RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/defining-socialism-down-11560553255

Part of Bernie Sanders’ apparent political appeal is his authenticity. He may be a socialist, but at least he’s honest about it. Then again, his speech on Thursday defining his idea of democratic socialism may begin to erode that reputation.

The Vermont Senator presents himself as the ideological descendant of FDR, whom many seniors still revere and millennials incorrectly believe rescued America from the Great Depression. Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee and energy-industry takeover? Mr. Sanders says they are merely an extension of New Deal programs like Social Security, unemployment insurance and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

“Like today, the quest for transformative change was opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party,” the Democratic Socialist declared. “While he stood up for the working families of our country, we can never forget that President Roosevelt was reviled by the oligarchs of his time, who berated these extremely popular programs as ‘socialism.’”

We can understand why Mr. Sanders wants to define socialism in this way, since the polls show the word is politically toxic for most Americans. But he’s underselling his own contributions. FDR’s social programs were based on the principle of work in return for benefits. Workers chipped in part of their payroll to finance their own retirement many years hence. The benefits are unsustainable now, but at least they require someone to work.

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/the-selective-prosecution-of-kellyanne-conway/

As if the woman didn’t have enough to deal with the-most-jealous-husband-on-the-planet, Kellyanne Conway is now being prosecuted, or is it persecuted, by a hitherto little-discussed operation called the  U.S. Office of Special Counsel or OSC (not to be confused with Mueller, et al.).

These unknown bureaucrats and/or legal eagles want Kellyanne fired for…. wait for it… making political comments while in the White House, specifically: “Given that Ms. Conway is a repeat offender and has shown disregard for the law, OSC recommends that she be removed from federal service,”.

What utter garbage!  What member of any administration since any of us have been alive could not be accused of making political comments while in the White House, overtly or covertly? At least when they’re doing it overtly we can see what they’re up to. Kudos to Kellyanne for that.

So why Conway and why now? Well, first we might want to know the names of those behind this smear. Who is their Andrew Weissmann? Second, we might want to examine the timing as the Inspector General’s report is about to come out, Barr has appointed John Durham to investigate the investigators, and all Hades is about to break loose.

If I were the White House (obviously, I’m not) I would make fun of this… maybe run some old videos of Democrat non-partisans in the WH like, say, George Stephanopoulos. They never played politics while part of the administration — unless they were awake.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/13/trump-is-favored-to-be-re-elected-media-claims-notwithstanding/

Nothing has turned out the way the Resistance had hoped. Far from their fever dreams of global chaos and economic catastrophe, the Trump agenda is turning out to be surprisingly successful.

At least six Democratic candidates would defeat President Trump if the election were held today and he’s struggling even in Texas, a pollster claims. Sen. Cory Booker, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former vice president Joe Biden would trounce Trump by anywhere from five to 13 percentage points nationwide, the poll says.

Another poll said Biden and Sanders had 12-point leads over Trump in Michigan.

Media outlets such as Axios claim that Trump has a “re-election crisis“:

Everywhere he looks, President Trump can see flashing warnings that his re-election is in serious peril, a week ahead of his official campaign launch next Tuesday in Orlando. …

Trump is betting polls will swing when it’s a choice between him and someone he can lampoon as a dumb socialist.

But, but, but: Even the self-avowed socialists are beating him — Bernie Sanders is up 12 in Michigan.

Nearly a year and a half before the 2020 election, no one knows what will happen. Perhaps Axios’ Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen and their fellow tut-tutting DC journalists are correct that Sanders really could defeat Trump in a historic nine-point landslide win.

In a more reasonable and less histrionic world than the one DC journalists inhabit, however, the truth is that Trump is a favorite to be re-elected. The polls are what the polls are, as they were in 2015 and 2016, when they showed Trump having little to no chance of winning the presidency. (Spoiler alert: he won.)

One major difference from that era is a poll of Wall Street insiders showing that more than 70 percent expect Trump to win re-election. A Goldman Sachs analysis also sees Trump’s re-election as more likely than not. These projections absolutely could be wrong, but firms such as Goldman Sachs are deeply concerned about making money for the corporation and its clients by making accurate predictions about likely future events.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/12/abortion-debate-house-floor-democrat-dismisses-republicans-sex-starved-males/

Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) turned an abortion debate in the House of Representatives bizarrely personal on Wednesday, seeking to undercut her Republican colleagues by calling them “sex-starved males.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is tiring to hear from so many sex-starved males on this floor talk about a woman’s right to choose,” lamented Torres, drawing audible protests from other members.

Republican Rep. Rob Woodall of Georgia immediately pressed her on the inflammatory language. “I would just like to ask my friend if she’d like to change her last statement,” he said.

“Mr. Speaker, if it pleases my colleague on the other side, I will withdraw my statement about sex-starved males on the floor,” Torres replied. Roll Call noted the congresswoman’s remark “clearly broke House Rules” against “personally impugn[ing] their colleagues on the floor.”

The conflict arose amid debate over a spending package. Republicans, according to Roll Call, “oppose language in the bill authored by House Democrats that would block the Trump administration from enforcing a rule that protects health care providers that refuse to participate in services, such as abortion, that go against their beliefs.”

First elected in 2015, Torres represents California’s 35th District.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/12/bidens_balancing_act_

In poker, it’s known as a “tell.” It’s an inadvertent signal — perhaps rapid blinking or a raised eyebrow — that tells other players you have a good hand or bad one. Last week, when Joe Biden rolled out his new policy positions, he virtually shouted one out in the high-stakes game of presidential campaigning.

Biden’s first tell came on the issue of abortion; a second, lesser one came on environmental policy. Predictably, he moved to the left on both. That tells us something about Biden, the primary process, and the 21st century Democratic Party.

First, it says that Biden expects hard slogging to win the nomination. Publicly, the former vice president is positioning himself as the inevitable nominee, the obvious successor to Barack Obama. The key words are “obvious” and “inevitable.” The national polls, like those in Iowa, where he campaigned Tuesday, paint a different picture. They show Biden ahead, but hardly inevitable. About one-quarter of Iowa Democrats currently favor Biden, compared to roughly 15% each for three more progressive candidates: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg. That’s a strong lead, but the Iowa battle is just getting started, and it’s still wide open. The same is true in New Hampshire, the site of the first real primary.

To win in either place, Biden must stay abreast of the party’s leftward lurch. That’s what his “tell” is all about. But it’s a slow, awkward dance, weighed down by his years of moderate (and quite sensible) policy positions — all on video, all recorded in his Senate votes. His new policies won’t win over the party’s most ardent feminist and environmentalist factions, but he does hope to blunt their opposition and prevent them from coalescing around an alternative candidate.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-marx-brother-11560363050

Having parted ways with some non-Marxists who managed to infiltrate his 2016 presidential campaign, Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders will attempt to clarify this afternoon that he is not like other candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020. Edward-Isaac Dovere notes in the Atlantic that Mr. Sanders will be speaking in Washington this afternoon on “How Democratic Socialism Is the Only Way to Defeat Oligarchy and Authoritarianism.” Mr. Dovere reports that the speech topic is sparking laughter among Democratic rivals as Mr. Sanders “leans into socialism.” Adds Mr. Dovere:

Aides say the D.C. setting is an attempt to convey his seriousness on the subject. They want this to be a major signpost in his 2020 campaign, an opportunity for Sanders to lay out why he’s running with an argument no one else can or would make as forcefully, and to dare the rest of the field to oppose him. They believe this speech has the potential to re-center the dynamics of the race around him, and that the other candidates will regret any of their laughter and questioning…

Many readers may find it laughable that Mr. Sanders would attempt to position himself even further to the left than he did in 2016. But as a Journal editorial noted in April, there’s nothing funny about the extreme commentary from people who are now members of the Sanders 2020 operation. For example, current Sanders speechwriter David Sirota once wrote an op-ed titled “Hugo Chávez’s Economic Miracle”. And Mr. Sirota isn’t the only Sandernista who has lauded the Chavistas. Assessing the current Sanders team, the Journal observed:

Voters need to understand that they don’t merely admire Venezuela. By their own words, they want America to emulate it.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/marcia-fudge-reads-constituent-le

Representative Marcia Fudge (D., Ohio) took to the House floor on Tuesday to share a constituent’s opinion that supporters of President Trump are “racist” and “just plain dumb.”

Addressing her colleagues during the House’s “Morning Hour,” in which lawmakers can speak for five minutes about a topic of their own choosing, Fudge read a letter written by Reverend Ronald Williams, the pastor of Mount Zion Fellowship in Highland Hills, Ohio, which cites a single political debate Williams recently had to disparage Trump supporters as a collective.

“It is glaringly apparent that many who support the present administration are either racist, steeped in religious beliefs, ignorant, or as my mother used to say just plain dumb,” Williams wrote. “They have chosen to support a president who has a proven record of being sexually condescending to women, will not oppose the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate organizations, is indecisive, condescending to anyone who challenges him, and hides behind his Twitter account rather than dealing with the real issues in our country and around the world. To put icing on this cake, he’s a proven liar.”

Williams goes on to argue that Trump’s election proves American democracy no longer exists, before questioning the religious convictions of “so-called Evangelicals” and chastising congressional Republicans for becoming a “Trump cult.”

After Fudge read Williams’s missive aloud, fellow Democrat Marc Veasey scolded her for relying on someone else’s words to impugn the character of the president.

http://www.startribune.com/ilhan-omar-s-credibility-takes-another-hit/511152612/

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is back in the news again, and not in a good way. The former state representative who won a seat in Congress last fall continues to be dogged by past missteps, this time eight violations of Minnesota campaign-finance law that will cost her nearly $3,500 in reimbursements and civil penalties.

So complex were the allegations that the state Campaign Finance Board spent nearly a year assessing the case, deposing staff people and former staff people, along with Omar herself. The investigation was broadened in October — just a month before her election to Congress — to look more deeply into the allegations. Board Executive Director Jeff Sigurdson said that between six and eight people were deposed separately.

In an October 2018 editorial, we called on Omar to more fully explain her travel and other expenses. We noted that the allegations “suggest a pattern of carelessness and/or self-dealing with legally restricted funds. Neither conclusion inspires the confidence voters deserve to have in someone they send to the U.S. House to represent them.”

It is even more disturbing, therefore, to learn that among the board’s latest findings was a troubling discovery that is far beyond its jurisdiction, but worthy of greater scrutiny nevertheless. Omar, for two years running, filed joint tax returns with a man she was living with but not legally married to. Complicating matters further, she was legally married to another man at the time.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/11/watch-corrupt-watergate-fossil-john-dean-get-obliterated-anti-trump-hearing/ 

“Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

….No Obstruction. The Dems were devastated – after all this time and money spent ($40,000,000), the Mueller Report was a disaster for them. But they want a Redo, or Do Over. They are even bringing in @CNN sleazebag attorney John Dean. Sorry, no Do Overs – Go back to work!”

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday, Democrats hauled in a former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, John Dean, to testify on obstruction of justice as they pursue impeachment of Donald Trump. Republican members of Congress criticized Dean, a CNN contributor and author, who is often called on to compare the Russia investigation (or anything Democrats don’t like) to Watergate.

Just as Democrats had hoped, Dean testified on the “remarkable parallels” between Watergate and the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. In fact, Dean, a convicted felon, has repeatedly charged that past Republican presidencies, including Reagan, Bush, and now Trump, are “worse than Watergate.” Dean argued that “events in both 1972 and 2016 resulted in obstruction of the investigations.”

During Monday’s hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz called out Dean’s unoriginal claims, and noted his appearance as a “prop.”

“Mr. Dean has made a cottage industry out of accusing presidents of acting like Richard Nixon. I would like to know how much money he makes based on making these accusations and exploiting them for his own economic benefit,” Gaetz said.