Tag Archives: joebiden

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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 | New Holiday’s Origins Are Rooted in the Bible

Daily Verse | Psalm 53:1
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”

Monday’s Reading: Psalms 55-59

Happy Monday. Apologies for the absence over the last few days — a collision of priorities meant I had to demote my blogging to concentrate on other matters.

If you are a dad, Happy (belated) Father’s Day. I enjoyed the day with all of my family — minus one who lives half a continent away. It’s nice to be formally appreciated once a year, and I’m grateful that it comes within the context of strong family relationships so that it’s not something done out of obligation but our of genuine love and respect.

We had an awesome pizza dinner and watched Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules.” If you haven’t seen it, I strongly encourage you to spend the $20. After watching it, you can’t say that the 2020 election wasn’t completely corrupted, if not outright stolen.

General Orders No. 3

Yesterday was also the second annual recognition of Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Uncle Joe signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 17, 2021, and I have the day off today in honor of the holiday.

I didn’t understand until recently that Juneteenth is about commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans in the United States.

Juneteenth has been celebrated for more than 156 years, though its history is possibly lesser known than other American observances. Although the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed enslaved African Americans in Confederate states, went into effect in 1863, this document did not immediately end slavery. In fact, it took until June 19, 1865—more than two years later—to end the horrors of slavery in Texas. And slavery continued in pockets of some Union states until December 6, 1865, when the 13th Amendment was ratified and slavery was formally ended in America.

Part of the reason it took that long to reach Texas was that the Civil War was still being fought, yet the state experienced no large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops. Because of that, many southerners took their slaves and moved to Texas to keep them out of the war’s reach.

It took 2,000 federal troops two and a half years to arrive in Texas to take control of the state and to enforce emancipation. The man who led the troops and announced that 250,000 slaves in Texas were free was U.S. General Gordon Granger, who stood on the soil of Galveston Bay, Texas, on June 19, 1865, and read General Orders No. 3 (pictured above):

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January of 1863, freeing all slaves in the southern states, but it didn’t go into practical effect until the Union won the Civil War. You can’t enforce a law in a territory you don’t control.

It wasn’t until two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered in April, 1865, when the news got to Texas and the last enslaved African Americans were told about their freedom. And it was there, in Galveston, that the idea of Juneteenth took root.

While there was relief and joy in the immediacy of the proclamation, the former slaves started formally celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston the next year. Celebrations were initially held in churches, and “the original observances included prayer meetings and the singing of spirituals, and celebrants wore new clothes as a way of representing their newfound freedom.” They also included reading the Emancipation Proclamation.

The name, “Juneteenth” is a later designation. Throughout its history, the holiday has also been known as Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, Juneteenth National Independence Day, Black Independence Day, and Juneteenth Independence Day.

In the era following their liberation, however, African-Americans called their observance “Jubilee Day.” It refers to the biblical practice of every 50 years “when land was to be returned, debts forgiven, and enslaved people were to be set free. Announced by the loud blast of a ram’s horn, biblical scholars note, the Jubilee year was grounded in the idea of freedom, orchestrating an economic, cultural, and moral reordering of society.”

It’s based on Leviticus 25:8-55. Verse 10 reads,

Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.

One report explains,

At the time, Texas was the farthest state West and the last to hear of freedom more than two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. As the news spread, the shock for some 250,000 enslaved Texans quickly turned to celebration. Juneteenth combines the words ‘June’ and ‘Nineteenth,’ but according to Tisby it was originally referred to as Jubilee Day – a biblical reference [to] the book of Leviticus, which tells the story of how the Israelites celebrated their freedom from slavery in Egypt. Faith formed the foundation of what would become America’s most recent federal holiday. 

Unfortunately, it seems as though Juneteenth has, at least in part, become detached from its roots and is now becoming a secular observance that isn’t satisfied with just remembering that the slaves had been freed after a long and bloody war that produced some 650,000 casualties. “The question becomes, what does it mean to celebrate that freedom gained, and what freedoms now are still being sought after?“

That’s an open question that includes discussions of reparations and accusations of systemic racism and tension between the races. Dr. Ben Carson, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under president Trump, encourages us to learn from the past and to appreciate the present.

“Juneteenth is so important because it actually efficiently recognizes the emancipation of the slaves, and slavery was a horrible thing, there’s no question about it. But I think we need to recognize that slavery has been a part of virtually every civilization since there has been written history,” Carson explained …

He continued, “We in America have actually done something that no one else really did. That is, we had so many people who are opposed to it that we fought a Civil War, a bloody Civil War, lost a large portion of our population to get rid of this evil. And that says something about this nation as a people. We’re not all the same. We have a lot of different opinions but overall tendency was to move toward freedom and justice for people” …

“It would be very nice if a lot of the people who are complaining today about the United States could go and live in some other parts of the world for a little while, and I think they would have a tremendous appreciation of freedom we have and why it is so vitally important for us to not only understand it but to protect it for those who are coming behind us and particularly for our young people,” Carson said.

For now, the longest-running African-American observance is Juneteenth, which originally celebrated the end of slavery in the U.S. The celebration included singing spiritual songs, prayer meetings, and likely thanksgiving to God for their newfound freedom. That posture would be worth restoring on the day which commemorates the emancipation of our black brothers and sisters of that era.

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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 | New Strategy: Straight Up Lie and Don’t Blink

Daily Verse | Psalm 24:3-4
Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?
    Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
    who does not lift up his soul to an idol
    or swear by what is false.

Tuesday’s Reading: Psalms 25-30

Tuesday the 13th. Why aren’t we afraid of this day? Doesn’t matter anyway since there’s so much chaos ripping across the fruited plain every day of the week.

My short screed this morning is that “they” are lying directly to our face, “they” being the illegal junta occupying the White House.

The White House defended [R]esident Joe Biden’s economic record on Monday as the nation experienced historic inflation, gas prices over $5 a galloon and the stock market dropping.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued President Biden actually made historic economic gains, which would help the American people go through these economic ‘challenges.’

She blamed inflation – prices in May were 8.6% higher than a year earlier – the greatest increase since 1981 – on the covid pandemic and on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in the Ukraine. 

Nobody but hard core progressives believe any of this nonsense.

But, she argued, that America would bounce back under Biden.

‘The American people are well positioned to face these challenges because of the economic historic gains that we have made under this president in the last six months,’ she noted.

“Economic historic gains” they’ve made? What are they talking about?

The stock market is now in bear territory and “the stock market has lost all the gains it made since [R]esident Joe Biden was sworn into office.”

The S&P 500 took a sharp downturn, closing on Monday 151 points below where it was in January of 2021. The other two major indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite fell by 876 points and 530 points respectively, both below where they were when Biden took office.

Cryptocurrency has also taken a hit. Bitcoin lost 15% of its value, and Ethereum lost 16%, according to Fortune.

Gasoline now averages $5 per gallon nationally, for the first time ever, and consumer prices reached their highest point in over forty years, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rising 8.6% over the last year.

Anyway, if the economy is doing so great, why are Californians fleeing to Mexico?

Thousands of Californians are fleeing to Mexico amid the soaring cost of living in the golden state. Americans taking advantage of work from home are reaping the benefits of US salaries, while living off Mexico’s cheaper lifestyle.

Is it “cheaper lifestyle” or cheaper cost of living?

Others are living in Mexico, while commuting to work in the US. But critics have argued that the influx of Americans in cities south of the border has begun to price out local Mexicans.

Given the number of Mexicans living here in the U.S., it’s hard to generate any outrage from me about wealthier Americans “pricing out” locals in Mexico. What, are they getting a steal on real estate?

It comes amid a wider exodus of Californians to other states across the US, including Texas, Washington, and Arizona.

Many feel forced out by rocketing inflation in the golden state that has gas, grocery, and living costs soaring under Governor Gavin Newsom.

So Brandon is crowing about our “historic economic gains,” gains so awesome that U.S. citizens are fleeing to a third world country to avoid the tax burdens and soaring prices here.

The fact that the administration would straight-up lie to us is no way to restore any semblance of credibility. Not that they had any, anyway. But, still.

It’s pathetic.

All is going according to the prophecies.

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Daily Broadside | What About ‘Shall Not Be Infringed’ Do You Not Understand?

Daily Verse | Job 36:16
“He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.”

Tuesday’s Reading: Job 38-39

There have been a handful of dreadful shootings over the last few weeks, including the NYC subway shooting, the racially-motivated bloodbath in a Buffalo, NY grocery store, and the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. There have also been several smaller, “one-off” shootings.

None of them should have happened. They aren’t what our Founders envisioned when they enshrined the right to be armed in our U.S. Constitution. What they envisioned was the right of the people to protect themselves from a tyrannical government.

America has a problem. We are guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms. But we are no longer the society in which that right was declared.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams

I’ve quoted this from Adams before, but I’ll keep doing so because the more I sit with it, the more profound it is. The Founding Fathers knew that freedom without virtue is license. If there’s anything that describes our society today, it’s “license.” And license is only a step removed from anarchy. All restraints, all standards, all guidelines are being thrown off in order to indulge our most naked desires or to give ourselves over to the darkest corners of our inner life.

When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.
— Proverbs 29:18 (New Living Translation)

Yet the Founders took the risk and bestowed on us our inalienable rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. — Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Brandon is going on these days about the Second Amendment not being “absolute.” (Actually, he has said that “There’s no amendment that’s absolute.”) What he means by that with 2A is that there were always some kind of limits on what “Arms” a person could keep and bear. His now (several times) debunked example is that private citizens couldn’t own a cannon.

I’m not a constitutional scholar, but a straight-forward reading of the text seems to be absolute. The modal verb “shall not” is absolute. My right to keep and carry (bear) an arm may not, will not, cannot, shall not be infringed.

“Infringed” here means to limit, to undermine, to encroach upon.

Yet that doesn’t keep the illiterati (constitutionally speaking) from their efforts.

Rep. Donald Beyer (D-Va.), who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, is looking to put a 1,000% excise tax on AR-15-type rifles as a means of making them less affordable to the public.

“What it’s intended to do is provide another creative pathway to actually make some sensible gun control happen,” Beyer told Business Insider. “We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation.”

With the affected guns ranging in price from $500 to $2000, the tax could add as much as $20,000 to the final sale price of the weapons. While bullets would not be taxed at the high rate, high-capacity magazines would be.

Hey Don, what is it about “shall not be infringed” do you not understand? He says, right there in his quote, that it “is just the kind of restrictive measure” they want. To restrict means to limit and 2A says, absolutely, that the government SHALL NOT do that.

Every time another “gun control” law is passed or another “gun free zone” is created, our absolute right to be armed is infringed upon. In other words, a case could be made that such laws or regulations are illegal.

Now, I’m not an absolutist in the extreme. Given that we are now an immoral and irreligious people who no longer view self-control and an orderly society as virtuous, we may have to admit that some regulations are in our best interest.

But let’s be honest: regulations don’t control the heart or behavior. At best they only tell us what is “legal” and what the penalties are for breaking the law. And that’s a poor substitute for personal virtue and responsibility. Take California for example:

An FBI report on ‘Active Shooter Incidents’ in 2021 shows that California was the number one state for such incidents, with six incidents total.

California is also number one for gun law strength, the Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety noted …

… California has universal background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases, a red flag law, gun registration requirements, a “good cause” requirement for concealed carry permit issuance, a ban on carrying a gun on a college campus for self-defense, a ban on K-12 teachers being armed on campus for classroom defense, a background check requirement for ammunition purchases, and a limit on the number of guns a law-abiding citizen can purchase in a given month, among other controls.

All potentially illegal controls, I might add, because they violate the people’s right to “keep and bear Arms.” But the people in positions of power don’t care about our rights. They only care about getting and keeping power.

None of the gun control laws on the books stopped any of the killers I mentioned at the outset. And adding more laws—apart from confiscating all of our guns, which is the goal—would have done nothing more to prevent the tragedies.

Frankly, the driving force behind all the “gun control” laws is to make it as difficult to own a firearm as possible, if not make it outright impossible. Jack the price of a firearm up by 1000% and you can plausibly deny that you’re infringing on anyone’s right to keep and bear Arms. “I’m not saying you can’t keep and bear a weapon; of course you can. I’m just going to make it so expensive that most people won’t be able to.”

That’s infringement.

Worse still is a growing attitude of contempt for the U.S. Constitution. Here’s Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) expressing his feelings about constitutional rights:

“… so spare me the bullshit about constitutional rights.” Really? Why is this guy in Congress? Didn’t he take an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States when he took office?

Then there’s Brandon.

This is what the erosion of liberty looks like. When you have “representatives” in the legislature and executive branch who have contempt for the very ideas they swore to protect, it’s a house of cards.

And that’s an infringement on the security of our rights as citizens.

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Daily Broadside | Keep Your Hands Off My Guns

Daily Verse | Job 19:4
“If it is true that I have gone astray, my error remains my concern alone.”

Tuesday’s Reading: Job 20-21

Happy Tuesday, my friends, and welcome to the last day of May. Just like that, we’re through five months of 2022.

I hope that in addition to taking a moment to reflect with a grateful heart on those who fought, bled and died to secure our freedoms and strengthen our country, you enjoyed time with family and friends. I slept in, spent the day working in the yard, and enjoyed some juicy, grilled steaks for dinner followed by a homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream.

Very American!

And we gave thanks for the freedoms we enjoy and for those who gave their lives to make it possible. The older I get and the more aware I am of how fragile (and rare) true freedom is, the more grateful and humbled I am to live in this great nation.

If we could only get our leaders to think the same instead of going through the motions and mouthing empty platitudes that sound right but ring hollow. Brandon laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery where he said, “Today, we renew our sacred vow. It’s a simple vow. To remember. To remember. Memorial Day is always a day where pain and pride are mixed together.”

I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust that he was sincere in his comments. I have my doubts but maybe in that moment, he meant it. Where it gets sticky for me is that the Resident visited the site of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas over the weekend. On Monday, he said some things about the right to bear arms that these multitudes of men and women he so honored died to protect.

President Biden on Monday took aim at 9mm handguns, appearing to suggest that the “high-caliber weapons” ought to be banned.

Let’s just stop there a second, shall we? “High caliber weapons”? Caliber is the nominal bore diameter of a firearm. Think of the gun barrel as a pipe. The inner diameter of the pipe is the nominal bore diameter.

Nominal bore diameter also applies to the diameter of a bullet. So when we talk about 9mm handguns, we’re talking about barrels that accommodate a 9mm bullet.

But where is Brandon getting the notion of a “high-caliber weapon”?

You might have a “large caliber” weapon or a “high-powered weapon” but, technically, there isn’t a “high-caliber” weapon unless you’re referring to wider diameters. But that doesn’t necessarily mean more powerful cartridges.

It’s like calling an AR-15 an “assault rifle.” There is no such thing except in the fevered ignorance of a progressive.

“High-caliber weapon” is a misnomer, perhaps to create the perception of something more dangerous—or maybe it’s evidence of “I don’t know what I’m talking about and neither do the people talking in my earpiece so I’m making $#!+ up.”

It’s hard to know since these people are both ignorant and lie with great enthusiasm, but I’m betting it’s the latter with Brandon.

Either way, it’s inaccurate.

Also, why the 9mm handgun? There are .22 caliber handguns, .45 caliber handguns, .357 caliber handguns, .38 caliber handguns and more. Why is Brandon picking on the 9mm handgun? Is it more dangerous than any of the others? It’s smaller than the .45 caliber. It’s nearly the same diameter as the .357 caliber.

Why the 9mm?

Recounting a visit to a New York trauma hospital, Biden said doctors showed him X-rays of gunshot wounds.

“They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out — may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body,” Biden said.

Ah. He’s comparing the damage done by a .22-caliber bullet and the damage done by a 9mm bullet. One lodges in the lung, the other “blows the lung out of the body.” With one, the person is still alive and might make it home with both lungs intact. With the other, the person has lost a lung and presumably died.

My question is, Why would that person end up in the hospital with a bullet in their lung or missing a lung?

Maybe Brandon is thinking of gangbangers who shoot indiscriminately at each other in Democrat-run cities?

Oops, no, he makes clear that he’s thinking of personal defense.

“So, the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting,” Biden added.

Ah, so the guy he’s thinking of is in the hospital with a .22 bullet in his lung because he was shot in self-defense. But according to Brandon, there is “simply” no “rational” basis for these “high-caliber weapons” when it comes to “self-protection” or “hunting.”

Huh.

You don’t say.

Then why does the U.S. Secret Service equip all of their agents—the very same agents that provide around-the-clock security for the Resident—with a 9mm Glock handgun instead of a .22 handgun?

I’ll tell you why. Brandon is singling out the 9mm because it is the most popular caliber among law enforcement, the military, and the general population. It is as powerful, more accurate, and easier to shoot than the larger .45 or slightly larger .357 calibers, which often have more recoil than a 9mm.

In other words, citizens with 9mm handguns have (mostly) equal fire power with what the authorities carry.

Can’t have that.

Most egregious were Brandon’s comments on the Second Amendment.

“Remember, the constitution was never absolute.”

What in the actual blazing bullocks does he mean? “The constitution was never absolute“?! I mean, first of all, is he really referring to the entire document? That would be par for the course with progressives, who see the constitution as a “living document” which is another way of saying, “it can change when it suits our agenda.”

Then the Waffle Cone-in-Chief narrowed his focus with the ridiculous argument he’s used before.

“You couldn’t buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed,” Biden said. “You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”

Ackshully, Joe, you could.

This is a slightly revised talking point that he used in an interview with Wired magazine in 2020, which Politifact ruled “False.” In another article about Brandon’s statement, the authors write, “Indeed, as pointed out by Politifact, personally-owned ship’s cannons were used on American privateers in the War of 1812, with more than 500 letters of marque issued by President James Madison’s administration authorizing such legal piracy. Should we mention here that Madison was a Framer of the Second Amendment?”

In other words, Brandon is lying. You could own a cannon, the U.S. Constitution is absolute, and the only reason he wants to ban 9mm handguns is that they are the most popular handgun in America.

Do not trust this man.

Period.

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Daily Broadside | Economy Implodes While Old Man Mumbles About How Great It Is

Daily Verse | Job 10:18-19
“Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me. If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!”

Friday’s Reading: Job 11-14
Saturday’s Reading: Job 15-17

It’s Friday and the completion of another trip around the drain here in the Land of Brandon. Things are not looking good, my friends, as we stare a global food shortage in the face and it’s likely millions will die, especially in third-world countries where people are living on less than a dollar a day. We’ll face some shortages and inflated prices here in the U.S, but most of us will be able to navigate the financial tsunami even while the government takes its pound of flesh while doing nothing to alleviate the pain.

Equity and all that, prol.

As many predicted, Q1 GDP is worse than thought, down 1.5 percent.

First-quarter gross domestic product declined at a 1.5% annual pace, according to the second estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That was worse than the 1.3% Dow Jones estimate and a write-down from the initially reported 1.4%.

Downward revisions for both private inventory and residential investment offset an upward change in consumer spending. A swelling trade deficit also subtracted from the GDP total.

The pullback in GDP represented the worst quarter since the pandemic-scarred Q2 of 2020 in which the U.S. fell into a recession spurred by a government-imposed economic shutdown to battle Covid-19. GDP plummeted 31.2% in that quarter.

I’m old enough to remember when we were assured that inflation was just a passing phase and recession wasn’t a thing to worry about.

One factor helping to propel growth is a resilient consumer fighting through inflation that accelerated 8.3% from a year ago in April.

“Fighting through inflation” by … spending? How long do you think that will last as Americans blow through their paychecks faster on things like, say, gasoline? Not much discretionary cash left over for remodeling the house or buying the new transgender Barbie doll.

Plus, consumer confidence is tanking.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment for the US fell to 59.1 in May of 2022, the lowest since August of 2011, from 65.2 in April and below market forecasts of 64, as Americans remained concerned over the inflation. The current economic conditions index fell to 63.6, the lowest in 13 years while the expectations gauge sank to 56.2 from 62.5. The median expected year-ahead inflation rate was 5.4%, remaining near a four-decade high for the last three months. To make things even worst, the index of buying conditions for durable goods, such as household appliances, fell to the lowest level since the survey began in 1978.

The adults are back in charge, baby!

Although Americans aren’t all that impressed with the adults. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of the current Resident. Okay, really, it’s 59 percent, but what’s a point here or there?

U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval rating fell this week to 36%, the lowest level of his presidency, as Americans suffered from rising inflation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday.

The two-day national poll found that 59% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance. His overall approval was down six percentage points from 42% last week.

Biden’s approval rating has been below 50% since August, raising alarms that his Democratic Party is on track to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm election.

In a sign of weakening enthusiasm among Democrats, Biden’s approval rating within his own party fell to 72% from 76% the prior week. Only 10% of Republicans approve of his job in office.

Behold, 81 kA-ziLLiOn VoTEs!

As low as Biden’s overall approval rating is, it remains higher than the lows of his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose approval rating bottomed out at 33% in December 2017.

At least he’s more popular than Trump! And best of all — NO MoAR MeeN TwEEtS!

And besides, totally not his fault, says the totally not biased fairly unbalanced Reuters staff writers.

This year, Biden has been dogged by a surge in U.S. consumer prices, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helping drive fuel prices higher and global supply chains still hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He’s been HOUNDED, I tell you. Hounded by that totally autonomous “surge” in those evil right-wing conspiratorial “consumer prices” and them evil Ruskies whose invasion has increased the cost of gas and … oh, wait. They forgot to mention that Brandon shut down the Keystone Pipeline on Day One and has banned drilling on federal land and killed fracking and is letting drilling permits off the coast of Alaska expire even though we have as much oil as we need literally beneath our feet because … climate change!

But this is a good thing. You guys just don’t understand.

“[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,” [Brandon] said during a press conference in Japan following his meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“God willing.”

The [R]esident then insisted that his administration’s actions, rather than increasing the price of gas, had actually been able to “keep it from getting worse — and it’s bad.”

He’s a hero, you understand. Like in the Marvel universe.

I just can’t understand why his numbers are down.

I just can’t.

Have a good weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Hot Takes on Massacres Won’t Change a Thing

Daily Verse | Job 4:15
“A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end.”

Thursday’s Reading: Job 8-10

Thursday and I’m back after a short visit with my mom for another milestone birthday. I hope to be remembered as one of those children who “arise and call her blessed” (Prov. 31:28).

I was in upstate New York during my time away, about an hour away from the Tops grocery store in Buffalo where a white 18-year-old self-described “mild-moderate authoritarian left[y]” shot and killed ten people in a racially-motivated massacre. On my trip home, another massacre occurred, this time in Texas, where an 18-year-old Hispanic, Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

The two massacres bookend a string of shootings; in a church in California where an Asian man shot and killed one and injured five, and in a Dallas hair salon where a black man shot and injured three Korean Americans. All come just a month after a black man, Frank Robert James, was arrested for shooting and wounding ten people in an attack on a New York City subway train.

I remind you; I only mention their skin color because the Klown Klub in Washington DC is convinced that “white supremacist domestic terror attacks are the number one threat we face, you guys!” and of the five shootings I just mentioned, only one was a white dude—and he wasn’t even of the correct political persuasion. I mean, of course, that he wasn’t a right-wing conservative Trump supporter protesting a stolen election while bitterly clinging to his guns and religion.

These are horrific crimes not only for the loss of life, but the fact that these are innocents—people just going about their daily lives. Particularly heinous is the killing of the children.

Worse still are the absolute hot takes of our political class in the wake of these killings. Progressives waste no time in capitalizing on these calamities because they are, for the most part, heartless trolls who have a political life to juice with outrage. If they can just get in front of the cameras and gnash their teeth with the latest sound bites, it keeps them in the news to advance their political agenda.

Here’s Irish-American Robert Francis O’Rourke, otherwise known as “Beto,” the fake Latinx and failed presidential candidate, storming a press conference held by Texas governor Greg Abbot and other officials as he gives an update on the shooting.

The bodies weren’t even cold yet. I’m sure Beto, who’s currently challenging Abbot for the governorship, thought this stunt would “fire up his base” and he’d be heralded as “speaking truth to power.”

Nah. He’s a disgusting male Karen who steps on the bodies of dead children to score cheap political points.

Then there’s Resident Teleprompter, another fake humanitarian who, to his credit, started with some heartfelt words.

To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There is a hollowness in your chest. You feel like you are being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out. Suffocating. It is never quite the same. It is a feeling shared by the siblings and the grandparents and the family members of the community that is left behind.

[…]

So tonight, I asked the nation to pray for them and give the parents and siblings the strength in the darkness they feel right now.

But then he raised his voice and began a rant filled with lots of rhetoric and no specifics. He also called on “God’s name” a lot.

“When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” he said.

Oh good. He’s identified the culprit: the “gun lobby.” And he knows what needs to be done.

Good.

Good.

What are we going to do?

Next, he invoked the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, Santa Fe High School, Oxford High School and other shootings.

“I am sick and tired of it. We have to act.”

Good.

Good.

What are we going to do?

“And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. When the law expired, mass shootings tripled.”

Wait. This is a flat-out lie. The “assault weapons ban” of 1994 had no discernible impact on mass shootings. Yes, the number of shootings with so-called “assault weapons” tripled—but only in 2012, eight years after the so-called ban ended. Otherwise, the number of shootings remained essentially the same.

So “don’t tell me” that we should do what you did in 1994—which did nothing.

“What in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for, except to kill someone? Deer aren’t running through the forests with Kevlar vests on, for God’s sake!”

This lame joke was from his “campaign” for resident. He thinks that “assault weapons” are some kind of military-grade guns that are powerful enough to penetrate “Kevlar vests.” The truth is that an “assault weapon,” often (wrongly) called an “assault rifle,” is a semi-automatic rifle that shoots .223 caliber rounds that pack less punch than the .308 caliber rounds used by the M-1 rifle the AR-15 replaced.

“For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.”

OK, finally. We’re going to stand up to the “industry.” Great. When? How?

“Most Americans support common sense gun laws.”

Define “common sense gun laws.” Then show me the data.

“These kind of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why?”

Well, in Australia they took everybody’s guns away. In a lot of other countries, citizens are not allowed to possess guns. That might have something to do with it.

Wait. Is that what you’re suggesting?

“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

Who said we’re “willing” to live with it? Why are you blaming us for “letting this happen”?

“Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to stand up to the lobbies [sic]?”

It’s the lobbyists’ fault. I have heard this before.

“It’s time to turn this pain into action … It’s time to act.”

Right. You said that.

“It’s time for those who obstruct or delay or block the common sense gun laws, we need to let you know that we will not forget.”

Is that what time it is?

“We can do so much more. We have to do more.”

So I gather.

What I think I heard was, we need to act. We have to “stand up” to the gun lobby, implement “common sense gun laws” like the failed 1994 assault weapons ban, and we must not forget those who oppose “common sense gun laws.”

Like I said, short on specifics.

Here’s the bottom line: nothing that Brandon or any other politician says or does will “fix” this problem we have because it’s not a “gun” problem.

It’s a heart problem.

“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’” — Jesus, Matthew 15:18-20

We were a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values, and our Founding Fathers understood that only a virtuous citizenry would be able to responsibly handle the freedom that our Constitution gave us. As John Adams said,

“We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.“

As I’ve argued before, we are clearly no longer “a moral and religious People.” If Adams was correct, then our Constitution is wholly inadequate to govern us. It will take a return to faith and the virtues of Judeo-Christian values.

Fox News published an article titled, “Does Texas school shooting highlight need for faith, higher purpose in kids’ lives?” It quoted a few Christian faith leaders who answered in the affirmative. Of the quotes, here’s the one that rung most true to me:

Hancock added, “At the heart of the problem is the fact that the majority of the young men that were involved [in shooting incidents such as the one in Uvalde, Texas] do not have an active father at home. It points to something that’s relatively recent in our society: a national boy crisis.

“We are praying that God will be near in this time of pain and loss, that the church will rise up, and that amid tragedy, courageous men of faith will stand in the gap to love, serve and mentor a generation of hurting boys struggling to understand what it means to be a godly man,” added Hancock of Trail Life USA.

As Dana Loesch wrote in a series of tweets:

Not a single politician is asking: 1) How did this murderer get into the school? 2) What security did this school have and how can we protect schools like we protect our concerts, banks, museums? 3) WHERE WERE HIS PARENTS AND THE ADULTS IN HIS LIFE? 4) How did he buy a handgun? 5) Did he pass a background check? 6) No one in his house saw what was going on?

These are the questions asked by people who not only want answers, but solutions.

The “gun lobby” didn’t head his household, the “gun lobby” didn’t neglect to monitor his behavior, the “gun lobby” didn’t neglect to secure the school, the “gun lobby” didn’t leave any doors unlocked, and the “gun lobby” didn’t tell him to murder anyone.

Right.

We have to rebuild a virtuous culture. “Culture is a powerful force for good. When good behavior is normalized and deviant destructive behavior is ostracized, shamed, and marginalized, you get more good behavior.”

The foundation of a virtuous culture is a return to God.

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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.