RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-house-democrats-coronavirus-extortion-gambit-backfires/?utm_source=

The House’s voice vote passing the Senate’s version of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill puts the final nail in the coffin of House Democrats’ deeply misguided effort to pass their own version of the bill, an effort that delayed the badly needed relief package by days. Taking a cue from Majority Whip James Clyburn’s argument that “This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision,” the 1,119-page House bill was larded with progressive policy priorities on topics with little or no connection to the pandemic: carbon emissions, corporate board diversity, federally imposed rules for early voting and voter registration, collective bargaining, a minimum wage hike, a Postal Service bailout, student loan forgiveness, permanent changes to Medicaid and Obamacare, minority-owned credit unions, funding for the arts, and many, many more.

Anyone who has followed Washington politics for any period of time knows that the habit of sticking unrelated goodies into big, must-pass bills is both longstanding and bipartisan. Every bill of this nature, especially one so massive and sprawling, will have a little gift here for some policy agenda, a payoff there for a favored constituency, and a giveaway, or several, for important donors. But what was striking here was the sheer piggishness of the grab. The House Democrats’ bill read less like an appropriation than like an entire presidential campaign platform, wedged into a bill that was supposed to pass a Senate and White House controlled by the opposite party. The point of cramming favors into a bill like this is to ensure passage of the favor, not sink the bill. And sink it did, like the soldiers of Hernán Cortés who drowned fleeing Tenochtitlan because they had loaded their armor with gold looted from its treasury.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/03/26/cuomo_rising_biden_wandering_

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown the nation’s health, economy, and presidential election up in the air. Until the virus struck and the nation shut down, President Trump was a strong favorite to win a second term. The betting markets put his odds at close to 60%. 

Those odds are about even now, and changing by the day. They depend on how well Trump and his aides handle the health crisis, the economic reopening, and the massive dislocations workers and firms will suffer. Right now, the public approves of what Trump is doing. But today’s polls matter far less than what the public thinks after the crisis subsides. 

Older models of election forecasting, developed and tested over the years, tell us it is very hard for a president to win reelection during a recession. And one is now likely this summer, economists say. 

But those old election models may prove irrelevant this year. This shutdown and its economic impact are truly unprecedented, and swing voters understand that. It is clear even to media outlets that openly loathe the president — The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN, for example — that no administration could have avoided this shutdown. It was caused by devastating foreign shocks, beginning with the outbreak of the virus in a wet market in Wuhan, China. The virus was transmitted by travelers from China and then travelers from Europe who had been infected by those from China. The Chinese Communist Party is directly responsible for this crisis, not because its leaders wanted to spread an infection but because they wanted to keep it secret to preserve their domestic control. 

Still, the Trump administration will be held accountable for how it handles the crisis, and rightly so. Was it swift and competent? How did it manage the economic reboot, which must begin before the contagion is gone? If there is a second wave of infections because we threw open the doors too soon, decision-makers will face the fury. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-is-joe-bidens-leadership-11585091731?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Amid the coronavirus lockdown, Joe Biden is now running a digital front-porch campaign. In a video streamed from his home in Delaware on Monday, Mr. Biden said he would focus on “what we should do to get this response fixed.”

The remarks that followed weren’t encouraging. He characterized the Senate’s coronavirus relief bill as “a plan that let big corporations off the hook,” and “a $500 billion slush fund for corporations, with almost no conditions.” This rhetoric about slush funds is straight from the antibusiness left.

Does Mr. Biden not understand the problem that companies are facing? They have to figure out how to remain solvent until the health crisis ends, otherwise nobody will be left to turn the lights back on. Under Nancy Pelosi’s coronavirus bill, companies that take federal aid would be put under a permanent $15 minimum wage. Adding such strings to emergency funding will make businesses reluctant to accept the relief, even if they really need it.

Mr. Biden went on to insist that “Social Security checks need to be boosted now” and “student debt should be forgiven for now.” He had more details in a Sunday tweet, saying that any coronavirus relief legislation “should forgive a minimum of $10,000/person of federal student loans, as proposed by Senator Warren and colleagues.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/23/joe-bidens-incredibly-uninspiring-coronavirus-address/

A few days ago, #whereisjoe started trending on Twitter after the presumptive Democratic nominee had gone unseen for some time in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. But after Joe Biden’s public address on Monday, his supporters might want him to go back into hiding.

“Biden seeks to offer a possible presidency preview.” That’s how ABC News promoted the former vice president’s speech, which streamed live from his home in Delaware. By that measure, Biden’s 15-minute talk about the coronavirus was an unmitigated disaster.

Biden’s delivery was leaden. He seemed tired. He slurred his words.

Worse, he repeatedly stumbled in his remarks, despite reading them from a teleprompter. 

At one point, Biden said this: “And uh, in addition to that, in addition to that, we have to make sure that we, uh, are in a position, that we are, we. Let me go to the second thing.”

At another, he said: “And we need to build an arsenal of democracy and, as we did in 1940, we can take, we we we we make personal productive equipment. Look, here’s the deal, we have to do what we did in the ‘40s and ‘20s in the 2020s, and we can do that.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/political_tectonic_plates_are_shifting_as_media_and_other_dems_start_praising_trumps_crisis_management_and_as_his_polls_rise.html

Political tectonic plates are shifting as progs like Ilhan Omar start praising Trump’s crisis management (and as his polls rise)

At first, the growing wave of praise for President Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus catastrophe seemed like pigs flying, an unexpected and rare event. But now that the governors of deep blue California and New York have been joined by Ilhan Omar in admiring his handling of the crisis, we can see that forces far larger than individuals going rogue from Trump Derangement Syndrome are at work. TDS  is being swamped by the reality of an existential crisis.

The latest Harris polls show rising approval for the federal government’s handling of the crisis:

Conducted using a nationally representative sample of 2,050 Americans over two waves, March 14-15 and March 17-18, the poll provided some quick feedback on how the public’s perception can change overnight even as the government shifts its response to a crisis in which the news seemingly changes by the hour.

Overall, both waves showed around 60% of Americans “satisfied” with how the federal government has handled the coronavirus crisis so far.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/19/me-too-republicans-for-biden-the-boneless-wonder/

Apparently the Sanders revolution within the Democratic Party has petered out, at least for the time being.

Sanders has not withdrawn but the most recent round of voting in the Democratic primaries appears to have doomed him and dashed the hopes of his many supporters. That is a godsend for the army of Republican NeverTrumpers who have sworn to vote for any Democrat because of their disdain for Donald Trump. At least they won’t have to vote for an avowed socialist—indeed a long-time champion of Communist dictatorships from the Soviet Union to Cuba and socialist authoritarian states such as Venezuela.

I have many NeverTrumper friends. Most of them are foreign policy and defense experts who reject Trump because of his character flaws and the threat he seems to pose to the business-as-usual foreign policies that these folks prefer.

As Sanders surged, I could sense panic among my NeverTrump Republican friends because voting for anyone but Trump might mean voting for Sanders. So concerned were they that many began to offer advice to the Democrats, a practice that was mocked by liberal commentators far and wide.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/joe-biden-the-absolutely-wrong-person-to-deal-with-china_3277272.html

Among the many depressing thoughts emanating from the coronavirus pandemic is the increasing knowledge that China—like it or not (and who does)—isn’t our friend on a number of levels.

Indeed, it’s clear to practically everyone that the major global conflict of our time and for the foreseeable future is between communist China and the United States.

Joe Biden is the last man who should be dealing with that.

This isn’t only because it wasn’t long ago that Biden blithely dismissed the notion that China was an enemy (before walking that back following a barrage of criticism). Nor is it just because of the intimations of corruption with his son and others that involve China, as well as Ukraine, which should be reason enough by itself.

Nor is it even the questions surrounding his age and mental competence.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-3-17-xd8qchptp7qyv9l3j120iv19c0ljll Just a couple of days ago, in the run-up to the latest round of Democratic presidential primaries, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders faced off in a one-on-one debate. Mano-a-mano, as they say. I’ve lately adopted a strategy of not watching these debates (it’s too painful), but rather getting a transcript after the fact. I […]

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/15/jeepers-veepers/

Prior to gaining national notoriety as California’s junior U.S. senator, Kamala Harris was widely considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. She spoke at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 as her state’s attorney general, entering to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.’”

Just as Barack Obama had been eight years earlier, Harris was being groomed for bigger things beyond her state’s borders. She was featured by McClatchy in a profile of the new Gen Xer politicians along with Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)

It was thought that the spotlight would do for her what it did for Obama, transforming her from a local prospect into a major league slugger for the party. In September 2017, only eight months after taking office as a freshman senator, Newsweek asked if she was the favorite to take on Donald Trump in 2020. CNN’s Chris Cillizza dubbed her the frontrunner immediately after the 2018 midterm elections.

At a certain point, however, reality kicked in. Kamala Harris—try as she might—does not have the charismatic cadence Obama had, nor does she have his smooth mannerisms.

Unlike Obama in his 2008 campaign, Harris has never made any overtures toward middle America on any issue. Last May, she declared she would require states and municipalities to obtain federal approval before enacting laws that restrict abortion. She also proposed far-reaching executive orders that would impose mandatory background checks and allow for prosecution of gun manufacturers. These are two areas where Harris, apparently, is claiming as president she would reprise the role that she currently plays as a legislator—something that Obama ended up doing but never bragged about before his election.