RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bloomberg-picks-up-3-new-congressional-endorsements-after-debate_3244660.html

Three members of the House of Representatives announced their support for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg the morning after a fiery primary debate in Nevada.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, said she’s endorsing Bloomberg, 78, for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Mike and I have worked together for years in New York, and whether it’s homeland security or gun safety, there’s no one you can depend on more to get important initiatives over the finish line,” Lowey said in a statement released by Bloomberg’s campaign.

“We need someone in the White House who will help secure a bright future for our children and families, free of gun violence, with opportunity for educational success and good jobs, and with access to affordable health care and prescription drugs. That person is Mike Bloomberg, and there’s no doubt about it, no matter how big the challenge, Mike will get it done.”

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) speaks onstage during Global Citizen: Movement Makers at NYU Skirball Center in New York City on Sept. 19, 2017. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen)

Reps. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) also announced endorsements for the billionaire.

Aguilar, who Bloomberg said would serve as a co-chair for his campaign, cited Bloomberg’s efforts to restrict gun ownership and combat climate change in his statement of support. Gottheimer, co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, called the former mayor “an experienced, proven leader who has big ideas, will fight to get things done, and knows how to work with—and get votes from—Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.”

amgreatness.com/2020/02/14/the-fail-of-the-left-idealism-without-realism/

“The ends justify the means” (“TEJTM”) is a platitude that has been used throughout history to rationalize the pursuit of both laudable and iniquitous goals, more often the latter than the former.

The events leading up to “national socialism” in Germany and communism in the Soviet Union, for example, illustrate how utopian visions can give rise to evil empires. An individual’s quest to obtain and retain power can become an end in itself that leads to horrific consequences, as exemplified by such notables as Josef Stalin, Bashar al-Assad, and Mao Zedong. Even in religion-inspired campaigns, such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and ISIS, original benevolent intentions can become obscured.

Sadly, we are seeing TEJTM appear all too frequently in today’s America. With the presence of social media and a compliant mass media complex, things that may be praiseworthy goals are giving rise to proposed or actual policies that are far from benign or realistic in their application.

This country is being culturally riven from any plausible ideal of “social justice” because, too often, its implementation has become an ideological winners-versus-losers exercise.

A stark example is New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s crusade to balance racial and ethnic representation in the city’s elite special high schools. He proposes to substitute social engineering for what is now a test-based, racially blind merit system. If disavowing merit is the cure, it is far worse than the disease, because America has achieved its preeminence based mainly on rewarding merit.

There are many other examples, which go far beyond New York, of supposed social justice trampling merit in school admissions, including at elite universities. And there are countless examples of the goal of social justice being perverted and used arbitrarily to advantage one group over others—for example, citizens being denied state benefits, or at least being carefully scrutinized, while illegal residents find doors open for them. Another example is proposed reparations that are to be paid to people with little or no connection to slavery by people with no responsibility for that sordid history.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/13/conventional-wisdom-about-the-democrats-primary-is-wrong/

Commentators are scrambling to decide which candidate—Sanders, Buttigieg, or Bloomberg—has the advantage on Super Tuesday. They’re not seeing things clearly.

There are three widely proclaimed verities now bandied about in the aftermath of the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

They are that Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is a clear front-runner with a chance for a break-through to a commanding lead in the quest for the nomination. The second is that former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is a serious candidate with a chance for the Democratic nomination, and the third is that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been providentially assisted by the disintegration of the candidacy of former Vice President Joe Biden and the bunching together of Sanders, Buttigieg, and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and will seize the leadership of the race when he gets to the ballot in 15 states simultaneously on Super Tuesday, March 3.

I think all three of these deductions are mistaken.

Bernie Sanders won 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, where he won about 26 percent this week in an eight-candidate race. But five of the candidates collected 30 percent of the vote, and Sanders only got 26 of the remaining 70, about 36 percent. If the competition is whittled down to Sanders and Buttigieg, who is a much less formidable candidate than Clinton was four years ago, Sanders got about 52 percent of the vote. He did not win the nomination last time, though without the vote-rigging of the Obama-Clinton party establishment and their hundreds of unelected superdelegates, he would have made it a very close race. Still, New Hampshire in 2016 produced a much better vote for Sanders than it did this year.