The Democrats decide to lead with their losers

Alex Beam is an unusually realistic Democrat -- though he does want to keep Asians out of Harvard -- so he is pretty right below

Why is the Democratic Party fetishizing losers?

About a month ago, the party chose failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams to deliver its response to president Donald Trump’s State of the Union address. Abrams performed creditably (“Good evening my fellow Americans and happy Lunar New Year”), but why showcase a politician who lost an election?

There are 46 Democratic women of color in the House and Senate, some of whom, such as Boston’s Ayanna Pressley, won dramatic victories over entrenched incumbents. It’s true, as Bob Dylan observed, that there is no success like failure. But failure is no success at all.

Another Democratic loser of the moment: Beto O’ Rourke. “Here’s What Beto Could Unleash on Trump” was the headline on a recent Politico analysis of congressman O’Rourke’s recent Senate campaign against incumbent Ted Cruz. Huh? In an article that never seems to end, veteran campaign analyst Sasha Issenberg samples the secret sauce that propelled O’Rourke to . . . one of the more spectacular defeats of the 2018 election cycle.

O’Rourke outspent Cruz, deemed to be one of the least liked politicians in Texas or anywhere, by $30 million and still lost. O’Rourke’s loss was so egregious that Politico itself published a post-mortem of his failed race two days before the election occurred: “Did Beto Blow It?” Writer Tim Alberta reported that even Texas Republicans who hoped Cruz would lose were “baffled by . . . the tactical malpractice of [O’Rourke’s] campaign.”

Bernie Sanders raises $1 million hours after announcing 2020 bid
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders raised more than $1 million within hours of launching his 2020 presidential bid.

There are more losers where those came from. Look who is the leading fund-raiser among current Democratic presidential candidates — Vermont’s Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders, fresh off his 2016 primaries thumping at the hands of failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, represents a state so far off the charts politically and demographically that it was a recent punch line on “Saturday Night Live.”

In the now-famous SNL skit, neo-Confederates and “BlacKkKlansman ” star Adam Driver decide to move to Vermont, a state with “no immigrants, no minorities, an agrarian community where everyone lives in harmony because every single person is white.”

Democratic Socialism tests well in Putney; less so in Peoria, I suspect.

Now Democratic Party whisperers are preparing the way for the biggest loser of them all, former vice president Joe Biden. For younger voters, Biden is the avuncular, do-nothing vice president of the halcyon Barack Obama years. But people like me remember how Biden got to be vice president in the first place: with two botched runs at the presidency, in 1988 and in 2008.

Biden quit the 1988 campaign in the wake of plagiarism charges, and exited the brutal 2008 contest after placing fifth in the gateway Iowa caucuses. He may be a nice guy, but to paraphrase longtime baseball manager Leo Durocher: Nice guys poll poorly in Democratic primaries.

Why trot out this rogues’ gallery of fossils and losers? While it may be true that Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are not exactly “my cup of tea” (Spike Lee’s hilarious characterization of the movie “Green Book,” speaking to two British journalists at the Oscars), I certainly respect their militant spirit and political acuity. “And yet she persisted” – right on.

It’s going to take a lot of persistence, and a track record of impressive victories, to unseat Trump. Forget the losers and the also-rans. Let’s put in the A team, and hope for a win.

SOURCE 

*********************************

Sen. David Perdue Went to the Border To See for Himself, He Was Not Prepared for What He Saw

Sen. David Perdue of Georgia said he was “not prepared” for the explosion in drug trafficking that he learned about during a recent visit to the U.S. border with Mexico. “I saw something that I was not expecting,” the Republican lawmaker told The Western Journal at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D.C., late last week.

“I expected to see the human trafficking, and we saw that with (Border) Patrol overnight,” Perdue said. “What I was not prepared for was the size and scope and how dramatically the drug trafficking has grown.” He said that there has been an “explosion” in drug trafficking in the McAllen, Texas, area, where he visited.

The senator said seizures of fentanyl are up 73 percent from a year ago and methamphetamine is also flowing through the border at high levels.  “This is a drug crisis of gargantuan proportion,” Perdue said.

He said Mexican cartels use human trafficking as a “distraction” to tie up Border Patrol agents, making it easier for drug traffickers to slip through.

NBC News reported the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. hit a 12-year-high for the month of February at 76,100.

Since the beginning of the fiscal year in October, Border Patrol has apprehended over 268,000 individuals entering in the country, a 97 percent increase over the same period in the previous year, according to the White House.

Cartels are thought to make about $2 billion in human trafficking, while trafficking drugs nets over $30 billion, Perdue said.

The senator related there is no doubt in his mind that what is happening at the border is a crisis, noting that is how former President Barack Obama described it, as well.

Perdue said 135 miles of barriers were built along the southern border while Obama was in office.

President Donald Trump has 124 miles under construction and improvement to existing barriers underway, and Congress just authorized 55 miles of new construction, Perdue said.

About 650 miles of the 1,954-mile border are covered with barriers of various forms, including 374 miles of pedestrian fencing, CNN reported.

Perdue said there’s no question that walls work. “We know that where you build walls, illegal activity drops by 95 percent,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday he anticipates enough Republican senators will join with Democrats to pass a resolution seeking to block President Donald Trump’s border wall funding emergency declaration, according to The Hill.

“I think what is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky have all said they will vote for a resolution of disapproval, clinching the 51 senators needed.

The resolution of disapproval passed the Democrat-controlled House last week. Trump has the veto power, which would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers to override him.

In addition to the $1.375 billion Congress voted to authorize for barrier funding, the White House plans to redirect $3.6 billion from a military construction fund, $2.5 billion from a Department of Defense drug interdiction program and $600 million from the Treasury Department from a drug forfeiture fund.

The national emergency is specifically being used to tap the $3.6 billion from the military construction fund.

Politico reported that Trump expressed confidence on Friday that if he vetoed the measure, it would not be overridden. “We have too many smart people that want border security so I can’t imagine it (the resolution) will survive a veto,” Trump said.

SOURCE 

***********************************

ACLU blasts Democrats' election bill as unconstitutional

The American Civil Liberties Union dealt a blow Monday to Democrats’ new election overhaul legislation, saying the bill does too much damage to the First Amendment and the storied rights group cannot support it.

ACLU officials said they support parts of the bill, such as making it easier to register to vote, but said the legislation attempts to control even the mere mention of a politician, which goes too far.

“They will have the effect of harming our public discourse by silencing necessary voices that would otherwise speak out about the public issues of the day,” the ACLU’s national political director and senior legislative counsel wrote in a 13-page letter announcing opposition.

Democrats plan to put the bill, H.R. 1, on the chamber floor for a vote later this week.

They’ve cast it as their top legislative priority, after saying last year’s elections were tainted by too many problems with voting, and too much money controlling the outcomes of elections and legislating.

The bill is going nowhere beyond the House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday he won’t even bring it to his chamber’s floor.

But opposition from the ACLU could damage the bill’s bona fides with the left.

“When groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, who have traditionally supported the Democratic party, echo my concerns with H.R. 1, it underscores why election reform legislation should not be developed in a partisan manner,” said Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, which approved the bill last week.

The ACLU said it objected to lobbying restrictions Democrats wrote into the bill, saying they’re so broad they could prevent a former official from communicating with a senior government policymaker in any agency for up to eight years.

The group also said new disclosure rules are so broad as to be unworkable, preventing independent organizations from taking political action based on something they’d read or talked about even before someone became a candidate.

SOURCE 

************************************

US new-home sales rose 3.7 percent in December

Sales of new U.S. homes climbed in December to their highest pace in seven months, a sign that lower mortgage rates are helping the real estate market.

The Commerce Department says that new-home sales rose 3.7 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 621,000. November’s sales were revised down to 599,000 from an annual rate of 657,000.

For all of 2018, new-home sales rose 1.5 percent. Purchases began to dip in June as higher mortgage rates worsened affordability, but mortgage rates have fallen since peaking in early November and that appears to be supporting a sales rebound.

Price growth has stalled as sales sipped last year. The median sales price of a new home in December was $318,600, a 7.2 percent drop from a year ago.

SOURCE 

**************************************

Did Trump Just Remind Ilhan Omar Where America Stands by Shutting Down Palestinian ‘Embassy’?

Donald Trump’s presidency has meant some controversial changes in policy here in the United States, but some of those decisions are also having an impact on regions thousands of miles away.

On Monday, the administration announced that it was finally closing its consulate in Jerusalem, and combining those consulate services into the new U.S. Embassy in the same city.

That may seem like a small thing, but it has already resulted in a significant shakeup in the relationship between the U.S. and the Palestinians — and possibly a calculated message from the White House to its domestic opponents.

“For decades, the consulate functioned as a de facto embassy to the Palestinians,” The Associated Press explained. “Now, that outreach will be handled by a Palestinian Affairs Unit, under the command of the embassy.”

According to CNN, the move “leaves the US as the only major world power without a diplomatic mission to the Palestinians.”

Although that change had been planned for several months, it seemed to come about abruptly. “The announcement from the State Department came early Monday in Jerusalem, the merger effective that day,” the AP reported.

When the closure of the consulate was announced in October, “the move infuriated Palestinians, fueling their suspicions that the U.S. was recognizing Israeli control over east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories that Palestinians seek for a future state,” the AP reported.

There might have been a message being sent on the domestic American political front, too, since the move on Monday came at a time when questions about Palestinian and Israeli relations are even more sensitive than usual.

The same day the consulate closure angered Palestinians, liberals in the U.S. were scrambling to do political damage control after a Muslim-American lawmaker known for her anti-Israel views once again found herself in hot water.

“Leading House Democrats will offer a resolution Wednesday condemning anti-Semitism in response to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s latest remarks on Israel,” pointed out the AP in a separate report.

Omar is the Minnesota liberal who has faced a series of controversies after she implied that Israel — one of the United States’ closest allies — was “evil,” and appeared to repeat anti-Semitic stereotypes about the Jewish people.

Even her own party is distancing itself from Omar, drafting a symbolic resolution to scold the outspoken promoter of Palestine.

“It’s at least the third time the Minnesota Democrat’s words have put her colleagues in a more delicate spot than usual on the U.S.-Israel relationship, and the second time in two months that she’s drawn a stern backlash from party leaders,” said the AP.

That is where the Trump administration’s announcement that the de-facto embassy in Palestine was closing for good could be significant. It sends a firm message to Omar and other Palestinian apologists: America stands with Israel.

Trump is known for his strong negotiating tactics, which he recently put on display by canceling Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s military-sponsored international trip in order to put pressure on Democrats during the government shutdown.

And the same day that the administration ordered the consulate closed, the president lambasted Omar on social media.

It would definitely be his style.

 SOURCE 

*************************************

For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

**************************