RUTHFULLY YOURS

That was an impressive performance by Hillary Clinton Tuesday, announcing her presumptive presidential nomination as an historic first for womankind and something new and wonderful for American democracy. Watching her arms outstretched like Moses, you could almost forget that she first came to national prominence 25 years ago and is the very soul of the Washington status quo.

The Republican tumult this year has masked that Mrs. Clinton represents the triumph of the Democratic establishment. The party’s interest groups coalesced around her, and her most prominent opponents declined to run, leaving only a 74-year-old socialist to contest the nomination. Democratic elites are getting what they want: Another identity-politics candidacy wrapped around a relentless will to power.
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Yet this attempt to restore the Clinton dynasty is no mere replay of the 1990s. This time America is being offered the familiar Clinton ethics, but without Bill Clinton’s bow to center-right policy. This time we are getting the grasping and corner-cutting of the Clinton entourage with economic policies somewhere to the left of President Obama’s.

This carries no small political risk. Democrats have had to accept the uncertainty of an FBI investigation into her private emails, about which she has lied repeatedly, and Bill Clinton’s fundraising from foreign donors with business before the State Department when she was Secretary. Cheryl Mills, her close aide, said 38 times under oath that she could not “recall” answers to email questions, much as Harold Ickes could remember little about his Teamsters mediation in the 1990s.

All of this has produced unfavorable ratings second only to Donald Trump’s in modern presidential polling, and even a sizable plurality of Democrats think Mrs. Clinton can’t be trusted. Mr. Trump can get away with calling her “Crooked Hillary” because voters know the insult captures a fundamental truth.

Even her claim as a political pioneer is half phony because she rose to power as a spouse. Many other women— Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel—have succeeded on their own account. A woman will become U.S. President, sooner rather than later, which may be why younger women are less motivated by the “first woman” narrative. The question they ask, more wisely than the Baby Boomers, is whether this woman should be President. CONTINUE AT SITE

Vowing “the struggle continues,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told a roaring crowd in Santa Monica, Calif., that he’s not dropping out of the Democratic primary and is taking the fight to the Democratic National Convention at the end of July.

Sanders won Montana and North Dakota on Tuesday night, while Hillary Clinton won New Mexico, New Jersey and South Dakota. Clinton was ahead in California.

The senator reminded followers that he has won 22 primaries and caucuses with more than 10 million votes. “Virtually every single state we have won by big numbers the votes of young people,” the 74-year-old noted. “Young people understand that they are the future of America and they intend to help shape that future. I am enormously optimistic about the future of our country.”

“We will not allow right-wing Republicans to control our government and that is especially true with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate,” Sanders continued. “The American people in my view will never support a candidate whose major theme is bigotry, who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims and women and African-Americans. We will not allow Donald Trump to become president of the United States, but we understand that our mission is more than just defeating Trump — it is transforming our country.”

In an announcement greeted with huge cheers, Sanders said next Tuesday he would “continue the fight in the last primary in Washington, D.C.”

“We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C., and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” he declared.

Sanders added that he’s “pretty good at arithmetic” and knows he faces a “steep fight… for every vote and every delegate we can get.” CONTINUE AT SITE

The first and most important thing to grasp about the expression of political views and sympathies is that they must not aggravate or annoy anyone on the left. Break that rule, as do Donald Trump supporters by attending his rallies, and you will only have yourself to blame for the bruising consequences.
Things are pretty calm Stateside. Donald Trump hasn’t said or done anything particularly interesting since stitching up the Republican nomination. The Democrats continue their drawn-out bloodbath, ensuring Hillary Clinton will limp into the general election looking like a pre-op Darth Vader. Good news for Trump and anyone else running for president, excluding David French.

Speaking of pre-ops, the head of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union – a group of left-wing, censoriously PC lawyers roughly comparable to the Human Rights Commission, and sporting an equally Orwellian name – resigned after three drag queens followed her girl-children into the toilet. For those who haven’t been following the transgender bathroom row, the Obama Administration is fighting for sex-changers to have access to all public restroom facilities, with “transgender” defined as … well, it’s not defined per se. Basically, anyone who says they’re a woman can use the women’s lavatory, and ditto with men. This, by the by, includes public school locker rooms. Which has unnerved some parents who aren’t too keen on pubescent ragamuffins being given a warm welcome to the showers where their daughters are washing up after gym class.

This, apparently, includes Maya Dillard Smith, who had to console her daughters after a trio of six-foot-tall men with bulging Adam’s apples and other things took loud, stand-up pees in the stalls next to them, trading cosmetology tips in crooning baritones. Following her resignation, Smith founded a new website (just what we needed!) called Finding the Middle Ground, which promises – couched in the language of political correctness – a “safe space to talk about civil rights for all.” Ho ho! Not likely, Ms. Smith. Having risen through the ranks of the PC Gestapo, you should know there’s not going to be a “safe space” for those who contradict Big Brother’s latest definition of “civil rights”. There’s something quaintly pathetic about the name “Middle Ground”, as though the elites have ever accepted any compromise in their ideological war against decency and common sense.

That’s not to say the rules of political correctness are fixed. They’re not. Take the riots that have erupted outside Donald Trump’s rallies in California. Supporters are being intimidated, egged, and beaten up by vicious young men of Latino extraction who burn the American flag and assert Mexico’s right to reclaim its former territories in the Southwestern United States. Yes, it’s a travesty against free speech, free assembly, human decency, etc. And yes, it’s beneath contempt that anyone would think to condemn the good people of Arizona to Mexican citizenship.

trumpette eggedBut the worst part may be the smug, unironic victim-blaming directed against Trump and his cadre. “At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the irresponsible behavior of his campaign,” Sam Liccardo, the mayor of San Jose and a Clinton supporter, told the Associated Press afterwards. “It is regrettable that this has become a pattern for cities hosting Mr. Trump across the nation.” One of those who “must take responsibility” is pictured at left — a Trump supporter who was cornered by the mob against a locked door, pelted and assaulted.

In the past few weeks, there have been a series of stories by Jewish writers about ‎what happened to them when they seemingly unleashed the fury of right-wing anti-‎Semites online by writing something deemed unfriendly toward or critical of ‎Donald Trump, or in one case, his wife, Melania.

The toxic response from the angry ‎internet/social media mob, now commonly described as part of the alt-right ‎‎(alternative right) movement, has seemed to confirm what writers on the Left have ‎believed for a long time: that while the Left may be critical of Israel, or its settlement ‎policy, or of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, these criticisms reflected nothing ‎more than policy differences. If you want to look for anti-Semites, they are on the Right, not the Left. Now it seems they have come out of their caves, attracted by — as ‎some seem to think — one of their own. ‎

The charge that Trump himself is an anti-Semite is ludicrous. People who know ‎him, his family, his business associates or his company’s employees can ‎quickly disprove that charge. If Trump were an anti-Semite, on the same ‎wavelength as his ugliest backers, by now he would have disinherited his daughter ‎Ivanka, or distanced himself from her, her husband, Jared Kushner, and their ‎children. After all, Ivanka converted to Judaism, a Modern Orthodox version no ‎less, and keeps a kosher home and is Shabbat observant.

But for those who ‎want to label Trump a fascist or Nazi, also false characterizations, sticking anti-‎Semite into the brew is helpful. There are plenty of ways to criticize Trump without ‎sticking a label on him that does not fit.‎

This month’s Commentary magazine has perhaps the most serious article on the new alt-right phenomenon and its anti-Semitic character: “Trump’s Terrifying Online ‎Brigades” by James Kirchik. The article begins with the story of GQ writer Julia Ioffe, whose ‎profile of Melania Trump, a mixed review for sure, was certainly not a great ‎surprise for what one would expect of any mainstream glossy publication’s profile ‎of the wife of the hated presumptive Republican nominee. The mainstream media ‎largely has no use for Republicans in any year, but especially none for ‎Trump. If one expected a puff piece fitting the publication, as one would surely see ‎for a profile of Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Hillary Clinton, Jane Sanders or Jill ‎Biden, one would have to believe that the “soft” popular magazine press is less ‎orthodox liberal in its orientation and more interested in balance than the major ‎networks, public radio and television, and newspapers. ‎

In any case, the assault on Ioffe was outrageous, ugly, and scary. This was not the ‎only such recent incident. New York Times writer Jonathan Weisman experienced a ‎similar Twitter assault: after retweeting an article by Robert Kagan on emerging ‎fascism in the United States. Kagan’s article and its conclusion are certainly debatable ‎and rejectable, but again the attacks on Weisman were anti-Semitic to the core. Bethany Mandel had a similar recent experience, and ‎there are sure to be more before the current presidential campaign is over. ‎Without question, Trump’s campaign seems to have opened the door to nasty anti-‎Semites to join the “pubic discourse.”‎

Of course, as anyone who witnessed the attack on Trump supporters at the ‎University of Illinois in Chicago or in San Jose, California, this week, it is obvious ‎that horrible conduct and actions by those who do not care for Trump is as ‎egregious, if not more so, given the real physical assaults that occurred, as the ‎threats from Trump supporters appearing online. Much as those on the Left have ‎sought to excuse the violence perpetrated on Trump supporters by Mexican-flag ‎waving, American flag-burning mobs as Trump’s fault for his provocative ‎comments that incite certain minority groups, there have also been arguments that ‎the wave of online anti-Semitic attacks on writers critical of Trump proves that ‎anti-Semitism is only a problem on the Right.‎

Kirchik put it this way:‎ ‎”While it’s certainly true that most of Trump’s ‎supporters are neither racists nor anti-Semites, it ‎appears to be the case that all of the racists and ‎anti-Semites in this country (and many beyond) ‎support Trump.”‎

The conclusion is, to put it simply, ridiculous.

NeverTrump unveils its surprise candidate.

He’s bald. He’s bearded. He’s who?

“There will be an independent candidate — an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance,” Bill Kristol promised over the holiday weekend. The Weekly Standard editor followed the drumroll with a wha-wha-wha.

David French, past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), possesses no “real chance” to become president of the United States. One wonders if Kristol built up the suspense as a practical joke on the writer for a rival magazine. Not since Geraldo Rivera opened up that vault in Chicago has high drama led to such a massive, bizarre letdown. It’s like finding out that Webster shot J.R.

What he lacks in experience he lacks in money and name recognition. David French enjoys a level of popularity above Eddie Spanish but somewhat below Jimmy the Greek. Even among National Review’s stable of writers, French ranks, at least in terms of reader familiarity, as something of a b-lister — not appearing, for instance, in the list of the magazine’s “notable” contributors at Wikipedia.

Was Jay Nordlinger unavailable?

Fifteen years ago, French’s supporters sought to ban his last name as a descriptive of toast, fries, and other edible delights. Now, for not unrelated reasons, they wish to plaster “French” on billboards and bumperstickers. David French might win more votes from the constituency most zealously backing him if he changed his name to David Freedom.

Trump’s reticence in using the U.S. military as a global policeman, not his incivility or penchant to speak before he thinks, primarily prompts hawks to take a hawkish stance on French’s potential candidacy. But students of war surely know a Little Big Horn when they see one. At best, French makes some Republicans who understandably feel skittish about Trump feel good about themselves in the voting booth. At worst, his sliver of votes withheld from the Republican nominee hands Hillary Clinton the presidency.

Voting as catharsis is for narcissists. We elect presidents to protect our future, not our feelings. And running for president without first running for some other office or running something significant similarly strikes as an advertisement of vanity. And everyone knows this race for the White House is only big enough for one raging narcissist who regards the presidency as an entry level governmental position.

A similar conceit clouds the outlook of the beltway conservatives encouraging this delusional presidential run.