

Last day of June and we’ve completed half of 2023. About 18 months left for the sock puppet in the White House to finish off America. Unless he’s re-elected, you understand. And by “re-elected,” I mean “re-installed.” Nobody in their right mind would vote for the Resident again. And those who would vote for him again only make my point.

The Supreme Court of the United States is issuing its decisions this week, a couple of which have substantial implications for our life together as citizens. The first was a 6-3 decision in the case of Moore v. Harper which examined who has the power to set elections rules.

In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that limited state courts’ ability to wrest control of elections law from state legislatures in a North Carolina redistricting case. The ruling does not, however, entirely stymie activist attempts to use courts to override elected legislators’ decisions about election law.

In Tuesday’s Moore v. Harper decision, SCOTUS held that the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause “does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections.” But it also failed to defend state legislatures’ constitutional right to control elections law, including redistricting, as shielded from court review.

In essence, SCOTUS ruled that state legislatures do not control policies around federal elections in spite of the clear language of the Constitution. Constitutional lawyer Mark Levin was apoplectic.

“[Republican Justices] Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett are truly pathetic,” a frustrated Levin tweeted. He added two long tweets arguing that the SCOTUS decision undermined the Constitution of our besieged republic. The decision seems to be in direct conflict with Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.

Only the states and Congress can regulate elections, according to the Constitution. But not according to SCOTUS.

Levin called out the Supreme Court for flouting the Constitution. “So, now the Framers’ and ratifiers’ clear language in the Constitution about state legislatures (not state governors or state courts) having the final say on electoral matters is the interpretation of right-wing kooks,” he asked sarcastically. Only Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented from the majority opinion. So much for the “conservative” Supreme Court.

”[T]he Supreme Court just ruled that those who wrote the Constitution, adopted it, and ratified it really didn’t mean for final authority to rest with the state legislatures,” Levin explained. “They [supposedly] intended absolutely nothing by that language.  The lawlessness continues, and the Court has opened even further the interference in our elections by activist bureaucrats and courts, and the controversy that will continue to ensue, for as long as this unraveling republic exists.”

Given the 2024 election, this is a terrible decision. Poorly decided with especially poor timing.

The second significant decision is that in a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS outlawed affirmative action, which began under President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s.

The Supreme Court has ruled that it is unlawful for colleges and universities to use race as a factor in admissions, overturning rulings from as far back as 1978 that claimed institutions of higher education had a valid interest in promoting racial diversity on campus and could thus give favorable consideration to black and Latino applicants in their admissions process.

Two separate decisions were reached in which the nation’s highest court ruled that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill engaged in unlawful discriminatory practices based on race that violated the Constitution. “[T]he Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” the opinion read. “Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.”

All the liberal justices dissented, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts joined with the conservative court members, writing for the majority. 

From where I sit, this is a long-needed decision. Affirmative action policies used in college admissions — let’s just call them what they are: quotas — violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But because progressives live and die by the myth that institutionalized racism is still a thing, they believe minorities can’t succeed on merit alone and need the state to step in to give them a hand up.

Maybe 50 years ago there was a need for affirmative action, but affirmative action at its core is unfair and discriminatory. How many qualified students, ie., based on merit, were rejected from schools they wanted to attend because of an affirmative action admission that was based not on merit, but on the color of the student’s skin?

Equality, not equity.

This principle holds true in God’s kingdom, too. No one gets into heaven based on the color of their skin. God doesn’t look at the masses in heaven and say, “there’s not enough diversity here. I need some affirmative action policies.” No, we all, no matter tribe, nation, color or creed, are saved only by the merit of Jesus Christ.

No exceptions.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | No Joke: They Really Are Coming For Your Children

So over the last couple of days I’ve been chronicling the filthy behavior of the Alphabet mafia during their so-called “Pride” events across the US and Canada. I’ve noted that barely clothed and fully naked men have been gyrating or bicycling or twerking in public with children present.

And the children are present with parents who either don’t care about the psychological damage such exposure will do to their kids or are simply too weak to resist being carried along by the open sewer running down the middle of our culture.

Worst of all, the sexual anarchists aren’t hiding that they are targeting our children.

LGBTQ activists participating in New York City’s annual Drag March on Friday sparked outrage for chanting “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children” in a Manhattan park.

The marchers, many wearing flamboyant dresses and clothing, walked through Tompkins Square Park in the East Village Friday night as part of the city’s Pride Month celebrations.

Video of the march shows people laughing and joining in with the cheeky chant — including one dancing topless woman.

C’mon, guys. It’s just a “cheeky chant.”

Seriously.

A little naughty nothing to worry about. No big deal.

Many online users pointed out that the chant was more than likely a joke in response to accusations of pedophilia among the drag community from the right.

We’re just joking. LOL!

We’re not really coming for your children. We’re just mocking the totally unjustified stereotype you conservatives have of us. It’s your fault H8er!

What the reaction to the declaration that “we’re coming for your children” tells me is that there’s still a wide swath of the American public that does not accept homosexuality and transgenderism as “normal.” They only “accept” it because the state has told them to accept it. They only “accept” it because they no longer have the cultural weight to oppose it.

Another part of it is that no one wants someone else usurping the role of parent in a child’s life. Atheists and the irreligious don’t want Christians telling their kids about Jesus. Christians don’t want secular humanists telling their kids about evolution. And nobody wants sexual deviants telling their kids about fisting or tucking and binding.

Especially a stranger.

Any parent would feel offended when someone else undermines their authority by teaching their children something the parent wouldn’t. It’s a shocking loss of control that threatens the parent. That’s why parents are showing up to school board meetings to express their outrage about middle school teachers groomers.

But it’s more than that.

It’s that parents don’t accept homosexuality and transgenderism personally. They don’t accept it morally. And they sure as heck don’t want some godless hedonist influencing or molesting their children. They don’t want someone screwing up their kid’s moral center or their emotional stability.

Most of us have accepted that homosexuality has been mainstreamed. We’ve had our misgivings about where such integration into the culture would lead and warned that once we gave an inch, we could expect that other dominoes would fall. And now here we are with transgenderism already forcing itself toward normalization while drawing p3d0philia in its wake.

Disturbing details in the arrest of the nation’s first elected transgender legislator and a Massachusetts preschool worker on child exploitation and pornography charges have been released by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Former New Hampshire State Rep. Stacie-Marie Laughton, a Democrat from Nashua and Lindsay Groves, a caregiver at the Creative Minds Learning Center in Tyngsboro, were both arrested and charged last week with multiple counts of child exploitation and distribution of child pornography. 

Laughton made history back in 2012 when she was elected as the first transgender lawmaker in the United States. She was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives.

The arrests of Laughton and Groves were initiated by the Nashua Police Department, but because of the nature of the crimes, it has been transferred to HSI for federal prosecution.

According to a report  based on a preliminary investigation into the case by a Homeland Security criminal investigator, Groves bragged in text messages that  she used  “natural bathroom breaks” at the daycare center prior to “naptime” to take photos of children’s genitals.

Special agent Rocco Rauseo said he was able to determine that the children allegedly exploited by Laughton and Groves are between the ages of 3 and 5. 

No joke.

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Daily Broadside | Either Bud Light Hasn’t Learned a Thing or They Just Don’t Care

In my commentary yesterday about all the “Pride” events I didn’t mention Bud Light, but they were part of the story. Before I get to that, here’s the latest on their cratering sales.

Data from Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ show that sales for Bud Light are down 28.5 percent year-over-year for the week ending June 17, according to the New York Post. That’s a decline of about 2 percentage points from the week ending June 10, when sales dropped 26.8 percent, Bump Williams’s data show.

Anheuser-Busch’s other brands, including Budweiser and Michelob Ultra, have also suffered year-over-year losses. Budweiser’s sales are down 12.3 percent, Busch Light is down 8.1 percent, and Michelob Ultra is down 4 percent, according to Bump Williams and Nielsen IQ.

At the same time, competitors like Yuengling Lager went up 25.1 percent, the data show. Coors Light saw a 21.8 percent increase, and Miller Lite went up 16 percent.

And for the month of May, Constellation Brands-owned Modelo Especial was the number one-selling brand in the United States, outpacing Bud Light, which fell to number two, industry data show.

Bump Williams, chief of the eponymous consulting company, told the New York Post on June 21, “This was a tough week for Bud Light and other beer brands” that are owned by Anheuser-Busch, including Budweiser. Sales of Budweiser were down by 10 percent, Natural Light was down by 2.3 percent, and Michelob Ultra was down by 2.4 percent.

Any hope that the consumer backlash would ease up after a spike of disgust has rapidly vanished. 24 percent of Bud Light’s buyers “no longer purchase the brand.”

“We believe recent underperformance implies a permanent reduction in ABI’s U.S. business,” Deutsche Bank analyst Mitch Collett wrote for Barron’s. “Our proprietary survey data suggests these headwinds are likely to fade even if we do not expect the U.S. business ever to fully recover from its current challenges.”

Collett also upgraded shares of AB InBev to “buy” from “hold,” increasing the price target to $65.92 from $64.83, according to the report. Data gathered by Deutsche Bank suggest that 24 percent of Bud Light’s consumers no longer purchase the brand. Another 18 percent are buying less, he said.

[…]

Another analyst said Bud Light could see tough times ahead. Evercore’s Robert Ottenstein said Bud Light will “permanently lose” between 15 and 20 percent of its volume. After that, “declines will resume at about the average rate of the prior 10 years,” he said.

Buy low, sell high.

Has the “fratty” and “out of touch humor” been sufficiently updated yet, Bud?

Apparently.

However, some social media users this week noticed Bud Light is an official sponsor of the Pride Toronto Parade, which promotes the LGBT lifestyle, and will “feature them on our can design.”

“Bud Light Canada has been a proud partner of Pride Toronto for the last 10 years. This year, we’re commemorating this milestone with Pride Toronto by featuring them on our can design, as well as continuing as the official beer sponsor of the festival,” Bud Light’s Canadian website says. “As a brand, Bud Light Canada is excited to once again celebrate and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community through Pride Toronto’s annual pride celebration and parade.”

Is this double down on stupid? Bud Light can’t NOT know that their consumer base has fled and most likely won’t be replaced, precisely because they associated themselves with a trans-influencer, part of the ever-expanding alphabet mafia. They have refused to apologize or even fire anyone involved in that disastrous marketing decision. (Bud Light Marketing Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid and Group Vice President of Marketing Daniel Blake are still on “leave” and Anheuser-Busch denies reports that they were fired.)

Here’s what was on Bud Light’s stage at the Toronto festivities. (Content warning if you click the link.)

They deserve to be not just be boycotted, but abandoned. Leave them to the minority of sexual obsessives’ dollars. That’s who they pander to, so leave them.

They are blind guides.

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Daily Broadside | Smut No Longer Hidden in Brown Paper Wrappers But Presented Live and in Public to Children

I assume that many of you have seen the reports of “Pride” events around the states. All are little more than wicked displays of hedonism. Content warning for links to the following videos.

A nearly naked man in underpants twerks in front of children in Minneapolis.

Fully naked men proudly show their penises to children in Seattle.

An “all ages family-friendly” pride festival in Denver.

Overtly-sexual performances and entertainment with children present at a Pride event in Arlington, TX.

The event above took place “directly next to a big church in Arlington. This, of course, is not a surprise; a frequent strategy of the organizers of these events is to incorporate faith and religion in their blasphemous performances” (emphasis mine).

Here, a street preacher is surrounded, mocked and belittled by members of a “Pride” event who “woof” like dogs and claim they are “born this way.”

Back to the children. It’s clear that these sexually obsessed perverts are determined to force their version of morality on the next generations of children. Listen to this crowd in the annual New York City Drag March chant, “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children!”

We all agree they are grooming our children.

Intentionally.

Methodically.

Without apology.

I look at this and think, “How much more can we tolerate?” Seriously. I mean, how low can we allow it to go? We’re at a severe level of deviancy and licentiousness. This is a Sodom-and-Gomorrah kind of wickedness.

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

God destroyed that city for its sexual deviancy.

Worst of all, I’m aghast not only with the flaunting of public nudity (isn’t that illegal?), but with the fact that parents are exposing their children to this debauchery. This isn’t about “rights” and a hand wave away because parents “know what’s best” for their children. What has happened to their sense of propriety? How is it that they’ve become accessories to the destruction of the youngest and most innocent of minds and bodies?

The Church cannot be party to this. In fact, the Church should be leading the charge against sexual deviancy. Unfortunately, many churches embrace homosexuality and show up to “Pride” parades to show “love and support” for those who practice homosexuality. It’s “loving,” you see, to support such people. We don’t want to come across as hateful and judge-y now, do we?

I imagine a day when thousands upon thousands of Christians and like-minded Americans show up and outnumber participants and audiences at these crass and tasteless spectacles. Be prepared to be arrested, though, for causing a disturbance or for engaging in “hate” speech.

We should not be afraid to exhibit righteous indignation and, frankly, outrage over the clear degeneracy being displayed. God said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

It was as bad as the outcry that reached him. And there were consequences.

Do you suppose the outcry against America is currently “so great and our sin so grievous” before a holy God? Why should we think we’re somehow immune to a similar fate?

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Daily Broadside | One Year On From Reversing Roe v. Wade

A new week and the last of June 2023. Thank God “Pride Month” is nearly over.

You know another thing to thank God for? The overturning of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

One thing to note is that the the SCOTUS ruling did not outlaw abortion. It simply returned the question to the jurisdiction of the individual states. It did, however, undo a grievous judgment of a prior Court that essentially made up a detailed law, far beyond its stated legal power to do so.

Now the decision is back in the hands of state legislatures, meaning that there are 50 fronts for pro- and anti-life forces to fight.

Over the last 12 months, 13 states have enacted near-total bans on abortion, while at least a dozen more have approved new laws curtailing access. In one state, Wisconsin, abortion services are suspended due to uncertainty about the status of an abortion ban from 1849 that remained on the books after the Roe decision. Wisconsin’s top officials are challenging the pre-Roe ban in court, arguing it should be unenforceable.

But we should be gratified with the huge “win” and the downstream impact that it has had.

Another great after-effect of the demise of Roe is that donations to abortion access groups have fallen off.

The “ rage giving ” did not last. Abortion access groups who received a windfall of donations following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade one year ago say those emergency grants have ended and individual and foundation giving has dropped off.

After the Dobbs decision, some major funders of abortion access also have ended or shifted funding from organizations working in states where abortion is now banned, said Naa Amissah-Hammond, senior director of grantmaking with Groundswell Fund, which funds grassroots groups organizing for reproductive justice.

Women’s health and foster care nonprofits, who expected increased demand in areas where access to abortion has been eliminated or restricted, say they also haven’t seen increased support.

What this tells me is that abortion is no longer a front-and-center issue for the culture at large, which is a detriment to Democrats, who fund-raise off of, and get voters to the polls from, the spectre of not having “safe and affordable” abortion services available. If abortion isn’t screaming for attention then there is less for the enemies of life to gin up fear over.

John Zmirak at The Stream wrote a good piece the other day and made these points:

The Unbridgeable Chasm
The point I was making, and which we should all insist on, is that the Life issue finally isn’t negotiable. It’s the Great Divide, the Grand Canyon, as slavery once was. Across it, no lasting rope bridge is possible. Either you think human life is fundamentally good and hence sacred, or you don’t. Either you believe that sexual convenience is a basic human right like life and liberty, or you don’t.

I’ve written here before about how quickly pro-aborts dropped the pretense that “abortion rights” are somehow grounded in the unwritten implications of this or that part of the U.S. Constitution. Justice Samuel Alito’s brilliant, historic majority opinion demolished the rickety, Rube Goldberg constructs of every pro-abortion precedent.

The Pretense Dropped Like a Towel at a Bathhouse
Now leftists have stopped citing “privacy” and “liberty,” which is handy — since they’ve made it clear that they actually believe in neither. If they did, they wouldn’t support secret FISA warrants aimed at Trump supporters and mandates for experimental vaccines. The same people who claimed for decades that “privacy” protected abortions up through nine months were happy to have the hostess at TGI Fridays demand women show their vaccine passports.

Now things are easier for them, in a sense. They can be honest and admit that they don’t care about “choice.” (You can’t choose your vaccine status, your kids’ public school, or what you say on the Internet.) They just care about abortion.

They’re willing to rally with Satanists who claim that it’s their “sacrament.” They don’t want abortions “safe, legal, and rare.” They never did. (When Bill Clinton said that, he was just as sincere as when he promised Hillary that he would “forsake all others.”) They want them easy, plentiful, and profitable — and they want to gaslight women who’ve had them into “shouting” them proudly in public.

To Face the Party of Death, We Need a Party of Life
We should help the left to make this point, that it’s unambiguously the Party of Death. It’s also the party of crime in the streets, child castration, chaotic open borders, racist “diversity” mandates, gun grabs, massive debt, election fraud, censorship, mass indoctrination, torn down statues, Antifa, mob rule, and defunding the police.

I particularly like his cut that the Democrats are “the Party of Death.” It’s true and I long ago came to the conclusion that I’d rather be an American than a Democrat. Their party is nothing but anti-Americanism draped in the red, white and blue.

Abortion may no longer be considered a constitutional right, but that fight, and many others, are far from over.