RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-debate-in-new-york-state-1540159576

Why be a journalist if you can’t have fun? Our friends at the New York Post have been doing exactly that while publicizing the refusal of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to debate their opponents in what is allegedly an election year. There’s also a lesson here about what happens in states with one-party government.

The Post has the two Democrats dressed in yellow chicken suits with the headline, “Birds of a Feather” and “We’re gonna need a bigger coop!” Both politicians are planning presidential runs, but they’re so far ahead in the polls that they don’t want to give their opponents a chance to highlight any of their career lowlights.

Republican nominee Marc Molinaro would no doubt want to mention the corruption that has effloresced on Mr. Cuomo’s watch, the lousy upstate economy, and the decline of New York City’s subways. GOP candidate Chele Farley might ask Ms. Gillibrand to defend her past admiration for Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein even as she says she believes charges without evidence against Brett Kavanaugh.

Ms. Gillibrand announced Friday she was ducking out of a debate with Ms. Farley scheduled for Sunday. The Senator claimed she didn’t want to cross a “de facto picket line” by workers striking against Charter Communications even as she said “open public debate is essential to democracy.” Is she getting credibility counsel from the Saudis? Late Sunday she finally agreed to a debate on Thursday at 1:30 in the afternoon.

The two Democrats can get away with this disdain for democracy because New York is increasingly a one-party state in which Republicans can’t win statewide. This is partly a result of a GOP majority in the state Senate that has failed to offer much of an alternative to liberal governance. But even that restraint in Albany is likely to vanish this year as Democrats expect to control every branch of government. Politicians aren’t more accountable when they face no significant opposition.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/midterm-elections-democrat-blue-wave-predictions/

Good news on the economy and bad behavior by Democrats may be energizing Republicans.

Every election people talk about an “October surprise” that upends the conventional wisdom about the outcome. Well, it appears we can see the contours of at least one October surprise. The Democrats have managed to shoot themselves in the foot with their handling of the Brett Kavanaugh nomination and the antics of their most extreme supporters. The “Blue Wave” that liberals have been waiting for may still come, but it’s more likely to splash the knees of most GOP incumbents than to submerge them.

Veteran political handicapper Charlie Cook puts it bluntly in his latest column at the Cook Political Report, in which he asks whether “those who led the out-of-control demonstrations on Capitol Hill against the Kavanaugh nomination have any understanding of how much damage they did to Democrats and the party’s chances of winning a majority in the Senate. His answer: “My guess is they don’t. But Senate Democrats probably do.”

Cook now says the odds of Democrats winning a Senate a majority are “long, no better than 1 in 5.” As of today, “a Republican net gain of a seat or two seems most likely, moving the GOP up to either 52 or 53 seats, though a gain of three seats or no net change [is] entirely possible.”

As for the House, political analysts still make the Democrats the odds-on favorites to retake control there for the first time since 2010. But while the new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll out today gives Democrats a nine-point advantage nationwide in voting for the House, it tells a different story in the battleground seats that will determine control:

The Democratic advantage has vanished in House districts that matter most. In districts rated as most competitive, the parties are dead even on which one should control Congress. In last month’s poll, Dems led by 13 points among registered voters and 6 points among likely voters.

In other words, Republicans have a real chance to beat the odds and hold their losses below the 23 seats that would transfer House control.

The reasons for this turnaround are various and go beyond the shrinking of the enthusiasm gap between the parties (before the Kavanaugh nomination, Democratic voters were more enthusiastic). The WSJ/NB poll shows President Trump with a 47 percent job approval, his highest rating yet as president. At the same time, 43 percent of registered voters say Republicans handle the economy better versus only 28 percent who pick Democrats. That’s the largest lead on that question the GOP has ever had in the WSJ/NBC poll.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/21

Throughout Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s recent ordeal, Democratic women and their house-trained houseboys attempted to derail the decent part of the process, rendering a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing into a small-minded, mean-spirited, undignified, and gossipy affair.

In tenor, Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings resembled a tabloid, a woman’s magazine, or the female-dominated Trump-watch panels, assembled daily by the Fake News networks.

As to the women folk in the gallery: They were plain gaga. These libertine “ladies” appeared constitutionally incapable of abiding by standards of decency and decorum, as demanded in such a solemn setting.

Thank our lucky stars we must that Democratic distaff are not yet disrobing, as do their Russian heroines. Pussy Riot, the Putin-hating, all-girl pop band, specializes in desecrating holy places and flashing holey places.

This kind of abandon, albeit moderated, extended to liberal lady senators. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and her soul sisters in the Senate conducted themselves like kids who can’t quit interrupting the grownups, nagging for license to break protocol, so as to harangue and harass the “bad” man in the chair.

On the day the Democrats lost—and Kavanaugh won his seat on the high court—a primal, collective, atavistic howl rose from the Senate gallery’s female quorum.

In response, a journalist in attendance quipped that this is “what the Left sounds like.” He ought to have stated the obvious. Sure, there are a few male eunuchs among these girls gone wild. But this is predominantly what women of the Left sound like.

Tennessee- Marsha Blackburn (R) vs. Phil Bredesen (D)…..Blackburn has a 6 point lead

Arizona- Martha McSally (R) vs. Kirsten Sinema (D)…..McSally has a slim lead

Missouri- Josh Hawley (R) vs. Claire McCaskill (D)…..Hawley ahead by 5 points

Texas- Ted Cruz (R) vs. Beto O’Rourke (D)…..Cruz ahead by 7 points

Nevada-Dean Heller (R) vs. Jacky Rosen (D)….Heller maintains a small lead

Florida- Rick Scott (R) vs. Bill Nelson (D) Too close to call

North Dakota- Kevin Cramer (R) vs. Heidi Heitkamp (D)….Cramer holds a good lead

https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/19/the-democrat-strategy

Brett Kavanaugh’s televised trial by ordeal may be over, but Democrats will never let go of the falsehood that Republicans have elevated a would-be or actual rapist to the Supreme Court. Neither have we heard the last rape accusation deployed as political weapon. Think of the Kavanaugh hearings as the trailer for the Democratic horror movie to come.

And don’t be surprised if we haven’t heard the last of sexual misconduct smears against Justice Kavanaugh stemming from his college days at Yale. If the Democrats take the House in the midterms, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) would be chairman of the judiciary committee, and he has vowed to pursue the accusations of sexual assault against the newest Supreme Court Justice.

At first glance this seems self-destructive on the part of Democrats, given how the general public hated the cruel and lawless attack on Kavanaugh. Democrats have a different calculus. Abortion with no limits is threatened. There is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, so the court itself must be besmirched.

What is becoming more obvious by the day is that the Democrats don’t care about the general electorate. They appear bent on destroying unity wherever they find it. They want to destroy constitutional limits on their power, including the limits brought on by separation of powers or Democrats losing elections.

The newly radicalized Democratic Party has priorities that follow a neo-Marxist identity politics playbook. Their future depends on whipping up emotions of fear and anger and dividing the country into warring factions. Success requires that women become a one-party voting bloc, joining blacks who have long been corralled into a near-permanent voting bloc (now finally cracking) by cries of racism and attacks on dissenters as race traitors if they dare break free.

Democrats need American suburban women—educated, prosperous, assertive, successful American women—to feel like victims. President Obama’s Title IX Office of Civil Rights redefined sexual assault to be any unwanted words or touch. Their directive explicitly states, the action does not need be “objectionably offensive” to an “objectively reasonable person.” Assault is defined in the mind of the accuser.

Since every woman in America has received an unwanted catcall or pat, an obnoxious grope or innuendo, everyone is a “survivor.” No surprise, the villains are “white men,” shorthand for “evil racist, sexist Republicans.”

Putting on the mantle of “survivor” appeals to the drama queens of Hollywood. It is second nature to the feminists of the coastal elites. It plays well in the wealthy enclaves that fund the Democrat party.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-house-majority-by-any-means-necessary-1539989212

Ask Sean Casten about the sharp tone of his congressional campaign, and he responds by going for the jugular. In a bellwether race as Democrats try to take the House, Mr. Casten has been accused by his opponent, six-term GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, of spraying “rhetorical gasoline” and “parroting Donald Trump.” Nonsense, replies the Democratic challenger.

“If you don’t have a thick skin, I’m not sure why you’re in politics,” Mr. Casten says, after we duck into a quiet corner during an office-park meet-and-greet. “What Roskam is offended by is that I’ve had the temerity to speak truth to power. He’s voted 94% of the time with Trump. He has on his website that he is proud to work at Denny Hastert’s desk. I’m opposed to pedophilia. If that bothers him, that’s between him and his God.”

Say what?

To back up a smidge: Mr. Casten is referring to an old press release, from 2011, on Mr. Roskam’s official website. It explained that Dennis Hastert, who served as House speaker from 1999-2007, was passing down a “historic desk” used by Illinois congressmen since the 1940s. Five years after bequeathing the antique, Mr. Hastert admitted he had sexually abused boys as a high-school wrestling coach in the 1960s and ’70s. And this horrifying crime now reflects on Mr. Roskam . . . how, exactly?

Welcome to Illinois’s Sixth Congressional District, where the political debate this year is peppered with casual references to Nazis, morons and, yes, pedophiles. These Chicagoland suburbs, which went for Hillary Clinton by 7 points in 2016, are a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats. The district, shaped like a cocktail shrimp, arcs between O’Hare Airport and the particle accelerator at Fermilab. Half of adult residents went to college, one-fifth have a graduate degree, and the median household earns $99,000.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/ready_for_hillary_again.html

She persisted.

Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton apparently is running for president again. She’s out to settle old scores with President Trump.

According to The Week:

Philippe Reines, who worked for Hillary Clinton going back to 2002 and was her senior adviser at the State Department, made the argument to Politico Friday that the former Democratic nominee might actually be the party’s best hope for defeating Trump in 2020. He said no other Democrat has “anywhere near a base of 32 million people,” especially not Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The party, he feels, shouldn’t dismiss her as a failed candidate because she’s “smarter” and “tougher” than most, and she “could raise money easier than most.”

But it doesn’t sound like this is just wishful thinking on his part. He really thinks it could happen, saying the chances of Clinton running in 2020 are “not zero.”

Lucky us.

Like her 36-point approval rating, in the wake of her obvious campaign to spy on her rival, Donald Trump, and pin the whole thing on him as Russian collusion, has helped her in the public’s estimation. Or as if her unresolved use of an unauthorized private server in some guy’s bathtub, is great for her poll ratings. Or her Clinton Foundation pay-to-play shenanigans, which made her a very rich woman, are going to be a crowd-pleaser? Or is it the fact that she will be 74 when she takes to the hustings again, sliding into cough attacks, falling down stairs, failing to maintain a healthy weight level and still not telling the truth about her medical conditions going to rope them in?

Hillary indeed will be 74 if she campaigns again, and among the jurassic pickings proffered by the Democrats, that will make her the youngster of the bunch. Maybe it’s that.

Does the public really want to hear her arrogant hectoring voice again, or to see her menagerie of yes-women such as Cheryl Mills or Huma Abedin cocooning around her and wielding great unaccountable power, or watch more Central Park pantsuit dances? Does the public really want more Obama Economy, single-payer health care, and leading from behind? Does the public actually want more of Chelsea Clinton and her nasty, unpleasant tweets (if not power) in front of us?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271672/elizabeth-warren-and-progressive-one-drop-rule-bruce-thornton

The Massachusetts Senator who during her career has tried to pass as a “Native American,” a “Cherokee,” and a “woman of color” for careerist advantage, has been stoking the fires of her self-immolation ever since she released results of a DNA test to prove her claim. As the whole country knows, the tests show no such thing, since the DNA results make her between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American, a proportion less than the average American’s. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham waggishly announced he will test his DNA to show he’s more Indian than Warren.

Warren’s ongoing political suicide-by-gaffe is entertaining. Who doesn’t delight in the numerous, exquisitely multicultural Cherokee activists and organizations scolding Warren for exercising her paleface privilege to appropriate American Indian culture? Then there’s Warren’s bizarre, petulant, passive-aggressive, and clueless twitter rant that made Donald Trump’s tweets read like one of Shakespeare’s soliloquys. One imagines numerous DNC officials and consultants frantically making the cutthroat gesture as Warren’s tweets metastasized.

That’s all great political fun, but the whole episode shines a light on something more serious: the larger incoherence of identity politics, that illiberal reduction of citizens into groups defined by superficial physical characteristics, and by tendentious definitions of “culture” that reduce people to stereotypes. The danger of this political idea is that it undercuts the philosophical foundations of the Constitution in “inalienable” rights possessed by all individuals as part of their common humanity, no matter how varied their ethnicity, cultures, mores, and social habits–– the unum that binds multiple pluribus.

Warren is a particularly preposterous example of how identity politics often has little to do with the reality of human diversity. One marker of ethnic “culture” is recipes handed down from parents and grandparents. So naturally, Warren contributed five recipes to an American Indian cookbook called The Pow Wow Chow Cookbook, and signed herself as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.” Notice the double verbal cultural appropriation, by the way, in the book’s title: “pow wow” stolen from the Narragansett Indians, “chow” from Chinese.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271684/terror-reinforcing-primary-lloyd-billingsley

Since the 2016 election Democrats have centered their activism around opposition to President Trump. This furious enmity may have overshadowed some Democrats’ friendliness toward Islamic terrorists, and for the Democrat running in California’s 50th district it’s a family affair.

“Palestinian-Mexican” Ammar Campa-Najjar, also billed as “Latino Arab-American,” is the grandson of Yousef al-Najjar, a leader of Black September, the Palestinian terrorist group that abducted, tortured and murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

In 1973, Israeli commandos killed Yousef al-Najjar, and the king of Morocco adopted his son Yasser al-Najjar, who lived in Egypt until 1981 when he reportedly moved to the United States. How al-Najjar fils was able to enter the USA remains something of a mystery, but in the official account he married Abigail, a Mexican-American woman, and lived in San Diego, California.

The Democrat now contending with Republican Duncan Hunter, who faces campaign finance violations, claims his father Yasser al-Najjar returned to Gaza in the 1990s to help Yasser Arafat form a government and promote “peace between Israel and the Palestinian people.” Yasser al-Najjar served as a de-facto ambassador, defending the Palestinians against charges that they misused money from the government of Norway for anti-Jewish propaganda.

Yasser al-Najjar is regarded as a “legend” among Palestinians and in 2014 his father Yousef al-Najjar received the “Grand Star of Honor” medal from PA boss Mahmoud Abbas. The Black September terrorist also has Martyr Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital, named after him in Gaza.