RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/10/2020-has-echoes-of-1996-for-the-opposition-party/

The Democrats have assembled a field of candidates for 2020 as large as it is unimpressive. From the slick Robert “Beto” O’Rourke and the media creation Kamala Harris to the Woodie Guthrie wannabe Bernie Sanders, to the fake folksy chameleon Joe Biden, it’s amazing such a large group of candidates is collectively so devoid of charisma, intellect, or interesting ideas.

I’ve loathed the Democratic Party since junior high school, but even I could recognize the common touch of Bill Clinton and the cool, disciplined demeanor of Barack Obama. Hell, even Hillary Clinton was obviously bright, though so haughty and mechanical that she lost an election she was supposed to win.

It is telling that the best the Democrats of 2020 can come up with is the slippery retread Biden, whose 1987 run for the presidency ended in disgrace news broke of his plagiarism. He and the rest of the bunch are not exactly the stuff dreams are made of, even with the demographic tail winds that spell disaster for the Republican Party and the republic before long.

The Electorate Is Similar to Past Elections
In spite of the changes to the country’s population, the electorate is a lagging indicator. While the country has been rearranged with a mass influx of foreigners, their ability to vote takes some time, as mere presence and even legal residence does not equate to citizenship.

Indeed, misunderstanding the persistence and importance of legacy America had much to do with the Democrats’ failures in 2016. They thought the coalition of the ascendant would take them over the finish line. They learned instead that lots of Americans were sick of being force-fed nonsense about transgenderism and being bullied about “white privilege,” as they struggled to maintain a middle-class existence.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/eric_swalwell_mounts_a_strong_effort_to_take_the_crown_as_the_most_pathetic_entrant_in_the_democrats_presidential_field.html

The expression “clown car” is frequently used to describe the crowded field of Democrats running for the presidency. But it is appropriate not just to denote the crowding, but also the behavior of some of the members of the field.  Yesterday, it looked to me as though it would be hard to top the efforts of Kirsten Gillibrand to ingratiate herself with the patrons of a gay bar in Des Moines by chugging shots and getting jiggy.

But Eric Swalwell, the Bay Area congressman who unsuccessfully tried to ride charges of “treason” against President Trump to fame and fortune, is making a strong effort to surpass her. The weekend before last, he tried changing an unnamed but presumably his baby’s diapers on video, only to see that it was inadequate to rocket him up the rankings of presidential contenders beyond too-low-to-round-upward-to-one-percent.

So, in the last few days, he managed to beclown himself not once, but twice.

Watch as he gives such an inane answer to a serious question by S. E. Cupp on CNN on his signature issue – why, if he’s serious about gun violence, is he focused on assault weapons that only account for a tiny percentage of deaths:

“I’ll just say assault weapons are a small percentage of gn violence deaths, but when you talk to a child in a classroom today, 100% of their fear is an assault weapon coming into their classroom…”  (hat tip: The Right Scoop) 

https://pjmedia.com/trending/poll-trump-more-popular-in-new-york-than-mayor-deblasio/

A new Siena College Research Institute poll uncovers the embarrassing fact that more people in the state of New York have a favorable opinion of Donald Trump than of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Did we mention that de Blasio is running for president of the United States?

Washington Examiner:

Trump is by no means popular in his home state, as the new Siena College Research Institute  poll finds that just 34% of registered voters have a favorable view of him, compared with 63% who have an unfavorable view. But when it comes to de Blasio, just 29% have a favorable view, compared with 53% who view him unfavorably.

So far, the mayor’s 2020 presidential campaign has produced more mockery than actual support, which is undetectable in polling.

It may not be detectable, but the inference is clear; de Blasio is making a fool of himself running for president.

Case in point: hizzoner failed to gain any support whatsoever from Iowans in the new Des Moines Register poll that was released yesterday. Could it be because of his dismissive attitude toward rural voters?

Mediaite:

De Blasio and Miramar, Florida Mayor  Wayne Messam  were the only two candidates in the field of 23 candidates to not be listed as either a first or second choice for president by one of the respondents.

“I’ll tell you something, Iowans have consistently surprised the pundits and come out many, many times with a choice that was not expected,” de Blasio contended.

“Ana, it’s a poll of 600 Iowans, eight months before the caucuses. This is just the beginning of a very long process,” he said.

“I wonder if being New York City mayor might hurt you in a place like Iowa,” CNN’s Ana Cabrera asked.

“It’s a fair concern,” de Blasio said. “But I’m hearing about the same issues I hear from my constituents in New York.”

“I think the Democratic Party for decades formed a coalition, a rural-urban coalition. That’s what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did, it worked for Democrats. It was about working people, farmers, factory workers, every day people.” de Blasio said.

I don’t think those 600 Iowans — or many other Democrats in the state — appreciate being dismissed so cavalierly.

Realistically, it’s very difficult to see a successful path forward to the nomination for de Blasio, especially in the early primary and caucus states. By the time the California primary rolls around on March 17, de Blasio should be relaxing in his office, thinking up ways to make the lives of New Yorkers miserable and not in the midst of a battle for the presidential nomination.

So the question arises; why? If Sanders, Biden, or Warren eventually get the nod, de Blasio has zero chance of being named as any of those candidates’ vice president. The mayor is too urban, too northern, too prickly, and too “New Yorkish” to get the nod.

So you have to wonder if de Blasio isn’t setting himself up for a run for governor or, perhaps, Senator. When you consider that de Blasio is term limited and will be out of office in 2021, the possibility of a run for higher office is not out of the question. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/06/the_democrat_race_is_set_to_start_in_earnest.html

Get the popcorn ready. The race for the Democrat Party’s presidential nomination is set to begin in earnest. The first debate is only two weeks away. It’s set for June 26-27. Here is the full debate schedule: 

June 26-27 in Miami hosted by NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo
July 30-31 in Detroit moderated by CNN
September 12-13 with the location to be determined and hosted by ABC News.

After September, there will be one debate every month until April 2020, with the specific locations and dates to be determine.

To participate in the first two debates, a candidate must do one of two things: poll at 1 percent in at least three surveys or receive donations from 65,000 people across various states. The polling requirements must be national in scope or conducted in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada. Also, the polls results must be publicly released between January 1, 2019 and 14 days before the debate.

Candidates need to have received contributions from a minimum of 65,000 unique donors, and those donations must come from at least 20 states with each state having at least 200 unique donors.

After the first two debates, the requirements to participate get tighter. There’s no need to go into detail — suffice to say that the idea is to weed out the weak to narrow down the field.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/stacey-abrams-stolen-election-myth-endures-democratic-party/Democratic presidential candidates continue to swear her race was stolen.

Stacey Abrams’s refusal to lose the Georgia gubernatorial election graciously was one of the low points of the 2018 midterms. But her insistence that Brian Kemp and the Republicans stole the election from her has now become an article of faith among Democrats.

Democratic presidential contenders who traveled to Atlanta this week to speak to the African-American Leadership Council repeated the claim, which Abrams has made more than a dozen times since she lost to Kemp by 54,723 votes last November. In rote fashion, they repeated Abrams’s charges that the outcome was determined by “voter suppression” conducted by Kemp, who during the race was Georgia’s secretary of state.

South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg termed the alleged suppression “racially motivated” in his remarks to the group. He said that Abrams “ought to be governor.” Throwing complaints about gerrymandering and a desire for more-restrictive campaign-finance laws (neither of which had anything to do with the outcome in Georgia) into the argument, he claimed that the conditions that led to her loss meant that “we cannot truly say we live in a democracy.”

Not be outdone by his supposed competition for moderate Democratic-primary voters, former vice president Joe Biden raised the ante when he addressed the same group on Friday. Biden claimed that voter-integrity laws — which Kemp was legally bound to enforce — were direct descendants of Jim Crow regulations aimed at preventing African Americans from voting. Describing the GOP’s policies as a “methodical assault” on voting rights, Biden said, “voter suppression is the reason why Stacey Abrams isn’t governor right now.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/top-democrats-disappointed-mexico-tariff-threat-worked-accuse-trump-of-caving-to-pressure/

Trump’s success in getting Mexico to agree to do more to curb the flow of illegal immigrants through their country and into the United States should be receiving universal praise, but unfortunately, Democrats, who we all know want to see illegal immigration increase to help secure their party’s power in government, couldn’t concede that Trump’s plan worked.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump’s tariff threat, which succeeded in its goal, a counterproductive exercise in “threats and temper tantrums.”

“President Trump undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world by recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south,” Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Saturday morning. “Threats and temper tantrums are no way to negotiate foreign policy.”

[…]

Pelosi said she was “deeply disappointed” by the asylum provisions of the deal, which she claimed “violates the rights of asylum seekers under U.S. law and fails to address the root causes of Central American migration.”

But the most absurd comment came from Senator Chuck Schumer: Chuck Schumer

✔ @SenSchumer

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447608-biden-slumps-buttigieg-soars-6-takeaways-from-benchmark-iowa-poll

Just hours before presidential candidates will pitch themselves to Iowa Democratic activists in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, a new poll of likely caucusgoers is rattling the race — and hinting that a formidable front-runner is not as invincible as he might appear.

The Iowa Poll, conducted by veteran pollster Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register and CNN, found former Vice President Joe Biden leading the Democratic field with 24 percent of the vote.

The race for second place is a statistical tie between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 15 percent and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 14 percent.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is the only other candidate who registers significant support. She clocked in at 7 percent of the vote. Six percent of voters said they were not sure who they would choose on caucus night.

Eight months before voters head to their caucus sites, though, the poll shows movement within a Democratic primary that is still wide open.

Here are six takeaways from the Iowa Poll.

Biden’s support is shaky

In December, months before he even entered the race, nearly a third of Iowa voters said they backed Biden. Today, about six weeks after he announced he would run, Biden’s support has fallen by a third.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/nancy-pelosi-trump-prison-comment-political-game/This is just a game.

Oh, the games people play!

So, Speaker Pelosi (a.k.a. “Nervous Nancy”) says she wants to see President Trump behind bars. “I want to see him in prison,” the speaker told a group of senior Democrats. That’s the part of Pelosi’s statement that is getting all the attention — the second part.

Democrats would prefer not to discuss the first part.

The speaker started out by saying, “I don’t want to see him impeached.” She was prompted by Jerry Nadler, the Judiciary Committee chairman, who has made it known that he very much does want to see the president impeached.

Well, Jerry knows impeachment will go nowhere. And Nance does not actually want to see the president in prison.

So what’s going on here?

The speaker is saying she wants Trump locked up because she knows it is safe to say that. That is, it’s never going to happen.

See, the speaker has a quandary. The Democratic base is not exactly numerous, but it is loud, moneyed, and energetic. And it badly wants Trump impeached.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/06/07/c

The current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President, former Vice President Joe Biden, just reversed his position on the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited federal funding for almost all abortions since it was first passed in 1976, then partially weakened in 1993 under Bill Clinton and a Democrat-controlled House and Senate.

But this is only one of an array of flip flops by Democrats in the top tier of the contest for the White House.

Biden had supported the Hyde Amendment since at least 1977, but now says “circumstances have changed. I’ve been working through the final details of my health care plan like others in this race and I’ve been struggling with the problems that Hyde now presents” as he seeks an expansion of Medicaid and enactment of the public option President Obama ultimately abandoned in the final version of ObamaCare.

“Folks, the times have changed,” Biden said – something he’s more or less also said regarding his unwelcome touching of women. The public turnaround comes after video surfaced of Biden telling an ACLU operative in South Carolina last month that he would support repeal of the Hyde Amendment, followed by his campaign sending out the mixed signal of claiming he continued to support Hyde.

As his support for legal abortion solidified during his climb to becoming more and more of a national figure, the Catholic former Delaware senator was forbidden from receiving Holy Communion by the bishop of his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Biden continued to receive when attending Mass in Delaware, however.

What is the price of a politician’s soul? As Shakespeare might have put it, “the campaign’s the thing wherein we’ll catch the conscience of the would-be President.”