RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-criticizes-joe-biden-busing/

The headline out of tonight’s debate is going to be Kamala Harris starting off the second hour by turning to Joe Biden and just kicking the snot out of him on the previously long-forgotten issue of forced busing in Delaware. No older white male wants to get into a fight about racism with a younger African-American woman in a Democratic presidential primary. Biden tried to defend himself by first contrasting his work as a defense attorney with Harris’ record as a prosecutor, then moved on to a not terribly convincing, “I did not oppose busing in America; I opposed busing ordered by the Department of Education,” and then he cut himself off. Septuagenarians who have been in the Senate longer than I’ve been alive should probably avoid the term, “my time is up.” Biden would have been better off defending his stance on the merits, declaring that busing kids across town to new schools away from their homes was angering parents and exacerbating racial tensions instead of healing them.

One night won’t sink the Joe Biden campaign, but boy, did he look like he had a glass jaw, and he also seems to have aged a decade since he left the vice presidency. When asked what his first priority as president would be, Biden answered that it would be defeating Donald Trump.

This night shouldn’t have gone this badly for him. “Build upon what we’ve done” is probably a more reassuring and appealing message than completely scrapping the entire existing system of private health insurance.

Separately, Michael Bennet went after Biden on making a deal with Mitch McConnell extending the Bush tax.  This is a really interesting contrast to Wednesday night, when no other Democrat bothered to go after Elizabeth Warren, the highest polling candidate on stage.

Beyond that exchange, Kamala Harris came prepared. During one particularly irritating moment of shouting and crosstalk, she silenced the cacophony and declared the audience “doesn’t want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re gonna put food on the table.” (Is it the job of the president to put food on your table?) She seemed to be wanting to replay the Obama style – simultaneously casual, personal, and inspiring. The also-rans might want to start diverting some of their fire to Harris, because otherwise, she will just demolish every candidate ahead of her.

Bernie Sanders shouted almost every answer, and seemed even more cantankerous than usual, insisting that a quote he gave to a Vermont newspaper was “mischaracterization of my view.” When Swalwell went back to the “past the torch” line, Biden just smiled a “get a load of this guy” grin while Sanders’s eyes bulged and he seemed to fume. Sanders stood out when standing next to the likes of Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb. This is much tougher competition, and he’s having a tougher time.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/27/democrats-cirque-de-absurdite/

When it was time to call the candidates on stage for Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate, did one of the moderators yell “send in the clowns?” If not, someone should have. What a bunch of buffoons.

We don’t use that word lightly. One definition of buffoon is “a person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior.” That’s a description that fits every candidate on the stage. Each was hilariously solicitous and comically transparent.

Almost before the game show applause had settled, Beto O’Rourke launched into a juvenile Spanish-language hustle that left Sen. Cory Booker wide-eyed and most everyone else rolling their eyes.

Moments later, Booker found common ground with Friedrich Engels, grousing about how the economy wasn’t working for everyone, a common thread throughout the “debate.” Still later, he too resorted to Spanish, competing with O’Rourke to show he is the most Hispanic candidate, even more Hispanic than someone named Castro and far more Hispanic than the Irish guy.

A few beats after O’Rourke’s first foreign-language outburst, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the media’s pre-selected winner, made the brave declaration she wanted to return government to the people — while pointing at herself. Well done, Senator. Now we know who she wants to vest the power of government in.

In English, former Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro resorted, to no one’s surprise, to identity politics, insisting the country “pass” — hey, how about taking a remedial class in constitutional process before running for president — the Equal Rights Amendment.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274144/debate-losers-daniel-greenfield

On a sweltering night in Miami’s Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, a 90-year-old building slightly older than Joe Biden, 9 candidates with no shot at anything and the tenth, the first fake Native American candidate, gathered to humiliate and be humiliated on national television.

On a set designed to look like a cardboard cutout White House, 10 cardboard cutouts of candidates, hoping to sit in the real White House, frantically searched for their 15 seconds of fame, while ignoring moderator questions and going over time.

All the millionaire candidates agreed that the economy wasn’t working for ordinary Americans like the ones they see on TV.

The speeches about the misery suffered by ordinary Americans in a booming economy at the hands of giant evil corporations fell flat to a base in which a third of Democrat primary voters earn over $100,000.

“Who is this economy working for?” Elizabeth Warren asked, doing a hand hatchet chop in a tribute to her imaginary Native American heritage while claiming that it was just working for those at the top.

Like her.

Not only was Warren wealthier than most of the other candidates on stage, but she was called on three times as often.

As part of their commitment to redistribution, the socialist candidates redistributed each other’s time. But, despite their supposed commitment to redistribution, they resisted speaking time socialism.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274122/melding-communist-party-usa-and-progressive-joseph-klein

John Bachtell, chairman of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA, addressed the Communist Party USA’s national convention this past weekend, celebrating its 100th anniversary. He talked about using this “pivotal moment” in history to help bring about a “democratic and transformative upsurge” for the purpose of radically shifting politics in the United States. He talked about forging a “socialist path,” working as needed “within and alongside the Democratic Party” to defeat “the extreme right and the GOP,” including ousting the “fossil fuel, military-industrial complex, and the industrial elite that constitutes its core.” He added that “many of the forces operating within the Democratic Party today”—along with Communist Party members themselves — “will form the working-class party of tomorrow.”

Mr. Bachtell had written back in 2015  how the Communists could use the constituencies of “labor, African Americans, Latinos, other communities of color, women, most union members, young people, and a wide range of social and democratic movements” already within the Democrat Party as “the vehicle” to advance the Communist Party’s own agenda. The Democrat Party today, which has become a grievance machine against the imaginary ills of toxic maleness and white privilege, is helping Mr. Bachtell’s vision become a reality. Indeed, the Communist-progressive Democrat agendas have melded, as the Communists shrewdly exploit the identity politics that have taken over the leftward-leaning Democrat Party to serve their own more radical ends.