RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/01/28/the-house-of-memes/
Nobody knows what AOC will be or what she will do with a House seat that could very well stay hermetically sealed from competition for the next 50 years.

She’s a maniac, maniac, on the floor!
And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before!

I’m breaking my own rule in writing this column. Because as soon as everyone started referring to freshman New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by her initials “AOC,” I swore to myself I wouldn’t write about her.

Initials have become a thing with progressive lady icons. There’s the “Notorious R.B.G.,” a play on ’90s gangster-rap martyr Notorious B.I.G., whose persona (and person) stand at some mathematical maximum distance from Justice Ginsburg’s; and, more recently, House Democratic-caucus chairman Hakeem Jeffries’s announcement as he rose to nominate “Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi” for speaker that “House Democrats are down with NDP.”

Itself a hip-hop homage to the Naughty by Nature song “Down with OPP,” this too is a headscratcher of an association. Be­cause the song isn’t, as you are surely thinking, a call to overthrow the Ontario Provincial Police, but a carnal appreciation of “Other People’s P***ies” (think the pink hats or the Access Hollywood tape).

But I digress. The point is, once the chattering class crowned Ocasio-Cortez as “AOC” before she was even sworn in — hell, before she even won — I knew that the mainstream coverage would only get more fawning, and the backlash from the Right even more virulent. And I knew the world didn’t need one more shmuck with a laptop weighing in.

So here’s 600 more words!

There’s a kind of uniquely digital-age vicious cycle at work. Ocasio-Cortez is young and attractive and charismatic, and of course “intersectional,” and her election flatters the self-conception of all the right people. So it’s natural that she’d get outsized attention, including for her dorm-room ideas on sundry policy topics. I joined many in finding this attention annoying, which in turn led, with some justice, to meta-coverage about how she drives the Right crazy! Which in turn I found more annoying still. Run this dynamic through umpteen iterations and you get way less justice and way more meta.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-chastized-not-understanding-how-congress-works/

Veterans of the Democratic establishment, unsettled by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s lack of deference to seniority and party unity, have cautioned the freshman lawmaker to direct her potent social-media attacks toward Republicans rather than centrist Democrats.

“I’m sure Ms. Cortez means well, but there’s almost an outstanding rule: Don’t attack your own people,” Representative Emmanuel Cleaver (D., Mo.) told Politico. “We just don’t need sniping in our Democratic Caucus.”

Since upsetting six-term incumbent Joe Crowley in a primary last summer and winning election to Crowley’s old seat in November, Ocasio-Cortez has used her immense social-media following to chastise fellow Democrats she believes are insufficiently progressive and too beholden to the antiquated establishment. The 29-year-old’s zealous confrontations with more senior lawmakers, which she appears to have dialed back in recent weeks, have drawn the consternation of those concerned about the potential for her to splinter the party.

“I think she needs to give herself an opportunity to know her colleagues and to give herself a sense of the chemistry of the body before passing judgment on anyone or anything,” said Representative Yvette Clarke (D., N.Y.).

“She’s new here, feeling her way around,” said Representative Kurt Schrader (D., Ore.). “She doesn’t understand how the place works yet.”

In responding to the Politico article Friday morning, Ocasio-Cortez quoted a character from the comic book Watchmen to signal her intention to resist the influence of more experienced lawmakers.Ocasio-Cortez was denied a seat on the influential Ways and Means committee this week despite a public pressure campaign launched by progressive advocacy groups. The former bartender, who joined a climate-change protest in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during her freshman congressional orientation, also demanded the creation of a specific committee to further the implementation of a so-called “green new deal,” but was refused that as well.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272496/tlaib-democratic-party-and-jew-hate-ari-lieberman

It’s fair to say that ex-congressman John Conyers (D, Mi.), who represented Michigan’s 13th district, was not a good guy. The octogenarian congressman willingly attended Farrakhan gatherings, signed on to anti-Israel legislation and was eventually forced to resign amid a string sexual harassment allegations. It’s also fair to say that his replacement, Rashida Tlaib, who identifies as “Palestinian,” is a walking train wreck by comparison.

In the hours following her inauguration, Tlaib demanded Trump’s impeachment, called him a “mother f*cker,” admitted that she used this language in front of her child, displayed a map in which the State of Israel was replaced with “Palestine,” insinuated that U.S. Jews maintain dual loyalties (this coming from a woman who draped herself in a “Palestinian” flag and garb during her inauguration) and implied that U.S. politicians are controlled by Israel.

This behavior is to be expected from someone like Tlaib, whose unhinged anti-Israel and anti-Semitic vitriol is well known. In fact, Tlaib is so anti-Israel that even the anti-Israel J Street withdrew support for her. What is surprising is the Democratic Party’s near-complete silence on the matter. The calumny of dual loyalty is nearly as old as antisemitism itself and is regurgitated with banal regularity by conspiracy theorists on the hard-right and left. Former KKK leader David Duke and Tlaib find common ground on this matter. Tlaib’s ally, the Farrakhan-supporting Linda Sarsour recently invoked the same anti-Semitic trope.

So why have Democrats remained silent? Why have they not issued a full-throated condemnation of Tlaib’s vile comments? There are three likely explanations, which are not mutually exclusive and often overlap.

First, many Democrats suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, which prevents them from assessing serious matters, such as antisemitism, in rational terms. Tlaib is anti-Semitic to her core but because she is a Trump hater, she’s given a free pass. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) falls into this category. She showered Linda Sarsour with praise despite Sarsour’s odious past and ties to Farrakhan. Gillibrand’s hatred of Trump is so deep-seated that she will choose to pair up and find common cause with sordid characters who share her pedantic views on Trump.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-rashida-tlaib-ilhan-omar-radicals-drive-democrat-agenda/

Democratic radicals are more important than Chuck and Nancy imagined.

For one evening at least, the national focus on Democrats was on the people whom party leaders want out front orchestrating the opposition to President Donald Trump. All eyes were on the titular heads of the Democratic party: House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who provided the response to Trump’s speech insisting on funding for border-security measures, including the wall.

Pelosi and Schumer’s stiff rejoinders, broadcast on national television, had the air of a hostage video, which set off an orgy of Internet mockery that more than matched the anger of the Left against Trump’s speech. It was an apt reminder of the opposition’s problems in spite of Trump’s unpopularity.

But it’s farcical to think that these two aging congressional warhorses were the face of the Democrats, let alone the “resistance” to Trump. Pelosi and Schumer are the ones in charge in terms of determining what Democrats will do about the shutdown and other congressional priorities. But a trio of newcomers is monopolizing the public’s attention in ways that undermine their leaders’ ability to determine the party’s agenda. Most notably, they are driving the Democrats to the left on a number of key issues.

Since their victories last year, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) have been acclaimed as the future of the Democratic party. Each brings her own assets and liabilities, but collectively they have become symbols of the incoming House Democratic class that is, as the party boasts, younger, more female, and more diverse. They are also much further to the left than the liberal leadership of the Democratic caucus. But is their prominence a true indicator that their party is moving further away from the political center? Or is the attention they’ve gained merely a function of their talent in getting publicity and of the media’s hunger for new faces.