RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/26/trump-approva

In one survey mostly conducted before those developments, 46 percent of American voters approved of Trump’s job performance.
In an additional survey conducted entirely afterward, 44 percent approved, a decline that fell within the margin of error.

Felony convictions and guilty pleas by two close associates had little initial effect on President Donald Trump’s political standing, and Republicans remain in an uphill fight to keep control of Congress.

Those are the findings of new NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls, conducted both before and after bombshell legal developments in the federal investigations of Trump and his campaign. In one survey mostly conducted before those developments, 46 percent of American voters approved of Trump’s job performance; in an additional survey conducted entirely afterward, 44 percent approved, a decline that fell within the margin of error.

At the same time, Democrats held an 8 percentage point national lead over Republicans in the race for the House. Their 50 percent to 42 percent advantage puts Trump’s political adversaries in a promising position to gain the 23 seats they need for a House majority approaching the final two months of the mid-term election campaign.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/26/th

He has a firm handshake and a confident smile. He is already planning his congressional run with his staff and advisors, but for now he will have to do with being the student government president and then a local politician. He is well versed in the conventional platitudes of political rhetoric, but also has an uncanny ability to tell you exactly what you want to hear. You can never really tell who he is or what he believes, but you’re still going to end up voting for him. After all, he is “the candidate.”

Growing up on a steady diet of “The West Wing” and Fox News, the candidate spent years perfecting his political persona. By the time he reached college, he had developed a false sense of modesty to mask his otherwise off-putting unbridled ambition. He’ll skillfully deflect questions about his political aspirations and will always deny that he wants to run for office. He’ll explain that politics is a dirty business that requires tremendous levels of personal sacrifice. Why would he put himself through all of that if he didn’t have to? But… of course… he has to. It’s his duty to work in public service—after all, he’s the only person who can fix all of the problems that we have. So, can he count on your vote?

Much to the candidate’s chagrin, there is an age requirement to run for national office. And so, he settles in for his runs at student and local government. Realizing that conservatives are social pariahs on campus, he cultivates his image as a well-meaning pragmatic practitioner who won’t drag ideology into his decision making. He works hard to solve the practical problems that affect average students on a day-to-day basis and he runs one hell of a ground game on campus. And because of this, everyone knows him. And though many know that he’s a conservative, he doesn’t make it central to his identity. Instead, he makes it easy for liberals to excuse away his political affiliation. “Oh, he’s from a small town in a rural state… he’ll come around eventually.” “Oh, he means well and he is so devoted to his religion… besides, look at his dreamy eyes.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/more_muslim_

According to an Associated Press report issued in July this year, close to 100 Muslims filed to run for federal or state offices in the current election cycle, and nearly half made it through to the primaries. Meanwhile, numerous other Muslim candidates are campaigning for seats on local planning commissions, school boards, library committees, and other positions of influence at the county and city levels.

The proliferation of Muslim candidates may appear to some as positive and benign participation in American democracy by an emerging minority, but it cannot be denied that a Muslim plan to usurp American democracy has existed for decades. Careful scrutiny of this new wave of Muslim candidates yields a number with questionable backgrounds, motivations, and support groups, whose motives may be to implement the plan.

The plan to infiltrate and take over American democracy is explained in a 1987 strategic document, “An Explanatory Memorandum,” written and approved by the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization with ties to the fundamentalist terrorist organization Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood has itself been designated a terrorist organization by seven nations, including Egypt, where the Brotherhood began in 1928. The memorandum calls for the elimination of the U.S. Constitution and its replacement with an Islamic government under sharia law. It spells out its “process of settlement” as a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” to eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within. It calls for the establishment of political organizations designed to train and promote the Muslim Brotherhood goal of establishing the Quran as the sole authority for the Muslim family, individual, community, and state.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/chelsea-clinton-future-political-career/

At least Caroline Kennedy knew when to quit…..terminally insipid Chelsea should know better…..rsk

Chelsea Clinton is leaving the door open to a possible run for political office down the road.

In an appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival Sunday, Clinton said that a political career is a “definite no” at the moment, but a “definite maybe” in the future.

“At federal level, as much as I abhor so much of what President Trump is doing, I have a great amount of gratitude for what my congresswoman and my senators are doing to try to stop him at every point,” Clinton said. “While I disagree with the president … I think my family … is being really well represented. But if that were to change — if my city councilor were to retire, if my congresswoman were to retire, my senators — and I thought that I could make a positive impact, then I think I would really have to ask my answer to that question.”

In wide-ranging remarks that touched on her family and her feelings about the Trump administration, Clinton went out of her way to assert that she feels “incredibly protective” of twelve-year-old Barron Trump, recalling her own experience as a teenager in the White House during her father’s presidency, when critics mocked her appearance.

“I disagree with [Barron Trump’s] father on everything, but people have made fun of him, bullied him for his appearance or for him being more private,” the former first daughter said. “Equally I have no patience for that because he’s a child and he deserves a childhood as every child does.”

Clinton has upped her social-media presence since the 2016 presidential election, defending Barron Trump several times from online bullies and advocating for LGBT and women’s rights.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/20/democrats-fielding-even-anti-semitic-candidates-congress/

Last week, J Street, the lefty group created to counter the bipartisan American Israel Public Affairs Committee, withdrew its endorsement of Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic candidate in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. The unprecedented move followed Tlaib’s endorsement of a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and comments supporting the left-wing boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement.

Tlaib is running unopposed in the general election, blunting the effect of the de-endorsement. But Tlaib is representative of the Democratic Party’s gradual march beyond the embrace of candidates and officials who criticize Israeli policy or its current government to a much uglier place in politics.
BDS Is Definitely Anti-Semitic

To put this trend into context, consider that the U.S. State Department has adopted a “working definition” of anti-Semitism, as a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The “working definition” provides illustrations of anti-Semitism, including “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

The founders and leaders of the BDS movement support a “one-state solution” that destroys Israel as Jewish state. The movement is the intellectual descendant of the 1945 Arab boycott, which did not distinguish between Jews and Israel. It is based on the premise that Israel is a racist apartheid state requiring the sort of action once taken against South Africa.

Accordingly, when Tlaib compares the two-state solution to the idea of “separate but equal,” even the J Street doves begin to worry. Tlaib carefully claimed she merely supports the free speech of the BDS crowd, which is a very weak claim.

Her answer also seems disingenuous, not only because she supports a one-state solution, but also because she is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Last year, the DSA overwhelmingly endorsed the BDS movement, with many chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” afterward.
It’s Not Just Rashida Tlaib, Either

https://pjmedia.com/election/jstreet-withdraws-endorsement-after-palestinian-candidate-for-congress-pushes-one-state-solution/

In a first for the organization, JStreet withdrew its midterm election endorsement of a former Michigan state legislator poised to become the first Palestinian-American member of Congress after Rashida Tlaib said she wants a one-state solution in the Middle East.

Tlaib, running to fill the seat vacated by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), is all but a lock for Dems, as Republicans didn’t put forth a candidate. She would be one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, and perhaps the first depending on how other Muslim women candidates fare in their races.

A socialist Dem in the mold of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tlaib is running on a platform to abolish ICE, provide Medicare to all and establish a $15 hourly minimum wage. New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned for Tlaib.

JStreet, the most prominent progressive organization among Capitol Hill Israel-related lobbying groups, had stated on their website that Tlaib supported a two-state solution — Israel and Palestine, side by side — and “supports all current aid to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

Some Palestinian activists criticized Tlaib, and she recently stated that the solution “has to be one state” because “separate but equal does not work.” That one state would mean all Palestinians being absorbed into Israel, including with right of return.

Tlaib also supported BDS activists who try to punish Israel with boycotts and sanctions, and told Britain’s Channel 4 that she is “absolutely” in favor of cutting U.S. military aid to Israel “if it has something to do with inequality and not access to people having justice.”

“For me, U.S. aid should be leverage,” she added. “I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice.”

JStreet said in a statement today that “after closely consulting with Rashida Tlaib’s campaign to clarify her most current views on various aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have come to the unfortunate conclusion that a significant divergence in perspectives requires JStreetPAC to withdraw our endorsement of her candidacy.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/08/18/headwinds_facing_gop_might_not_be_so_strong_137835.html

With 80 days to go before the midterm elections, the conventional wisdom is that the Republicans will be hard-pressed to hold their majority in the House. The generic ballot is against them, Donald Trump’s job approval rating isn’t where Republicans would like it to be, and midterms are historically difficult for the incumbent president’s party anyway.

However, all the wind is not in Republicans’ faces. There are countervailing trends at work, too, including these eight:

Critics of the president may still be underestimating the strength of the Trump movement, as they did in 2016. Trump rallies are still standing room only, with lines out the door. The GOP is fully behind the president, whose his approval rating is about 85 percent among his base. Most of the candidates he’s endorsed in primaries have won. Moreover, his support has boosted voter turnout.

Trump is a stronger candidate than he was in 2016. One of the most important predictors of a midterm election is a president’s popularity. On Election Day in 2016, Trump’s approval to disapproval differential was 21 points and today it is nine points according to the RCP polling average. In other words, despite the pummeling he takes in the press, Donald Trump is more popular today than he was on Election Day 2016.

With a shove from progressives with 2020 presidential ambitions, most notably Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Party has veered left in the 2018 season primary season. Universal health care, free college tuition, and a guaranteed basic income may play well in some Democratic primaries. But there’s little evidence that this is what independent voters are looking for, and independents are the key voting bloc in competitive races in swing districts.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/08/16/trump-approval-rating-african-americans-rasmussen-poll/1013212002/

Even as cable news networks debate reports of the existence of a recording of President Donald Trump using a racial slur, a new poll from Rasmussen Reports says that the president’s approval rating among African-Americans is at 36 percent, nearly double his support at this time last year.

“Today’s @realDonaldTrump approval ratings among black voters: 36%,” Rasmussen said in a tweet. “This day last year: 19%.”

That is a staggeringly high number for a man who only won 8 percent of the African-American vote in 2016.

It is even more unexpected given the president’s rocky history on matters related to race, including his current nasty feud with former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who has alleged Trump said “n word” on the set of the reality-TV show “The Apprentice.”

Conservatives celebrated the poll as a sign of trouble for Democrats in upcoming elections.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative campus group Turning Point USA, cited the poll as evidence that Trump “is breaking the Democrat party as we know it.”

https://freebeacon.com/columns/agenda-dare-not-speak-name/

The Democrats have decided that agendas are overrated. Back in May, the party unveiled its “Better Deal” program, calling for expanded broadband access, an increase in the minimum wage, and paid family and sick leave. Voters didn’t bite. So last month the Democrats came up with “For the People,” which simplifies the platform to infrastructure spending, lowering health care costs, and draining the swamp. Again, crickets.

What to do? Party leadership has declared that it’s every cis-het man for himself. “We trust our candidates to know their districts and the challenges facing their communities better than anyone,” House campaign chair Ben Ray Luján tells the New York Times. Translation: If you are Conor Lamb, run as a gun-friendly champion of the working class. If you are Rashida Tlaib, feel free to announce that you would vote against aid for Israel and to call for bi-nationalism that would end the Jewish State. Texas Democrat Colin Allred, following Hillary Clinton, says everyone should be able to buy into Medicare. Maine Democrat Jared Golden, following Bernie Sanders, says, “We need to move towards a universal health care system, like Medicare-for-all.”

Such diversity of approach troubles the philosopher kings of Forty-First Street. Discarding a “Washington platform,” write Sheryl Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos, is “a risky strategy.” It leaves unanswered the question of what the Democratic Party stands for. It “could raise questions among voters about how Democrats would govern.” Questions to which there are few substantive answers.

The truth, though, is that the Democrats do have an agenda. They just can’t say it aloud. The reason Democrats seek power in 2018 is to obstruct President Trump wholly and without exception, to tie down his administration using the subpoena powers of a dozen committees, and ultimately to lay the groundwork for his impeachment. The Democratic grassroots expects nothing less.