RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/rep-ilhan-omar-venezuelan-government-propagandist/
✔ @IlhanMN
A US backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump’s efforts to install a far right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region. We must support Mexico, Uruguay & the Vatican’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful dialogue.

Guaido is “far right”? I suppose when you see anyone to the right of Lenin as “far right” it might seem so.

But Omar, whose connections to the new Somali president would almost certainly disqualify her from getting a security clearance, showed unusual loyalty to the thuggish, socialist regime in Caracas, by accusing Trump of doing the bidding of “multinational corporations.”

Washington Examiner:

“We cannot hand pick leaders for other countries on behalf of multinational corporate interests. The legislature cannot seize power from the President, and Venezuela’s Supreme Court has declared their actions unconstitutional,” the congresswoman tweeted one day later, still referring to the U.S. backing the head of the opposition-controlled Venezuelan congress.

She added: “We can’t afford to get involved in costly interventions abroad when tens of millions struggle to access housing, healthcare, and clean water right here at home. U.S. meddling abroad always ends badly for us, and the people we claim to be ‘liberating.’”

That’s to say nothing of the Venezuelans who struggle to access housing, healthcare, and clean water right now thanks to Maduro.

“If we really want to support the Venezuelan people, we can lift the economic sanctions that are inflicting suffering on innocent families, making it harder for them to access food and medicines, and deepening the economic crisis. We should support dialogue, not a coup!” Omar added. She was referring to sanctions narrowly targeted at specific people in Maduro’s regime.

As the author of the Examiner piece, Beckett Adams, points out, Omar supports the BDS movement. Did she bother to notice that the word “sanctions” is part of the name?

This kind of stupidity is notable because Ilhan Omar is the future of the Democratic party. She is in the vanguard of a new generation of Democrats, schooled in politics by radicals, and possessed of a burning passion for “social justice.”

https://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-weird-sisters-of-congress.html

The second witch chants :By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. (Macbeth, Act One, Scene One)

Wikipedia writes:

The Three Witches, also known as the Weird Sisters …are characters in William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). They hold a striking resemblance to the three Fates of classical mythology, and are, perhaps, intended as a twisted version of the white-robed incarnations of destiny. The witches eventually lead Macbeth to his demise.

Hecate, the Greek goddess of witch craft, is the sponsor or “role model” for the weird sisters. Nancy Pelosi is her 21st century embodiment. What goes on the House of Representatives:

Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air. (Act One, Scene One.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. (Act One, Scene One)

Substitute cauldron with MSM.

The first weird sister, an unrepentant Muslim and “Palestinian”, is the most vociferous and foul-mouthed of the new representatives in the House:

Rashida Harbi Tlaib Is the loudest dog whistler, together with IIlan Omar (D-Mich), and chief spokeswoman for anti-Semitism. She is rapidly anti-Israel. On Thursday vowed to take on President Trump hours after she was sworn in to office, saying before a crowd of supporters, “We’re going to go in and impeach the mothef—er.” The comments from Tlaib came hours after she was sworn in to Congress and on the same day she had an op-ed published in the Detroit Free Press calling for Trump’s impeachment.

Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) The hijab-wearing Representative owns an unbridgled record of anti-Semitism.

Commentary remarked:

Freshman Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar trades in a primitive brand of anti-Semitism that’s almost unknown in this country, let alone in Congress. To recap, in 2012, she tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” Only last week, the Somali-born Omar defended her tweet during a CNN interview. That’s six years of remorseless bigotry.

https://pjmedia.com/davidsteinberg/ilhan-omar-endorsed-somalias-new-president-four-days-later-omars-brother-in-law-had-a-powerful-job-in-his-administration/
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) became the first Somali-American legislator in United States’ history when Minnesota’s House District 60B elected her on November 8, 2016. The distinction won Omar immediate fame and influence in Somalia, which was entering the final stretch of a critical presidential election of its own.

According to prominent federal security clearance defense attorney Sean Bigley (read below), Omar’s documented actions in the weeks that followed would almost certainly prevent any applicant with such a background from obtaining or keeping a U.S. security clearance.

Ilhan Omar is now a U.S. congresswoman, however. Elected federal officials are exempted from the arduous security clearance process; they hold de facto clearances once sworn in to office. Further, Omar will likely be privy to a significant amount of classified national security information this term. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has granted Omar’s request for a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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“Corruption … affects virtually every aspect of the Somali society: from public officials’ misuse of public goods for private gain and the solicitation of bribes in exchange for basic services to the clan-based patronage networks used to obtain employment and political appointments.” — Transparency International, 2018

The common hyperbole for describing government corruption — “rampant,” or “endemic” — does not help adequately illustrate Somalia’s recent administrations. “As bad as it gets” does the job, literally: Transparency International, the massive NGO dedicated to exposing public-sector corruption, has placed Somalia dead-last among all nations on Earth in its annual “Corruption Perceptions Index” — for 11 consecutive years. Somalia has occasionally managed to tie, though never outrank, North Korea.

Any significant involvement by a U.S. citizen in Somalia’s election process would likely raise eyebrows at America’s intelligence agencies.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/23/iihan-omars-rise-demonstrates-whats-twisted-identity-politics/

In the few short weeks she has represented Minnesota’s fifth district in the U.S. Congress, Democrat IIhan Omar has become a controversial figure. She smeared Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) over baseless accusations, garnered national recognition for wearing a hijab in Congress, and has already been placed in a leadership position on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

This inexperienced congresswoman has created a stir despite accomplishing little so far, and her win demonstrates the epitome of identity politics. A close look at her election and subsequent quick rise to fame exemplifies the cautions that accompany such a mistake.
Who is IIhan Omar?

Omar, 36, became an overnight sensation in Minnesota when she became the first Somali-American to serve in the state legislature. After one term, the fellow Muslim set her sights on former Rep. Keith Ellison’s congressional seat. The fifth district is in urban Minneapolis, where Somali-Americans number in the tens of thousands.

Ellison, himself renowned for long ties with anti-Semitism, has been somewhat of a mentor for Omar. Asking voters to replace him with her meant little practical political change in the district. Ellison won nearly 69 percent of votes cast during his 2016 race. In 2018, Omar won about 78 percent of votes, although in Ellison’s race there was an Independent and in Omar’s race there was not.

It’s easier to understand Omar’s ideology when one understands just how similar she is to Ellison. While he is far better known nationally than she is, she is no less liberal.
Ilhan Omar’s Record on the Issues Is Weak

At a candidate forum in August, Omar was asked to clarify her position on the anti-Israel boycott, divestment, sanctions movement. She said, “I believe right now with the BDS movement, it’s not helpful in getting that two-state solution.” After she was elected, however, Omar said she did support BDS.