Category Archives: Politics

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A Biblical Approach to Politics | Part IV

I) Intro

In “A Biblical Approach to Politics | Part I,” we looked how God cares about Politics and He expects us to be engaged. To not be informed makes knowing what to pray for virtually impossible and to ignore the character of those who govern is to invite the kind of corruption that makes the “people groan. (Prov 29:2, 4)”

In Part II we’re looking at the challenge we face when attempting to discern the character of those who aspire to leadership positions as well as the seemingly illusive bottom lines when it comes to current events. Bottom line: The Bible says to “test the spirits” and we need to apply that to what it is we allow into our inbox by popping the hood, keeping your balance and kicking the tires.

II) Pop the Hood

A) Wisdom vs Intelligence

Proverbs 9:13-18 says:

Folly is an unruly woman; she is simple and knows nothing. 14 She sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the highest point of the city, 15 calling out to those who pass by, who go straight on their way, 16 “Let all who are simple come to my house!” To those who have no sense she says, 17 “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!” 18 But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead. (Prov 9:13-18)

Compare that to Proverbs 1:20-23, 3:13-18:

Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; 21 on top of the wall[a] she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech: 22 “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? 23 Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings… Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, 14 for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. 15 She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. 16 Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. 17 Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. 18 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed. (Proverbs 1:20-23, 3:13-18)

What’s the difference between being wise and being smart?

What Do You Mean, “I Prosper…?”
The dollar amount on your paycheck is but one indicator of “prosperity.” Few people believe that they’re making “enough” money (Ecc 5:10), so from that standpoint, that’s a glass that is never completely full.
But when you’re being obedient and you’re walking in lock step with your King, your sense of purpose and fulfillment is now based on a scale that isn’t defined by dollar signs alone (Job 23:12; Prov 27:11; Matt 4:4; Jn 4:32:6:27; Phil 4:13) and the lasting peace and enduring happiness that can’t be achieved through any financial transaction or significant achievement is now yours in ever increasing measure (Matt 6:19-20; 2 Cor 3:18)

The dictionary defines wisdom as “…knowledge, and the capacity to make due use of it.”1 The Bible takes it a step further by saying that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Prov 9:10)

How does that work? How does an appropriate reverence for God translate to wisdom?

B) Give Thought to Your Ways

Apart from the way a fool will ultimately deny the Reality of God (Ps 14:1) and the need for God’s grace (Rev 20:15), you also have the practical side of wisdom to consider in that you’re like the tree referenced by David in Psalm 1 as far as how everything they do prospers (see sidebar).

And part of why they prosper is because they’re prudent and they give careful thought to their ways.

Proverbs 14:15 says:

The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps. (Prov 14:15 [see also Prov 6:6-11; Matt 25:16])

Fact is, in light of our struggle always being defined in the context of a spiritual contest (Eph 6:12), “testing the spirits” like what Paul says in First Thessalonians is going to apply not only to points of doctrine, but to everything that we encounter as human beings (2 Cor 9:8):

20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil. (1 Thess 5:21-22)

Finally, in 1 John 4:1 we hear John saying the same thing we just heard Paul mention:

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 Jn 4:1)

C) Every Bit of It

While listening to a cable news broadcast may seem like it falls under a different category than what John is referring to as far as “false prophets,” remember that however innocent or nondescript something may appear to be, consider what it says in Proverbs 24:

I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; 31 thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins. 32 I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw: 33 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest—34 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man. (Prov 24:30-34)

You wouldn’t think Solomon, as wise and as powerful as he was, would’ve ever even considered betraying the One Who was the Source of his grandeur, but incremental compromises ultimately culminated in what you read in 1 Kings 11:5, as far as how his wives convinced him to worship Ashtoreth (ASH-toh-rith)  and Molech (MOH-lek) – Molech being the god who demanded that you burn your children alive in order to appease him.

It’s not something obsess over, but it is a healthy reminder to be diligent – not just in personal matters but even in the way you process the things that are going on around you.

Little compromises, incomplete information, a biased perspective – you want to pop the hood on every bit of it in order to ensure your convictions are sound and your steps are appropriately “ordered.” (Ps 37:23)

So, how does one “test the spirits?”

We’ll figure that one out tomorrow…!

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A Biblical Approach to Politics | Part I

Being a guest on daveolsson.com is always a treat and I’m always flattered when Dave asks! Having a chance to converse with like-minded people and hopefully provide some biblically based food for thought is always a motivating prospect so, thank you, Dave!

For the next several days we’re going to be looking at a “Biblical Approach to Politics.” There’s a convention out there that says you risk compromising the needed rapport with a person to talk about spiritual matters when you introduce the topic of Politics.

But to say that “God doesn’t care about Politics” is a short-sighted perspective when you consider some of the verses we’re about to explore. Granted, God cares far more about your relationship with Him than the way you vote. But He’s the One Who facilitates governments (Dan 2:21) and He expects us to be aware and to be engaged ((1 Chron 12:32; 1 Tim 2:2). So in light of those Truths, we can base our approach to Politics and Current Events on more than a casual / hesitant demeanor and instead meet it head on with confidence and the boldness that comes from knowing that there is a Truth that can be relied on and therefore a bottom line that justifies a bold contribution to the dialogue that can and will make a difference.

Are you ready?

Buckle up!

Despite the fact that Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 Election, his opponents continue to attack his character, minimize his accomplishments and question the sanity / morality of anyone who would support him. To some extent, you can’t help but wonder why? If he’s no longer in office, than there’s no reason to be concerned that his policies will make their way into the public sphere given the fact that he’s no longer in a position of authority.

But there’s more to Trump than just him being a political figure. He represents a different approach to politics that makes some very uneasy because of the way it reveals the lack of ethics and efficiency typical of big government and the Liberal perspective in general.

Ultimately, Trump’s platform translates to a result that’s very difficult to argue with, given the way it serves our country’s best interests. But that doesn’t change the fact that those who dislike him are especially passionate in their disdain and an intelligent conversation can be a real challenge because of the way they’re conditioned to perceive Trump as evil along with anyone who would come to his defense.

And it’s not just Liberals.

You’ve got Conservative Christians who either refuse to vote or assert a different name on the ballot because they’re so convinced Trump represents the kind of immorality that they simply can’t support.

So, why Trump?

Why would anyone support Donald J. Trump?

 Executive Summary

We’re going to break this down into several sections because there’s more to this than just an affinity for a particular political party.

 I) God & Politics

To say that God doesn’t care about Politics is to ignore the fact that He’s the One Who facilitates all governments to begin with. And while that’s obviously a nonsensical disposition, you also have the false premise that says that God doesn’t care about the laws of a nation and how they either promote what strengthens an individual or tears them down (Prov 28:2-3, 28; 29:2, 4). He does care and He expects His people to be engaged (1 Chron 12:32; 1 Tim 2:2).

 II) Your Best Option

The candidate that represents the most qualified to lead is the one who champions the approach that is most consistent with the foundation laid by the ones who defeated the most powerful empire in the world and established a system of government that, up to that point, was completely unheard of in the way it established the individual as the one who had the right to choose how they wanted to be governed and the extent to which they wanted to succeed (Ps 33:12).

 III) Who is Your Source?

Over the course of the last several decades, Journalism has become more of thermostat than a thermometer and you need to be wise in the way you process information coming from those who are vying for a position in your inbox.

 IV) Trees and Policies

Christ said you’ll know a tree by it’s fruit (Lk 6:44). However Trump is made to appear in the headlines, it is his policies that need to be evaluated in order to determine the substance of his platform and not just the commentary crafted by those who have a problem with his personality or his past.

I) God and Politics

A) God Cares

Some will insist that God doesn’t care about Politics. Because it doesn’t directly impact a person’s soul and the fact that it can be a very divisive issue to the point where a conversation about Christ becomes difficult due to the way in which political topics can poison a dialogue, the tendency is to avoid it altogether and believe that God is basically indifferent to who gets elected and what goes on in the halls of government. That’s absurd. First of all, it’s God Who establishes kings and those who are in positions of authority (Dan 2:21; Rom 13:1-2; 1 Pet 2:13). So, to say that He’s not concerned is to ignore the fact that He’s the One Who facilitates governments to begin with.

B) God’s Side

Some Christian communicators cite the answer given to Joshua by an imposing figure standing near Jericho just prior to the Israelites marching around the city as evidence that God does not take sides…

13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord[a] have for his servant?”

15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Josh 5:13-15)

God’s Sovereignty & Man’s Responsibility

If God is Sovereign, what’s the point of voting? If He’s the One Who, “…removes kings and establishes kings” (Dan 2:21), what part, if any, does the Electoral College play in legitimately “selecting” a President if God’s already made His Choice? The world is not a runaway train travelling out of control with nothing other than the forces of chance acting upon it. God is in control and you see that it in Isaiah:

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ (Is 46:10)

You, yourself, are designed with a Purpose and a Plan that was put in place before you were born…

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Ps 139:16)

Click here to read more…

The fact that the man replied by saying that he was neither on the side of the Israelites nor the Canaanites was not indicative of God being neutral and detached from the situation. The fact that it was God working through the Israelites that resulted in the successful siege of Jericho demonstrates that God was obviously invested in seeing the city destroyed. The point that was being made is that we don’t need to be asking whether or not God is on our side as much as we need to ensure that we are on God’s side and operating according to His Instructions and overall Purpose.

C) Why Bother?

But even if you’re on God’s side, do we need to be concerned about voting or even paying attention to the news if God’s Purpose is going to be accomplished regardless of our involvement? You could ask the same question about salvation, given the fact that those who are born again were predestined to be saved (Rom 8:29), yet we are to witness and Paul makes the Divinely inspired observation that you can’t expect someone to hear and understand the gospel unless someone preaches to them (Rom 10:14-15). The fact is, God has set things up in such a way where His Sovereignty exists alongside our responsibility – both are true simultaneously (see “God’s Sovereignty & Man’s Responsibility” on sidebar). Emphasizing one over the other invariably leads to disobedience and we are commanded to pray for those who are in positions of authority (1 Tim 2:1-3). The fact that our prayers are referenced as an act that makes a difference reinforces the idea that our involvement is both mandated and effective.

II) Your Best Option

A) The Template That Works

The key to political success is to model our approach according to the template used by our Founding Fathers who were able to defeat the world’s most powerful empire and to establish a system of government that, at the time, was completely unheard of. It’s that template that has allowed our country to flourish and it’s more than just political theory as much as it’s an ideological paradigm that serves as our legislative foundation. Those ideals go beyond human preferences or sensible philosophical options and it’s because they’re rooted in a transcendent Absolute that they can be asserted as functional bottom lines. The best qualified candidates for political office are those that possess the talent and the mindset that best facilitate those bottom lines – not just because they’re consistent with a successful history, but because of the way they’re based on Something that transcends human opinion and therefore avoids all of the corruption that characterizes the human condition. You can see that transcendent Absolute clearly defined in the Declaration of Independence. When we submitted that document to King George, we were saying that it’s because that God has created all men to be equal (Gal 3:28) that the individual has the right to choose how they want to be governed and the extent to which they want to succeed. It’s because it was a Divine Truth that we could logically point to as that which substantiated our claim, we weren’t just filing a complaint, we were making a point. Yes, there were other brilliant political philosophers, such as John Locke, that had contributed to the collective mindset represented by the Second Continental Congress, but ultimately it was a collection of references to God that was cited as the basis for our reasoning and not the names of several respected thinkers. This is why a candidate’s platform is so important. However noble or approachable they may appear, if their goal is to implement a worldview that runs contrary to our spiritual foundation, they invoke a doctrine that inevitably positions man as his own moral authority and the state as its own religion.

B) There’s Only Two Religions

While that may sound overly simplistic, the fact is there are only two religions in the world: Either God is God or man is God. Every religion save Christianity provides a way in which you can merit the favor of your preferred deity. With Islam you’ve got Jihad, as a Buddhist you’ve got Nirvana. Jehovah’s Witnesses strive to be among the 144,000 referenced in Revelation 7:4, Hindus pursue Moksha (MOKE-shah) in order to be liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth. Mormons believe that they themselves can attain the status of gods in the afterlife through their works here on earth (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 345–354). In each scenario, while you have a supernatural element, you have the ability as a human being to tip the scales in your favor through some kind of action or mindset. Christianity, on the other hand, says that you are a spiritual corpse (Eph 2:1). You are dead in your sin and you have no option available to you that can offset your default status as a sinner that is permanently and irretrievably separated from God (Ps 14:3; Is 64:6). That’s what makes Christianity distinct from every other religious school of thought – you are utterly destitute apart from some kind of miracle that can somehow transform you in the eyes of God from being sinful to sinless. And that miracle is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

See you tomorrow for Part II!

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Daily Broadside | The Pain at the Pump is the Point

Daily Verse | Psalm 68:19
Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
    who daily bears our burdens.

Thursday’s Reading: Psalms 73-77

It’s Thursday and Brandon is floating the idea of a 3-month gas tax holiday. Of all the options the guy has to pull us out of the economic spiral we’re in, letting me keep $0.184/gal will give me what — $3.12 every time I fill up? Great, that means I can afford a dozen eggs once a week.

Well, but see, he’s going to do that for 3 whole months! I’m no math wiz, but it seems like he’s offering me, tops, $37.44 to ease the pain at the pump.

Thanks Joe!

Never forget that Brandon told us that he was going to kill our use of fossil fuels and in that, at least, he’s been a screaming success.

He wasn’t kidding. The day after he was inaugurated, he signed an executive order banning the fourth phase of development of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have delivered oil from Canada to refineries in the United States. The move was the final battle in the years-long war environmentalists had waged against the project; TC Energy, the operator of the pipeline, abandoned it less than six months later.

Read more here, but wear a shower cap so you can’t pull your hair out.

Brandon blames Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for skyrocketing gas prices. Maybe a little, but here’s what he’s contributed.

American oil production has yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels as Presidentish Joe Biden has used his executive powers to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, canceled offshore oil leases in Alaska, and halted new gas and oil drilling permits.

It’s a crisis of his own making.

It’s intentional.

All to fight some fake “climate crisis” that always threatens but never materializes.

It’s all being done to kill our individual and corporate independence, making a mobile society immobile, all to satisfy environmental weenies who start with false premises.

Modern extreme environmentalism assumes mankind to somehow be apart from nature and acting upon it independently.  Yet, mankind is a part of nature and our actions are, therefore, also a part of nature …

The modern environmental movement is built on false philosophical premises – that mankind is apart from nature, that nature is static, and many others.

What I find most fascinating about all this, is the adoption of such false philosophical premises is rooted in a presumption of god-like status for mankind.  For Christians, seeking such a status is the very root and beginning of the concept of sin.

The idea that mankind can somehow change the climate by eliminating fossil fuels strikes me as the same kind of attitude driving the society that tried to build the Tower of Babel. God Himself laughs heartily at our puny ravings of grandeur:

Can you raise your voice to the clouds
    and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
    Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who gives the ibis wisdom
    or gives the rooster understanding?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
    Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
    and the clods of earth stick together?

Not you, buttercup.

Back to Brandon. He’s literally trying to kill the oil industry.

When Biden was running for president, he promised to shut down oil producers: “No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.” He pledged to put the country on “an irreversible” path toward “doing away with” fossil fuels.

On Day One as president, Biden shut down the Keystone pipeline, sending a message of no new pipelines anywhere, period.

In the months that followed, he stopped all sales of leases to drill on federal lands or offshore, meaning zero new leases allowing oil to be brought out of the ground.

And in September, House Democrats introduced legislation to stop banks from lending money or investing capital for new or expanded fossil fuel production. That legislation hasn’t passed, but it sent a clear message. The oil industry is being shut down.

Here’s how deranged this fool is.

Out of touch as ever, President Biden celebrated record-high gas prices Monday, gushing that the pump pain was part of “an incredible transition” of the US economy away from fossil fuels.

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,” Biden said during a press conference in Japan following his meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

What I want to know is, how can one man make the decision to shut down an industry that our society — and our world — is so dependent on? Where does that political power come from? Is it constitutional?

He shouldn’t be able to do that just to pander to the small percentage of environmental whackos in our country while wrecking the economy.

I’m sure it’s because the government can regulate and deny or approve drilling, especially on “federal” land (which is a whole other question — who gave “the government” that land?). Stupid us for allowing them to take that power unto themselves.

Wrecking our economy and making it hurt in the process is not working “for” the people but against the people. And we shouldn’t have to sit here and take it.

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Daily Broadside | If You Believe in God, You’re in Good Company (for Now)

Daily Verse | Psalm 62:11-12
One thing God has spoken,
    two things I have heard:
that you, O God, are strong,
    and that you, O Lord, are loving.

Wednesday’s Reading: Psalms 67-72

It’s Wednesday and our carjackers are picking up speed and starting to shimmy in the turns with us in the back seat as we careen down the Avenue of the Americas with a full tank of gas and a wallet emptied by their cruelty and indifference, knowing that they’ll either go out in a blaze of glory or screech to a stop in Davos where they’ll hand us off for compliance training without our freedom, possessions, or sanity.

No time is a good time to reject belief in God, but this would be a particularly unwise time to do so. Still, this is the United States of America, where wisdom is lacking and where the idea of God just got a little less support.

The percentage of Americans who say they believe in God has dipped to the lowest number in the past nearly 80 years, according to a new Gallup poll published Friday.

The Values and Belief poll, conducted from May 2 to 22, showed 81% of people answered that they believe in God. That is down six percentage points from the 87% of respondents who said they believed in God in the 2017 poll. This year is the lowest percentage in Gallup’s trend since the public opinion polling company first asked the question in 1944.

This year’s poll found 17% of Americans said they do not believe in God.

Joe Biden’s America, people. Where even our spiritual condition is the worst in decades. Seriously, more than 90 percent of people believed in God from 1944 to 2011, with the number stabilizing at a high of 98 percent from 1944 through the 1960s.

Whether you believe in God or not seems to correspond with your political affiliation.

The Gallup Values and Beliefs poll found that the decrease in theism has been driven by young adults and those on the political left. Both groups’ belief in God has dropped by 10 percent or more compared to the 2013-2017 average for their demographics.

These groups are also those least likely to say they believe in God in comparison to other demographics.

Liberals (62 percent), young adults (68 percent) and Democrats (72 percent) gave significantly lower rates of belief in God, while conservatives (94 percent) and Republicans (92 percent) gave the highest.

The least change in belief has occurred among conservatives and married adults.

What that seems to be telling us is that religious belief — or at least belief in God — plays a big role in the political divisions we have in this country.

Younger Americans are also less likely to believe in God than their parents and grandparents. 68 percent of 18-29 years say they don’t believe in God, compared to 81 percent of 30-49 year olds and 88 percent of 50-64 year olds.

18-29 year olds includes those who went to college, where we all know that students are indoctrinated into hating America and anything American, including our historical norms when it came to Christian faith.

Our faith hasn’t been passed along to the next generation, it seems. Yet, we need men and women of faith who take their beliefs seriously and let it affect how they vote. Paul was quite clear with his young protégé, Timothy, that “the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Tim. 2:2).

However, we’re not even doing the basics.

Interestingly, while belief in God is on the decline, Gallup clocked an even steeper decline in church attendance, church membership and trust in religious institutions as a whole. In other words, it may not be just that belief in God is dropping, but that it’s evolving into something less beholden to traditional ideas of what it even means to believe in God.

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Daily Broadside | Most Polls Skew Democrat and Are Probably 6 Points Worse Than Reported

Daily Verse | Psalm 27:8
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Wednesday’s Reading: Psalms 31-35

Happy Wednesday my friends. Summer has hit the Midwest and we’re experiencing temperatures in the nineties this week. Hot and muggy. I won’t complain, though, because I was so done with the extreme cold of winter.

I try to stay current with Brandon’s popularity or, as it’s called by the polling firms, “approval ratings.” A new poll by Civiqs shows him underwater by 17 points.

That chart shows all respondents. It includes Republicans, Democrats and Independents. When you filter for Democrats only, this is what you get:

It boggles my mind to see that 70 percent of Democrats approve of the job Brandon’s doing (in a downward trend). I honestly can’t understand why only 12 percent disapprove. That’s less than have no opinion (17%).

Republicans are much clearer about what they think of the Resident.

Those supporting the GOP came out of the gate disapproving of Brandon and have only gotten stronger over the last 17 months. The 2 percent who approve are Never Trumpers and the writers at The Dispatch and The Bulwark. Oh, plus RINOs Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney.

Remember that only about 37% of the population is Democrat while 31% is Republican. The rest are Independents. That means that neither party wins without significant support from indies. Here’s what the poll tells us about them.

That’s quite a gap — a 45-point spread with an upward trend. As much as they hated Trump, Independents are realizing they’ve been had by the Democrats. Good luck closing the gap, Dems.

As bad as these numbers are for Democrats, it’s likely they’re even worse than being reported. According to this piece in the American Thinker, most polling firms “are systemically biased against conservatives.”

For three cycles in a row, there’s been this consistent pattern of pollsters overestimating Democratic support in some states and underestimating support in other states.  It happened in 2018.  It happened in 2020.  And the reason that’s happening is because the way that [pollsters] are doing polling right now just doesn’t work.

The author goes on to identify two intractable problems for pollsters: “One is developing an accurate voter turnout model that predicts who is likely to vote.  The other is getting an unbiased measurement of what voters think, known as a random sample.” Getting an unbiased measurement is difficult because Republican voters, in particular, don’t trust political polls.

The trust issue is a societal problem that has been building for many years.  Due to partisan infighting, some voters have lost faith in our national institutions; politics; and, by association, political polls. This issue affects conservatives more than liberals, causing a polling effect called partisan nonresponse or nonresponse bias.

After some additional analysis, he concludes with this:

If the polls are overestimating approval numbers for Biden and other Democrats, how bad is it? The political climate today is different since the 2020 election, but the Democrat poll bias seems intact, which was 4% nationwide. Since nonresponse bias, 4%, and registered voter bias, 2.6%, should be mutually exclusive, we can add them together. This gives us a total Democrat bias of roughly 6.5%.

What does this mean? Until pollsters switch to sampling likely voters right before the election, you can subtract a solid 6 percent from Joe Biden’s approval numbers. And if nothing changes before the election, any Democrat who leads by 3 percent or less is likely to lose.

If we apply that math to the numbers from the Civiqs poll above, Brandon’s approval numbers are potentially a dismal 27 percent. That’s worse than Donald Trump’s worst approval rating (29% in January 2021). And remember that Trump’s numbers were undoubtably biased in favor of Democrats.

I refuse to gloat. As we saw in 2020, our institutions are deeply infected with reprobates who have no hesitation in “fortifying” elections with dirty money, coordinated smear campaigns, and ballot stuffing. All I can say is that everything continues to point to a red tsunami in November.

I don’t think there’s anything that will change that trajectory either, not even the likely roll back of Roe v. Wade. Independents might trend more liberal in social issues, but they’re subject to the economic realities that every American is suffering right now. The electorate is reeling from inflation and rocketing gas prices, Brandon and company don’t have any answers, and Americans will vote with their pocketbooks.

In any other era, it would be a foregone conclusion that the Dems would suffer a crushing defeat this November. Unfortunately, all predictions of a red wave this fall come with an asterisk that says, “past performance is no guarantee of future results.”

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Daily Broadside | Trump Candidates Win Bigly While Brandon Struggles to Stay Afloat

Daily Verse | Ezra 6:14
So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, a descendent of Iddo.

Thursday’s Reading: Ezra 7-8

Thursday and while I’ve written several posts about the leaked SCOTUS opinion reversing Roe v. Wade and there are still a lot of ripples from that dastardly, unconscionable, cowardly, illegal and unAmerican act of sabotage, there are other things happening while we suffer under the fraudulent Brandon junta that need some daylight to encourage us.

The recent CIVIQS rolling job approval average shows that Brandon is underwater in 46 states. Might I remind you that we only have 50? That means the cockwomble in the White House is scorned by 92 percent of the country. The other eight percent in the four states where Brandon is loved are:

  • Hawaii: 49 percent approval, 41 percent disapproval
  • Maryland: 46 percent approval, 42 percent disapproval
  • Massachusetts: 46 percent approval, 42 percent disapproval
  • Vermont: 51 percent approval, 37 percent disapproval

What the heck is going on in Vermont that more than half of voters “approve” of the job he’s doing?

Overall, the poll showed Biden with only 35 percent approval from the respondents and a 55 percent disapproval, and ten percent who have no opinion. The poll showed Biden with net approval of negative 19.

Here’s Brandon’s perpetual popularity calculation over at FiveThirtyEight, where the gap is not quite as wide (10.5 points) but nonetheless disastrous for the “chief executive” of these United States. You know he’s not chief executive-ing anything.

And here’s RealClearPolitics favorability ratings chart from May 11 where he’s upside down by 9 points.

And still we’re expected to believe that Brandon totally got #81MillionVotes, you guys, because he was so wildly popular and would restore our norms and put the adults back in charge. The greatest fraud foisted on We the People in the history of these United States.

Meanwhile, as Brandon circles the drain, president-in-exile Donald J. Trump continues his streak as kingmaker.

Tuesday’s results make Trump-endorsed candidates 58-1 in the midterm primaries thus far, as all 22 candidates who received the 45th president’s nod in Ohio and Indiana won their races on May 3, while all 33 Trump-backed candidates in Texas either won their primaries or advanced to runoffs. Of the May 3 races, the most notable victor was J.D. Vance in Ohio, who earned the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate with the help of a late Trump endorsement.

The most puzzling of Trump’s endorsements is Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz over surging opponent Kathy Barnette. Oz is not a conservative; he has supported transgenderism, abortion and red flag laws, all of which are opposed by conservatives.

On the other hand, Barnette is a black conservative Christian woman who was conceived when her mother was raped at age 11 by a 21-year-old man. She is well within the margin of error in the polling.

Seems to me that Trump would do better endorsing Barnette. However, you can hardly argue with his record of 58-1 in the midterm primaries. The real test will be in November as Republicans try to heave the dead wood out of the swamp and gain veto-proof majorities so that come 2024, the table is set to permanently roll back the serious damage done by the anti-American communist stooges in the White House and the deep state.

On the other hand, Resident Brandon is slow on the endorsements. Not sure if it’s because he’s being selective or that no one wants him within spitting distance of their campaign.

Biden has made just four endorsements since taking office: Reps. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) and Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), as well as former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who lost a bid to regain his old job last fall.

I’m guessing the latter.

This is all good news, for now. With the economy in decline, food shortages looming, inflation still up at 40-year highs, gas prices in the mid-four-dollar ranges, rising interest rates, mostly peaceful illegal protests outside of conservative Supreme Court Justices’ homes, a new Ministry of Truth headed by a partisan liar that is nothing more than a tool to go after conservative voices in the public square and so on and so on — it seems that even the liberals among us have had enough.

Let’s hope that holds true through the end of the year so that we can neuter Brandon and make him a lame castrated duck for the rest of his White House occupation.

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

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

Monday’s Reading: Exodus 15-18

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also:

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

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

Investors would buy first and ask questions later.

What does Russia want?

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

Take them at their word, embassy staff.

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

But at least the tweets are nice, right NeverTrump?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a good weekend.

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

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

Thursday’s Reading: Exodus 1-6

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

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

BibleReader_C2C2022Download

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Daily Broadside | More Evidence That November Will Be a Blowout

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

Wednesday’s Reading: Genesis 48-50

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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