RUTHFULLY YOURS

DPS Note: 

Excellent analysis. But on a tactical level from where I sit. Whether it is Biden with a veneer of not-crazy-left, or flat out crazy left, the Democrat Party’s lurching leftward trajectory is as clear as clear can be. So whether a Democrat President’s agenda would be quickly or incrementally implemented shouldn’t provide high cover for you to vote that way if you kind of like and admire America the way it has evolved and has been since 1776. Scoop Jackson, Dan Inouye, Pat Moynihan, Joe Lieberman, where have you all gone? Heck. Jack Kennedy’d make a fine Republican candidate today. No matter how you slice the Democrat Party baloney, you’re gonna get a socialist sandwich. The only question is how much baloney (a/k/a socialism) will they pack into that first bite? Not saying there isn’t plenty to fix in our system. But the Democrat Party’s drivers don’t appear to think we are “fixable.” So I guess the question you gotta ask yourself (This is DPS3 plagerizing Dirty Harry) is, do you feel lucky? Because the “big structural change” promised by the Party’s animating forces are no different than Dirty Harry’s Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. If you pull that trigger you may get a lot more than you bargained for.

PS: Here’s the real McCoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0lvp7a7pmk

https://www.nysun.com/national/socialist-scenario-may-pose-risk-for-the-democrats/90817/

Call it the socialist scenario — the risk that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren could combine forces to defeat Joseph Biden in the Democratic primary.

The RealClearPolitics polling averages have Biden leading Sanders and Warren nationally and in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. These same polls, though, show the “not Biden” vote represented by Senators Sanders and Warren to be larger than the level of support for Vice President Biden.

If that vote were combined rather than split, the socialist scenario suggests, it could result in a Democratic presidential nominee who is either openly socialist, like Senator Sanders, or an ideological ally of Mr. Sanders, like Mrs. Warren, who says she is a capitalist but who is campaigning with a call for an annual wealth tax and for what she calls “big, structural change.”

The possibility is generating concern from Americans who are more cautious about “big, structural change.” The concern is heightened because Mr. Biden is old enough that he can seem vulnerable rather than inevitable.

As is often the case with socialism, however, the fantasy is some distance from reality. The primary campaigns of the previous presidential cycle are familiar precedents and somewhat reassuring ones, at least for those who aren’t enthusiasts of either Mr. Sanders or Mrs. Warren.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/09/02/gillibrand-has-launched-part-2-of-her-vp-bid/

She Can Be ‘Any Woman You’ve Ever Imagined’

e have nothing to fear but fear itself,” was the rallying cry during the Depression for which history remembers FDR. “It’s morning again in America” was Ronald Reagan’s inimitable, softly spoken re-election slogan.

But the catchphrase that will go with the, as of last week, ex-presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand to her grave is: “I’m just trying to get some ranch.”

As the Democratic junior senator from New York babbled on in an Iowa City restaurant about “the bold ideas that the base and the grassroots care about,” those were the words of a female college student conducting a Bible study upstairs as she squeezed past Gillibrand looking for something more tethered to the real world: her preferred condiment.

It was an example of how the plenty of America leads to a great deal of disinterest in politics, with peoplemore focused on their own lives than keeping up with the various layers and happenings of government, as well they should be. (Although “ranch girl” Hanna Kinney reportedly leans left.)

But a less frivolous soundbite came from Gillibrand herself, in the last debate, conducted by CNN at the end of July. Gillibrand contended that “as a white woman of privilege … I can talk to those white women in the suburbs that voted for Trump and explain to them what white privilege actually is, that when their son is walking down a street with a bag of M&Ms in his pocket, wearing a hoodie, his whiteness is what protects him from not [sic] being shot.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/kirsten-gillibrand-ends-her-empty-suit-fake-feminist-presidential-campaign

To no one’s surprise, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, ended her presidential campaign on Wednesday. Her short tenure on the national campaign stage was notable for abysmal poll numbers and mediocre debate performances. Though Gillibrand was one of only a handful of female candidates in a crowded field of men, she lacked star power and any real voter base.

Her failure might come as a surprise: Democrats have long pushed for more women to hold elected office. Yet Gillibrand’s campaign reminds us that a woman’s physical characteristics don’t automatically make her any more — or less — suitable for office, and that any other conclusion is just woke sexism masquerading as progress.

Before her departure, Gillibrand’s RealClearPolitics polling average stood at only 0.1%, hardly a blip on the screen. But it’s all she deserved, as her campaign consisted of little more than identity politics largely focused on feminism. Most especially, she voiced loud and consistent support for abortion rights.

In short, the Gillibrand 2020 campaign was an empty pantsuit. On paper, a leftist, female senator should have done better, right? But even Washington Post writer Monica Hesse noted Gillibrand’s almost singular focus on women’s issues:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/29/september-debate-set-discussion-can-hand-free-stuff/

Wednesday was the deadline to qualify for the third Democratic presidential debate in Houston next month, and only 10 candidates will participate making it the one-night event on Sept. 12.

In a race where progressives have dominated the top-tier field of candidates, few moderates qualified for the September debate, setting the stage for a debate of more versus more, who can offer the American public the largest welfare state.

Below are the candidates who met the DNC’s threshold to participate in the event hosted and moderated by ABC News:

Joe Biden, former vice president
Elizabeth Warren, U.S. senator from Massachusetts
Bernie Sanders, U.S. senator from Vermont
Kamala Harris, U.S. senator from California
Cory Booker, U.S. senator from New Jersey
Amy Klobuchar, U.S. senator from Minnesota
Beto O’Rourke, former U.S. representative from Texas
Julian Castro, former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Andrew Yang, tech entrepreneur

The most moderate candidate on stage will be Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, outnumbered by progressive candidates promising “Medicare for all” and the radical expansion of the U.S. welfare state. While former Vice President Joe Biden has tried to brand himself as a moderate opposing Democrats new signature healthcare proposal and criticizing the idea of decriminalizing border crossings, a closer examination of Biden’s record reveals no moderate.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-doesnt-stacey-abrams-want-to-run-for-senate/

Something ‘s afoot here….Stacey Abrams a sore loser without any national prominence was chosen to give the opposing  party’s rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union speech in 2019. Until 2019, all previous responses were delivered by contemporary senators, representatives, or governors. She is being groomed and aiming for a place on the National ticket…..rsk

Life just got a little more complicated for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The 2020 elections looked challenging but manageable, needing to defend Colorado’s Cory Gardner, Maine’s Susan Collins, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, and Arizona’s appointed senator Martha McSally. The risk of losses were somewhat offset by some low-hanging fruit in Alabama Democrat Doug Jones, an open seat in New Mexico, and maybe some chances for an upset in New Hampshire or Michigan.

But now Republicans have to worry about an open seat Senate race in Georgia, as Senator Johnny Isakson said today that he will step down from office at the end of this year due to complications with Parkinson’s disease.

Yes, Georgia is a Republican-leaning state. When Stacey Abrams calls herself the legitimately elected governor of her state and refuses to concede the race, Republicans can point out that the official final vote count in 2018 put her down by 54,723 votes, not exactly a small margin. But Abrams did do better than almost any Georgia Democrat running statewide in a generation, with 48.8 percent, and came within 1.4 percentage points of winning.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/08/28/bernie-sanders-has-earned-his-sandersista-label/

Sen. Bernie Sanders has said publicly that he doesn’t believe government should own the means of production. Yet he appears on national television last week and agrees there should be a “federal takeover” of the energy sector. His Marxist slip is showing.

“When I use the world socialist — and I know some people aren’t comfortable about it — I’m saying that it is imperative” to “create a government that works for all and not just the few,” the Vermont Democratic lawmaker said in 2015.

“I don’t believe,” he continued, “government should own the means of production,” which of course is a hallmark of socialism.

That version is quite different from the 1976 Sanders, who said “I favor the public ownership of utilities, banks and major industries.”

2015 Sanders is also inconsistent with the Sanders of spring 2019, who, according to People’s World, which claims to be the “voice for progressive change and socialism” in America, “will propose workers take ownership of individual plants and businesses, removing them from the hands of the bosses and financiers who back them.”

Ownership won’t change hands unless a coercive government becomes involved and socializes business. The workers can’t simply vote companies over to themselves.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/27/trump_pushes_transformation_bhttps://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/08/27/trump_pushes_transformation_b

Normally, it’s a sitting president who urges the nation to “stay the course.” Voters prefer stability, so incumbents normally use it as a selling point while seeking reelection. But these are not normal times. In this campaign, the man in the Oval Office is selling transformation while his leading Democratic opponent is promising a return to the calmer days of “no-drama Obama.”

It’s a political oddity.

Although Trump’s slogan, “Promises Made, Promises Kept,” seems to stress continuity, he is really promising something quite different: to keep rolling back the Administrative State, recalibrating American foreign policy, and shaking up Washington. He is telling supporters that he has stuck with his major 2016 themes, especially fighting illegal immigration, lowering taxes, appointing conservative judges, cutting burdensome regulations, and reviving American manufacturing. Internationally, he is determined to wind down America’s long wars, avoid new ones, make America’s allies pay more for global security, and rework multilateral trade deals. Oh, and maybe purchase Greenland for the American people.

That’s an ambitious, transformative agenda, and Trump is running on it. Those policies, plus steady economic growth and an enthusiastic base, give him a decent chance of winning in November 2020, unless the economy falls into recession. His biggest liabilities are obvious: his grandiose personality and his erratic, thin-skinned behavior, which are on display daily.

Trump’s base loves his outsized persona, but it grates on prosperous, educated voters, many of them swing voters in the suburbs. Their switch to the Democrats in 2018 put Nancy Pelosi back in the speaker’s chair. To dislodge her, Trump is making no effort to tone down his personality or slow his tweets. Instead, he is painting the opposition as a Children’s Crusade of Crazed Socialists, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib.

amgreatness.com/2019/08/25/the-ideological-aimlessness-of-the-nevertrump-primary/

The already-hopeless prospects of the NeverTrump crowd’s attempts to primary President Trump have gotten even worse. And that’s quite an accomplishment, even for them.

It’s not like expectations were high for the ringleader of the NeverTrump circus, Bill Kristol. His much-touted “political war machine” that he has been building to take on Trump seems to be out of gas already. He is now so desperate that he is resorting to an alliance with embarrassing former White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci. The fact that even that revelation is not considered rock-bottom tells you all you need to know about Kristol, the professional sinker of magazines and flip-flopper extraordinaire.

The Rats Fleeing the Ship

When we last profiled Kristol’s “NeverTrump primary,” a handful of the most prominent names were still actively considering a run against the incumbent president, because of “principles” or something. Since then, even the biggest darlings of Conservatism, Inc. have ruled out any possible challenge.

Former Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and former Governor John Kasich (R-Ohio) have both signed on as contributors with CBS and CNN, respectively. As if entering such lucrative media deals wasn’t enough to dissuade the diehard anti-Trumpers, both men have since openly declared they have no intentions of challenging President Trump, with Kasich recently admitting, “there is no path for me” to run in the primaries.

If that sting isn’t painful enough, even the significantly less famous NeverTrump figureheads have ruled out a possible bid. These include the Diet Jeff Flake, former Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and the two incumbent Northeastern governors with the most NeverTrump buzz: Charlie Baker (R-Mass.) and Larry Hogan (R-Md.).

Of course, it’s a no-brainer to want to serve out your second term as governor over a suicidal bid for the nomination against a party’s sitting president ; but remember, this is the “principled conservatism” crowd we’re talking about. So having brains capable of making the correct decision is an impressive feat for the likes of these people.