RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/progressive-politics-abolish-ice-tax-increases-free-college/

Abolishing ICE, offering ‘free’ college to all, raising taxes to 70 percent: Will the somnolent GOP take notice?

The old Democratic party championed the working classes, wanted secure borders to protect middle-class union wage earners, and focused generous federal entitlement help on the citizen poor. Civil rights were defined as equality of opportunity for all.

That party is long dead. An updated Hubert Humphrey or even Bill Clinton would not recognize any of the present “Democrats.”

Even the old wing of elite liberals is mostly long gone, with its talk of legal immigration only, opposition to censorship, pro-Israel foreign policy, let-it-hang-out Sixties indulgence, and free speech.

It was superseded by grim progressives who are not so much interested in a square, new, or fair deal for the middle classes, as an entirely different deal that redefines everything from the Bill of Rights and the very way we elect presidents and senators to an embrace of identity politics as its first principle.

Indeed, we are currently witnessing a quite strange series of North Korean–like reeducation confessionals, from repenting erstwhile liberals and now presidential hopefuls such as Joe Biden, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand. They and other would-be candidates parade before show cameras to apologize for their prior incorrect heresies, including their erstwhile support for drug laws, tough sentencing, and border enforcement.

The subtext of these charades is that 28-year-old socialist Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (who won her Democratic primary with 15,897 votes and with that victory an assured congressional seat in a gerrymandered Democratic district) is the new Robespierre — warning that the earth as we know it will end in twelve years, ICE must be disbanded, all student debt abolished, wealth taxes levied, and Medicare provided for all. And her political guillotine awaits any progressive with lingering stains of the Ancien Régime.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/illegal-abolish-ice-gillibrand-grapples-past-conservative-immigration-views-n961806

After announcing a White House bid amid a historic government shutdown over President Donald Trump’s demands for a border wall, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., spent her first week on the 2020 stump explaining and expressing regret over her own hard-line immigration views a decade ago.

“I did not think about suffering in other people’s lives,” she said last Sunday in an interview on CNN. “I realized that things I had said were wrong. I was not caring about others.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow days earlier, she said her past views were not “driven from my heart. I was callous to the suffering of families that want to be together.”

It’s perhaps an unavoidable reckoning for a seasoned politician in a party that’s moved rapidly to the left during the last decade. But as electability emerges as a central issue on the campaign trail, Democrats are increasingly willing to say they were wrong.

Gillibrand isn’t the only one reconciling past views. Ahead of a potential bid, former Vice President Joe Biden said that his past criminal justice stances haven’t always “been right.” Not long after announcing that she was exploring her own 2020 campaign, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, apologized for her past views on LGBT rights.

And it’s no surprise Gillibrand’s once-conservative stance on immigration is raising eyebrows a decade later: They sound nothing like her current views, like her recent call to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/opinions/kamala-harris-big-challenge-axelrod/index.html

This is major, because David Axelrod is the man who groomed Barack Obama from obscurity to the White House in four years….rsk

Kamala Harris has a theory of the case about the Democratic presidential nominating process. If she’s right, she could well be standing on a debate platform with Donald Trump in 2020.
Plainly, her announcement and effective rollout on Martin Luther King Jr. Day wasn’t a casual scheduling decision. Nor was her decision to visit South Carolina even before her highly produced kickoff rally Sunday in Oakland, California.
While not explicitly capitalizing on her status as the only woman of color in the race, the symbolic timing of her declaration and the nature of these events were impossible to ignore.
Too little attention has been paid to the way the nominating process unfolds, first in mostly white Iowa and New Hampshire but then moving quickly to more diverse states where African-Americans play a much larger role.

Hillary Clinton was able to shake off Bernie Sanders in 2016 primarily because of her advantage among black voters. That same edge helped Barack Obama prevail over Clinton in 2008.

African-American voters are a strong part of the Democratic base. And under party rules, congressional districts with overwhelming Democratic performance receive additional delegates, multiplying the value of black support.
Harris’ challenge is to be a top finisher in the early states that traditionally narrow the field, to get to those contests that start with the crucial South Carolina primary, where she may have a decided advantage. She’ll be in Iowa tonight for a CNN Town Hall hosted by Jake Tapper. (It airs at 10 pm on CNN.)
There are many reasons to believe Harris could break through.

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

For decades, the Democrat Party has shown by both words and deeds that they despise the U.S. Constitution while they bend over backward to embrace Islamists, illegal aliens, and anyone who hates America. The left is interested only in power and nothing else – even if it means to sacrifice our national security and advocate open borders.

The liaison between American Muslims and the Democratic Party is frequently described as a marriage of convenience, where Muslims will ally with leftist politicians, who will gladly cede some of their power to this group of enforcers so conservative politicians and Christians who advocate self-defense and sane social policies are kept out of office.

While America is in hibernation, Muslim organizations with the help of Democrats have been busy, working “stealthily” to change America in what is called “soft jihad.” Soft jihad is practiced where Muslims are not strong enough to unsheathe the sword of jihad, where the true nature of Islam is exposed and when the public would likely stamp them out. A critical tool of soft jihad involves penetration of the American educational system, such as Da’wa, the religious duty of each Muslim to convert non-Muslims and strengthen the Islamic Ummah.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272668/americas-latest-historic-political-icons-john-perazzo

“Historic” political figures may be well worth celebrating, but only if they are something other than ignorant and ill-tempered human wrecking balls. “Historic” doesn’t necessarily mean “good.” Barack Obama’s “historic” tenure as our nation’s first black president, for instance, was tainted by the somewhat inconvenient fact that he is a lifelong Marxist who has spent all of his adult years allying himself with America-hating revolutionaries like Bill Ayers and Berhardine Dohrn, and with bilious Jew-haters like Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi, and Al Sharpton. When Hillary Clinton made her own “historic” attempt to become our first female president, her campaign was tarnished by the similarly unpleasant fact that she was the most corrupt presidential candidate who ever breathed. And when Keith Ellison “historically” became the first Muslim elected to Congress, he brought with him a long history of allegiance to the most prolific Jew-hater in living memory, Louis Farrakhan.

And now, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, have stepped forth to become our latest “historic” icons.

Tlaib, who served in the Michigan state legislature from 2009-15, has cultivated noteworthy ties to a number of radical Islamist organizations. In 2009, for instance, she received a Community Service Award from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group she has praised for its “invaluable” and “vital” “advocacy efforts” on behalf of “those who don’t have the resources to defend themselves.” Moreover, Tlaib has spoken at banquets and conferences hosted by CAIR, the Muslim American Society, and the Islamic Circle of North America. She also has received numerous financial donations from individuals affiliated with CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Students Association, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Most of these entities are affiliated with the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic supremacist organization and a fountainhead of extremism/terrorism.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/billionaire-presidential-candidates-2020-howard-schultz-bloomberg-trump/

2020 could see Trump, Bloomberg, and Howard Schultz of Starbucks all running.

Democrats are bullish on their chances of beating President Trump in 2020. If his approval ratings remain below the 46 percent of the vote that carried him to victory in 2016, they think they can win.

Some have also been counting on an anti-Trump candidate from the right running a third-party effort. They note that libertarian Gary Johnson and independent Evan McMullin won a total of 3.8 percent of the vote in 2016, much of it from voters who might otherwise have voted for a Republican.

But suddenly Democrats are facing their own possible third-party headache. Lifetime Democratic billionaire Howard Schultz, the founder of the ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks, has told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he’s close to launching a self-funded presidential run in 2020 — and that he will run as an independent.

“We’re living at a most fragile time,” the 65-year-old Schultz told CBS. “Not only the fact that this president is not qualified to be the president, but the fact that both parties are consistently not doing what’s necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics.”

Schultz is apparently quite serious and has already hired Steve Schmidt, the 2008 campaign manager for the late John McCain, whose insurgent campaign captured the Republican nomination in 2008.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tulsi-gabbards-2020-contribution-11548619003

The left is ascendant in the Democratic Party, as likely presidential candidates outdo each other with promises of free college, single-payer health care and a guaranteed income. Yet the party’s direction on foreign policy is still up for grabs, which makes Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential bid more interesting.

Elizabeth Warren says “it’s time to create a foreign policy that works for all Americans,” whatever that means. Kamala Harris vows not to conduct international relations by tweet, while Kirsten Gillibrand promises the opposite of whatever President Trump does.

Ms. Gabbard is different in making foreign policy a focus. “There is one main issue that is central to the rest and that is the issue of war and peace,” said the four-term Hawaii Congresswoman, 37, in a recent CNN appearance announcing her candidacy. Her vision for a more limited American role in the world will be the campaign’s central theme.

First elected to the Hawaii House at 21, Ms. Gabbard steadily climbed the island’s political ranks. Along the way she joined the Hawaii Army National Guard and served in Iraq. She says her time in the military has made her more hesitant to support U.S. involvement abroad.

She is best, or worst, known for bringing the Aloha spirit to Damascus and meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in January 2017. She says she doesn’t regret the meeting and has since defended the Assad regime. This is part of a consistent skepticism regarding U.S. military missions from Africa to Afghanistan.

Ms. Gabbard opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and has worked with libertarian Republicans on legislation to stop the U.S. from supporting Syrian rebels. Her ideas would make the world less safe and prosperous, but at least she doesn’t hide her isolationism as other Democrats do.

Ms. Gabbard’s biggest obstacle to winning the Democratic nomination may be her past as a social conservative, and she spent the first days after announcing for President apologizing for her previous opposition to same-sex marriage. She blamed it on her socially conservative father’s influence. A Bernie Sanders 2016 supporter, Ms. Gabbard now follows progressive orthodoxy on most domestic issues. A proponent of the Green New Deal, Ms. Gabbard has introduced legislation mandating 100% of U.S. energy generation come from renewable sources by 2035.

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

The more you learn about the world view of Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, the less you like her. In fact, the more you learn, the more you think there’s an actual national security problem with her in Congress.

In just a few days, she’s made an amazing string of opinions and news on foreign policy. All of it is about as fringe-left, fringe-terrorist, succor-the-enemy, anti-American crazy, as it can possibly get.

What genius placed this maniac on the House Foreign Relations Committee?

First, news came out that she urged a judge to show leniency to a group of ISIS terrorists caught trying to head out to Syria to fight for ISIS, using icky pope-like language about mercy and claiming a long prison sentence to the terrorists would ruin their lives. What the terrorist had in mind of course, was raping Yazidi and Christian women, beheading opponents, and shooting to kill Americans, which is what they were up to at the time. The group was every bit as vicious and psychopathic as al Qaida before it, and there she went, using her lefty pleas for mercy on such people.

According to Fox News:

The nine Minnesota men were facing decades in prison after being accused in 2015 of making plans, including buying fake passports, in an effort to travel to Syria and fight for ISIS, which was at its peak level of activity and held territory in Syria and Iraq.

The judge chose instead to place the security and right to life of all the people they wanted to kill first and put them in the can for 30 years a pop.

How does one explain this? Ethnic solidarity? The Somali vote? The advice of her brother-in-law creepily in a powerful post back in Somalia? Anything to oppose America? There are no good answers to this, given that ISIS was every bit as savage as al Qaida, and maybe more. Oh, and she claims some taxi driver once called her ‘ISIS.’ What was she upset about?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/one-more-time

Hillary Clinton hasn’t ruled out a 2020 presidential run.

Although no campaign is underway yet, CNN senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny said on CNN’s “Inside Politics” Sunday that Clinton has started to discuss a third potential presidential bid.

“So Hillary Clinton is telling people that she’s not closing the doors to the idea of running in 2020,” Zeleny said. “Let’s just let that sink in.”

Zeleny said that three people told him that as recently as this week, Clinton was telling people that she hadn’t definitively decided against running in 2020, especially given recent indictments of those close to President Trump, including his longtime adviser Roger Stone. Last week Stone was charged on seven counts in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, including obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering.

Zeleny said Clinton would likely capitalize on the fact that she won the popular vote in 2016 in a contest she lost to President Trump.

“She is still believing that there maybe could be a possibility under the argument of this, ‘I won the popular vote. All of this has sort of vindicated what happened in 2016,’” Zeleny said.

Clinton also ran unsuccessfully for president in 2008.

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

Ringworm is a minor, superficial fungal infection easily cured with over-the-counter medication. My husband’s donkey is a demanding wench, and if she doesn’t get her apples and hugs every day, she brays loud enough to wake the dead in nearby Bear Grass Cemetery. From time to time, he gets a little ringworm from meeting her emotional needs.

On MLK day, the noted race impresario Ta-Nehisi Coates interviewed Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (aka Occasional-Cortex). They spoke on various topics organized around the underlying theme of resentment toward white and/or rich people. Our Occasional-Cortex again displayed her iridescent stupidity in proclaiming the scourge of ringworm in Alabama and imparting that the solution is not Tinactin, but socialism.

Occasional-Cortex’s yakking has ceased to be amusing. It is becoming dangerous. For the first time in my life, I am genuinely afraid for my country. I see dreadful happenings if things don’t change.

I had a great education. But at this point, every opinion I hold is based not on academic training, but on what I have seen with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, and felt in my heart. My ears hear the big lie. It brays all day, like our donkey The Viscountess, that we are a hateful people. It whinnies and whines about nonexistent racism and imaginary persecution of “Bisexual-Lesbian-Gay-Etc.” (pronounced “bilge”). The claptrap about “white male” privilege and “gender” oppression has replaced real learning and filled the minds, especially of young people, with a paralyzing sense of resentment and victimization.