RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/16/trumps-re-election

What are Donald Trump’s chances for re-election in 2020?

If history is any guide, pretty good.

In early 1994, Bill Clinton’s approval rating after two years in office hovered around a dismal 40 percent. The first midterm elections of the Clinton presidency were an utter disaster.

A new generation of younger, more conservative Republicans led by firebrand Newt Gingrich and his “Contract with America” gave Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. Republicans also picked up eight Senate seats in 1994 to take majority control of both houses of Congress.

It was no wonder that Republicans thought the 1996 presidential election would be a Republican shoo-in. But Republicans nominated 73-year-old Senate leader Bob Dole, a sober but otherwise uninspired Washington fixture.

By September of 1996, “comeback kid” Clinton had a Gallup approval rating of 60 percent. Dole was crushed in an Electoral College landslide.

Barack Obama was given a similarly dismal prognosis after the 2010 midterms, when Democrats lost 63 House seats and six Senate seats. Republicans regained majority control of the House, though Democrats clung to a narrow majority in the Senate. At the time, Obama had an approval rating in the mid-40s.

Republicans once again figured Obama would be a one-term president. Yet they nominated a Dole-like candidate in the 2012 election. Republican nominee Mitt Romney had little appeal to Republicans’ conservative base and was easily caricatured by the left as an out-of-touch elite.

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/16/tulsi-gabbards-presidential-candidacy-exposes-huge-democratic-party-rifts/

Tulsi Gabbard is an odd Democrat candidate to run for president, and that is perhaps the understatement of the century, even for someone writing from Britain. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an Indian nationalist, visited the United States after his election, Gabbard was one of the few to personally meet him, and reportedly gift her personal copy of “Bhagavad Gita,” the Hindu sacred text, famous in the East as a war sermon and philosophy of destiny, famous in the West for being notably quoted by Robert Oppenheimer after the first atomic test.

Indian diplomats were mildly bemused, but Gabbard has always maintained that India is a vital partnership, regardless of who’s ruling the country, because the twin domestic and foreign threats facing the United States include radical Islam and a militaristic China, and New Delhi has experience dealing with both for far longer than Washington. She was vocal in opposing House Resolution 417, which was about to condemn India’s religious record in a tone similar to UN critiquing Israel.

In her statement she said, “Throughout history, India as a nation has been home to many religions, and has protected many as well, including Tibetan Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and Muslims,” not unlike how Israel is the only multi-ethnic democratic country in the entire Middle East surrounded by mono-ethnic and often fundamentalist Islamic nations. This was not well received in her Democratic Party.

This non-traditional position makes her a paradox to the left, since on political issues, Gabbard is hardly an inch right of Leon Trotsky, Venezuelan socialist Nicolas Maduro, and newly instated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Gabbard was a prominent Bernie Sanders backer who went on to diss Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for rigging the primary, when no one was daring to do that, earning her the wrath of liberal media.

She supports Medicare for All, wants to legalize marijuana, favors a non-interventionist foreign policy, and would like urgent state intervention in opioid treatment, as well as clean environment legislation. She’s a minority, half Caucasian and half American Samoan. She’s a practicing Hindu, like her mainlander mother, and a member of the semi-pacifist Vaishnavas, an esoteric sect that has more in common with Buddhism than hardcore Hinduism in practice.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/pelosi-to-trump-you-can-just-give-us-the-state-of-the-union-address-in-writing/

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested to President Trump that he either deliver a written version of his planned State of the Union address to Congress or postpone it because of the government shutdown.

The speaker traditionally invites the president to come make the annual address before a joint session each January, starting with a year after inauguration.

Pelosi invited Trump to address lawmakers on Jan. 3, the first day of the 116th Congress, with the State of the Union date set on Jan. 29.

With no end in sight to the shutdown that began at midnight Dec. 22 over an impasse on border wall funding, Pelosi sent a letter to Trump today noting that “during the 19th Century and up until the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, these annual State of the Union messages were delivered to Congress in writing,” and “since the start of modern budgeting in Fiscal Year 1977, a State of the Union address has never been delivered during a government shutdown.”

The State of the Union was also designated by the Department of Homeland Security last September as one of the National Special Security Events that requires “the full resources of the federal government to be brought to bear.”

“The extraordinary demands presented by NSSEs require weeks of detailed planning with dozens of agencies working together to prepare for the safety of all participants,” Pelosi wrote, noting that “both the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have not been funded for 26 days now – with critical departments hamstrung by furloughs.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is entering the 2020 race for president

https://nypost.com/2019/01/15/sen-kirsten-gillibrand-is-entering-the-2020-race-for-president/

Sherrod Brown is going on tour to the first four early presidential states

https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2019/01/sherrod-brown-is-going-on-tour-to-the-first-four-early-presidential-states

Kamala Harris opens up as she eyes a 2020 bid By Maeve Reston and Kyung Lah, CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/politics/kamala-harris-2020-bid-personal/index.html

Beto, Bernie and Biden Keep Iowa-Caucus Democrats in Suspense
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-16/beto-bernie-and-biden-keep-iowa-caucus-democrats-in-suspense?srnd=politics-vp
Abrams and Gillum are likely 2020 kingmakers
The progressive African-American pols are looking to parlay their near-success into the defeat of Donald Trump in 2020.By MARC CAPUTO and DANIEL STRAUSS
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/16/stacey-abrams-andrew-gillum-2020-democrats-trump-1102371

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/15/what-happened-to-the-

The Democrats used to be the peace party. While Democratic presidents led our entry into both World Wars and endorsed containment during the early stages of the Cold War, since Vietnam the Democrats have favored a more consensus-oriented foreign policy that takes a dim view of American military intervention. They were critical of our support for military regimes in Central America, the Contras, and even the First Gulf War. During the George W. Bush years, they were united in opposition to the Iraq War.

With the rise of Donald Trump and his pragmatic “America First” brand of disengagement, the polarity between the two parties has reversed. While we saw a preview of this reversal in reactions to the Mattis resignation, it has become more apparent in the angry, dismissive, and hostile reception to U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-Hawaii) official presidential campaign announcement. Criticism came not only from the neoconservative Right—whose confusion about what constitutes America’s interest is legendary—but also from the mainstream Left.

Gabbard is unique in that she is one of the only Democrats who may be described as the voice of peace and reason. She has been critical of U.S. intervention in Syria, our cozy relationship with the Saudi regime, and our continuing cultivation of conflict with Russia.

Republicans Were Defined by the Iraq War During the Bush Years
While perennial warmongering may be expected from the Max Boots and Bret Stephens of the world, the change among the Democrats has been jarring and sudden. After 9/11, Bush took an aggressive approach fueled by a strong streak of idealism. He saw the 9/11 attacks not merely as an isolated event involving al-Qaeda, but conceived of Islamic terrorism as a maladaptive response to the region’s backwards, kleptocratic dictatorships. He thought hopelessly outnumbered American forces could transform Iraq and the rest of the region into stable, liberal democracies.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/01/14/former_obama_housing_chief_julian_castro_joins_2020_campaign_139169.html

Assailing President Donald Trump for “a crisis of leadership,” former Obama Cabinet member Julian Castro joined the 2020 presidential race Saturday as the rush of Democrats making early moves to challenge the incumbent accelerates.

Castro, who could end up being the only Latino in what is shaping up to be a crowded Democratic field, made immigration a centerpiece of his announcement in his hometown of San Antonio, less than 200 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Two days after the president visited the border to promote his promised wall, Castro mocked Trump for claiming that the U.S. faces an “invasion” from its ally to the south. “He called it a national security crisis,” Castro said. “Well, there is a crisis today. It’s a crisis of leadership. Donald Trump has failed to uphold the values of our great nation.”

Castro, the 44-year-old grandson of a Mexican immigrant, said he was running for president “because it’s time for new leadership, because it’s time for new energy and it’s time for a new commitment to make sure that the opportunities that I’ve had are available to every American.”

He made the announcement during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, and as the field of 2020 contenders widens and anticipation grows around bigger names still considering runs.

Castro was San Antonio’s mayor for five years and U.S. housing secretary in President Barack Obama’s second term. He became the second Democrat to formally enter race, after former Maryland Rep. John Delaney.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has also started an exploratory committee for president, and four other Democratic senators are taking steady steps toward running. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu elected to Congress, said this week she is planning a bid, too.

For his part, Trump said he isn’t worried about the burgeoning field of Democratic opponents. He has already announced that he’s running for re-election.

“I love what I see,” Trump said Saturday night when asked about the competition during a telephone interview with Fox News Channel. He recited a list of what he views as his accomplishments, including low unemployment, tax cuts and trade deals.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272540/trump-resistance-larry-elder

Newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in a recent “60 Minutes” interview, said there is “no question” that President Donald Trump is “racist.” If Democrats — the party of slavery and segregation and whose congressional members voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act at a lesser percentage than Republicans — stand for anything today, it’s anti-racism and anti-bigotry.

Except when it comes to liberal racism and liberal bigotry.

Former CNN pundit and “media studies and urban education” professor Marc Lamont Hill, for example, condemned what he called Trump’s pursuit of “racial division, white supremacy and xenophobia.” The President, Hill said, has a history of “dangling black people around as almost puppets or trinkets.”

But what does Hill think of the blatant anti-Semitism of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan? In a speech last year, in which he declared, “powerful Jews are my enemy,” Farrakhan said: “White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God’s grace, has pulled the cover off of that Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through.”

Hill, however, defends Farrakhan: “Again, Minister Farrakhan is my brother. The idea that we have to renounce him, denounce him, throw him away … in the black tradition, I ain’t got the luxury of throwing people who love us away. I ain’t got the luxury of taking people who come out of traditions that have saved us and cleaned us and throw them away. We can’t do that. We shouldn’t do that.”

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

Fifty-nine percent of Democrats polled say they are “excited” about “someone entirely new” as their presidential candidate. Tulsi Gabbard certainly is that.

Representative Gabbard, who just announced her candidacy for president, first grabbed my attention and admiration when she denounced the anti-Catholic religious bigotry demonstrated by Dianne Feinstein, and by implication her Hawaii Democrat colleague, Senator Mazie Hirono and California Senator Kamala Harris.

This position makes her stand out in a crowded and growing field of over 30 potential or declared candidates for the Democrats’ nomination.

As Ruth King noted on these pages last week, the 2020 nomination contest could well recapitulate the rise “out of nowhere” of Barack Obama from obscurity to an eagerly embraced nominee, as someone new and different. Four days later, The Hill has published an opinion piece making the same point, that

…there’s every reason to believe an unknown will emerge and win the Democratic presidential nod. Barack Obama did it in 2008. Bill Clinton in 1992 and Jimmy Carter in 1976 also came from nowhere to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Bernie Sanders didn’t even think he had a chance to win when he entered the 2016 race, but he came within a whisker of taking the Democratic nod away from the prohibitive favorite, Hillary Clinton.

This view is supported by an interesting USA Today/Suffolk University poll revealing that:

Landing at the top of the list of 11 options was “someone entirely new” – perhaps a prospect not on the political radar screen yet. Nearly six in 10 of those surveyed – 59 percent – said they would be “excited” about a candidate like that; only 11 percent said they’d prefer that a new face not run.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/kamala-harris-knights-of-columbus-religious-test/

No longer is the debate over Christianity in the public square. It is over Christians in the public square.

Kamala Harris is set to announce her candidacy for president sometime around Martin Luther King Jr. Day. What sort of chief executive would she be? Well, here’s your first clue: On December 5, Harris posed a series of written questions to Brian Buescher, President Trump’s nominee for district court in Nebraska. The third question reads as follows:

Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men. In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as “a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.” Mr. Anderson went on to say that “abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.” Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?

Harris wasn’t finished. Follow-ups included “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organization?” and “Have you ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights?”

Buescher, a Nebraska native and graduate of the Georgetown Law Center, replied that he joined the Knights when he was 18 years old; that his involvement includes charitable work; and that his job as a judge is to apply the law regardless of his personal convictions. Strong answers. That he had to offer them is a disgrace.

https://www.city-journal.org/role-of-non-citizen-immigrants-on-congressional-districts

There is little doubt that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, representing parts of Queens and the Bronx, is being treated as a leader of a new Democratic swing to the left. Nor is there much doubt that the media-savvy upset winner in New York’s 14th congressional district combines personal charisma with a knack for policy packaging, as with her “Green New Deal.” But before she’s anointed as representative of a political trend, it’s worth looking closely at how many—or how few—votes she received compared with other members of Congress, including moderate Democrats, and what that says about a little-discussed aspect of how congressional districts are drawn: the role of non-citizen immigrants.

All congressional districts must have roughly equal population counts (about 711,000 people). But that count includes all residents—including those ineligible to vote, not because they haven’t registered but because they aren’t citizens. Since some districts have more such residents than others, it takes far fewer votes to get elected in some places than in others. In general, districts with low populations of potential voters tend to be Democratic; Democrats represent states, such as New York and California, with high immigrant populations. In practice, this means that many Democratic legislators represent fewer eligible voters than Republican legislators. According to an Axios analysis, the foreign-born population exceeds 20 percent in more than 50 Democratic districts, compared with just 11 such Republican districts.

In Ocasio-Cortez’s district, Census data show that 47 percent of residents are foreign-born—compared with 13 percent for the nation overall. That helps explain how the self-styled democratic socialist won her key primary election with so few votes: just 16,898, out of a total of just 29,000 cast. Immigrants are less likely to be citizens—just 44 percent have been naturalized, according to most recent Census data—and Hispanic immigrants are the least likely of all: 75 percent of immigrants from Vietnam have become citizens, for example, compared with just 23 percent of immigrants from Mexico. In New York’s 14th congressional district, 56 percent of residents are Latino.