RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/val-demings-vs-susan-rice/

One is heiress to Hillary, the other to Obama.

T he website PredictIt now shows California senator Kamala Harris as the clear frontrunner in the Biden veepstakes, with close to a 50 percent chance of getting the nod. The second most likely Biden VP, according to the site, is Florida congresswoman Val Demings — who is at 14 percent — and in third place is Susan Rice, the former national-security adviser to President Obama, who is at 12 percent.

The conventional wisdom appears to get the three finalists in the veepstakes correct. Biden seems increasingly likely to pick an African-American woman, so that rules out Elizabeth Warren. And other potential female African-American running mates, such as former Georgia legislator Stacey Abrams or Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, lack experience in federal government, which is a real deficiency during a pandemic.

So, which of the three will it be? I think it’s closer to a tossup than conventional wisdom has it. Kamala Harris’s strengths and weaknesses are well known to anyone who followed the Democratic primary. She is the only black woman to hold statewide office. She’s been vetted by the national press and is cautious enough that it’s likely she wouldn’t commit any earth-shattering gaffes that would sink the Democratic ticket.

On the other hand, Harris endorsed a radical and unpopular plan to abolish private health insurance by passing Medicare for All, so she could alienate some of the suburban voters that abandoned the GOP for the Democrats in 2018. At the same time, she waffled on the issue and generated little enthusiasm on the left. She also effectively accused Biden of being racist for opposing busing policies, and she could face withering attacks from the left and the right for her record on criminal justice.

https://www.nysun.com/national/silent-majority-ignored-by-biden-readies-backlash/91175/

The current speculation about a likely Joe Biden victory in the November presidential election ignores a number of extraordinary factors. Since the speculation is in the press and the press is overwhelmingly hostile to President Trump, there is a spontaneous urge to consider his declining fortunes in the polls as a vindication of both their professionalism and their prophetic talents. Their self-confidence is misplaced.

In the last four months the United States has endured the greatest public health crisis in a century, requiring a substantial economic shutdown that has induced the swiftest and most profound economic recession since the 1930s, followed by the worst rioting and public disorder, and the greatest racial strife in more than 50 years. It is not surprising that the president has lost some ground in the polls.

Four months ago, in the midst of perhaps the most flourishing economy in American history, Mr. Trump’s innumerable enemies were sinking into an almost resigned state of gloom about his reelection. Since the pandemic and its consequences seemed to produce a benign deliverance for the president’s enemies — a political miracle — it has temporarily deprived most of the anti-Trump media of any perspective.

It has transported them to pinnacles of righteous overconfidence, and it has emboldened the furtive anti-Trump and NeverTrump Republicans to come snorting out of the undergrowth, bellowing their long-muted hostility to the incumbent. Now they openly cavort with the Biden Democrats.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/joe-biden-campaign-strategy-hide-biden-stoke-chaos-obstruct-recovery/

Stoke chaos, obstruct economic recovery, and hide Biden in the basement till Election Day.

Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity.

I say “pretext” without apology. Quarantine should not have otherwise stopped Biden over the past three months from doing daily interviews, speeches, and meetings. But each occasion, however scripted, rehearsed, and canned, would only have offered further daily proof that Biden is cognitively unable to be president or indeed to hold any office.

Often Biden cannot finish a sentence. Names are vague eddies in his mind’s river of forgetfulness. He is in a far more dire mental state than a physically failing FDR was in his 1944 campaign for a fourth term.

The earlier career of a healthy Biden illustrates that he was not especially sharp even when in control of most of his faculties. We recall the former sane/nutty Biden of Neal Kinnock plagiarism, his “put y’all in chains” demagoguery, the studied racism of Biden’s riffs about a “clean” and well-spoken Obama, and the sane/insane Corn Pop stories. All are the trademark of a once fool Joe Biden, who was at least alert when compared with his current catalepsy. If Donald Trump can be ungrammatical, Biden is agrammatical — he simply streams together half-thoughts without syntax and then abandons the sentence entirely.

If Trump repeats vocabulary, Biden increasingly searches for words, any noun, whatever its irrelevance to the point he is making. Biden seems to suffer dyscognitive seizures, in which for moments he has no idea what he is doing or saying or where he is — a tragic, nearly epileptic condition. In scary episodes, the pale, scaly, and frozen visage of Biden appears almost reptilian, like a lizard freezing and remaining stationary as it struggles to process signals of perceived danger.

Inserting memorized answers into rehearsed questions, as if the entire con was spontaneous, only reveals how his once episodic dementia has become chronic as he loses his prompt and place. It was understandable that his handlers saw opportunity in secluding Biden during Trump’s tweeting, alongside the contagion, the lockdown, the recession, and the rioting that in voters’ minds had equated fear of chaos with the culpability of the current commander in chief.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2020/06/29/its-obvious-joe-biden-lied-about-targeting-michael-flynn-n2571343

On May 12, former Vice President Joe Biden said he was “unaware” of the Obama era case and spying, known as “Crossfire Razor,” against General Michael Flynn during an interview with ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos. When pressed, Biden changed his story, saying he was aware of an investigation but nothing more.

“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden first said.

“I was aware that there was…that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about it, and I don’t think anything else,” he attempted to clarify.

We first knew this statement was untrue when declassified documents, released in May, showed Biden as one of the Obama administration officials who unmasked Flynn during the 2016/2017 presidential transition period. 

Now, we have additional verification Biden’s statement to ABC News was completely false. Not only did Biden know about the details of the Flynn investigation, he was suggesting ideas about how to go after him through the Logan Act. In other words, guiding the FBI and DOJ about how to nail Flynn with criminal charges. As Matt detailed last week:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/joe_biden__theres_no_fool_like_an_old_fool.html

“Naivete in grownups is often charming; but when coupled with vanity it is indistinguishable from stupidity.” — Eric Hoffer

Old Joe has been incarcerated in his basement for 80+ days.  His few virtual appearances have each been a disaster.  He obviously has notes from which is supposed to read but he is unable to read them coherently.  He is unable to lucidly answer any questions he is asked.  His speech is largely gibberish.  

Perhaps then he should be forgiven for failing to condemn the looting and violence that has so far cost $400 million in damage across the country.  No leftist has; they clearly support the mobs that are intent upon destroying America.  

But Biden is still the Democrat party’s nominee for the president of the United States.  What on earth is their plan?  To take him out in an October surprise and supplanting him with psycho-killer of the elderly Andrew Cuomo or the thoroughly discredited and corrupt Hillary Clinton?  

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/26/the-left-wants-to-distract-us-from-a-choice-in-2020/

Every time the president attacks Biden, Trump is trying to make the coming election a choice; every time populists attack Trump for being weak they unwittingly abet the Left’s attempt to make the coming election a referendum on the president.

In Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square during the Left’s latest attempt to create “Year Zero” by erasing American history, the less-than-peaceful protestors endeavored to create a “Black House Autonomous Zone” (BHAZ). As is their destructive wont, they defaced St. John’s Episcopal Church and a statue of President Andrew Jackson. Before they could topple the statue of Jackson, however, D.C. police intervened and, using pepper spray and other tactics, pushed the crowd back.

The statue is safe for now; and some protestors should become quickly acquainted with the Veterans Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act which, as Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was kind enough to remind these “criminal masterminds,” carries a 10-year sentence for destroying a statue of a veteran on federal property. In his own tweet, President Donald Trump also cited this federal law and urged the vandals to “Beware!”

Should these lawless desecrators demur, the president later tweeted that he has

authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent… This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!

Clearly, the president’s message comes not only in response to the vandals, but also in response to the president’s populist critics who have chided him for appearing weak in the face of the lawlessness. These populist critics may not find the president’s actions to be enough, for he is not sending in the federal troops to put an end to the disorder. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/26/1_in_5_ballots_rejected_as_fraud_is_charged_in_nj_mail-in_election_143551.html

Following accusations of widespread fraud, voter intimidation, and ballot theft in the May 12 municipal elections in Paterson, N.J., state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal (pictured) announced Thursday he is charging four men with voter fraud – including the vice president of the City Council and a candidate for that body.

With races still undecided, control of the council hangs in the balance. Paterson is New Jersey’s third largest city and the election will decide the fate of a municipal budget in excess of $300 million, in addition to hundreds of millions more in education spending and state aid.

In the City Council election, 16,747 vote-by-mail ballots were received, but only 13,557 votes were counted. More than 3,190 votes, 19% of the total ballots cast, were disqualified by the board of elections. Due to the pandemic, Paterson’s election was done through vote-by-mail. Community organizations, such as the city’s NAACP chapter, are calling for the entire election to be invalidated.

Mail-in ballots have long been acknowledged by voting experts to be more susceptible to fraud and irregularities than in-person voting. This has raised concerns from President Trump and other Republicans about the integrity of national elections in November, which are expected to include a dramatic increase in mail-in ballots. If Paterson is any guide, it ought to concern Democrats as well.