Category Archives: Politics

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Daily Broadside | Trump May Have Historical Precedent Going For Him, But 2020 Is Historical Precedent Now, Too

We’re still 17.5 months away from the next presidential election, enough time for the Resident to do more considerable damage to the nation of which he is the titular head. I won’t say that he “leads” the U.S. because as we all know, he doesn’t have that capacity.

Nevertheless, we can begin fretting about how the political fight among Republicans will shape up and start making some observations. Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and conservative radio host Larry Elder have officially declared their candidacies to be the Republican nominee for president.

Of course, the presumptive nominee to beat is president-in-exile Donald J. Trump.

Historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Niall Ferguson, makes a prediction about Trump that has caught the public’s attention. 

Former President Donald Trump is likely to become the next U.S. president, according to Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson.

“A second Trump act is not just possible. It’s fast becoming my base case,” Ferguson, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, wrote in a May 13 op-ed for The Spectator.

Ferguson explained that there is a “campaign of lawfare against Trump” but the effort “has already started to backfire.”

“It may seem paradoxical that the Democrats are harassing Trump in the courts if they want to run against him. But it makes sense: the prospect of him performing the perp walk attracts media coverage, and media coverage is the free publicity on which Trump has always thrived,” Ferguson wrote.

Ferguson added, “Every column inch or minute of airtime his legal battles earn him is an inch or a minute less for his Republican rivals for the nomination.”

We already know that the DNC, the media, NeverTrumpers and social media giants like Facebook are all in to prevent Trump from becoming president again, and they’ll abuse the law in service to that end if it keeps him out of office.

I’ve said before that the greatest service Trump did for the country, perhaps apart from appointing conservative Supreme Court justices, was to expose the Deep State and their lawless activities, even if he did it inadvertently. Did you see John Durham’s report yesterday? It proves that the FBI knew the Steele dossier was garbage, but they used it as a pretext to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into whether Trump was a Russian stooge. It also proves that Hillary Clinton was in on the scam from the start. Think anyone will go to prison for conducting a psyops campaign during a presidential election, or nah?

Norms status: R E S T O R E D.

If Trump wins the White House again, it will be the same harassment and false charges all over again to hamper any effectiveness he might have.

What about Ron DeSantis?

Ferguson also argued that if it were a two-man race between Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, there would be “a good deal more uncertainty around the outcome,” given that the governor “still looks to be in contention” in head-to-head polling.

“When voters are polled about this crowded field, Trump is the clear frontrunner, leading DeSantis by an average margin of nearly 30 points, 52.1 percent to 22.9,” Ferguson wrote.

Currently, the Florida governor has not indicated when or if he will announce a 2024 White House bid.

I like what I’ve seen of DeSantis, but I also like what I’ve seen of Ramaswamy. As you know if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, I’m very mixed on Trump. Although if he’s the nominee, I’d crawl over broken glass and spilled vinegar to pull the lever for him.

Ferguson places the betting odds on Trump.

As for the primaries, Ferguson notes that Republican candidates that have an early lead in the polls, as Trump does, typically end up the nominee. “Early frontrunners have won Republican primaries in six out of eight competitive races since 1972, when the modern system of primaries was introduced,” he notes. “The two exceptions were John McCain in 2008 and Trump himself in 2016.”

If Donald Trump maintains his current average polling numbers throughout the first half of 2023 but fails to become the Republican Party’s choice for the presidential nomination, he would become the highest-polling candidate ever to be unsuccessful in securing the nomination. So the odds are clearly in his favor.

As for the general election. Democrats assume that Trump can’t beat Biden — and that’s probably the only reason they’re tolerating nominating a vegetable for president — particularly in light of the results of the 2022 midterms. Of course, while Joe Biden likes to take credit for that, the abortion issue was a much more significant factor than Joe Biden.

Ferguson goes on to say that the economy will be a huge factor in the 2024 election and that, historically, “The Republican frontrunner usually wins the nomination, and a post-recession incumbent usually loses the presidential election.”

I don’t know that post-2020 we can count on historical precedent. We now know that the government uses its political power to favor Democrats and that organizations like Facebook pump money into regions where they can harvest ballots on behalf of Democrats. We are becoming like the corrupt third-world countries run by tin pot dictators who hold political power by cheating and rigging and influencing the elections. I used to feel sorry for those people who voted in vain.

Now I just feel sorry for us.

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Daily Broadside | We’re In The Very Best of Hands

Hey, remember when 51 security officials all signed and published a letter declaring that the Hunter Biden laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation”? They all swore that in their expert opinion, we should ignore the emails, documents, videos and pictures that painted a picture of Hunter Biden as a whoring, exhibitionist drug user who sold his father’s influence for millions of dollars that he took for himself, his friends, and associates with ten percent for the “Big Guy” because Russia’s objectives were “to create political chaos in the United States” and “to undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and thereby help the candidacy of President Trump.”

Probably all deep fakes and AI propaganda, right?

Yeah, well, that letter is exactly what we thought it was: a disinformation op organized by the Biden campaign and, specifically, by Anthony Blinken, the foreign policy advisor for the Biden campaign and current Secretary of State.

A former acting CIA director has admitted to Congress that he organized the letter that falsely portrayed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation in an effort to influence the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden and that he did so at the direction of current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to a letter released Thursday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

The extraordinary admission by career intelligence officer Michael J. Morell provides stunning evidence that the now-infamous letter from 51 security officials in October 2021 was not an organic intelligence community initiative but rather a political dirty trick originating with Blinken and the Biden campaign.

Jordan sent a letter demanding Blinken answer a series of questions about Morell’s stunning testimony, as lawmakers weighed the enormity of America’s top diplomat being willing to accuse a nuclear-armed superpower of interfering in the 2020 election without evidence. That letter included major snippets of Morell’s testimony.

“A political dirty trick.” That doesn’t even begin to describe it — it’s the very definition of election interference. Morell admits that he did what he did to help get Biden elected. They wanted to put these immoral scags in office because OrangeManBad.

He also testified that the Biden campaign team coordinated to release the statement on the laptop to a specific reporter at the Washington Post and admitted that he got involved to help give Biden a leg up on Trump during the debates. 

“There were two intents,” he said. “One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue; and, two, it was [to] help Vice President.” When asked why he wanted to help Biden, he replied, “because I wanted him to win the election.”

Blinken, Morell, and this cadre of soulless, unAmerican spooks conspired to sow doubt about what we knew then and know now: that the laptop is Hunter Biden’s and proves that the Biden family is a criminal enterprise that has enriched itself off the backs of the American people while it destroys our country.

In a sworn interview with the House Judiciary Committee last week, Morell admitted it was Joe Biden’s presidential campaign that prompted him to write the infamous letter, according to the Post.

After hearing from Blinken, Morell admitted that he solicited signatures for his letter from 50 other former intel officials.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is set to release a report in the next couple of weeks on the origins of the “Dirty 51” letter, and it will reportedly show “it constituted corrupt interference in the 2020 presidential election.”

“We can prove that the entire purpose of this letter at the outset was to influence a presidential election with some of the most senior people who have ever been in our intelligence community ­using the imprimatur of their security clearances to pave the way for Joe Biden’s presidency,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast this week.

“Morell wanted to be Joe Biden’s CIA director, got a phone call from Tony Blinken, who was representing the Biden campaign, saying, ‘Gee, Mike, doesn’t this Hunter Biden laptop look like Russian disinformation?’ ” said Gaetz.

“Morell testifies that then triggers him to be the ringleader of an enterprise to go to others and to put together a letter for the specific purpose of use by Joe Biden in the presidential debate … We can prove that and much more,” the Florida congressman added.

Unlike Adam Schiff-for-brains who claimed to have irrefutable evidence of Trump’s RUSSIAN COLLUSION!, I trust that when Gaetz says they can prove it, they can prove it. And it would be nice, when they do, if SOMEONE WOULD GO TO PRISON.

Two days ago, Marjorie Taylor Green added more disturbing allegations about Hunter and the whole Biden family. Watch the video and have a barf bag nearby.

It’s all coming so fast and furious. There’s also an anonymous whistleblower alleging a coverup in the Hunter Biden investigation that involves possible perjury on the part of — wait for it — Attorney General Merrick Garland.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland is the unnamed official whose sworn testimony before Congress is being challenged in a bombshell letter from an IRS whistleblower’s attorney that also alleges a coverup in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation, The Post has learned.

Attorney Mark Lytle wrote Wednesday that the longtime IRS employee wants to provide information to congressional leaders to “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” — Garland —and also to detail “preferential treatment” in the criminal probe of the first son.

The whistleblower already made disclosures to the inspectors general of the Treasury and Justice departments.

Please give me a second to catch my breath and absorb what I’ve just learned. Like you, I couldn’t have seen this coming in a million years.

These nasty anti-American grifters and power-mad politicians have done untold damage to our country. Without their interference, Trump may very well have had another four years to build on the foundation he laid during his first four. Instead, we’re in an economic, political and moral nightmare foisted on us by a few untouchables in the top echelons of government.

Government of the people, by the people and for the people is no longer true in our nation.

Our society is falling down around our heads, led by the evil and relentless progressive Democrats, media, national institutions and NeverTrump (I yet repeat myself quadrupley). But the one thing that never changes is the persistent strength of God alone.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
 God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.
 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

— Psalm 46:4-7

I’m traveling this weekend so there will be no Daily Broadside on Monday.

Have a great weekend.

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Daily Broadside | The Administrative State Will Be The Death of Us

I long ago came to the conclusion that the alphabet agencies populating the federal government are unconstitutional and should be defunded, decommissioned, razed and salted over — permanently abolished, never to be formed again. The federal government was supposed to be small with powers restricted to those enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

Jefferson also felt that the central government should be “rigorously frugal and simple.” As president he reduced the size and scope of the federal government by ending internal taxes, reducing the size of the army and navy, and paying off the government’s debt. Limiting the federal government flowed from his strict interpretation of the Constitution.

Offices with the powers of the IRS, the EPA, the DOE, the HHS, the DOJ, FBI and on ad infinitum, were never envisioned by the founders.

Under that system of a separation of powers each branch of the Federal Government was expected to protect its own Constitutional powers such that no single branch accrued power it was not allocated by the Constitution. The Founders understood that individuals were free in direct proportion to each branch of the Federal Government staying strictly within its own bounds, and the most important lane was the legislative lane; a narrow road of strictly enumerated powers written by a Congress consisted of duly elected representatives; with the House of Representatives the body most regularly elected, and with special powers over the origination of revenue bills in the driver’s seat.

But today many legislative and budget powers have been ceded to Presidents and the executive branch through statutes delegating legislative responsibility to Federal regulatory agencies composed of unelected people; and statutes mandating automatic and increased spending on certain programs administered by the executive branch.

That bolded text is the crux of the issue: Congress has delegated its own authority to unelected bureaucracies which issue regulations and rules that have the practical effect of law. Constitutionally, however, only Congress has the power to make law — it’s the legislative branch of the government, for Pete’s sake! — and only the House has the ability to appropriate funds, the lifeblood of these agencies and extra-constitutional organizations.

Yet the pressures of keeping a seat in the House or the Senate means that outsourcing their responsibility to unelected bureaucrats is a convenient way of avoiding responsibility for the onerous administrative state that Americans suffer under.

At first Congress had the upper hand; Congress had been creating the bureaucracy to carry out its wishes. But the more Congress gave away its powers in the form of broad regulatory authority, the more bureaucrats effectively became the lawmakers. The rise of the new imperial Presidency, and it should be shocking but no surprise, as Congress has expanded the bureaucracy creating programs, delegating authority, neglecting budgeting; the executive has attained unprecedented levels of authority. Our executives can command the bureaucracy to implement new procedures and policies without the cooperation of Congress by abusing executive discretion, by exploiting the vagaries of poorly written laws, and now by willfully neglecting and disregarding the laws which indeed are clear.

In his testimony before the 2016 Task Force for Executive Overreach Judiciary Committee (in the same linked document), Dr. Matthew Spalding of Hillsdale College, wrote:

This transfer of lawmaking power away from Congress to an oligarchy of unelected experts who rule through executive decree and judicial edict over virtually every aspect of our daily lives, under the guise of merely implementing the technical details of law, constitutes nothing less than a revolution against our constitutional order. The significance of this revolution cannot be overstated. It threatens to undo the development of the rule of law and constitutional government, the most significant and influential accomplishment of the long history of human liberty.

This revolution has created an increasingly unbalanced structural relationship between an ever more powerful, aggressive and bureaucratic executive branch and a weakening legislative branch unwilling to exercise its atrophied constitutional muscles to check the executive or rein in a metastasizing bureaucracy. If the executive-bureaucratic rule now threatening to overwhelm American society becomes the undisputed norm — accepted not only among the academic and political elites, but also by the American people, as the defining characteristic of the modern state — it could well mark the end of our great experiment in self-government.

Against that background, Michael Walsh’s latest column takes on more urgency.

Bureaucratic parasitism has only accelerated since start of the Nixon administration … as demands for D.C. to “do something” about pretty much everything grew and grew. Having won the war in Europe with Soviet and British help, and defeated the Japanese Empire practically by themselves, Americans felt there was no task too big to tackle. On Nixon’s watch —Tricky Dick’s fatal flaw, like Donald Trump’s, was the fool’s errand of trying to get his enemies (who detested him) to like him—the regulatory agencies were summoned into being, dark golems bent on destroying the Constitution in the guise of trying to Save the Earth.

One of the first up was the Environmental Protection Agency, the demon spawn of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which mandated (what an ugly word for a democracy to employ) “environmental impact” statements for future federal projects. Nixon put teeth in the law with the creation by executive order of the Environmental Protection Agency at the end of that same year. Then the unelected bureaucrats took over, and turned what had been sold as benign into a ravenous, uncontrollable, punitive beast. And now here we are:

The Biden administration is planning some of the most stringent auto pollution limits in the world, designed to ensure that all-electric cars make up as much as 67 percent of new passenger vehicles sold in the country by 2032, according to two people familiar with the matter. That would represent a quantum leap for the United States — where just 5.8 percent of vehicles sold last year were all-electric — and would exceed President Biden’s earlier ambitions to have all-electric cars account for half of those sold in the country by 2030.

It would be the federal government’s most aggressive climate regulation and would propel the United States to the front of the global effort to slash the greenhouse gases generated by cars, a major driver of climate change.

Death by a thousand cuts as the administrative state piles rule upon rule on top of our backs. Today’s Washington D.C. is a sinister, grotesque Gordian knot not unlike a cancerous tumor that has wrapped itself around the brain stem of its victim. Not doing anything will allow it to eventually kill any semblance of representative government — something I believe we are fast approaching.

Yet the alternative is an aggressive, unsparing treatment that cuts it out before it can do any more damage, and one of those agencies — the DOJ — has already demonized anyone who dares raise an objection to the administrative state as a “domestic terrorist.”

This is why I’ve warned that we’re heading for a significant conflict that can only be described as a civil war. That’s the trajectory we’re on, which is underscored by the literal movement of Americans out of blue zones across the fruited plain.

What we found was striking: There has been a vast migration out of counties that voted for Joe Biden into those counties that voted to reelect Donald Trump.

Census data show a net internal migration of almost 2.6 million (2,562,937 to be exact) from blue counties to red since Biden was elected. (These figures don’t count immigrants or births or deaths, just those Americans moving from one location to another.)

More than 61% of the counties that voted for Biden in 2020 lost population, while 65% of Trump-supporting counties gained population.

Some highlights:

  • Of the 555 counties Biden won, 335 (or 61%) lost population due to internal migration, our analysis found. Of the 2,589 counties that Trump won, 1,675 (or 65%) gained population.
  • Two Biden-voting counties that lost the most from net migration were Los Angeles County, which was down 363,760, and Cook County, Illinois, down 200,718. While many of the blue counties that lost population were urbanized, the exodus was widespread and nationwide, including many far more sparsely populated liberal areas.
  • In contrast, the biggest loss in any red county was Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, down just 18,470.
  • In 13 states that had a net loss of population, red counties nevertheless showed gains. In California, which saw a massive net outflow of 871,127 people in just the past two years, counties that backed Trump had a net gain of 8,412. New Jersey suffered a loss of 107,749 over the past two years, but counties in the Garden State that voted for Trump gained 22,507. Michigan lost 43,188 overall, but its red counties had a net gain of 28,091.
  • On the other hand, blue counties lost population in states that saw overall gains. For example, Florida had a net gain of 622,476 over the past two years. But counties that backed Biden nevertheless lost 3,374. Georgia had a large gain of 128,089, but blue counties still had a net loss of 28,178. Tennessee saw an increase of 146,403 people, but counties that voted for Biden saw a decline of 37,306.

Once the majority of moves have been completed, the red and blue state boundaries will harden and then there won’t be anywhere else to run to. As the federal government favors blue states over red, red states will either file for divorce or have to fight to leave the union.

We’re in for a long slog.

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Daily Broadside | Trump To Be Arrested for Being Trump

I’ve written many times about my hate/love relationship with Donald J. Trump. I was not on the “Trump Train” during his first campaign for president. While amusing, I didn’t really like how he insulted his opponents by nicknaming them with all the gravitas of a first-grader. “Crooked Hillary,” “Low Energy Jeb,” and “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” seemed undignified for someone running for high office.

I also didn’t like how he seemed to speak off the cuff with rambling, unfocused, surface-level sounding responses during debates. Didn’t he prepare? Didn’t he have a plan? Why couldn’t he plainly tell us what it was?

And what was with his narcissistic personality? “I’m the only one who can fix our problems … build the wall … beat Hillary.” Really?

But then he got elected. And I saw how effective he was, how he put America first, and the necessity of “punching back twice as hard” as the Deep State emerged to challenge his presidency. Hands down, his most important accomplishment was not just seeing, but revealing the unelected bureaucracy hiding in the alphabet agencies.

I became a Trump fan during his first term because he reminded me of Lincoln’s words about U.S. Grant: “I can’t spare this man; he fights!” The ruling elite in Washington hated Trump and they launched a previously inconceivable and unprecedented series of sustained attacks on him, including the dirty “Russia” hoax developed by Hillary Clinton, the two sham impeachments, the misleading “expertise” of the men and women he trusted to lead us through the Chinese Lung Pox pandemic, with all of it culminating in a rigged election that installed the incompetent bumbling fool currently posing as Resident.

Trump has been out of office for more than two years, but that hasn’t satisfied the establishment. Merrick Garland’s DOJ conducted an unprecedented raid on Trump’s home over official government documents that Trump, as president, had the institutional and constitutional power to declassify. (At least, I think he did. Either way, you’ll notice that our mush-brain Resident hasn’t been treated the same even though many more documents have been discovered at many more places from when he was vice-president and did not enjoy the power of declassifying documents.)

And now, in the latest attempt to smear Trump to prevent his resurrection as president for a second term, comes news that he will be arrested this coming week on charges that he paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, a publicity-seeking prostitute, to buy her silence over their (alleged) liaison.

Trump on Saturday announced his impending arrest himself, writing in all caps on Truth Social:

OUR NATION IS NOW THIRD WORLD & DYING. THE AMERICAN DREAM IS DEAD! THE RADICAL LEFT ANARCHISTS HAVE STOLLEN [sic] OUR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, AND WITH IT, THE HEART OF OUR OUR COUNTRY. AMERICAN PATRIOTS ARE BEING ARRESTED & HELD IN CAPTIVITY LIKE ANIMALS, WHILE CRIMINALS & LEFTIST THUGS ARE ALLOWED TO ROAM THE STREETS, KILLING & BURNING WITH NO RETRIBUTION. MILLIONS ARE FLOODING THROUGH OUR OPEN BOARDERS, MANY FROM PRISONS & MENTAL INSTITUTIONS. CRIME & INFLATION ARE DESTROYING OUR VERY WAY OF LIFE…

Page 2: NOW ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPT & HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEYS OFFICE, WHICH HAS ALLOWED NEW RECORDS TO BE SET IN VIOLENT CRIME & WHOSE LEADER IS FUNDED BY GEORGE SOROS, INDICATE THAT, WITH NO CRIME BEING ABLE TO BE PROVEN, & BASED ON AN OLD & FULLY DEBUNKED (BY NUMEROUS OTHER PROSECUTORS!) FAIRYTALE, THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!

My go-to “newspaper,” The Epoch Times, writes what is behind the charges.

Trump’s possible indictment stems from the alleged misclassifying of a $130,000 hush payment made to Daniels not to disclose an affair between the two, which Trump has denied. A grand jury was empaneled in the case and expectations have been building for an indictment.

Influential people like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former GOP congressman and Truth Social head Devin Nunes have warned that if Trump is arrested, he’ll be re-elected in a landslide.

“As I’ve said for a very long time now, as the person who led the investigation into the Russia hoax, that we have slipped into a banana republic in this country where you have a two-tiered system of justice, where Democrats run scot-free, and then someone like President Trump, or other Republicans, are held to this ridiculous standard,” Nunes told the outlet.

Nunes, like Musk, believes that a Trump indictment would backfire.

“If they do move forward and indict, it’ll just make it even easier for President Trump to win election because people are going to see this for what it is,” Nunes said. “[It is] just a farce, and another attack on Trump at all costs to stop him from becoming president again.”

Maybe “it’ll just make it even easier for President Trump to win election.” If he’s publicly arrested, or booking photos are published, that might be enough to get people super angry over the double-standard standard now functionally in place across our country. But given the election “irregularities” of 2020 and 2022, do we really think the GOP will be allowed to put another president like Trump in office?

It’s clear to me that we are witnessing a slow build toward some kind of confrontation. We can’t go on like this. Either the cultural Marxists win, or true Americans win. One will be subjected to the other.

The Left’s reaction to Donald Trump’s political career has from the beginning been a classic case of a conviction in search of a crime. Charging their foes with bogus crimes is a venerable and tested Leftist tactic, going back to Stalin’s trials of his former Bolshevik comrades, whom he forced to confess to various fabricated charges of subversion in order to justify his executing them and consolidating his power as an unquestioned autocrat.

In the U.S., the Democrats enjoyed tremendous gains in both houses of Congress and won the presidency on the strength of Watergate, and they’ve never forgotten that lesson; in fact, tarring their opponents as criminals on bogus charges has become a cornerstone of their political strategy. And that is a prelude to treating them like actual criminals, complete with arrests, handcuffs, and perp walks. Whether or not it comes Tuesday, it’s coming.

Right now it’s looking to me like the American commies are in the driver’s seat. Trump calling for protests is intriguing, given the fallout of the J6 hearings that accused him of inciting the crowd to stage the “insurrection.” My question is, will the nation listen?

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Daily Broadside | It’s My First Post of 2023 …

… and yesterday was New Year’s Day (Observed) at my office, so I had another day off. I hope your Christmas and New Year’s celebrations were wonderful and meaningful and full of warmth and pleasant memories …

… because it might be a new year but it’s the same-old same-old in the world of politics and culture and faith. Just because everything is “merry and bright” doesn’t mean we begin with a completely clean slate once the calendar turns a new page. Well, unless you’re in Christ, then “his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23) and, by extension, every year.

We’ll have to learn how to live in a country that is not just fraying at the edges, but is tearing down the middle. The FBI is still the Gestapo we learned about over the last six years; the Democrats are still the political mafia they exposed themselves to be; the GOP is not the opposition party but part of the swamp (with a few notable exceptions); our economy is being destroyed by the Church of Perpetual Climate Fear as war is waged on our abundance of natural gas and oil resources for some fantasy of “carbon-neutral” energy (go back to nuclear energy!); the border is still porous and getting worse because we live under a lawless regime whose sole purpose is to destroy the United States as founded; the judiciary has become a court of rubber stamps that enable progressive lawlessness; our elections are no longer free or fair, but hopelessly suspect; the DOJ and Brandon himself have demonized patriotic Americans and keeps hundreds of them locked up in violation of their due process rights; and normal Americans should be gathering by the millions to protest and agitate against all of it but such behavior is only allowed on the Left and prosecuted against the Right.

My political awakening came a couple of decades ago and I’ve invested more time in speaking out against the lawlessness than I ever have over the last three years. I sometimes see myself as a guy running up and down the brow of a rocky island jutting up out of the sea, waving a red flag, setting off flares, and yelling at an approaching luxury cruise ship, trying to get the attention of anyone on board, warning them that they’re about to run aground and sink the boat. Unfortunately, even though I’ve gotten the attention of a few people on the promenade deck, the captain and crew don’t seem to notice or care.

It’s dawning on me that there is no solution that will immediately fix the dire circumstances we find ourselves in. What I didn’t want to grant, but what has become most apparent, is that our freedoms and homogenous cultural assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. Speech is being curtailed by political and technological ideologues; deeply evil people lie and conspire to get the political outcomes they want. The spirit of our Founders once held us together as a nation, along with deeply religious communities of faith. Those have now been relegated to specialized institutions like the Heritage Foundation or Hillsdale College or to the church or the synagogue or the mosque. You’re certainly not going to find them in the halls of congress or our schools, which regularly and naturally reinforced our national values.

The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
    he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
    the purposes of his heart through all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
    the people he chose for his inheritance.
From heaven the Lord looks down
    and sees all mankind;
from his dwelling place he watches
    all who live on earth—
he who forms the hearts of all,
    who considers everything they do.

Psalm 33:10-15

Nothing escapes the Lord’s notice. He’s aware of all that is taking place in our country’s capitol, in each of the legislatures in each state, of every person in a position of authority. He’s aware of the lies, the cheating, the oppression, the hatred, the incitement conflict among the people, of the favoritism and the graft and the greed.

His purpose among the nations will prevail because his plans “stand firm forever.” How I wish that we would be known as a “nation whose God is the Lord.” But those in power disingenuously say they fear a “theocracy,” even though a return to the Judeo-Christian principles that this nation was founded on would be the right thing.

They reject them at the cost of their own destruction. They are blind fools and, one day, they will shrink in horror and shame as the full weight of their foolishness bores down on them.

In the meantime, Christians should be doing three things: actively opposing the evil being done in this nation, preparing for persecution, and winning as many to Christ as they can, while they can.

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Daily Broadside | Everything is Looking Good for the Mid-Terms

Daily Verse | Acts 7:57
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

Monday’s Reading: Acts 8-9

A couple of times this year, I’ve cautiously said that if the polls are accurate, the Democrats will get blitzed by not just a red wave, but by a crimson tsunami (see here, here and here).

In fact, last week I wrote, “A week from today will either be a red wave of tsunami-sized proportions or a trickle of red leaking through an overflowing toilet in Arizona. For now, I’m feeling optimistic that we will see a flood of Republican wins washing away Democrats for at least a generation.”

I’ve seen nothing to dissuade me from that optimism, but I can’t be entirely sure of what seems to be a building tidal wave until the last votes are counted. I won’t take anything for granted at this point because we got punched in the face over the last six years by a furious and exposed bureaucracy which had been comfortably hidden behind the theatre of Washington’s historical architecture, the costumes of crisp suits, and the polite script of politicians. We had innocently trusted that, with some few exceptions, the decorum and appearance of our political leaders meant the machinations of government were still turning as intended by our Founders.

Now that we know the truth, we cannot unknow and nothing can ever be the same again. Even if we’re able to eliminate the anti-American powers that exist in the federal government, we really cannot go bakc to the way we thought it was before. There needs to be a dismantling of the current federal leviathan and a rebuilding on a much smaller scale, the way our Founders envisioned.

That means that our elections are now existential battles against not just an extremist political party, but against the unelected bureaucrats and other evil actors who want to consolidate power and rule over the American people by forcing us into conformity with their plans.

Anyway—back to the elections. Such illustrious publications as The New Yorker are bracing for a “bloodbath” for the Democrats.

The consensus among a number of G.O.P. pollsters and operatives I spoke to this week is that in the Senate races that are thought to be competitive, Republican candidates are heading for a clean sweep: Mehmet Oz will beat John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, and not just by a point or two; Adam Laxalt looks pretty certain to defeat the incumbent Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada; even less regarded candidates such as Blake Masters in Arizona will be carried into office by a predicted wave. “He won’t deserve it, but I think at this point he falls into a Senate seat,” one Republican strategist told me. To these Republican insiders, certain high-profile races in which G.O.P. candidates were already favored now look like potential blowouts—Kari Lake’s campaign for governor in Arizona, J. D. Vance’s for Senate in Ohio. And some races that seemed out of reach, such as the Senate campaign, in New Hampshire, of the election denier Don Bolduc, now look like possible wins. The word that kept coming up in these conversations was “bloodbath.”

Likewise, the man who predicted Brexit and Trump’s victory in 2016 is talking about a “Red Tsunami.”

Here’s what the polls are showing.

Keep an eye on the Georgia Senate race between Walker and Warnock. That could be a bellwether for the rest of the country. GA reports Eastern Standard Time.

JD Vance has a 10-POINT LEAD on Tim Ryan. Again, polls nearly always undercount Republicans, so this poll, if it holds up, bodes well for Vance (and Ohio).

The RCP Generic Congressional Vote has Republicans up by +2.5 points.

Over at 270 To Win: “A consensus outlook for the 2022 House elections based on the current ratings of these seven forecasters. Only districts rated safe by six of them are shown in the darkest shade. You can also view these ratings as a table.”

Everything looks good. Great, even.

But don’t get complacent and don’t get cocky.

These polls tell us what a limited number of people say they will do. To make it a reality, we need every voter to go to the polls and exercise their right to vote. We’ve been waiting for tomorrow since the despicable man currently occupying the White House was wrongly sworn in, in January 2021. It’s time to severely limit the damage he can do with the remainder of his term.

All I can say is, get out and vote.

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Daily Broadside | All the Signs Point to a Massive Red Wave … But Only If We Vote

Daily Verse | John 14:31
“… but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”

Wednesday’s Reading: John 15-17

Happy mid-week fellow travelers!

I have to admit that I’m feeling optimistic and cheery about the polling I’m seeing in the lead-up to Clifford the Big Red Dog wiping the floor with Blue from Blue’s Clues — if Blue was the snarling, mangy, tick-infested offspring of Shenzi the Hyena voiced by liberal swell Whoopi Goldberg in the Lion King.

Hey, cut me some slack. I’m working overtime, here.

It’s hard not to be encouraged by the polling.

Those are great odds.

If Deace is anywhere near accurate with his predictions for state governors, it bodes well for other races in red states.

RCP’s 2022 generic congressional vote shows Republicans with a nearly 3-point advantage.

Seven polls all show a swing to the GOP.

Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democrat Party over their progressive extremism, endorses J.D. Vance in Ohio.

Ten blue state district House races that are moving toward GOP (not meaning the GOP leads the poll; just that the Dem position has softened).

In one of the most high-profile races, Lee Zeldin holds a razor-thin edge over incumbent Kathy Hochul. Amazing gains from the Zeldin campaign. Maybe New Yorkers are finally done with the extremism of the Democrats.

According to NBC News “Republicans hold MASSIVE advantage on 3 of 5 most Important issues according to New Gallup poll.” Coming from a Democrat house organ, it must be true.

There’s a lot more out there that should have us feeling good about November 8, but remember: none of it matters if you don’t vote.

Go give freedom a chance.

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Daily Broadside | Lurch Fetterman’s Lump Losing to Dr. Oz in PA Race

Daily Verse | John 11:48
“If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

Tuesday’s Reading: John 13-14

It’s November and one week to Go Time. A week from today will either be a red wave of tsunami-sized proportions or a trickle of red leaking through an overflowing toilet in Arizona. For now, I’m feeling optimistic that we will see a flood of Republican wins washing away Democrats for at least a generation.

There’s a lot going on in these last days of campaigning. Here in Illinois, which always votes Democrat because of Chicago and Springfield, Republican Darren Bailey is 17 points down to Democrat incumbent Gov. Pritzker according to a Civiqs poll (Oct. 24) listed at FiveThirtyEight.com. Over at 270toWin.com Bailey is down by an average of almost 16 percent. He’s unlikely to pull off an upset.

However, things are looking brighter in other races across the U.S.

One of the most high-profile races features Dem Lt. Governor John Fetterman, who is now behind in his Senate race with Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who surged to the front after the Disastrous Debate Debacle featuring Fetterman’s mental deterioration after his stroke in May. That the media and the Dems (pretty sure I just repeated myself) have conspired to hide his mental state from voters and having repeatedly assured us that he was just fine, is not playing well with undecided voters.

Four polls conducted since the day of the one and only U.S. Senate debate in Pennsylvania have showed Dr. Mehmet Oz leading John Fetterman by two or three points, still within the margin of error, but suggesting Republicans are coming home to their party’s nominee while undecided voters are breaking for Oz over Fetterman. 

Just a word about Fetterman and the Dems hiding his condition. I have sympathy for Fetterman and sincerely hope he heals, physically. But I have zero compunction about noticing his condition and asking questions.

In the world of progressive utopia, we’re not supposed to notice, you know. We’re supposed to be passive and simply clap for Anyone Doing Anything. Noticing Fetterman’s mental difficulties is “ableist” according to Mrs. Fetterman and his performance during the debate should be lauded just because Fetterman and his Lump showed up.

He’d never get my vote anyway because of his hoodie-wearing, blue-collar progressive, anti-freedom ideology. Practically speaking, however, if Fetterman has an auditory processing disorder and can’t function even with compensation such as “closed captioning monitors to follow both the moderator questions and Oz’s remarks” (which, by the way, Oz didn’t have to agree to, yet did, thereby not being “ableist”) — what does that mean for processing debates at the highest levels of government?

I’ll tell you what it means: he can’t and won’t be able to process and will simply be a rubber stamp for the Democrats, albeit a very large rubber stamp. He won’t be able to think independently — but truthfully, he wouldn’t anyway.

All this to say, so called “journalists” and the Democrat party lied about his condition right up until they couldn’t hide it anymore. If anyone is “ableist,” it’s these monsters who enable a mentally deficient half-wit to run for national office.

I’m not the only one who thinks Fetterman isn’t fit for high office. Talk to the centrist Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of PA’s largest newspapers, which just endorsed Oz.

“We believe Mr. Oz is the better bet for Pennsylvania,” the board wrote, before writing that Fetterman’s health stemming from the stroke he suffered earlier this year was not an issue for them.

We’RE NOt aBLeIST!

“His lack of transparency, however, in refusing to release his medical records is troubling. It suggests an impulse to conceal and a mistrust of the people. All candidates for a major elected office should release their medical records, as did Mr. Oz. If you want privacy, don’t run for public office,” it added.

[…]

The board wrote that Fetterman’s “life experience and maturity” were also concerns because he “lived off his family’s money for much of his life,” and had “little experience in holding real jobs or facing the problems of working people.”

LOL … a lazy do-nothing wants to continue being a slacker, just with more money and prestige.

It also cited Fetterman’s lack of apology over in an incident in which he pulled a shotgun on an unarmed Black jogger after hearing gunshots, and his flip-flop on supporting fracking.

HOw daRE yOu, rAciST!

“Mr. Oz is extraordinarily wealthy, but achieved his worldwide fame and success largely through his own talent and determination,” the board wrote. “Unlike most Republican politicians, candidate Oz spent a lot of time in poor urban neighborhoods, talking to people and, most important, listening and learning.”

Bottom line is that Dr. Oz is up 3 points and holding. Still within the margin of error, but the momentum has shifted to him. I suspect that we’ll see him win that race.

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Daily Broadside | Pence is the Quintessential Nice Guy, But He’s Not Presidential Material

Daily Verse | Jeremiah 31:19
After I strayed,
    I repented;
after I came to understand,
    I beat my breast.

Tuesday’s Reading: Jeremiah 34-39

Tuesday and there’s more than enough craziness in this country to power my blog for another ten years. Not that I necessarily want to keep cataloging and critiquing our government and the people who run it. I’d much rather that the partisan institutional power brokers are rooted out and we return to some semblance of nonpartisan governance. But that’s not happening anytime soon, and my fear is that we’re right on the cusp of crossing into a socialist society from which we won’t be able to extricate ourselves.

I don’t know Mike Pence at all except what I’ve learned of him in the news and from one of my friends who knows him. As far as I can tell, he’s a solid conservative Christian man of principle (Roman Catholic).

You may remember the outrage over his “I don’t dine alone with a woman not my wife” rule. Virtue Pick (VP) Kamala Harris had a case of the vapors over his approach, disingenuously suggesting that women’s rights suffered from men who ostracized them and limited their opportunities. Of course, when has Kamala been right about anything recently?

The point is that Pence seems like a genuinely nice guy, the kind of even-tempered soul you’d like to visit with over dinner (with both your wives).

Recently, there’s been speculation that Pence may toss his hat in the ring for 2024. For instance, he spoke at St Anselm College in New Hampshire, where would-be presidential candidates sometimes visit. But during his speech, he said something that illustrates why he’s not the right guy for the job.

Are you kidding me? We’re in an existential fight for our existence right now as a constitutional republic and you’re scolding us for criticizing and calling out the manifestly unconstitutional war that the FBI and the DOJ have levied on Donald Trump and, by extension, all of his supporters (and many who loathe the man but loathe the FBI’s off the reservation activities even more)?

Kurt Schlichter and others are warning conservatives off voting for him.

Your problem is that you live on forever in a world that no longer exists, if it ever did. You live in a world where there are norms. You live in a world of rules and guardrails, where the institutions are at least nominally neutral and where we all share some basic premises that provide common ground. But we don’t. They hate America. They hate believing Christians and Jews. They hate the idea of free speech, freedom of religion, the right to due process, and not killing babies three seconds before they poke their heads out. They think kids should be mutilated to conform to gender delusions. They want us normals disarmed, disenfranchised, and, more often than you softies will admit, deceased.

You [and Tim Scott] want to run in 2024, but you think it’s still 2005, and you both talk like a pre-failure Weekly Standard article about “empowerment” and “opportunity.” Buzzwords like that are worse than meaningless in an environment where our basic liberties are under constant assault by these communist bastards. There’s a war on and you people want to sing Kumbaya. That’s why you cannot be allowed anywhere near the levers of power in 2024. 

You just can’t accept what time it is. The FBI, Crusty Joe’s personal Stasi, invades President Trump’s home – they rifle through his wife’s panty drawer – and Tim Scott tells CBS News that we need to wait for all the facts. All the facts? Like the FBI hasn’t spent the last six years trying to frame our president and everyone around him? “Sure, they made up a lot of things in the past to imprison Trump and his staff, but this time it might be totally true – let’s give them the benefit of the doubt!” 

Mike Pence then tells us we need to go easy on the Bureau flunkies who did the deed because, after all, the institution is full of good apples. Yeah, good apples. Where are these good apples? Who’s the guy who quit because he refused to be part of the Democrats’ political hit squad? What’s his name? Jim Jordan says 14 whistleblowers have come forward. Awesome – 14 out of 35,000. That’s a good apple tart, not even a good apple pie, much less a good apple barrel. 

You always want to give the benefit of the doubt to the institutions because to not do so pushes you outside of your comfort zone. You desperately want the system to work. But so do we hardcores. The difference is that our response to the manifest proof that the system is totally broken to the point where only drastic reforms under a ruthless leader like a Trump 2.0 or Ron DeSantis 1.0 can save our country is to accept the harsh reality. We have made peace with the fact that there is nothing left to conserve, that we must loot and pillage and fight to rebuild upon the ruins. 

But you softies, you cannot get your heads around the truth of the situation because to do so would require you to go hard, and going hard is not in your wheelhouse. It’s not your brand. So you simply ignore reality and pretend that it is 20 years ago and that if you are only a good person, good things will happen.

Over at forbes.com, Pence is quoted as saying, “We need to let the facts play out, but more than anything else, the American people need to be reassured in the integrity of our justice system, and the very appearance of a recurrence of politics playing a role in decisions at the Justice Department demands transparency as never before.”

Well, yes. Unfortunately, he’s talking about law and order while we’re watching the emergence of a police state. You really think they’re going to listen to your calls for transparency? The only reassurance some of us will ever accept is if the current Stasi-cum-FBI is demolished, which will take, in part, being defunded.

As much as Mike Pence is likeable as a person, I have to agree with Kurt Schlichter and the others. He can’t be president because he’s part of the problem.

Pence seems like a genuinely nice guy, but I won’t support him for president because as nice as he is, he’s part of the Establishment, and right now we need someone who is not.

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Daily Broadside | 6 Things You Can Do to Help Your Candidate Win (And Deny Progressives Another Victory)

Daily Verse | Jeremiah 29:13
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Monday’s Reading: Jeremiah 30-33

Happy Monday. I hope you had a great weekend.

One of the questions I’ve gotten a few times from readers goes something like this: “OK, Dave, I get it. I see it. We’re in a crisis that most of the nation doesn’t see or is too scared to talk about. I agree with you. But what can we DO ABOUT IT?”

That’s been a tough one for me, too. A lot of the reading I do is great at analysis, but severely lacking on what we can do. I ask myself the same question and have written about it a few times before:

SIX PRACTICAL THINGS ALL OF US CAN DO TO PREPARE FOR WHAT’S COMING

THE INSIDIOUS STRATEGY OF THE CULTURAL MARXISTS DESERVES A RESPONSE

3 WAYS YOU CAN FIGHT THE SOCIAL MARXISTS WITHOUT LOSING YOUR JOB

These are a good start (and it was good to be reminded of them), but I keep my eyes and ears open to new ideas because the alternatives to doing nothing aren’t attractive to me.

Over the weekend I had a conversation with a conservative, Christian political consultant I know. I asked her the same question: What can the average person do to help turn things around? She gave me a list.

  1. Be a poll watcher. “Poll watchers, also referred to as partisan citizen observers or poll challengers, represent political parties, candidates, or groups such as ballot issue committees at polling locations. Rules for poll watchers vary state to state. The use of poll watchers is primarily aimed at guarding a party or group’s chance at a fair election.”
  2. Be an election judge. An election judge, (or judge of election or election clerk, inspector or commissioner), is the person in charge at the polling place. They are the one who is responsible to open and close the polling place, examine and verify the ballots, “verify that voters are qualified to vote and that they are voting in the right precinct, and they provide instructions for voters to help voting go smoothly. In some states, election judges may help process absentee and mail-in ballots. Each state sets its own requirements for election judges.”
  3. Put a sign in your yard. Candidates will give you a sign for free. Easy-peasy, right? Yes, you will “out” your political leanings. So what? The lefties don’t care if you know about their partisan preferences. Why should you care if they know yours? Have courage! Of course, in our hyper-partisan political environment, opposing voters have been known to steal yard signs or otherwise destroy them. There are ways, however, to counteract that behavior!
  4. Knock on doors. Also known as political canvassing or the “ground game,” knocking on doors to persuade residents to vote for a candidate or to remind the already persuaded to turn out is key for most candidates. Door to door canvassing increases voter turnout by an average of nine percent. “Political canvassing occurs when candidates, staff, or volunteers from a political campaign attempt to directly contact voters by going door to door. This door knocking is part of an extensive outreach plan that helps put a face on a political campaign. The more people a candidate, staff, or volunteer of the campaign reaches, the further the campaign’s message spreads.”
  5. Make phone calls. This, too, is known as political canvassing. “Volunteer-led phone banks have been found to increase turnout by 3.8 percentage points.” Instead of walking neighborhood blocks, knocking on 20 doors an hour, you can volunteer to contact voters by phone.
  6. Write a check. If you’d rather make your contribution low key and out of sight, you can always donate to your preferred candidate’s campaign. Any amount makes a difference—because the difference between winning and losing an election often comes down to funding.

These are things we can all do.

The mid-terms are in November. Start looking into some of these ideas right now, as there is often an application process and training that has to happen for some of the more active roles.

Think about recruiting others who are like-minded to serve with you. Sometimes it’s easier if you have someone to share the effort with.

And don’t forget to appeal to God in prayer to promote good and to destroy evil.