RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/03/kamala

With the first primary still eight long months away, making any sort of prediction about the Democratic candidates is pointless. Nevertheless, some have noticed an interesting parallel shaping up, one that involves an old Democrat with plenty of establishment backing and a formidable lead in the polls, and a young, biracial newcomer with a winning smile and an exotic first name.

Except that where Barack Obama tried to portray himself as a sensible centrist in 2008, Sen. Kamala Harris is among the most radical in the large crop of far-left Democratic candidates hoping to run against President Trump. 

Consider the striking contrast between positions Obama espoused and those Harris has embraced.

In 2008, Obama complained about “the orgy of spending” under President George W. Bush. He pledged that all his spending plans would be more than offset with expenditure reductions.

“What I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut,” he said.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/democratic-party-debate-intellectual-shallowness-demagoguery/

Open borders, student-loan forgiveness, Iranian nuke deal — and that’s just for starters

If you watched either or both of the two Democratic-party presidential-candidate debates, and if you are a liberal, a conservative, or a centrist, you had to have been depressed. The intellectual shallowness, the demagoguery, and the alienation from reality were probably unprecedented in American political history. Only a leftist, a socialist, or a Communist could have gone to bed a happy person on either night.

If you think this is a baseless generalization, here are a few of myriad examples from the first night:

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.): The economy is not doing great “for the African Americans and Latinx whose families are torn apart, whose lives are destroyed, and whose communities are ruined.”

Two things stand out: First is Warren’s morally reprehensible and false description of the economy. She never explains how the American economy is tearing families apart, destroying lives, or ruining communities. Aside from being baseless, it is another left-wing libel against America.

She went on to explain economic inequality in America: “Corruption, pure and simple. We need to call it out.” It is difficult to overstate the contempt she and the rest of the Left have for America.

Even more troubling was Warren’s use of the term “Latinx.” When leftist Orwellian newspeak makes its way into the United States Senate and into the vocabulary of a presidential candidate, the country is in trouble.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-com-cortes-dems-pander-campaign-

Hispanics got a masterclass in pathetic political pandering during the first round of Democrat presidential debates in Miami.

Split into two groups of ten because of the vast size of the 2020 Democratic field, each of the candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination only had a few brief opportunities to win us over.

As a result, viewers were subjected to a barrage of contrived soundbites from candidates seeking to make the most out of what could very well be their only opportunity to set themselves apart from the crowded, far-left field.

Since Florida has a large Hispanic population, the Democrats naturally went out of their way to deliver several of those sound bites in Spanish.

Despite the wishes of the Associated Press, though, not one of the candidates who occupied either stage is a “native speaker” of Spanish —not even extreme long-shot Julian Castro. Unlike Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the Irishman who routinely sprinkles lines of Spanish throughout his speeches, Castro had largely resisted the temptation to “throw a few lines of espanol in there” in his previous remarks. Under the glare of the debate spotlight, though, even Castro couldn’t help joining the other candidates in a shameless display of linguistic pandering.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/01/for-2020-democrats-its-ignore-the-economy-stupid/

How do Democrats sell their policies when the economy is doing well and unemployment at 50-year lows? By avoiding the subject. At least, that’s what Democrats did during the two nights of debating.

The very first question asked in the first debate, by Savannah Guthrie, was about whether the Democrats’ far-left agenda would risk the economic growth we’ve been enjoying.

“Seventy-one percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60% of Democrats,” she said. “What do you say to those who worry this kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first to answer, pretended not hear the question. Instead, she went on a rant about how the economy is “doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.”  But if that were true, why are six in ten of her fellow Democrats are happy with the way things are going? No one bothered to ask her that.

A word cloud of the debates shows that “economy” barely got mentioned over the two nights. Democrats talked almost as much about guns and they did jobs.

And when Democrats did talk about the economy, it was in grim, Dickensian terms.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/cal-thomas-questions-i-would-have-asked-the-democrats

The likelihood I would ever be invited to serve on a network panel questioning the Democratic presidential candidates is equivalent to an invitation to take the next trip to the moon.

Still, as I tortured myself watching the two “debates,” which were not really debates, but mostly a show of memorized sound bites, I thought of unasked questions that ought to have been put to them all.

Question 1: Some of you have, or had, the power to change many of the things you now say are wrong with America. Why didn’t you?

Question 2 (for Joe Biden): You and President Obama, for a time, had a Democratic majority in Congress. Why didn’t you reform immigration laws and address homelessness? Your administration deported a lot of people who were in the country illegally, so why criticize President Trump for wanting to follow your example? Do our laws mean nothing?

Question 3: During the second debate, all of you raised your hands when asked if you would provide free health care to immigrants who are here illegally. Aren’t you inviting even more to come to America with such a policy, and wouldn’t that add to our already staggering debt? Follow-up: Trump said we should take care of Americans first. Why would you use American tax dollars to pay for people who break our laws?

Question 4: Is there anything Trump has done that you could praise? Many of you talk as if unemployment hasn’t declined — especially for minorities — and wages haven’t risen. Unemployment is at, or near, record lows and wages are up.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/democratic-party-radicalism-illegal-immigration-open-borders/

There didn’t seem much room for Democrats to move left on immigration, but they’ve found it.

On the first night of the Democratic debates, Julian Castro made a big issue of his call to repeal Section 1325 of Title 8 of the United States Code, which says it’s a federal crime to enter the country without authorization. This felt like a ploy for attention from the periphery of the second-tier debate stage, yet last night seven out of the ten candidates raised their hands for the idea, including top contenders Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg.

The collective posture of the party is getting closer and closer to open borders, only without embracing the label.

Illegal immigrants aren’t typically prosecuted under Section 1325, although the Bush administration started a program called “Operation Streamline” to increase prosecutions, hoping to discourage would-be crossers and especially to create a deterrent against illegal reentry (illegal entry is a misdemeanor often punished by time served, whereas illegal reentry is a felony). Such prosecutions were a key element of Trump’s family-separation policy that had to be quickly abandoned.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/pete-buttigieg-campaign-south-bend-indiana-politics/

Buttigieg would seem perfect on paper to reach out beyond the woke white element of the party. This isn’t how he’s running, though.

It would tax even the prodigious powers of the late novelist Tom Wolfe to create a more poignant political scene than a bright, young, white mayor of a small city, who is an upstart presidential candidate and progressive darling, getting yelled at by black residents during a town hall.

The mayor, of course, is Pete Buttigieg. A controversial shooting of a black resident by a white police officer in his city of South Bend, Ind., occasioned the emotional meeting. Mayor Pete handled himself ably enough, yet the episode still highlights the manifest shortcomings of his candidacy.

The elite media fell in love with Buttigieg, not just because he’s genuinely talented, but because he’s the type of candidate — young, earnest, credentialed, progressive but with a self-image as an ideologically moderate pragmatist — it always falls in love with.

It is attracted to the idea of an intellectual candidate. This doesn’t literally mean someone with deep intellectual interests or genuine accomplishments — think the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan — but an impressive academic resume, a copy of the New Yorker on the nightstand and marked verbal acuity.

In this sense, Pete Buttigieg is the new Barack Obama, except with limits that will likely keep him from reaching the next level.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/democrat-debates-no-more-chaste-democrats/

Freak flags flew for two nights in a row.

Chastened Democrats win elections. In 2006, 2008, and 2018, Democrats humbled themselves before moderate and even conservative voters and triumphed. Arrogant Democrats lose these voters. Nancy Pelosi must have been watching the past two nights of Democratic primary debates in horror.

In the 2018 midterm elections, Pelosi’s Democrats far outdid Hillary Clinton’s 2016 performance. Pelosi’s Democrats won the popular vote over Republicans by 6.7 points nationwide. How? By relentlessly talking about pocketbook issues, particularly the Democrats’ commitment to protecting voters’ existing health-insurance arrangements. Attack ads against Republicans in 2018 focused on the provision of a bill that would have weakened protections for those with preexisting conditions. Pelosi’s Democrats said Republicans would “raise your premiums” and “kick you off your health-care plan.” For good measure they accused Republicans of “doubling the debt.” Pelosi and Chuck Schumer tried to tamp down the story of the migrant caravan then traveling through Mexico, calling President Trump’s focus on it a distraction from health care. Pelosi’s Democrats retook the Rust Belt districts that Donald Trump had won in 2016.

Her operation reminded me of the last time Democrats had been humbled: after the 2004 elections. In the following midterms in 2006 and the election of 2008, Democrats ran against Republican radicalism. Just twelve years ago, Democratic candidates for president competed with each other on how tough and realistic they could be on illegal immigration. The leading candidates for president advertised not just their opposition to same-sex marriage but also their opposition to drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants. Dennis Kucinich quoted from the Bible.

Over the last two nights, we saw a completely different Democratic party. Several leading candidates, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris, vowed to kick 100 million Americans off their private insurance plans in favor of Medicare for All. This is a position supported by less than 15 percent of Americans. Just a tiny fraction of that number of cancellations in the wake of Obamacare caused an electoral earthquake for Democrats in 2010.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/28/the_debates_winners_and_losers_140672.html

MIAMI — Ten candidates shared the stage on the second night of the first debate of the Democratic primary. After two hours of questions and cross talk, of impromptu barbs and prepared talking points, a tentative picture has emerged of the initial winners and losers.

Winner: Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris has arrived.

Pollsters and pundits had wondered whether the freshman senator from California could start to deliver on her well-received campaign rollout. She answered Thursday night by pummeling the front-runner in prime time, questioning former Vice President Joe Biden about civil rights.

Harris pushed the 76-year-old Biden to explain his record on federal busing, which he opposed while a young senator from Delaware, and his association with segregationists, which he has defended as necessary for compromise.

“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris told Biden.

“But I also believe,” she continued, “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.”

Although that decades-old legislative record is hardly new, Harris made it personal.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said. “That little girl was me.”