RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/with-election-looming-judge-sullivan-will-

There are many words one might use to describe Judge Emmett Sullivan. Chastened is not one of them.

Yesterday, in an en banc (full court) ruling that went 8–2 in Judge Sullivan’s favor, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to order him to grant the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the prosecution of Michael Flynn. (I have a column on the homepage about the Circuit’s decision.) Today, Sullivan has reacted by issuing an order that contemplates several more weeks of litigation before he resolves the motion — a very simple motion, on which he was previously prepared to hold a hearing in mid-July (which itself was a dawdling pace).

The judge is clearly taking the Circuit’s decision as vindication, particularly after the two judges in the minority (Republican appointees on a heavily Democratic court) initially ruled that a writ of mandamus should issue. That prior ruling was wiped out, at Sullivan’s urging, by the en banc decision.

It was probably too much to hope that Judge Sullivan would take solace in yesterday’s victory, get back to work, and make his ruling on the dismissal motion. Moving quickly would have been consistent with the Circuit’s stated expectation, in the last line of its majority opinion, that the district judge “proceed with appropriate dispatch.”

Instead, Sullivan is dragging the case out. His directive today (known as a “minute order”), anticipates that in three weeks (by September 21) Flynn and the Justice Department will submit a joint status report. The judge intimates that this three-week delay is required due to a Circuit rule that orders denying mandamus do not become effective for 21 days unless some accelerating action is taken. But this is sheer gamesmanship. Nothing prevents the judge from acting on the case now. (In fact, he took action while the mandamus litigation was ongoing.) Judge Sullivan knows the parties would not object; they want a quick resolution. And the court doesn’t need a status report. Sullivan knows the status of the Flynn case like the back of his hand. The Justice Department has moved to dismiss, Flynn concurs in that motion; and even though Sullivan should not have permitted and appointed third parties (the amici) to intervene in the case, he did so, and they filed submissions. Sullivan just needs to hold a hearing (if he really thinks he needs one) and rule on the motion.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/moral-equivalence-camouflage-moral-cowardice-bruce-thornton/

NRO’s Jim Geraghty in his daily column indulged one of the NeverTrump favorite rhetorical devices: That the president is just as bad for the Republic as the radical Democrats, and neither side “wants to solve real problems.” Apart from the common mistaken notion that the Founders created our political order “to solve problems” rather than protect the liberty of states, towns, civic society, families, and individuals, this tic often obscures an unwillingness to identify clearly those guilty of creating conflict and disorder by equally apportioning guilt to both sides.

Moral equivalence becomes the camouflage for moral cowardice, a fear to assign responsibility where it is due.

During his discussion of the Democrats’ dilemma over how to spin the ongoing riots, Geraghty can’t help sniping at Trump:

But we all know that Donald Trump’s view on how to deal with an angry and potentially destructive mob is dramatically different from that of Portland mayor Ted Wheeler, Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, or New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. Trump’s administration sent U.S. Park Police into Lafayette Park, using “smoke canisters, irritants, explosive devices, batons and horses.” Quite a few observers contended the tactics used more force than necessary or that was justified by the situation. But we know Trump’s instincts are to overreact to the threat of mob violence, not underreact.

The Dem blue-state mayors underreact, but Trump overreacts because of his “instincts” rather than a sober and judicious analysis of the crisis. The two responses are morally equivalent. Hence in Lafayette Park, near the storied church “peaceful protestors” had set on fire, and swarming with violent thugs know for using bricks, rocks, commercial fireworks, frozen water bottles, skateboards, and other weapons against the police, Trump overreacted by using “smoke canisters, irritants, explosive devices, batons and horses.” In other words, standard non-lethal methods for dispersing a violent mob set on injuring others.

https://canadafreepress.com/article/the-democrats-mental-problem

Leftists rationalize that they care more, have more empathy, sympathy, etc. Don’t be fooled. They suffer from an untreated mental condition that no amount of windmills, high taxes, open borders, third-term abortions, and street anarchy will ever cure

It’s not a recent observation on my part; it goes back decades, so I’ve had a long time to figure out the meaning of this peculiar phenomenon. Specifically, it’s that Conservatives like me seem to enjoy the lion’s share of being in a good mood, feeling optimistic, trusting that the many forms of rugged individualism can solve most problems, smiling easily and often, and generally seeing both the present and future as glasses half full. 

Not one of these things can be said of leftists, and nothing brought that truth more vividly alive than watching the Democrat and Republican conventions in August.

DEMOCRAT DOOM….

On the one hand was the virtual presentation of a pitifully diminished candidate, propped up by a long line of speakers who had only bitter, nasty, negative and of course pessimistic things to say about our country. Did I forget racist? Here, writer Thomas Gallatin discusses Michelle Obama’s unfortunate presentation and the irony of a “party that loves to claim for itself the mantle of ‘diversity’ and ‘anti-racism’ [being] the same party that promotes racist identity politics.”

Not a single smile in four days––only relentless negativity. And not one word––from candidate Biden, VP candidate Kalamity Harris, the speakers, or their leftwing media whores––about the nearly three-month, non-stop rampaging destruction by the communist group Black Lives Matter and the anarchists of Antifa in committing daily and nightly acts of:

Arson, 
Tearing down both black and white businesses, 
Destroying historical statuary
Widespread grand theft, 
Violent assaults, 
Murder.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/silence-about-the-violence/

Biden and his enablers can’t decide whether the mayhem helps or hurts his candidacy.

 I t is not just conservatives at the recent Republican National Convention who wonder why the Democratic Party and its media appendages have not without qualification decried the looting, arson, violence, and occasional killing that have swept the nation’s cities.

Recently even left-wing CNN’s incendiary Don Lemon wondered out loud why Joe Biden and the Democratic powers have not at least tried to square the circle of deploring police overreach while at the same time going through the motions of condemning the utter lawlessness that often breaks out at dusk in Chicago, Portland, and Seattle, and now in smaller cities such as Kenosha, Wis. What Lemon praised in June, he now seems terrified about in August. But for that matter, most retired generals and media anchors who assured us in June that there were only a “small” number of violent protesters have long grown silent after the occupation of Seattle and the Alamo siege of the police precinct in Portland.

This fight of voter backlash about crime has infected the entire Democratic elite — glued to volatile internal polls that do not lie — whether it is Nancy Pelosi’s demanding no debates, Michelle Obama’s obsessing with “Vote! Vote! And Vote!” or Hillary Clinton’s urging Biden to never “under any circumstances” concede the election that apparently she now believes he could well lose.

There are lots of answers (and none are mutually exclusive) that explain the silence about the violence.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/31/trumps-approval-rating-black-voters-soars-60-durin/

President Trump’s approval rating among Black voters jumped by 60% during the Republican National Committee even as Democrats and progressives sought to brand the Republican president as racist.

A HarrisX-Hill poll released Friday showed Mr. Trump’s net approval with Black voters from Aug. 22-25, which included the first two days of the RNC, rose to 24%, up from 15% in the pollster’s Aug. 8-11 survey.

The poll also found his approval rating among Hispanic voters during the same period increased slightly from 30% to 32%, while his support among White voters decreased by the same margin, ticking down from 54% to 52%.

The president’s overall approval rating remained underwater at 44%, but the surge of support from Black voters may reflect Mr. Trump’s outreach to minority communities as well as the convention’s showcasing of conservative Black lawmakers and luminaries.

Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Republican, was featured prominently Monday, the first night of the RNC, while Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron gave a speech Tuesday challenging some of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s pronouncements on race.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/09/01/joe_bidens_three_risky_choices__144106.html

Joe Biden’s quick trip to Pittsburgh and his speech there Monday condemning urban violence show Democrats now recognize they made a major mistake in ignoring the problem at their convention. They’ve read the polls and finally realize voters care about the arson, shootings, and looting — and their own safety. That’s a problem for the Biden campaign, which had almost nothing to say about the violence all summer. Now, they are doing “cleanup on Aisle 6” and there’s a lot of broken glass around.

“Rioting is not protesting,” the Democrats’ presidential nominee told the Carnegie-Mellon University audience. “Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. … It’s lawlessness, plain and simple.” That’s true, but it was no less true two weeks or two months ago. Even now, Biden’s main thrust is less against the violence than against President Trump for “fomenting it” and “sowing chaos.” As Biden put it, “The simple truth is Donald Trump failed to protect America. So now he’s trying to scare America.”

That Biden was willing to leave home on short notice, fly to a swing state, and speak out about the rioting is the clearest indication yet that the election is tightening. Discussing the violence is one of three big, difficult decisions Biden faces as the campaign heats up. Each entails significant risks for a candidate who must hold together a fractious coalition and avoid major gaffes.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/09/01/its_trump_vs_biden_in_the_age_of_mob_politics__144110.html

They are the constituency no one wants, the crowd of “peaceful protesters” who aren’t all that peaceful. The one that does more to hurt than help even as both major political parties worry incessantly about how they can turn out voters ahead of an election billed, yet again, as “the most important in U.S. history.”

Maybe it is because they have a bad habit of looting liquor stores, torching businesses, and throwing rocks at cops. They are the mob, an amorphous rabble that has destroyed blocks’ worth of buildings from Minneapolis to Portland this summer, rioting and looting and turning November into a referendum on mob politics.

This disturbing factor in an already complex election environment has Joe Biden exasperated. The Democrats’ presidential  nominee has denounced violence in assorted statements and speeches, always defending the right to peacefully protest while also condemning the destruction of property and attacks on the police. His campaign still worried that the message wasn’t sticking, especially as Republicans ratcheted up their criticism, so on Monday the former vice president gave a full-throated rebuttal.

“You know me, you know my heart, you know my story, my family story,” Biden said from the floor of a Pittsburgh steel mill. “Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?  I want a safe America, safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear, safe from four more years of Donald Trump.”

He views the violence as wanton destruction, Biden insisted, and worse — a wasted opportunity for reform. Trump, he argued, looks at the exact same carnage “and he sees a political lifeline.” Four hours later, the president responded.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/rasmussen_reports_noticed_something_very_fishy_about_polling.html

One of the most famous clues in a Sherlock Holmes mystery is what’s commonly referred to as “the dog that didn’t bark” or, as Holmes actually said, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Rasmussen Reports, which puts out a Daily Presidential Tracking Poll like clockwork, noticed that its competitors ceased barking (or, if you prefer, polling) after the two parties held their conventions. According to Rasmussen, which would know, this silence was unprecedented.

Rasmussen published a series of tweets on Monday openly snarking at its competitors for their silence. Moreover, whoever is writing Rasmussen’s tweets was not shy about identifying a reason for the other polling outfits’ unusual reticence: The narrative up until the conventions was that Biden was unstoppable; it’s now quite possible that he’s been stopped.