RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/tulsi_gabbard_calls_out_the_anticatholic_religious_bigotry_of_senator_feinstein.html

Hawaii Democrat Representative Tulsi Gabbard has what looks like a monopoly on common sense among the national Democrats. Writing an op-ed in The Hill yesterday, she offered a warning about the emergence of religious bigotry in her party (although she left aside any specifics about the Jew-hatred currently metastasizing there).

The Democrats are too crazed with hatred to realize that their strongest potential nominee for 2020 would be Tulsi Gabbard. As Ruth King presciently points out today, Gabbard is well positioned for the Democrats to turn to if the circular firing squad of their huge presidential field should leave nobody standing undamaged. Not only is she more sensible than the party’s mainstream (a left-handed compliment if ever there were one), she is a combat zone veteran (as a medic), a racial minority (virtually a requirement today among the Democrats), and a female. She is also good-looking, which matters a lot in politics.
Waiting on Stage Left Again By Ruth King
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/waiting_on_stage_left_again.html#ixzz5cCNpI5gz

https://www.wsj.com/articles/return-of-the-nominations-blockade-11547079323

The U.S. Senate is back in session, and therefore so is the Democratic nominations blockade. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded Wednesday that President Trump withdraw his nomination of Bill Barr as Attorney General, even though Mr. Barr served with distinction as President George H.W. Bush’s AG. The question is whether Senate Republicans are going to do anything more to overcome this deliberate political obstruction than they did in the last two years.

The Senate confirmed 77 stalled nominees—a collection of ambassadors, U.S. attorneys or other non-controversial picks—by voice vote on Jan. 2. But thanks mostly to Democratic objections, the upper chamber returned to the White House 384 nominees it failed to confirm in the 115th Congress. That includes some 70 judicial nominees.

The White House will now have to renominate these men and women, assuming they haven’t given up in frustration. Mark Greenblatt was nominated to be inspector general of the Ex-Im Bank in September 2017, 16 months ago. The Banking Committee approved him three months later; he’s still waiting for a floor vote. Burlington Stores exec Janet Dhillon, the nominee to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has been waiting 18 months.

The Partnership for Public Service reports that 543 of President Trump’s 934 nominations had been confirmed by Dec. 19, 2018. At the same point in Barack Obama’s presidency, 809 of his 1,003 picks had Senate approval.

The White House was rightly criticized for its slow start with executive-branch nominations, but the main problem long ago became the systematic Democratic effort to prevent President Trump from filling out the government. First, Democrats take as much time as possible tying up nominees in committee. Once even non-controversial nominees get to the floor, Democrats then object to a quick voice-vote confirmation and demand a cloture vote that requires 30 hours of floor debate.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/272501/bad-news-biden-obama-says-country-needs-new-blood-daniel-greenfield

Joe Biden gets 90% of his cred from behind the white guy standing behind Obama in a bunch of photos. But Obama didn’t endorse him in 2016, instead he seems to have dissuaded him from running. Biden is hoping that 2020 will be his year, but I’ve questioned that.

Biden’s past hesitancy to run has little to do with supposed family grief, though he is cynically ready to run as a mourning father, rather than the unprincipled careerist and narcissistic hack that he actually is. His problems are legion and obvious. There’s no other race he would have a better and worse shot at. But his only asset is being Obama’s comic relief. And he won’t step forward until he’s locked down Obama’s support so that he can wear the ultimate icon of diversity as his political human shield.

Obama isn’t fond of the idea. That’s why he’s been willing to meet with anyone who isn’t Biden. The candidates Obama favors may be diverse, but more importantly young, Beto, Gillium and Deval Patrick. Obama could hardly be sending Biden a clearer message that he wants someone who is his opposite.

Meanwhile, like a deluded bride, Biden keeps waiting at the altar for Obama to come back to him. If Biden stays on top of the field, Obama may have no choice to back him, as he reluctantly backed Hillary. But Biden’s expectation that he can use Obama to stave off attacks in the primaries is misguided.

The message is becoming less subtle.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/08/kamala-harris-says-open-ocasio-cortezs-socialist-agenda/

Call it the Ocasio-Cortez Effect! Just two days after the freshman congresswoman announced on “60 Minutes” that Democrats should soak the rich with a 70 percent marginal tax rate, presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris said on “The View” that she is open to it. Drawing on her experience as a teacher, Harris commended Ocasio-Cortez for “challenging the status quo,” and promised to “explore new ideas.”

Among these new ideas, on which Meghan McCain questioned Harris, were more than just the confiscatory tax rates AOC put on the table. They included plans to end carbon emissions by 2030, including all cars. Yes, that’s right, Harris would not even say that ending private ownership of cars was off the table. Presumably, not having to shell out for car payments and gas will help Americans afford the new tax regime.

For weeks now, those on the left and some on the right have chided conservatives for being obsessed with Ocasio-Cortez. She’s just a freshman congresswoman, why are your knickers in a bunch? A manufactured story about conservative anger at her dancing in a video in college emerged this week. Surely conservatives are just put off by a powerful young woman of color.

Actually, what conservatives are put off by is socialism, which includes a life of 70 percent tax rates and being told they can’t own a car.

When one of the major contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, particularly one trying to represent the left wing, endorses this kind of thinking? It’s not just conservatives being shook by a radical young woman, it’s Democrats embracing her ideology in a significant way.