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POLITICS

Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ dishonest, authoritarian candidate

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/kamala-harris-the-democrats-dishonest-authoritarian-candidate

When you look at the Senate Democrats who have announced their presidential campaigns so far, you notice that each one has a theme. For example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has made her career about reform of the financial industry. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has made hers about preventing workplace sexual harassment. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who has all but announced his candidacy with his tour of Iowa, has made his campaign about what Democrats still have to offer the working class.

But what about Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who announced her candidacy on Monday?

Look only at her two years in the Senate and two relevant data points pop up. First, there’s her recent attempt, along with Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, to apply an anti-Catholic religious test to a judicial nominee because he belonged to the Knights of Columbus. This was too much even for her fellow Democrats to bear — not a single one objected to a resolution that implicitly rebuked Harris and Hirono for their behavior.

The second relevant point is Harris’ conduct during the Justice Brett Kavanaugh hearings. No, not the contentious second round of Kavanaugh hearings involving sexual misconduct allegations, but the relatively placid first round in early September. During that process, Harris insinuated, through a line of questioning, that Kavanaugh had held a highly improper conversation about the Russia investigation with someone at the law firm President Trump had hired. After casting this slanderous aspersion, Harris then knowingly lied to journalists in order to prejudice public opinion against Kavanaugh’s nomination. She falsely assured reporters that she had “good reason” and “reliable” evidence that Kavanaugh had indeed discussed the Russia investigation with lawyers at Trump’s firm.

6 Reasons to Oppose Nanny State Tyrant Kamala Harris in 2020 By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/election/6-reasons-to-oppose-nanny-state-tyrant-kamala-harris-in-2020/

A track record of using state power to silence the opposition.

On Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) announced her candidacy for president in 2020. Harris wouldn’t just be the first black woman president, she would also use the full power of her office to silence conservatives — or anyone who disagrees with her and her powerful allies. She has a track record of weaponizing the law against her opponents and refusing to defend the people’s will in court.

Despite her claims to stand for “truth, justice, decency, equality, freedom, and democracy,” she has betrayed many of those values in these six concrete episodes.
1. David Daleiden.

In 2014, David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released a slew of undercover sting videos showing Planned Parenthood staff admitting to selling aborted baby body parts for profit, with one even joking about buying a Lamborghini with the profits. Planned Parenthood hired the firm Fusion GPS, now notorious for assembling the Trump-Russia dossier, to obscure the facts and suggest the videos were deceptively edited.

Kamala Harris, who has received at least $81,000 from Planned Parenthood, was serving as California’s attorney general at the time. In 2016, her office searched Daleiden’s home, seizing his video footage and preparing a legal case against him.

In 2017, Harris’s successor, Xavier Becerra (another politician bankrolled by Planned Parenthood), filed 15 felony charges against CMP and Daleiden.

Peter Breen, special counsel at the Thomas More Society, briefed PJ Media on the ongoing case last July. He argued that Daleiden’s filming was taken in “entirely public places.”

“I could point you to undercover investigations that are being shown on the evening news in Los Angeles. Under the standard they are applying to David, those would be felonies,” the lawyer argued. “The other reporters are being lauded for their brave investigative techniques, but David is being prosecuted.”

“I would say this is an abuse of the criminal process,” Breen told PJ Media.

Pro-choice law professors have defended Daleiden’s right to engage in undercover journalism. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Women’s March Follows Farrakhan off a Cliff Its leaders’ anti-Semitism drives off the Democratic Party and the Southern Poverty Law Center.By Elliot Kaufman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-womens-march-follows-farrakhan-off-a-cliff-11548104190?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=0&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

Saturday’s Women’s March was much smaller than the original, held in 2017. It was notable not only because far fewer showed up but for who stayed away. The Democratic Party disavowed its partnership with the march, as did the Southern Poverty Law Center, Emily’s List, the Human Rights Campaign, NARAL, the Center for American Progress and hundreds of other liberal interest groups. The march had 550 official partners in 2018 and less than half as many this year. One by one, the pink hats came off.

What happened? The group that yelled loudest about Mr. Trump’s bigotry was brought low by bigotry of its own. Tablet reported last month that at the first meeting to organize the Women’s March, four days after Mr. Trump’s election, two of the group’s leaders, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory, insisted that, in the reporters’ paraphrase, “Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people” and were leaders of the slave trade. Vanessa Wruble, a key organizer who is Jewish, told reporters Ms. Perez and Ms. Mallory later berated her: “You people hold all the wealth.” Ms. Wruble was pushed out of Women’s March Inc. by late January 2017.

So were other early organizers, leaving Ms. Perez, Ms. Mallory, Linda Sarsour and Mari Lynn Foulger, who calls herself Bob Bland, as co-chairmen. The four were the toast of the “resistance,” drawing effusions from prominent Democrats. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called them “the suffragists of our time.” Nancy Pelosi praised them as “courageous.” The American Civil Liberties Union’s magazine lauded Ms. Sarsour as a “leader in the truest form of the word.” The ACLU is still a march sponsor, as are the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the American Federation of Teachers—never mind that three of the four co-chairmen admire Louis Farrakhan. CONTINUE AT SITE

A Democratic presidential candidate (Tulsi Gabbard-Hawai District 2) says both sides to blame for shutdown impasse By Rick Moran

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

Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is an unconventional Democrat. She deployed to Iraq with the Hawaii National Guard in 2005 and then promptly came out against American interventionism in the Middle East. She met with Syrian tyrant Bashar Assad. She joined Republicans in calling on President Obama to identify “radical Islam” as a major threat and refers to herself as a “hawk” on terrorism. She supported Bernie Sanders for president in 2016.

At one time, she was considered a “rising star” on the Democratic left. But while she is an economic progressive, her approach to foreign policy has angered the left.

She recently apologized for previous “anti-LGBTQ” statements, proving that on some issues, she is a very conventional Democrat. Now, having announced her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for president, she appears willing to stake out positions in opposition to her party.

Yesterday, she said that both sides are to blame for the shutdown logjam.

Politico:

“The problem here is that this issue, like so many others in Washington, are being relegated to partisan politics,” she said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Where if a Republican is putting forward a proposal, Democrats are going to shoot it down. If Democrats are putting forward a proposal, Republicans are going to shoot it down, really thinking about which party can call a win on this issue.”

Kamala Harris Will Kick Off 2020 Run on ‘American Values’ With Speech in … Silicon Valley By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/kamala-harris-announces-2020-run-on-american-values-with-speech-in-silicon-valley/

On Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) announced her candidacy for the 2020 presidential election with a 1-minute video extolling “American values” and inviting supporters to join her … in Oakland — a rising liberal tech hub increasingly associated with Silicon Valley.

“Truth, justice, decency, equality, freedom, democracy. These aren’t just words, they’re the values we as Americans cherish, and they’re all on the line now,” Harris began. “The future of our country depends on you and millions of others lifting our voices to fight for our American values. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States.”

Yet despite her references to “American values,” Harris also invited her supporters to join her for a speech in Oakland on Sunday, January 27.

While Harris was born in Oakland, the city still seems an odd choice for a first speech. Oakland is very large and very diverse, but it has extremely rich pockets and is a growing center for technology companies. It is increasingly associated with Silicon Valley.

Oakland is the birthplace of the Mai Tai and has the third highest concentration of lesbians. Silicon Valley in particular is known for sexual deviance and sexual harassment, not to mention the constant stigmatization of conservative views as “hateful” — something Kamala Harris in particular is quite familiar with.

Kamala Harris may have been born in Oakland, but that does not mean Americans want Oakland values. CONTINUE AT SITE

Could Dems’ 2020 Nominee Be Someone You’ve Never Heard Of? . By Sara Burnett

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/19/could_dems_2020_nominee_be_someone_youve_never_heard_of_139230.html

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — At 36, Pete Buttigieg is just over the minimum age required to be president of the United States. Outside South Bend, Indiana, the Rust Belt community where he’s been mayor since age 29, few people know his name. Those who know it struggle to pronounce it. (It’s BOO’-tah-juhj.)

None of that has deterred Buttigieg — a Democrat, Rhodes scholar and Navy veteran known to most people as “Mayor Pete” — from contemplating a 2020 presidential bid against a crowd of much better-known lawmakers with more experience and more money.

He’s among a number of potential candidates who believe the 2016 and 2018 elections showed that voters are looking for fresh faces and that the old rules of politics, in which lawmakers toil for years in statehouses or in Congress before aspiring to higher office, may no longer apply. They’re benefiting from Democrats’ fears about running another member of the party’s old guard against President Donald Trump in 2020.

The group includes Julian Castro, the 44-year-old former San Antonio mayor, and Tulsi Gabbard, the 37-year-old congresswoman from Hawaii, who’ve already said they’re running. Yet to decide is perhaps the biggest breakout star of the midterm elections, former three-term Rep. Beto O’Rourke, 46, who ran a tougher-than-expected race against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a 38-year-old Iowa native, has also been spending time in the state with the nation’s first caucuses.

For 2020, Don’t Bet on Beto By Michael Walsh

https://pjmedia.com/election/for-2020-dont-bet-on-beto/

On the phoniness level, Robert Francis O’Rourke (Columbia University, 1995) easily scores a ten. Passing himself off as “Beto” (a childhood nickname that is also short for “Roberto” in heavily Mexican El Paso), he quickly became a Democrat Party darling during his run against Rafael E. Cruz (“Ted”) for the Senate last year. O’Rourke put a scare into Cruz, an easily beatable candidate anywhere outside of Texas — and perhaps not even in Texas should he decide to run again in 2024. While he lost by less than three points, Cruz’s close shave put Beto on the national map, in large part because the national media decided that, with his bushy hair and chipmunk overbite, he was “Kennedyesque.”

So, he’s sitting pretty heading into the Democrat free-for-all in 2020, right? Not so fast, amigo:

For a moment in August, an event hall in Texas teemed with hope, taquitos and unity. It was a border-town stop for Beto O’Rourke’s Senate campaign, but another Democratic politician commanded particular attention: Gina Ortiz Jones, a history-making congressional candidate — gay, Filipina-American, an Iraq war veteran — hoping to turn a majority-Hispanic district blue. “Really special person,” Mr. O’Rourke said, as Ms. Jones stood and waved.

But soon, a county chairwoman posed an uncomfortable question. Mr. O’Rourke had not endorsed Ms. Jones. In fact, he had elevated her Republican opponent, Representative Will Hurd, with frequent praise and, most memorably, a live-streamed bipartisan road trip that helped jump-start their midterm campaigns. Would Mr. O’Rourke support the Democrat?

Jew-Hatred in the Democratic Party By Eileen F. Toplansky

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/jewhatred_in_the_democratic_party.html

It is really time for the liberal American Jewish Democrat to acknowledge that blatant anti-Semitism has infected the Democratic Party.

Nancy Pelosi has appointed Ilhan Omar to the House Foreign Relations Committee. Omar is viciously anti-Israel and is in favor of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Omar has long been a harsh critic of Israel. In fact, in 2012 – just “a few days after Gaza-based Hamas terrorists had launched more than 150 deadly rockets into the Jewish state, prompting an Israeli military response – she tweeted that ‘the apartheid Israeli regime’ had ‘hypnotized the world’ in order to conceal its own ‘evil doings.'”

In fact, the only apartheid in the Middle East comes from Arab countries and is clearly documented by Muslim reporter Khaled Abu Toameh, who regularly highlights the Arab apartheid against Palestinians.

Furthermore, “in 2016, Omar stated that she was in favor of completely divesting the University of Minnesota of its Israel bonds. The following year, she opposed a bill designed to counter economic boycotts targeting the Jewish state.” In addition, “in 2018, Omar ran for the U.S. House of Representatives seat formerly held by Keith Ellison. Her campaign was supported by … the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which held three fundraising events on Omar’s behalf[.]”

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy asserts that “the Democratic Party is increasingly anti-Israel and flirts, to be charitable, with anti-Semitism. Today we see the latest evidence of the character of what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls the ‘New party.'”

How Jared Kushner Tried to Stop Me From Running the Trump Transition By Chris Christie….see note

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/18/jared-kushner-chris-christie-donald-trump-president-transition-book-224025

Chris Christie is the former governor of New Jersey and author of Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics, from which this article is adapted.

To be filed under “who cares?”….the governor disgraced himself on several occasions- especially after hurricane Sandy when he gave candidate Obama prime media time; when he appointed Sohail Mohammed a known supporter of radical Islamists to the Superior court in New Jersey….rsk

On the morning of May 6, 2016, in the heat of the presidential campaign, I headed into the city to see Donald Trump. A couple weeks earlier, he had asked me to lead his government transition team, and I was ready to button down the announcement details and dive into this important responsibility. No one had to tell me how huge a job it was. But I was all in.

By this point in the presidential campaign, I’d become a semi-permanent fixture on the 26th floor of Trump Tower. The Secret Service agents didn’t bother me anymore. I didn’t have to check in with Donald’s executive assistant, Rhona Graff, or anyone else. On this particular morning, I walked past the receptionist —“Hello.” I nodded good morning to everyone, and I breezed into the main office.

“Hi, Chris. What’s up today?” Donald said without looking up as I dropped into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“I’m doing the transition stuff,” I said.

“Oh, come on,” he said with a sigh, finally glancing up at me and scrunching his face a little. “I hate that stuff. It’s bad karma, Chris. You know that.”

The Lackluster Democratic Field Column: From seven dwarfs to twenty Smurfs Share Tweet Email 2020 Dems : Matthew Continetti

https://freebeacon.com/politics/the-lackluster-democratic-field/

Beto O’Rourke is lost. The former Democratic congressman, who unsuccessfully challenged Ted Cruz in last year’s election, has spent the last few weeks in a confused and melancholy state. Something possessed him to share images from a recent dental cleaning, perhaps the grossest introduction of a potential presidential candidate in the nation’s history. He gave an interview to the Washington Post where the only specific plank in his immigration platform was opposition to President Trump’s border wall. In the same interview, he mused that the Constitution may no longer apply to the United States, since we’re an “empire” with troops deployed around the globe and “trading agreements.” Then he published a blog post that read like wannabe Kerouac. “Learned about pump storage, battery technology, the role that production tax credits have had in making New Mexico a leader in wind energy production,” he wrote. O’Rourke himself has no trouble generating hot air.

Beto isn’t merely the slightly flaky, out-of-work husband of a real-estate heiress. He’s running third in polls of the 2020 Democratic presidential field. His emo style and recent missteps exemplify the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the likely Democratic contenders. Judging from polls, Donald Trump is headed toward a one-term presidency. His best chance for reelection is pulling an opponent he can make as unpopular as he is. The Democrats seem more than willing to help him. In 1988, Democrats fielded the “seven dwarves” against George H.W. Bush. The 2020 cycle is shaping up to include 20 Smurfs. Trump is Gargamel.