RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/10/democratic-candidates-are-running-a-race-of-inauthenticity/

An epidemic of false identities, massaged resumes and warped ancestries has broken out among the current Democratic presidential primary candidates.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for years claimed Native American ancestry. An embattled Warren ironically took a DNA test that only proved her critics’ contention that she was no more of Native American heritage than the vast majority of Americans.

Another Democratic candidate, Robert Francis O’Rourke, is a rich white male who grew up in affluence. O’Rourke some time ago adopted the name “Beto,” an abbreviation for the Spanish “Roberto.” The Spanish-speaking, Irish-American O’Rourke, with a wink and nod, has assumed a useful near-Latino identity.

That ruse became a caricature in O’Rourke’s 2018 race for the U.S. Senate in Texas. The second-generation Cuban-American incumbent, Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz, was portrayed by the media as the non-Spanish-speaking “white guy” pitted against the more authentic Irish-American Latino “Beto.”

Few would know that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was actually born with the alliterative European name Warren Wilhelm Jr. With today’s politically correct calibrations of avoiding Northern European nomenclature, the Latinate “de Blasio” apparently ranks higher than the overtly German “Wilhelm.”

It has long been a populist tradition that presidential candidates downplay their financial success or even fabricate a “born in a log cabin” myth of early poverty and adversity. But recently, Democratic candidates have taken that trope to identity-politics extremes.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/07/the_amazing_deflatable_buttigieg.html

A scenario unfolded last week that has become boringly predictable.  Bad guy does bad things.  Good guy with authority shows up to stop him.  Bad guy attacks good guy with weapon.  Good guy shoots bad guy.  Bad guy’s “community” allege good guy is racist.  Craven politician holds town hall meeting.  Craven politician gets shouted down by angry mob.  Craven politician folds like wet paper to angry mob’s demands.  Craven politician appoints special prosecutor to investigate good guy, who determines good guy was justified in shooting the bad guy.  Angry mob insists the “system” is rigged against them.  Bad guy’s kindergarten graduation picture circulates Internet.  Bad guy’s relatives give interview explaining how much bad guy had always dreamed of being an astronaut.  Media salivates all over itself.  Other good guys question the sanity of risking their lives to stop bad guys.  Less good guys volunteer to do so.  Crime increases.  Angry mob blames the “system” for neglecting rising crime.  Meanwhile, another bad guy does bad things.  Good guy with authority shows up to stop him.  Rinse.  Repeat.

Okay, only the first half of this scenario has happened so far, but who wants to bet against the second half playing out as predicted?  In this specific biopunk performance, the role of the craven politician who succumbed to the mob of his own creation was none other than America’s Aww Shucks Mayor, Pete Buttigieg.  In his charming hometown of South Bend, Indiana, a white police officer shot a black car burglar Eric Logan who, ignoring the officer’s verbal instructions to halt, came at him with a knife.  In a move he now certainly regrets, Buttigieg took a break from his presidential campaign to return to South Bend to chaperone a grotesque orgy of racist invective, during which was made evident that his constituents have determined the officer’s guilt solely based on his skin color (as well as Logan’s innocence, for the same reason).  There was zero interest in factual evidence, and even less in the presumption of innocence.  Not one to get hung up on such trivialities, Buttigieg made clear from his more passionate ripostes that his sole interest was placating the mob.  Everyone, it’s all my fault.  I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.  I’ll try to do better.  I’m calling in everyone from DOJ to Scotland Yard to come investigate.  The Stasi?  Yeah, I can call them too.  Your wish is my command, but please just stop yelling at me.  (I paraphrase, but that was basically the gist).  From the opening gambit he allowed the inmates to run the asylum, and with every panicked concession he gave, the circling sharks simply grew more frenzied at the scent of blood.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/democratic-party-radicalism-illegal-immigration-open-borders/

There didn’t seem much room for Democrats to move left on immigration, but they’ve found it.

On the first night of the Democratic debates, Julian Castro made a big issue of his call to repeal Section 1325 of Title 8 of the United States Code, which says it’s a federal crime to enter the country without authorization. This felt like a ploy for attention from the periphery of the second-tier debate stage, yet last night seven out of the ten candidates raised their hands for the idea, including top contenders Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg.

The collective posture of the party is getting closer and closer to open borders, only without embracing the label.

Illegal immigrants aren’t typically prosecuted under Section 1325, although the Bush administration started a program called “Operation Streamline” to increase prosecutions, hoping to discourage would-be crossers and especially to create a deterrent against illegal reentry (illegal entry is a misdemeanor often punished by time served, whereas illegal reentry is a felony). Such prosecutions were a key element of Trump’s family-separation policy that had to be quickly abandoned.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/28/the_debates_winners_and_losers_140672.html

MIAMI — Ten candidates shared the stage on the second night of the first debate of the Democratic primary. After two hours of questions and cross talk, of impromptu barbs and prepared talking points, a tentative picture has emerged of the initial winners and losers.

Winner: Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris has arrived.

Pollsters and pundits had wondered whether the freshman senator from California could start to deliver on her well-received campaign rollout. She answered Thursday night by pummeling the front-runner in prime time, questioning former Vice President Joe Biden about civil rights.

Harris pushed the 76-year-old Biden to explain his record on federal busing, which he opposed while a young senator from Delaware, and his association with segregationists, which he has defended as necessary for compromise.

“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground,” Harris told Biden.

“But I also believe,” she continued, “it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.”

Although that decades-old legislative record is hardly new, Harris made it personal.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” Harris said. “That little girl was me.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274160/second-debate-night-circus-joseph-klein

Two white male septuagenarians were the headliners of the second Democrat primary debate held in Miami on Thursday night. Barack Obama’s vice president Joe Biden and Socialist-Democrat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, leaders of the pack so far in early polling, had the opportunity to go head-to-head, without the distraction of “rising star” Senator Elizabeth Warren on the same stage. She had her place in the spotlight on what turned out to be Wednesday night’s undercard. But the expected jousting never took place. Sanders and Biden largely ignored each other and tried to stick to their respective talking points. Sanders was the revolutionary demanding major transformational change. Biden was the experienced public servant who knew how to get things done. The only issue that they directly sparred on directly with each other was the war in Iraq, which Biden voted for as senator and Sanders opposed.

After the two main contenders, the middle of the pack at Thursday’s debate was represented by California Senator Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The also-rans included John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s former governor; Colorado Senator Michael Bennet; New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand; California Representative Eric Swalwell; writer and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

There is hardly any difference in terms of the leftward-leaning direction the candidates want to take the country. The differences among the candidates lie in their styles of delivery and the speed of transformative change they want to bring about.

The candidates were totally aligned with each other in making President Trump their punching bag. There were 52 mentions of Trump during this second debate, 17 more than on the first night.

Sanders spewed the most pejoratives, calling President Trump a racist, a pathological liar and a phony in one breath. He said that he would expose President Trump as “the fraud that he is.” Biden said that President Trump has ripped the soul out of America and destroyed alliances. Harris called the president America’s leading national security threat. Hickenhooper called him “the worst president in history.” Williamson accused the president of “harnessing fear for political purposes,” which she said she would counter with “love.” And so on.