RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/23/if-biden-is-ready-to-lock-down-again-we-should-just-elect-fauci-instead/

Joe Biden climbed out of his basement last week. Twice! Once to deliver a brief but well-received address at the Democratic National Convention, and once to give a socially distanced interview to ABC News with his wing-woman Kamala Harris. The big news out of the interview is that Biden said he would shut America down again if scientists told him to.

If this is true, then I have a question. Why are we even bothering to consider Biden? Why not just elect Dr. Anthony Fauci, or Dr. Deborah Birx if we want to smash glass ceilings in the process?

This is really not a facetious question. Shutting down America again would not only cripple America, but it would also make any other policies that Biden might have in mind utterly pointless. A jobs program when nobody can go to work? An education program when nobody can go to school? An infrastructure program with no construction workers? I mean, how does this work?

The big giveaway in Biden’s answer is that he openly would give away the power of free citizens in a democratic-republic to make their own decisions and not be dictated to by “experts.” I recently interviewed Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury, who put this very well. He said experts should be on tap, not on top. On tap for us, but not on top of our lives. You can see the clip here.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/readers-respond/bs-ed-rr-0822-klacik-response-20200821-hcgwdtny5bbl5egm7c6dke4tc4-story.html

The writer is a Republican candidate for Maryland’s 7th Congressional District.

I expect more from The Baltimore Sun than graceless screeds. You are not the right-wing media or a partisan liberal rag. You are the editorial board of Maryland’s paper of record. Like it or not, I am the Republican nominee for a contested congressional race where the Democratic nominee was pushed out of the NAACP, according to your reporting, amid allegations of sexual harassment, nepotism and mismanagement. That is the candidate you have endorsed. I am a woman of color running in a state that has no women in any elected federal or statewide offices. But you have now twice, without ever having met or interviewed me, attacked and mocked me on your opinion page (“Is Kim Klacik running for Congress, mayor or chief Trump enabler?” Aug. 19). What gives?

Not that it should matter, but I’m a moderate Republican. I believe in paid family leave and over-the-counter birth control, that climate change is man-made and presents an existential threat that demands our urgent attention, and that who you love is beyond the province of government. I believe we should invest more money in education, that teachers and social workers and mental health practitioners should be paid far more than they are, and that chokeholds and qualified immunity should be abolished.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/513214-could-kamala-harris-transform-law-enforcement-as-the-vice-president

National conventions have long served as what magicians call the turn. As explained in the movie “The Prestige,” every magic trick has three stages. First comes the pledge, when the magician “shows you something ordinary.” Then comes the turn, when he “makes it do something extraordinary” like vanish. Finally, he has “to bring it back in the hardest part” known as the prestige.

In American politics, candidates make the pledge to voters on the extremes of their parties during primaries. Then comes the turn, when the more extreme nominee disappears at the convention. The turn was not as tough for Joe Biden, who was fairly moderate as a senator, as it was for Kamala Harris, who was ranked by GovTrack as the most liberal senator to the left of even Bernie Sanders.

Nonetheless, in perhaps the neatest trick of all, the Washington Post’s David Byler recently described Harris as a “small ‘c’ conservative.” The concern for some of us is that the prestige, when earlier objects might reappear after the election, particularly regarding the Justice Department and the legal system. There is reason to worry about what might be revealed, post-election.

One of the Democratic convention speakers was former deputy attorney general Sally Yates, widely viewed as the leading candidate for attorney general in a Biden administration. She was presented as the personification of a new Justice Department’s commitment to the rule of law. Yates declared: “I was fired for refusing to defend President Trump’s shameful and unlawful Muslim travel ban.” The problem is, she wasn’t. She was fired for telling an entire department not to defend a travel ban that ultimately was upheld as lawful.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/22/feeling-good-through-feeling-bad/

Usually, political conventions are feel-good events. The party faithful congregate, wave flags, and cheer their candidates. Tomorrow is another day! Nothing stands between us and victory except defeat!

These Roderick Spode-like sentiments are echoed and amplified by the cheering masses, who never let a dollop of tautology intrude upon and dampen their enthusiasm. 

This year, as we all know, the Chinese virus—which is to say our quivering response to this new seasonal ailment—has transformed the cheering masses into isolated maskists. 

About the only congregations our masters in the media and Democratic statehouses smile upon these days are those undertaken for the sake of rioting, arson, and general mayhem. Congregating in a church to worship is dangerous to your health and so is forbidden. So are birthday parties for your five-year-old. But scores or hundreds congregating to burn public buildings and to blind policemen is constitutionally protected “peaceful protest.”

Terror about the novel coronavirus—to say nothing of terror at the possible legal and public-relations liability of people getting sick at large in-person events you sponsor—prompted both parties to scrap their plans for a live convention and broadcast “virtual” conferences instead. 

Last week’s Democratic National Convention—four nights of taped hectoring and inadvertently hilarious exercises in politically correct sermonizing—showed how difficult it is to make a virtual event seem like an actual celebration.