RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/with_biden_ascendant_its_useful_to_remember_just_how_awful_he_is.html

The specter of Americans voting for an open socialist is frightening. We’re way past 1972, when Americans rejected a hard-left candidate. Since then, leftists acquired a stranglehold on education, creating a generation of young people who think socialism is cool. Bernie could have won.

Bernie’s probable departure shouldn’t cause us to ignore that Joe Biden is a terrible candidate. He’s usually wrong, famously dishonest, almost as hard-left now in his policies as Bernie himself, corrupt, and showing signs of severe mental degradation.

(Regarding the incipient senility, Dorothy Parker’s cruel question when the famously taciturn Calvin Coolidge died comes to mind: “How can they tell?” The same can be said of Joe’s mental decay.)

With almost 50 years in office, there’s a laundry list of “awfuls” attached to Biden: Borking the esteemed Robert Bork, plagiarism, leading the hi-tech lynching against Clarence Thomas, crafting the 1994 crime law that warehoused generations of black men in American prisons, leading the intemperate pullout from Iraq that led to ISIS, and helping credit card companies ride roughshod over Americans all spring to mind.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/dutiful_democrat_candidates_follow_orders_and_selfterminate.html

You have to give them credit: the Democrat establishment has carefully cultivated and trained a massive welfare state clientele over the decades, and when the word goes out, boy, does everybody fall in line.  This is true even when the designated candidate is the monumentally stupid and corrupt Joe Biden.

This constituency is composed most famously of the long-suffering poor black community — like the folks at the beck and call of Jim Clyburn in South Carolina.  It includes lots of poor whites as well, the ones in the Yankee “opioid belt”; they keep places like New England and Minnesota voting blue.  Then there are characters like Amy Klobuchar and Mayor Pete, who were on TV saying they were going to fight it out all the way to Milwaukee, until they got the phone call, and then they weren’t.

Here in Kentucky, our primary is not for several months.  But the orders came down here, too, as they did everywhere, to get behind Old Joe if you know what’s good for you.

https://theweek.com/authors/ryan-cooper

VERY important issue which so far the MSM has treated as a 3rd rail -dementia…..DPS

For decades, the cliché about American political parties has gone that “Republicans fall in line, while Democrats fall in love.” But for a significant portion of today’s Democratic electorate, that is not the case. Joe Biden’s campaign came back from the brink of death on Super Tuesday, on the winds of a sudden burst of coordinated support from the Democratic establishment. At time of writing he was projected to have won Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee, and was running close in Maine.

In the South Carolina primary last weekend, exit polls showed that Biden won a smashing victory primarily thanks to one person: House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, the most powerful Democrat in the state, who endorsed Biden just days before the primary. After that win, both Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out and endorsed Biden, as did his former opponent Beto O’Rourke and several other Democratic officials.

But this flash coronation wasn’t because Biden convinced his competitors that he had the best policies or the best temperament to take on Donald Trump. There is one reason and one reason alone the establishment has rallied around Biden: He is not Bernie Sanders.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/sanders-loses-the-mask-of-benignity/91036/

The sudden turn against Senator Sanders on Super Tuesday has us thinking of the Howard Dean Howl. Remember that outburst, in 2004, from another Vermonter who seemed like such a friendly, affable sort — a veritable Fred Rogers — until he suddenly sounded like, in Dr. Dean’s case, a werewolf? It knocked the country doctor right out of the race.

We wonder whether, looking back in the 2020 Democratic primaries, something like that won’t be seen to have occurred at Charleston. It would be, in our estimate, the moment when, in the Democratic debate there, Major Garrett of CBS asked the Jewish question. It was ostensibly about whether Mr. Sanders would move our embassy in Israel back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem.

Mr. Sanders started his answer by saying that it was “something we would take into consideration.” Fair enough. It put him crosswise with an almost unanimous United States Congress, but fair enough. He also claimed to be proud of being Jewish. Then, though, he wheeled on the Jews, declaring the elected prime minister of Israel a “reactionary racist.”

It was an appalling error. Even if Mr. Sanders believes the libel, which we doubt, the remark was weirdly out of place — not only erroneous but off the point. What Mr. Garrett was giving Mr. Sanders the chance to show some adroitness in an emotion-packed policy debate. Instead, while claiming to be proudly Jewish, he kicked his co-religionists to the curb.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/while_all_eyes_are_on_democrats_trump_is_the_big_winner_across_america.html

The obvious news is that many voters, after staring into the abyss of Bernie Sanders’ socialism and seeing Fidel Castro looking back at them, are turning to Biden as their preferred candidate. Biden, after looking like a loser last week, is looking like a contender this week.

The less obvious news, though, is that in many states there was a real fire among Republicans, even though Donald Trump is a virtually uncontested incumbent. People ought to be staying home but in several states they are voting for Trump in droves.

The following data is from Decision Desk HQ, as of 11:50 p.m. EST, with many votes still being counted. In those states in which Republican voter turnout exceeded Democrat voter turnout, the Republican numbers are bolded. In those states in which Republicans, while fewer in number than Democrats, still made a good showing, Republican numbers are bolded and italicized.

In Alabama, with 88.44% of votes counted, 387,762 people voted in the Democrat primary, with Biden winning. Meanwhile, 623,732 people voted in the Republican primary, with Trump receiving 613,799 votes.

In Arkansas, with 69.28% of votes counted, 216,840 people voted in the Democrat primary, with Biden winning. Meanwhile, 233,898 people voted in the Republican primary, with Trump receiving 227,078 votes.

In California, with only 12.37% of votes counted, 1,030,439 people voted in the Democrat primary, with Bernie winning. Meanwhile, 625,295 people voted in the Republican primary, with Trump receiving 573,611 votes.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pretending-joe-biden-is-fine/

As what appears to be a willful act of national make-believe sweeps the Democratic primaries, Alexandra Petri has a funny sarcastic column in the Washington Post: “I just remembered Joe Biden is fine.” She writes:

Please don’t show me any footage of Joe Biden saying or doing things. Or of me saying or doing things about Joe Biden, pointing out what I erroneously thought were major and obvious flaws in his candidacy. I forgot: They were not.

Biden has been trying to achieve the presidency since 1988. Even in his best days, he was not a strong candidate. And he’s much weaker today. Are Democrats just going to pretend that Biden didn’t look the other way while family members leveraged their connections to him to go into places like Ukraine and collect large paychecks? That Biden offers a coherent vision of where to take the country other than hokey nostalgia and bromides? That he wouldn’t be, on the day he takes office, older than any chief executive has ever been on the last day of his presidency? That his unscripted speech isn’t rambling, nonsensical, and bizarre? That he isn’t already showing signs of incipient dementia, ten months before his term would even begin? That he doesn’t make Grandpa Simpson look like a sage?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-resurgence-11583298561?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Hold the revolution. The Bernie Sanders takeover of the Democratic Party took a detour on Super Tuesday as Joe Biden’s political resurrection that began in South Carolina on Saturday continued in the Southeast and expanded into the Middle West and even Bernie Sanders country in the Northeast. Maybe President Trump wished too soon for Mr. Sanders as his opponent.

Literally in four days the Democratic race has turned upside down. Mr. Biden replicated his South Carolina coalition of African-Americans, Baby Boomers and center-left voters for a crushing victory in Virginia with 53.3% of the vote. He won North Carolina more narrowly, but his margin with black Democrats again made the difference. He also won Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and by our deadline was competitive in Texas and Maine.

The former Vice President ran away with the vote among late deciders, which means he benefited from the rush of endorsements that followed South Carolina. The party is almost literally lifting the old war horse on its back despite his many gaffes and stumbles. The prospect of an avowed socialist at the top of the ticket has scared millions of Democrats into Mr. Biden’s arms no matter his liabilities.

His strong performance will keep him close to Mr. Sanders in the delegate count, though we won’t know how close until the results in California are clear. But his victories may be most important for restoring credibility to Mr. Biden’s argument that he is the Democrat who is best able to defeat Mr. Trump.