RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/kasich-scolds-republicans-for-lack-of-response-to-trump-ukraine-call-what-are-they-hiding/

Former Ohio governor and presidential candidate John Kasich wondered aloud in an interview Monday why Republicans weren’t doing more to pressure President Trump to reveal details regarding a whistleblower complaint against him.

“This needs to be investigated: if in fact the President of the United States pressured the leader of another country to investigate his [Trump’s] political enemy,” Kasich said in the interview with CNN.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/23/how-hard-are-democrats-trying-to-lose-in-2020/

Democrats are feeling pretty cocky about the upcoming presidential campaign. They look at polls showing their top three candidates all lead President Trump and start feeling like it doesn’t matter who they nominate.

Many Democrats forget that four years ago, polls showed Donald Trump as the only Republican losing to Hillary Clinton. They also forget that the Republicans are raising tons of cash to spend on ads defining Democrats’ nominee. Their cockiness can be seen in the degree to which Democrats act as if they have stopped caring about persuading swing voters.

In fairness, both sides are focused on a base turnout strategy for 2020 over a persuasion strategy. Team Trump may have the financial advantage necessary to work on expanding the electoral map, at a minimum causing his opponent to spend time and money on states a Democrat would like to take for granted. The president will also continue pitching moderates on his record, because he is always closing. Nevertheless, his campaign is founded on retaining the coalition that won 2016.

Democrats have their own base turnout strategy. Their current debate over “electability“ assumes they can win if they turn out the “rising American electorate” of unmarried women, minorities, and younger voters. They don’t remember—or don’t want to remember—that Barack Obama may not have eagerly sought votes from blue-collar white voters, but he made the effort not to lose too many of them.

Nate Cohn, who covers elections, polling, and demographics for The New York Times, recently warned Democrats on Twitter: “I think the salience of ‘persuasion’ in elections – whether voters flipping is a major force explaining variance in election results – might be the single area where I most completely disagree with the conventional wisdom on Twitter, or at least what the CW looks like to me. My ‘interactions’ are full of people asserting things like: there are no swing voters; the only thing that changed in 2018 is turnout, Democrats can’t and haven’t won over any Trump voters. And whatever you think of the optimal strategy for Democrats, this is all facially untrue… In our final polls of GA06, IL14, CA48 over the last days of the race, the sample was R+6 or more in all. Dems led in all, and ultimately won. Dems had huge inroads with past GOP voters.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09/22/sen_chris_coons_trump_views_biden_as_greatest_threat_to_his_re-election.html

Sen. Chris Coons, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told MSNBC’s David Gura that he believes Trump must release the transcript of the call with the Ukrainian president that is said to be the subject of a whistleblower complaint. He also said that President Trump’s allegation that Joe Biden’s son profited off a corrupt business deal in Ukraine is a “baseless allegation” like Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“My gut reaction is ‘here we go again.’ In the 2016 campaign, President Trump repeated baseless allegations about Hillary’s emails over and over and over, to the point where the average voter couldn’t really tell you what it was actually about, but they just had the vague impression that something inappropriate had happened,” Coons said about Trump’s accusation. “That is exactly what President Trump is trying to do here, and I hope that both the media won’t take the bait and simply repeat these baseless allegations.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2019/09/after-polling-9-new-jersey-cory-booker-threatens-daniel-greenfield/

After Polling at 9% in New Jersey, Cory Booker Threatens to Drop Out Unless He Gets $1.7 Mil Daniel Greenfield

Senator Cory Booker has a perverse talent for making his own tics into issues.

Every 2020 Dem is sending out a spate of frantic fundraising emails, but Booker turns his into an event billing it as “radical transparency” when he warns that he’s going to drop out if he doesn’t get $1.7 million in 10 days.

Here’s the bottom line: Cory 2020 needs to raise an additional $1.7 million by September 30 to be in a position to build the organization necessary to continue competing for the nomination. Without a fundraising surge to close out this quarter, we do not see a legitimate long-term path forward.

Every other candidate in the race would have to die or be convicted of raping fire hydrants for Cory to have a shot.

It’s not happening.

We’ve known since the very beginning that he entered this race with some challenges — he didn’t have the near-100% name recognition of some candidates who’ve been on the national stage before… If we do hit our goal, we believe we will ultimately win the nomination

Sorry, no.

Booker’s problem isn’t name recognition. He’s polling at 9% in New Jersey. His own state.

In a presidential preference test among Garden State Democratic voters and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party, Booker (9%) trails former Vice President Joe Biden (26%), Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (20%), and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (18%).  California Sen. Kamala Harris (6%) and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg (6%) are the only other candidates in a field of 19 who garner more than 2% support.

If you’re at 9% in your own state, your problem isn’t name recognition. Your problem is you.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-9-21-does-elizabeth-warren-even-u

A few days ago I had a post evaluating Elizabeth Warren as a candidate for President. Needless to say, the evaluation wasn’t very favorable. But that post touched only lightly on a subject that Warren has sought to make a centerpiece of her campaign, namely political corruption. I thought that that subject deserved a post of its own.

First, some background. If you have been reading Manhattan Contrarian long enough, you know my view that government is inherently corrupt. The government consists of human beings, and it’s just part of human nature that people will act in ways to help those who somehow further the financial and career interests of the government officials. As one example among many of my posts on this subject, here is one from August 2016 covering the Clinton Foundation. The Clinton Foundation had collected some $2 billion in donations in the period 2001 to 2015, supposedly for charitable works. During most of that period, Hillary Clinton had been either running for President or serving as Secretary of State. A large percentage of the $2 billion came from people or governments with some major interest before the U.S. government or State Department. My post covers various government favors granted to certain of the donors. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars from the $2 billion went to support the personal lifestyles of the Clintons and/or the employment of potential Clinton campaign staff. Nobody was ever prosecuted, and in any event it’s not clear what the crime would have been. My comment:

You need to recognize that government spending of money and allocation of the resources of society is inherently corrupt. Government spending will always preferentially go to those who have curried the favor and greased the palms of the relevant government functionaries. There is no conceivable collection of anti-bribery laws, or campaign finance laws, that can improve this situation other than a little at the margins. The only significant improvement can come from shrinking the government and letting the private sector expand.

The best we can hope for is a situation where the government allocates a relatively small portion of the resources of society, leaving people with relatively little incentive to engage in corrupt manipulation of government favors. But as long as there is government, there will be an irreducible minimum of inherent corruption.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/warren-tops-biden-in-latest-iowa-poll/

Senator Elizabeth Warren surged into the lead past Joe Biden in the latest Des Moines Register poll. Warren was the first choice of 22% of Iowa Democrats while Biden was close behind with 20%. Bernie Sanders faded to third place with 11%.

“This is the first major shakeup” in what had been a fairly steady race, said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., which conducted the poll. “It’s the first time we’ve had someone other than Joe Biden at the top of the leader board.”

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg follows the three leaders as the favorite of 9% of poll respondents. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California is at 6%. U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey are at 3%.

Polling at 2% are U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, businessman Tom Steyer and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Eight others are polling at 1% or less.

Warren’s surge coincides with worrying questions arising about Biden’s age and acuity. The former vice president has made several embarrassing gaffes in recent weeks and many in the press are openly speculating about his fitness for office.

But the race is far from over.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/democrat_censured_for_voting_with_trump_19_of_the_time_bipartisanship_is_dead.html

One of the more interesting news items this week was the revelation that Arizona Democrats were considering a censure vote against Senator Kyrsten Sinema for being too pro-Trump. 

Apparently, voting against the president 81% of the time constitutes being a raging right-wing reprobate in today’s liberal hive mind.

It is worth noting that the most anti-Obama senator in his last year in office was Richard Shelby, who voted against President Barack Obama 63.9% of the time.  That made the most anti-Obama senator far friendlier to the Democrat president than a Democrat who is being threatened with censure for her apostasy. 

Shelby supported Obama almost 40% of the time.  On average, Senate Republicans opposed Obama’s position less than half the time in 2016.  Bipartisanship was very much alive and well.

Sinema is not even close to being a moderate, unless you define moderation against how far to the left the Democratic Party has swung.  Sinema’s sin is voting for David Bernhardt for secretary of the interior, a name unlikely familiar to 99% of Americans.  She also voted for William Barr for attorney general and opposes the Democrats’ “net neutrality” internet scheme.

But, in today’s resistance-minded Democrat party, any sign of compromise is treated as a cardinal sin. 

https://www.walkawaycampaign.com/
#WalkAway movement urges disgruntled Democrats to leave the party behind.

The #WalkAway Campaign is a true grassroots movement, founded by former liberal, Brandon Straka on May 26th, 2018. The #WalkAway Campaign encourages and supports those on the Left to walk
away from the divisive tenets endorsed and mandated by the Democratic Party of today. We are
walking away from the lies, the false narratives, the fake news, the race-baiting, the victim narrative,
the violence, the vandalism, the vitriol. We are walking away from a party driven by hate. We are
walking toward patriotism and a new, unified America! We are the future of this great nation!

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/greys-anatomy-star-isaiah-washington-opens-up-about-decision-to-leave-the-democratic-party?fbclid=IwAR3iyUzTyXZSXdy6GOt_4-MydFqTz6d2ugUsOshfRIQVYcfILqCflMelo0I

On Fox Nation’s latest episode of “Nuff Said,” “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington opened up about his decision to leave the Democratic Party, and the reaction he got from the Hollywood community after publicly declaring his support for the #WalkAway movement.

“Walking away is… a sacrifice,” Washington said. “There’s a risk and there’s a penalty for it but you have to walk away when it matters…and the reason I chose to walk away from the Democratic party…is that something doesn’t feel right.”Washington, who once played Dr. Preston Burke in the hit TV series, said he was never asked about his politics during his two-year career on the show, and that his political activism developed recently after he attended a celebration at the White House commemorating Trump’s support of the First Step Act.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/good-riddance-bill-de-blasio/

De Blasio ended his presidential campaign today. Maybe now he’ll actually do his day job.

Bill de Blasio ended his presidential campaign today. If you’ve forgotten which candidate he was, he was the tall, abrasive one who didn’t make the third debate and who in the previous one kept trying to take shots at other candidates and interrupt the moderators. He’s also the mayor of New York City.

By the standards of modern American politicians, de Blasio is a really bad one, even when you put the ideological disagreements aside. He’s effectively abandoned his day job during his presidential campaign, spending a mere seven hours — less than one full workday — at City Hall during the month he launched his bid for the White House. He rarely meets with his own city commissioners.

Both as mayor and presidential candidate, de Blasio is always moving on to the next big and exceptionally impractical proposal — Ban steel and glass skyscrapers! Eliminate the gifted and talented programs from public schools! — while other, bigger problems on his constituents’ minds fester.

The city’s public housing is overrun with rats, leaks, mold, and lead paint. The number of homeless students hit a new record. The city’s bus system is the slowest in the nation, and he steers millions to poorly performing school bus companies. (The one area where you probably shouldn’t blame the mayor is the condition of the city’s subways, which are actually run by the state of New York, not the city. Blame governor Andrew Cuomo for your late trains.) His relationship with the city police started bad and got worse.