Be John Galt

Joe Biden sent tweets attacking Donald Trump for not taking responsibility during the summer of 2020.

By every measure the country is worse off under Biden than it was under Trump – inflation, gas prices, supply chain issues, product shortages, immigration, violent crime, race relations, etc.

Yet, Biden always is ready to blame someone/something else for the nation’s problems – Putin, Russia, Trump, greedy oil executives, greedy supermarkets, greedy food producers, greedy farmers, greedy gas station owners, etc.

It would seem that immigration is one thing Biden wouldn’t even try to blame others for. He, Harris (the immigration czar who has never been to the actual border) and Mayorkas have “control” (or what they claim is control). On his first day as President, Biden signed a number of executive orders virtually guaranteeing that illegal immigration would soar. ICE has been handcuffed and deportations are almost nonexistent. Yet, Biden and Mayorkas blamed soaring illegal immigration on climate change and COVID – like those didn’t exist in the last year of the Trump presidency.

The good news is that most Americans (except rabid Democrats) have stopped buying Biden’s excuses.

President Joe Biden has pushed the presidency to a place it hasn’t been in nearly 50 years.

In the latest Gallup poll, less than a quarter of those surveyed have “confidence” in the presidency, worse than during the Trump presidency and nearly as bad as the end of the George W. Bush presidency.

Going back to 1975, Gallup has never recorded a confidence reading as low as Biden’s 23%.

“The largest declines in confidence are 11 percentage points for the Supreme Court — as reported in late June before the court issued controversial rulings on gun laws and abortion — and 15 points for the presidency, matching the 15-point drop in President Joe Biden’s job approval rating since the last confidence survey in June 2021,” said Gallup.

“All three party groups are much less confident in the presidency than they were a year ago, showing declines of at least 10 points,” added the polling outfit of its annual confidence survey.

(snip)

More than just another bad poll for Biden, Gallup was another sign of the nation’s feelings about the lackluster president, and it comes during a building wave of anti-Biden sentiment from Democrats.

For example, in his daily blog, political analyst Mark Halperin played up reports of Democratic dissatisfaction with the president and calls by liberal leaders and celebrities to either energize his agenda or get out of the way.

“Nearly every political and substantive domestic problem of the Biden administration is on vivid display in this news cycle,” he said in steering his readers to reports about the president’s woes.

Biden is polling poorly in demographic groups that led to his 2020 election – youth (18-34): 22%, Hispanics: 24% and even blacks: 49%.

Imagine who the media would cover these results had Donald Trump recorded them.

Hat tips: Washington Examiner and New York Post

Our National Anthem begins and ends with a question.  When it was written it was a real question…now it is more metaphorical.

The first question:

O say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?

Francis Scott Key watched helplessly from a ship in Baltimore harbor as Fort McHenry was  shelled continuously by the British all day long on September 13, 1814.  At the “twilight’s last gleaming” he could barely see the small American “storm flag” atop the fort that was being torn to shreds by the bombardment…but it was still there.

At dawn he anxiously waited to see whether it was still waving:

O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O’re the land of the free and the home of the brave?

But it wasn’t.

As dawn broke, Major George Armistead, commander of the fort, ordered the small flag taken down…and a MASSIVE flag (the biggest ever created in America at that time) raised in its place.  The story of the flag is a miracle in itself.

In early August of 1814 George Armistead approached Mary Pickersgill and asked her to make him a flag 30 feet by 42 feet. It would be nearly twice the size of any other flag in America at that time. George had a plan for the flag…though how he knew to make such a plan is, well, a miracle.

After the British burned Washington D.C. on August 24, 1814, they turned their attention to Baltimore…and to the fort which guarded its harbor. Yet Major Armistead had commissioned this flag BEFORE the British attacked our capital, and thus had no idea the British would ever attack his fort.

Having approached Baltimore by land and sea, the bombardment of Fort McHenry began at 6:30 a.m. on September 13, 1814. It would continue non-stop for 25 straight hours, with nearly 2,000 shells falling on the fort. During most of the time Major Armistead ordered the much smaller “Storm Flag” to be flown. Throughout the night of September 13 and into the morning of the 14th the shells and rockets continued to light up the sky, and fall on the fort…and the “storm flag” was shredded.

As dawn broke Major Armistead ordered the storm flag struck, and the massive flag he commissioned a month before, raised in its place.  Visible for miles and miles it screamed one simple message of defiance: “WE’RE STILL HERE!”

Realizing the futility of their attack, the British broke off and withdrew. The message Major Armistead’s giant flag had been created to send had been sent…and received by the British! And it was received by someone else as well. Watching the battle from a ship in the harbor was Francis Scott Key.  He got Armistead’s message of defiance when he saw the flag “by the dawn’s early light”…the rest is history.

Metaphorically, Francis Scott Key’s question resonates today.  Our country is being relentlessly “shelled” from within by those would see it torn down…and replaced with some Leftist “Utopia” where freedom is whatever THEY say it is.

Each morning we now have to ask, in all seriousness:

O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O’re the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Well, does it????????????????

It’s no secret that all branches of the Armed Forces are struggling to recruit new members. Last week the military removed the high school graduate requirement.

Being in the military requires far more sacrifices than the possibility of losing your life. It also entails making many sacrifices in your personal life, particularly for single enlisted personnel.

In the military people give up much of their privacy. It begins with basic training and for single enlisted personnel it can continue throughout their enlistment. While the World War II style barracks are pretty much a thing of the past, there are still common lavatory facilities and other infringements on personal freedoms.

Back in the Nam era, members of the military kept their personal lives private. Unless someone told others, the fellow troops didn’t know if he/she was a Republican, Democrat or non-political, what religious denomination, if any, they belonged to, whether they were straight or gay. Other than believing in the country and being a “good soldier,” no one told you what to believe. There were no courses on transgenderism, racial equity (how whites oppress blacks), etc. Today all that has changed as the government wants to convert members of the military to be card carrying liberals.

In the Nam era, gay troops kept it to themselves. Today gay pride flags fly on military complexes throughout June. Transgender females (physical males) are housed in the same housing facilities and lavatories.

Military leaders in the past were people the troops generally respected. They weren’t necessarily liked, but they were generally respected. A far cry from today – 30 rows of ribbons can’t make someone like Mark Milley look like a strong leader or any less of a “girly man.”

Today’s military is making the same mistake as Major League Baseball – ignoring its base to appease the left. Just as many who followed MLB for decades have abandoned the sport, many patriotic young men and women (perfect candidates for the military) take a look at today’s armed forces and see something they want no part of. They don’t want to be forced to believe that men can get pregnant, they were born racist or other liberal lies. Some deep thinkers are probably be concerned that some day they may be ordered to suppress Americans who don’t agree with the approved prevailing culture.

Laura Ingrham had former Lt. Col Stuart Scheller – who was drummed out of the Marines for criticizing out exit from Afghanistan – on her show to discuss the problems facing today’s military. Here’s that interview.

That’s what a lot of respondents said when being polled by Rasmussen last December. In fact a plurality disapproved of the FBI (47% disapproval vs. 46% approval). Many respondents accused the FBI of acting like Joe Biden’s “personal Gestapo.”

The FBI was once the most revered law enforcement agency in the United States, but when we hear news about the FBI these days, it’s more often negative. Rather than pursuing the country’s most dangerous criminals, today’s FBI seems to be focused on protecting deep state and the Democratic Party.

Former Trump administration official Peter Navarro called the FBI agents who arrested him “Nazis,” according to Justice Department documents filed Thursday in court accusing Navarro of repeatedly lying about the conditions of his arrest.

FBI agents arrested Navarro at Reagan National Airport last Friday on a pair of misdemeanor charges that he acted in contempt of Congress by defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 House select committee.

“SA Giardina asked, ‘do you have an attorney you’d like to call? What is the name of your attorney?’” the FBI report says.

According to the report, Navarro replied: “I’m supposed to be on live television tonight. I’d like to call the producer and tell him I’m not going to be there. Can I have my phone?”

“NAVARRO made statements to the effect that the arresting agents were ‘kind Nazis’ and ‘how could you live with yourselves?’” the report adds.

Navarro, in an email, said he’d made “several requests” to call for legal advice when he was arrested.

“This was denied and my phone was confiscated,” he said.

While some of Navarro’s allies have claimed he was pulled off an airplane, the report says he was intercepted by the FBI in a jetway at the airport as he prepared to board an American Airlines commuter flight bound for Nashville.

   

This is a day I thought would never come.

(I came to comment, and found I still have the keys to the back room! I didn’t see a post on Dobbs, so I wanted to share my thoughts in one. For those who don’t know me, I’ve been around some of these guys as a commenter since 2004 at another blog, and then wrote a lot of prolife posts here.).

I was in college when the Roe v. Wade opinion was issued. During those days the decision sort of blipped right on by me. I’d had biology back when people knew what a woman was, and so I never had any doubts they were talking about a baby. A few years later my pastor’s wife in our college town told me she was concerned about the young women and babies who were being aborted, and she and another woman in town had started Birthright.

I learned of one friend’s abortion after the fact, and another who gave her baby up for adoption, later becoming director of the Crisis Pregnancy Center that succeeded that local Birthright. I’ve had pastors who were on pregnancy center boards, friends who were counselors, given baby and maternity clothes, taken our kids to protests, and then watched my adult kid take his kids to protest (that son also wrote a college paper decrying Plan B).

Nationally there are so many names to remember. Nellie Gray who started the first annual March for Life on January 22, 1974 the year after Roe v. Wade. Phyllis Schlafly, who through sheer force of will and stubbornness held the Republicans to a prolife platform when the elites wanted to abandon it. Ronald Reagan writing Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, and Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to put prolife justices on the court.

There have been so many bitter disappointments along the way of watching justices waffle and shirk, but here we are. At long last SCOTUS has overturned the travesties of Roe and Casey.

Lots of little ones are going to live because of today. I’ve already seen lists of states with prolife laws ready to go, and states that are now officially prolife. I’ve also seen some great memes and hysterical videos. The Babylon Bee is on a roll. I’ve even read some National Review articles I agree with! It’s a happy day not withstanding the venom and evil of the Left.

Those of you who know me, know I’m a Christian, and first and fore­most I see this day as a mighty act of God. People have worked long and hard; people have also prayed. With so many things that could have gone wrong, not the least of which was the leak and the protests intended to intimidate justices, overcoming this national evil was an act of mercy and power of God.

After enduring in his labors of decades of work, when England finally abolished the slave trade in 1807, William Wilberforce acknowledged God’s mighty hand with Psalm 115:1. So that verse came immediately to mind on this day of joy.

Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
But to Your name give glory
Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.
Psalm 115:1

I thank God for hearing our prayers and the cries of the little ones.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 19–1392
THOMAS E. DOBBS, STATE HEALTH OFFICER OF
THE MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,
ET AL., PETITIONERS v. JACKSON WOMEN’S
HEALTH ORGANIZATION, ET AL.

Text of Opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf

7 week fetus images from Priests for Life.