RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/12/the_democrats_are_imploding.html

It’s too soon to predict that the Democrats will go the way of the Whigs, but the oldest political party in the world is tripping over its own doctrines; making a public spectacle of its inability to coherently sponsor debates; riven by ideological fissures that seem to be widening; driving away two bedrock constituencies, the white working class and black voters; and hitching itself to a doomed impeachment effort that could cost it dearly next November.

It’s a great time to be alive if you are a Republican!

Consider the forthcoming presidential debates.

Next Thursday’s scheduled debate is being boycotted by all its candidates because the food service provider at the host institution, Loyola Marymount University — itself a second choice venue after UCLA was chosen and rejected because of a strike there — is experiencing a strike, and the candidates refuse to cross a picket line.  DNC chair Tom Perez, a former secretary of labor, is leaning hard on the parties to the strike to settle their differences (do you suspect there may be some quid pro quo promises?), so the squabble between the two constituencies of the Democrats, higher education and left wing labor unions, can end.

But solving that issue is child’s play compared to the “diversity” issue facing the debate scheduled for next February:

Nine Democratic presidential candidates have called on the Democratic National Committee to relax its debate standards next year, allowing some lower-polling rivals onto the stage.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/474887-democrats-repeat-failed-history-with-mad-dash-to-impeach-donald-trump

“Let them impeach and be damned.” Those words could have easily come from Donald Trump, as the House moves this week to impeach him. They were, however, the words of another president who not only shares some striking similarities to Trump but who went through an impeachment with chilling parallels to the current proceedings. The impeachment of Trump is not just history repeating itself but repeating itself with a vengeance.

The closest of the three prior presidential impeachment cases to the House effort today is the 1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson. This is certainly not a comparison that Democrats should relish. The Johnson case has long been widely regarded as the very prototype of an abusive impeachment. As in the case of Trump, calls to impeach Johnson began almost as soon as he took office. A southerner who ascended to power after the Civil War as a result of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Johnson was called the “accidental president” and his legitimacy was never accepted by critics. Representative John Farnsworth of Illinois called Johnson an “ungrateful, despicable, besotted, traitorous man.”

Johnson opposed much of the reconstruction plan Lincoln had for the defeated south and was criticized for fueling racial divisions. He was widely viewed as an alcoholic and racist liar who opposed full citizenship for freed slaves. Ridiculed for not being able to spell, Johnson responded, “It is a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.” Sound familiar? The “Radical Republicans” in Congress started to lay a trap a year before impeachment. They were aware that Johnson wanted their ally, War Secretary Edwin Stanton, out of his cabinet, so they then decided to pass an unconstitutional law that made his firing a crime.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/12/17/the_blues_at_st_james_comey

When your best explanation for humiliating failures is that you were incompetent, not criminal, you are in trouble. When your defense is that underlings are to blame, you can expect them to bite back. That’s the situation facing James Comey, former FBI director. His current story matches Richard Nixon’s lame admission: “mistakes were made.”

Not that Comey made those mistakes himself, mind you. Mere sloppiness by others, he says. That’s his new story. His old one was that the FBI did everything by the book and that his critics were dishonest partisan hacks. His self-righteous stance went down the garbage disposal last week when Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued his devastating report and then told a Senate committee that Comey was wrong when he said the report vindicated him and the bureau.

Comey is still drifting down that river in Egypt, denying he failed in his basic duties. Yet he signed surveillance warrants as “truthful and verified” when he knew (or should have known) they were neither. He and senior officials at the Department of Justice used the same misinformation four times to spy on Carter Page, claiming, without evidence, that Page might be a Russian agent.

Caught in these lies, Comey is reluctantly admitting that he relied on the FBI’s standard procedures for gaining warrants and that underlings may have been careless. They may well have been, but so was Comey. Moreover, it was the director himself who gutted the safeguards designed to prevent overzealous agents from deceiving the court.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/16/trump-hits-new-approval-rating-high-amid-impeachme/

By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Monday, December 16, 2019

President Trump hit a record-high approval rating in one of the country’s most influential polls Monday, as Democrats lost support for impeachment over the past six weeks of hearings.

Impeachment has cost Democrats their first House seat as well. Rep. Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey, an outspoken critic of the process, fled the Democratic Party to join the Republicans.

Democratic leaders aren’t changing course, though.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/16/nevertrump-conservatives-started-the-smear-campaign-on-carter-page/

If editors and journalists are truly serious about wanting redemption for the former Trump campaign advisor, they should first hold their own accountable.

In August 2015, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson sent an email that would launch the biggest political scandal in American history.

According to his new book, Simpson started fishing for haters of Donald Trump who might be interested in funding his budding opposition research project on the Manhattan mogul. Simpson admits that he didn’t know a lot about Trump at that point but suspected the Republican presidential candidate would provide a deep trove of dirt for political operatives to mine.

Simpson, however, did not reach out to Democrats or the Hillary Clinton campaign or the Bernie Sanders team. Instead, he contacted a “longtime Republican politico” to see if he might be interested in backing Fusion’s work. They spoke by phone later that same day.

“Simpson told the Republican operative that there were plenty of preliminary indications that Trump would be a fertile subject for investigation, and that some of the lines of inquiry would probably resonate with the media or primary voters,” Simpson wrote. (The book is oddly written in third-person.)

“The operative said he was interested but needed to secure funding for Fusion’s fee, about $50,000 for the first month.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/comey-croons-whos-sorry-now-lloyd-billingsley/

“Sure, I’m responsible, that’s why I’m telling you, I was wrong,” former FBI boss James Comey told Chris Wallace of Fox News on Sunday. “I was overconfident as the director in our procedures. And it’s important that a leader be accountable and transparent.” Wallace wondered if Comey had played down the use of the Steele dossier.

“If I was then I’m sorry that I did that,” Comey said, citing “significant questions about the reliability of some of the sub-source reporting.” Even so, the FBI committed no wrongdoing only “real sloppiness.” DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz “did not find misconduct by any FBI people,” only  “mistakes and negligence.”  All this from the man who branded FBI spying on Trump as “nonsense,” a claim he repeated in the interview.

“Comey is about two years too late,” former Rep. Trey Gowdy told Maria Bartiromo of Fox News. “We could have used him as head of the FBI helping Republicans figure out what was happening with FISA instead of thwarting us and obstructing us.” President Trump was also quick to respond.

“So now Comey’s admitting he was wrong,” Trump tweeted. “Wow, but he’s only doing so because he got caught red-handed. He was actually caught a long time ago.” And as the president wondered, “So what are the consequences for his unlawful conduct. Could it be years in jail?” And “Where are the apologies to me and others, Jim?” At this writing no apology has appeared, and Trump is right that Comey’s unlawful conduct goes back some distance.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/i-accuse-the-leadership-of-the-democratic-party-of-responsibility-for-violence-against-jews/

Violence against Jews now accounts for 58% of all crimes of religious hatred reported to the FBI. It isn’t just the Jersey City massacre: Violence against Jews by blacks is now endemic in Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn. This is the direct result of anti-Semitic agitation by hatemongers like Louis Farrakhan. The Democratic Party tolerates congressmen in its ranks with public ties to Farrakhan. When Farrakhan calls for the murder of Jews, and black political leaders propitiate this foul demagogue, deranged fringe elements will turn violent.

From The Daily Caller:

At least seven House Democrats are known to have direct ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite and racist who has called Jews “satanic” and said white people “deserve to die.”

California Reps. Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee, Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, Indiana Rep. Andre Carson, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, New York Rep. Gregory Meeks and Texas Rep. Al Green have all attended meetings with Farrakhan while in Congress, according to photos, videos and witness accounts of the meetings reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

I accuse the leadership of the Democratic Party of responsibility for the murders of my brethren in Jersey City. It is a howling disgrace that Rep. Keith Ellison was until 2018 Deputy Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Where are the demands that elected officials and party leaders repudiate Farrakhan?

A majority of British Jews used to vote Labour. This time around more than 90% voted against the Jew-hater Jeremy Corbyn. When will American Jews display the same concern for their own self-preservation?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-incredibly-incurious-mr-comey-11576540870?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

James Comey has finally admitted some “sloppiness” over the surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The former FBI director should re-read Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report because it lays out a record of willful incuriosity about Christopher Steele and his dossier that is hard to credit as mere incompetence.

The report quotes Bill Priestap, a key FBI player in the 2016 Crossfire Hurricane probe into the Trump campaign, that the FBI had “concerns” about Mr. Steele’s “reporting the day we got it . . . [S]ome of it was so sensational, that we just, we did not take it at face value.”

But if the FBI was initially skeptical, it isn’t evident in the IG report. The report shows how the FBI avoided taking any action, or asking any question, that might have undermined its use of the dossier in its application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The Crossfire team obtained Mr. Steele’s dossier on Sept. 19, 2016. The FISA court didn’t grant its warrant on Mr. Page until Oct. 21, 2016, giving it weeks to explore Mr. Steele’s revelations. The former British spook had operated as a confidential FBI source since 2013, which meant he had his own “Delta” file, containing all information concerning sources.