RUTHFULLY YOURS

Each week the world produces news that irritates, stuns and infuriates, and on occasion makes us question our collective sanity, leaving us, for example, wondering just how the likes of Joe Biden has been able to reach lofty positions from which he has been able to affect policies that impact our lives.

Here are a few stories from the last week that confirm suspicions we are living in foolish times:

• While the Democrats fight to see who can build the biggest welfare state and promise voters that if they just gave them the power, they would make sure everyone has health care, in Great Britain — where everyone has health care — 4.4 million in a country of 66 million are waiting on surgery.

According to the United Press International, “new statistics posted by the National Health Service also showed a 16% increase of patients who’d waited for more than 18 weeks for non-emergency operations, such as hip or knee replacements.

“The NHS figures showed 233,000 Britons had waited for more than six months and 37,000 more than nine months.”

In America, Medicare for All promises free and easy health coverage, but the reality is it “would outlaw all private insurance,” makes sharp cuts in provider payments, which will lead to physician shortages and government rationing of care, and means higher taxes and Americans losing the coverage they have now.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders is no longer unhinged — the door that once a barrier between his raging mind and the real world outside has completely fallen off.

On Saturday, Sanders, the Democrat or Socialist or just plain crazy uncle from Vermont, tweeted that “Donald Trump believes climate change is a hoax. Donald Trump is an idiot.” We don’t think the global warming scare is a hoax. Maybe a fraud. Perhaps a spreading swamp fever. Possibly just a big mistake. But not a hoax. We don’t believe Trump is an idiot, either. But quite a few on Twitter think Sanders is. Look at some of the responses:

“Bernie Sanders believes bread lines are good. Bernie Sanders is a communist idiot.”

“You think socialism is the answer. You’re an idiot.”

“And you believe socialism works.”

“Says the moron who thinks a socialist America could work.”

“You believe in socialism which has failed at every single turn, so you’re not really one to talk, champ. “

“Bernie Sanders thinks that a $15 minimum wage works. Bernie Sanders is an idiot.”

“@BernieSanders believes that lowering hours and increasing pay to equal the same net paycheck is equal to a living wage increase. What does that make Bernie?”

And maybe the best — “Dude, junior high much?”

Thanks to Twitchy for compiling the tweets.

• Meanwhile, another Democratic presidential candidate’s mind met reality and the resulting crash caused injuries. While campaigning Saturday in Iowa, Biden told the media that “those kids in Parkland came up to see me when I was vice president,” referring to the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Which happened in 2018. Which was more than a year after he left his job as the Obama vice president.

Biden seems to live by a calendar unseen by the rest of us. In 2008, he told CBS’ Katie Couric that when the stock market crashed in 1929, President “Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

Who wanted to tell him? Nine years later, has anyone actually let him how much he got wrong in fewer than a dozen words?

Biden also said over the weekend that there are at least three genders. We don’t believe those who say they saw him counting on his fingers before he made his profound statement.

One might say the 76-year-old Biden simply isn’t as bright nor as talented as white kids.

Democrats should quietly ask Biden to grope off into retirement. He’s a blunder factory. But what would that profit them? The next man (or woman) might be another clown continually eating shoe leather as Biden has throughout his political career, or a crank who kicks out looney policy proposals the way Bayer makes aspirin.

• Finally, there’s the Democrats’ obsession with white supremacy, or white nationalism, or some sort of whiteness problem that they believe is widespread and an existential threat to the country. ISIS with a pasty face.

Smart folks have pointed out that this bogeyman replaces Russia, Russia, Russia for the Democrats in their campaign to smear President Donald Trump, vilify Republicans, and poison the day’s politics.

It would be wrong to declare true white racism does not exist in America. There are some twisted individuals out there. But as a portion of a country of 330 million, it is virtually nonexistent. Racism is in fact in decline. A University of Pennsylvania study found there is “declining prejudice and racial resentment” in the U.S. The days just before the 2016 election, when “racist” Trump was elected, “marked the lowest level of anti-black prejudice since we first conducted this study in late 2008. Prejudice against Hispanics also dropped,” say the scholars who did the research.

Radio talk show host Larry Elder, who is black, has maintained for years that institutional racism does not exist this country. Earlier this year he pointed out that claims that it does have even been debunked by government studies.

If the Russians aren’t coming, and there is no white monster for the Democrats to slay, there’s not much left for them to run on. Just the progressive ideas that hold little appeal outside the hard-left confines of the party.