RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/justice-department-refuses-to-testify-before

The lasting damage from the Trump years will be the norm-busting by congressional Democrats.

The unintended consequences of the House Democrats’ anti-Trump derangement, in both infantilizing congressional oversight and foolishly pleading with the federal courts to meddle in it, are becoming manifest. On Monday, the Justice Department declined a request by House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) that it send top officials to testify at an oversight hearing — or at least what was portrayed by the House as an oversight hearing; it was depicted by DOJ as more election-year political theater.

DOJ’s position traces to two developments in July.

First, as I recounted here, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. Mazars, which involved subpoenas issued by House committees for President Trump’s personal financial information. The dispute over this information pitted the Congress’s broad authority to seek information for legislative purposes versus the president’s legitimate interest in carrying out his weighty responsibilities free of both undue burdens and the pretextual exploitation of Congress’s oversight powers for partisan political advantage. That is, it was the type of legislative/executive tug-of-war that the political branches have worked out between themselves since a time out of memory — such that Chief Justice John Roberts was moved to observe that the case marked the first time in 233 years of American constitutional governance that the High Court had been asked to resolve such a controversy.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/andrew-cuomo-horrific-decisions/

How New York’s petty political turf war led to the deaths of thousands.

O bservers of New York politics over the past several years understand that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s fanatical obsession with humiliating and overruling his fellow Democrat Bill de Blasio towers over every other consideration in the Empire State. Sometimes Cuomo’s habits come across as merely silly, as when he intervened in de Blasio’s decision to euthanize a deer found roaming around in Harlem. Sometimes Cuomo has slowed down de Blasio’s aggressive moves to the left. But when it came to the coronavirus, de Blasio was the first of the two to decide to take it seriously. As always, Cuomo could not allow de Blasio to seem to be ahead of him on any matter, so he reflexively opposed de Blasio’s suggestion to take serious steps to curb the spread of infection. Here at last New York’s petty political turf war led to the deaths of innocent bystanders, as surely as if Cuomo had been spraying bullets around in a gang beef. Rarely, however, do gangsters kill more than a few onlookers. Cuomo’s intransigence cost the New York area an extra 17,000 lives, according to one study.

Throughout January and February, far too many leaders at all levels downplayed the Wuhan virus, but by March 17, New York City’s mayor had seen enough. Schools had shut down the day before, and de Blasio said in a news conference that New Yorkers should prepare to “shelter in place” to slow the spread of the virus. The governor’s team immediately jumped in to tell de Blasio this idea sounded “crazy.” “Phones were ringing off the hook,” de Blasio’s then-press aide Freddi Goldstein told the Wall Street Journal in an exhaustive, damning tick-tock of Cuomo’s horrific decisions. Cuomo’s officers told Goldstein’s crew in City Hall that “de Blasio was scaring people. You have to walk it back. It’s not your call.”

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/162-house-dems-vote-against-measure-to-combat-anti-semitism/

More than 160 House Democrats voted on Wednesday against a measure to combat anti-Semitism.

Republicans offered the anti-Semitism measure as an amendment to a piece of Democrat-backed legislation promoting greater inclusivity in federal programs. The bill, dubbed the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act, would permit the filing of private civil suits for violations of federal regulations that “prohibit discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.” The Republican amendment, which passed by a vote of 265 to 164, with 162 Democrats in opposition, mandates that anti-Semitism also be considered as discrimination.

The Republican effort to include anti-Semitism in federal definitions of discrimination follows similar moves by the White House to consider discrimination against Jewish people illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which affords protection to minorities and other groups. House Democrats have been divided in recent years on issues of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel advocacy in the United States. The latest vote highlights a deep divide between Democrats and Republicans on the issue, which is playing out against the backdrop of rising anti-Semitism across the globe.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), sponsor of the anti-Semitism amendment, said that any legislation altering Title VI must include protections for Jewish Americans.

“We should use this opportunity to show commitment to combating anti-Semitism,” Foxx said. “With anti-Semitism on the rise around the world, the need for this amendment is clear.”

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/20/the-democratic-party-is-unwell/

A healthy political party—just like a healthy individual—has certain traits and habits that nourish overall wellness. A diversity of interests, a sense of humor, a curious mind, a measured temperament, and an occasional endorphin-release from physical activity are just a few things that contribute to the fitness of a human being. The same kind of characteristics should be found on a collective scale in a thriving, muscular, and stable political party.

None of those qualities, however, can be detected in the present-day Democratic Party. 

For all the squawking about Donald Trump’s alleged unfitness for office and insistence that the Republican Party is populated with zombie-like Trump cultists, in reality it is the Democratic Party that needs an extended stay at a detox facility to cleanse its sickly mind and body.

The party’s ailments have been on full display this week. Look no further than the freakish music video that closed out the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Billy Porter, a gay black Broadway star, and geriatric Steven Stills of Crosby, Stills, and Nash teamed up to remake Stills’ 1966 classic, “For What It’s Worth.”

The video was a performative display of the party’s schizophrenia: A white ’60s counterculture icon and a Dracula-costumed POC LGBTQ activist offering an inharmonious version of a Vietnam-era tune as the official anthem for the candidacy of a feeble establishment codger and his unaccomplished cackling sidekick quickly shredding their faux moderate façade in fealty to the party’s lunatic fringe of America-hating nihilists.

Days of (More) Rage

Somebody call a doctor.

The Democratic Party is not well. Joe Biden is neither mentally nor physically healthy enough to run the country, yet the party remains in denial. Biden’s conduct should raise all sorts of red flags but party stalwarts are hellbent on dragging him across the finish line in November in an almost cruel act of selfishness.

While Democrats willfully ignore Biden’s fragility, the party is fixated on every move, utterance, and tweet from Donald Trump in a way that any mental health professional would diagnose as obsessive.