The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rule 5 Sunday: Cheryl Ann Tweedy

Posted on | July 1, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I seem to getting into a rut of British pop stars, but as long as they’re good looking, who cares, right? This week, it’s Cheryl An Tweedy, also known as Cheryl Cole, who debuted as a member of reality-TV girl group Girls Aloud in 2002 before going solo in 2009. She’s been a judge and mentor on both the UK and US versions of The X Factor, and has also done modeling; she’s been on the cover of Elle and Harper’s Bazaar as well as fronting for cosmetics giant L’Oreal from 2009-2018. Here she is looking stylish in a leather jacket.

Dangerous curves?

Leading off on this hot summer night, it’s Ninety Miles From Tyranny with Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #664, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. At Animal Magnetism, it’s Rule Five Tech Obsession Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon. Bacon Time adds Rule 5 Fifties Flashback (NSFW).

EBL gets her kicks with Hope Hicks, Maude Apatow, Irina Demick, Copenhagen, Tulsi Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, Kamala Harris, Ivanka Trump, and Shaila Kapoor.

A View From The Beach delivers with Blood and Treasure – Sophia Pernas, The FinalStraw, Really, Fish Pic Friday, D.C. Dolphins Get Names, It Must Be Tanlines Thursday Again, MDDNR Issues Warnings on Summer Striper Handling, Maybe I’m Not Drinking Enough Coffee?, Circular Study Finds Oyster Restoration Good for Fish, Crabs, Some Hot and Sticky Russiagate, Tuesday Morning Wake Up, Is Somebody Farting on Mars?, “Baltimore Skyline”, Russiagate: The Third Dossier or the Third Scope Memo?, People Are Still Eating What They Like, and Scrounging Around for More Russiagate.

Proof Positive’s Vintage Babe this week is Elizabeth Taylor, and at Dustbury, it’s Eva Longoria and Stacy Keibler.

Thanks to everyone for the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

Democrats May Be Better Off Leaving Their Faith Unstated

Posted on | June 30, 2019 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

“We Americans have always been a religious people, a member of my staff tells me.”–Kristen Wiig as Nancy Pelosi, 11Nov2006 (at 1:57)

Chris Coons has a fascinating piece up at The Atlantic:

First, it hides away the deep, passionate, and formative faith backgrounds of so many Democrats who are seeking or serving in office. At our weekly Senate prayer breakfasts, for example, I’m consistently inspired and moved by the words of my colleagues whose faith is fundamental to their life and their work, but who rarely talk about it publicly.

Faith is a singular, internal thing. By way of reference, I’m of the Baptist ilk, not that that label matters fig #1.
Politics are plural, and external. We want to know that our leaders have some sort of moral compass, without fretting too heavily about the brand. I’ve voted for a Mormon, for all I don’t subscribe to their Christology.
Even though the closest thing to a moral code we can find in politics is the Bill of Rights we badly want to know that our leaders are aware that there is some level of supernatural accountability for their megalomania. Hopefully it will keep them in check.
Now, when a political figure ventures into a Christian context, it seems fair to engage at that level. Coons quotes Sherrod Brown as saying (emphasis mine):

“Let me dig a bit deeper to explain how I see the world and the sisterhood and brotherhood of humanity. At gatherings like this, we Democrats seldom talk about our faith … Here’s what Jesus said: ‘When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me. What you did for those who seemed less important, you did for me.’ Let our country—our nation’s citizens, our Democratic Party, my fellow elected officials all over the country—let them all cast their eyes toward the heartland, to the industrial Midwest, to our Great Lakes state. Let them hear what we say. Let them see what we do.” ?

First, that whole “sister/brotherhood of man” claptrap is nowhere in the Gospel. There are some calling themselves Christian who exhibit Universalist tendencies. Let us commend to them a closer reading of the Word as written.
But more importantly, the whole “we do” thing is a subtler tweaking of the New Testament. James tells us that faith and works are as tightly bound as velocity and position in a motion problem. But those works are our personal, no-kidding acts for tangible people, not the “we gave at the office” evasion of someone loving their neighbor by government proxy. If we could legislated salvation, the Pharisees would have won, and the crucifixion was just an especially bad visit to Portland.
We need to be very careful how we use Scripture in a political context, and less is certainly more:

Mat 7:21-23
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Category: Uncategorized

‘Godless Commies!’

Posted on | June 30, 2019 | 2 Comments

 

Ed Driscoll last week called attention to an essay by Harry Stein about the continuing relevance of Eugene Lyons’s 1941 book The Red Decade because of its eerie parallels to the Stalinist tendencies of the 21st-century Left. A complete and cynical dishonesty was one of the hallmarks of Stalin-era Communism, as the Soviet regime engaged in grossly false propaganda to defend its power and conceal its bloody crimes.

One of the reasons younger people — and by “younger,” I mean, under 40 — are so vulnerable to leftist “progressive” propaganda is because they aren’t old enough to remember the Cold War. Today’s 35-year-old was in kindergarten when the Berlin Wall fell, and thus has no personal memory of what it was like to live during the decades when we were faced with the possibility of annihilation by Soviet aggression. The permanent sense of terror inspired by the menace of Communism, a godless creed of murderous hatred, was so deeply embedded into American culture during my youth that my children (the oldest of which was born some six months before the fall of the Berlin Wall) can scarcely understand what it was like. When my oldest was a teenager, I was driving her and her friend to a Christian music festival and, to pass the time, began talking about politics and history. I tried to explain to them how, growing up in a Baptist church in Georgia, I was horrified by stories of how Christians were persecuted in the Soviet Union, in Red China and wherever else Communist regimes came to power. The worldview of Communism — “historical materialism,” or “dialectical materialism” — was based explicitly in atheism, and Communists everywhere were determined to destroy Christianity. Imagine what it would be like to live in a dictatorship where you could go to prison for possessing a Bible!

“Godless commies!” I yelled, as we rolled along the highway, and the vehemence of my expression rather startled my daughter and her friend.

To deny the existence of God is, as Nietzsche foresaw, to deny that there is any eternal law. The categories of “good” and “evil” are meaningless to the atheist, so that the most basic of moral maxims — “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not kill,” etc. — meant nothing to the godless Commies, whose only ideas of right and wrong were summarized by Lenin’s frightening question: “Who? Whom?” Anything that advanced the “dictatorship of the proletariat” was justified, including deliberate deceit and cold-blooded murder, so that the Communists claimed unquestioned authority to lie, steal and kill on behalf of their revolution, and none of their victims had any claim to justice.

Eugene Lyons’s book The Red Decade has a subtitle: “The Stalinist Penetration Of America.” And this was perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Communist menace, that there were many thousands of Americans who supported that wicked ideology, including so-called “fellow travelers” who worked to undermine our resistance to Communism. Not only had Soviet spies and agents of influence found their way into positions within our government, but pro-Soviet subversives were also employed in academia, in Hollywood, and in journalism, promoting deadly Marxist-Leninist ideas. Because their ideology justified deception, Communists were dishonest about who they were, what they did and what they believed. The Rosenbergs, for example, denied being either members of the Communist Party or Soviet spies, and instead falsely claimed to be victims of anti-Semitism, thus defaming those who investigated and prosecuted them for their crimes. These lies were then promoted by pro-Soviet propagandists in the media who lied about their own Communist sympathies, pretending instead to be “liberals” concerned with “civil rights.” The fact that there were no “civil rights” under Soviet rule — anyone could be arrested and executed at the whim of Beria’s secret police — exposed the hypocrisy of “liberal” apologists for Communism who, of course, made a great show of pretending that they weren’t actually Stalinist stooges, instead blaming anti-Communist “hysteria” for any suspicion directed against them.

The habitual dishonesty of Communists contributed to a climate of paranoia. When eminent public officials like Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White were exposed as part of the Communist conspiracy against our country, having long concealed their betrayal, this raised the obvious question of how many more secret Communists might still be hidden within the government. And when these Communist agents proclaimed their innocence, and “liberal” journalists argued in their defense, despite all evidence of their guilt, this raised the question of whether any liberal could be trusted to honestly protect the national interest.

Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints explores Harry Stein’s essay, making several useful points, including the fact that the education system is now controlled by socialists who indoctrinate children with crypto-Marxist ideology, teaching them to hate God and to hate America, too.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!


 

Category: Education, History

FMJRA 2.0: Even Better Than The Real Thing

Posted on | June 29, 2019 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Even Better Than The Real Thing

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Monday: Camila Cabello
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL
Ninety Miles From Tyranny

The Worst #MeToo Smear Yet
Dark Brightness
Cynical Anarcho-Capitalist Society
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

The Fake Ukrainian Ledger Angle: How the Media Colluded With the ‘Deep State’
A View From The Beach
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Space Age Love Song
A View From The Beach
EBL

Cody’s Excellent Fourth of July Plan
EBL

Ding! Dong! The Witch Is Dead: The Broke Wokeness of Anita Sarkeesian
Dark Brightness
357 Magnum
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.24.19
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

New Left-Wing Website Is Doomed
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.25.19
Proof Positive
EBL

Stalinist Regime at Google Is Still Lying
Dark Brightness
EBL

First Round of Democrat Presidential Debates Tonight at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.26.19
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

DNC Debate Night I: The Aftermath
A View From The Beach
EBL

Missing College Girl Mackenzie Lueck Was a Social-Media ‘Sugar Baby’ Whore
357 Magnum
Pushing Rubber Downhill
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.27.19
Proof Positive
EBL

More ‘Red Pill’ Thoughts
Pushing Rubber Downhill
A View From The Beach
EBL

Democrat Debate Post-Mortem: MSNBC’s Obvious Bias and the ‘Beautiful Lunatic’
A View From The Beach
EBL

UPDATE: Mackenzie Lueck Is Dead; Police Charge Ayoola Ajayi With Murder
A View From The Beach
EBL

Google’s LGBTQ+ Totalitarians
Dark Brightness
EBL

Kirby Was Right (Again)
EBL

In The Mailbox: 06.28.19
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending June 28:

  1.  EBL (19)
  2.  A View From The Beach (10)
  3.  Proof Positive (6)

Honorable mention to Dark Brightness!


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Category: FMJRA Award

In The Mailbox: 06.28.19

Posted on | June 29, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Remember that FMJRA links are due tomorrow at noon and Rule 5 Sunday links by midnight.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Reality Intrudes All The Way To Massachusetts
Bacon Time: Doddering Old Fool Mumbles Incoherently
EBL: Marianne Williamson
Twitchy: Sean Spicier’s #DemDebates2 Tweets His Most Triggering Yet
Louder With Crowder: The Democrats Love Losers And Need People To Stay Losers
According To Hoyt: Thoughts From The Road
Vox Popoli: Another Reason For Cancelling Student Loan Debt

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Persecute A Christian Edition
American Greatness: How Romney And The Anti-Trump GOP Fueled The Border Crisis
American Power: Democrats Move Left – Frankly, It’s Just All Out In The Open Now
American Thinker: Julian Castro Pounds The Table, Demands Abortion For Men Too
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Tech Obsession Friday
Babalu Blog: De Blasio Claims Ignorance, Apologizes For Che Quote  – Forgets We Know He Honeymooned In Havana
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For June 28
Camp Of The Saints: “Not Freedom’s Shade” – Maybe There Is Hope?
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Sound & Darkness, also, Pintastic NE 2019 Early Videos
Don Surber: How We Blew A $700 Quintillion Opportunity
Dustbury: Does He Feel Lucky?
First Street Journal:
The Geller Report: Muslims Slaughter 95 Christians In Mali Village, also, Facebook Removed From S&P List Of Ethical Companies
Hogewash: Hot Take On The A-Card Debate, also, Team Kimberlin Post of The Day (featuring Johnny Atsign!)
Hollywood In Toto: The Worst Movies Of 2019 List – Six Months Early!
JustOneMinute: It May Not Be Smart Money But It’s Early Money
Legal Insurrection: Winner Of #DemDebate Night Two – Illegal Immigrants, also, German Intel Service Says Number Of Islamists In Germany At Record High
Michelle Malkin: “GOD IS LOVE”, “BUILD THE WALL”, “WALK AWAY” and “CHOOSE LIFE” Knitted Hats All Banned On Ravelry
The PanAm Post: Prisoners As Soldiers – Venezuelan Minister Of Prisons Creates Her Own Army
Power Line: Is Kamala Harris Lying About Her Berkeley Days? also, AP Correction – The Democrats Were Segregationists
Shark Tank: Rubio Moves To Protect SCOTUS From Court-Packing
Shot In The Dark: All The Wrong Reasons
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, PA To Seal Criminal Records Today
Victory Girls: Democrat Candidates Unanimously Agree Illegals Should Get Free Healthcare
Volokh Conspiracy: Enumerated Powers & The Census Case
Weasel Zippers: New Study Finds 2/3rds Of Hate Crimes Are Hoaxes, also, All Seven Dem Senators Running For President Absent From Border Relief Funding Vote
Megan McArdle: Why Mention Failed Obamacare When Democrats Can Debate Shiny New Medicare For All?
Mark Steyn: A Titan Has Fallen

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Category: Linkagery

Kirby Was Right (Again)

Posted on | June 28, 2019 | Comments Off on Kirby Was Right (Again)

When I spoke to my brother Kirby about the arrest of Ayoola ‘AJ’ Ajayi in the murder of Mackenzie Lueck, he said: “Something tells me this wasn’t this guy’s first time at the rodeo” — he must have had some prior criminal history. And, as usual, Kirby’s hunch was right. Ajayi was investigated as a rape suspect five years ago:

“Ayoola Adisa Ajayi (DOB 4/22/1988), who is in custody as a suspect of the Salt Lake City Police Department in relation to the disappearance of MacKenzie Lueck, lived in North Logan, Utah from 2013-2015, according to our local police records. In 2014, North Park Police Department investigated a Sex Offense/Rape complaint with Mr. Ajayi listed as the suspect. The adult female victim in this incident did not wish to pursue charges in the matter.”

He skated on that charge, but predators seldom stop at one victim. Considering that he asked a contractor to build a sound-proof “secret” room at his house, Ajayi’s arrest in the Lueck case may have prevented him from becoming a serial killer. Ajayi is a native of Nigeria, although it’s unknown when he emigrated to the United States, but it was before 2011: “Ajayi and his ex-wife married in 2011 in Texas, and they separated in 2017; their divorce was finalized in January, according to court records.” What do you think are the chances that DNA will link Ajayi to other unsolved crimes? I trust Kirby’s hunch on this.

UPDATE: The murder of Mackenzie Lueck comes eight months after the murder of another University of Utah student:

Lauren McCluskey was returning from class Oct. 22 when she was shot to death on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City. McCluskey was a 21-year-old senior from Pullman, Washington, who was a member of the university’s track team. She was on her cellphone talking to her mother at the time of her fatal shooting, and her mother heard Lauren scream, “No! No! No!” The killer was Lauren’s ex-boyfriend, a man she had met less than two months earlier. On Sept. 2, the first week of her senior year at the university, Lauren went to the London Belle, a Salt Lake City bar, where she met Melvin Shawn Rowland, who was working as a bouncer at the bar. However, Rowland didn’t tell her his real name. He also didn’t tell her his real age — 37 — nor did he tell his new girlfriend that he was a registered sex offender who had spent nearly a decade in prison after being “convicted of attempted forcible sex abuse and enticing a minor over the internet in 2004.”

Just another random coincidence, I guess.

UPDATE II: If readers think my assessment of this situation was unnecessarily harsh, you might consider the reactions at Kiwi Farms, where anonymity protects brutally honest appraisals, e.g.:

“Stupid, stupid girl. She didn’t deserve to be murdered, but damn it, you’d think people could do basic f–king risk analysis when they’re past their teen years.”

and:

“It’s almost like sex for money is dangerous or something, here in the real world or even online. Lol, like it or not you’re actually taking just as big a chance selling your a– online as you would be selling it down at the highway truckstop.”

See, most people actually get it. It’s not as if common sense has ceased to exist, it’s just that in the current climate of journalism, academia and politics, expressions of common sense are strictly forbidden. People actually know things that they are not allowed to say, and this enforced silence serves to protect young people from learning the harsh truths about human existence and “basic f–king risk analysis.” By thus prohibiting the expression of common sense, we guarantee that victims keep piling up like cordword, led like lambs to the slaughter, sacrificed to the idols of Diversity and Inclusion.


 

Category: Crime

UPDATE: Mackenzie Lueck Is Dead; Police Charge Ayoola Ajayi With Murder

Posted on | June 28, 2019 | Comments Off on UPDATE: Mackenzie Lueck Is Dead; Police Charge Ayoola Ajayi With Murder

Fox News reports:

One person has been taken into custody Friday morning in relation to the disappearance of University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck, Salt Lake City police announced.
Further details on the arrest — which came a day after police finished searching a home whose owner they identified as a person of interest — were not immediately available.
Lueck, 23, was last seen meeting an unknown individual around 3 a.m. on June 17 near a park in Salt Lake City after being dropped off by a Lyft driver.
Salt Lake City police are expected to reveal more about the arrest at a press conference at 1:30 p.m. ET.

UPDATE: Mackenzie Lueck is dead. Ayoola ‘AJ’ Ajayi, 31, has been charged with aggravated murder, aggravated kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body. DNA evidence confirmed that charred remains found at Ajayi’s home were those of Lueck.

 

UPDATE II: Background on the accused killer:

 

Ayoola Ajayi, who has worked as a model, claims to be an IT specialist, and once wrote a novel about a murder, is now accused in the disappearance and murder of 23-year-old University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck. The California woman was last seen on June 17 after taking an early morning Lyft ride from the Salt Lake City airport to a park in North Salt Lake, where she met someone in another vehicle, according to police.
Chief Mike Brown said police are filing charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and desecration of a body “in the homicide of MacKenzie Lueck.” The man charged is Ayooli Ajayi, he confirmed. Lueck’s last communications “were with the arrested person,” the chief alled. Police accuse Ajayi, 31, of admitting having some text communications with Lueck, but they said he denied that he had met with her or seen a photo of her despite “having several photos of her and the profile photo.” However, Brown alleged that Ajayi was also seen burning something with gasoline in his yard. According to Brown, a search of the property found a burned area that contained charred items consistent with personal items of Lueck. Horrifically, “female human tissue,” was then also found, and it matched via DNA testing to MacKenzie Lueck.
The location of Lueck’s and Ajayi’s phones pinged at a park within less than a minute of each other, at which time her phone stopped receiving data, said Brown, who added that police would continue investigating Lueck’s death to see if Ajayi allegedly “had help.” . . .
A modeling website in the name of Ayoola Ajayi says he is 31, stands 6 foot 1 inches tall, and has a 45 inch waist. He lists his ethnicity as “Black/African roots.” In posts that are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, he compared himself to the actor Samuel L. Jackson and described himself as “buffed” and funny. . . .
On LinkedIn and other social sites, Ayoola Ajayi claims to be an IT support specialist. On Facebook, he wrote, “Systems Administrator at Goldman Sachs.”
His LinkedIn page claims he was a “Senior Technical Support Analyst at Dell” based in Salt Lake City, Utah. He says he was employed at Dell as a “technical support analyst” from September 2018 to present and worked as a “mobile tech” for Goldman Sachs from 2017 to present.

UPDATE III: A frightening angle in the case:

A handyman in Utah told Fox News exclusively on Friday the suspect arrested in the murder of a University of Utah student had asked to build a secret, soundproofed room in his home’s basement with hooks on its walls. . . .
Brian Wolf, a local contractor, told Fox News on Friday the individual who owned that home reached out to him in April and asked him to build a “soundproof” room there.
“He slowly added on other requests, like building a secret door and adding hooks to the wall,” Wolf said, explaining how the individual asked him to come to the home and give him an estimate for the potential project.
Wolf added the person said he wanted construction done as soon as possible, “before his girlfriend got back into town.”
The contractor, who owns a home-repair business in Utah, said he was “weirded out” by the whole scenario and turned down the job offer, telling the individual he was too busy. . . .
Meanwhile, a neighbor of the homeowner who is a person of interest told Fox News on Thursday “many women” frequented his home.
“There were always so many women coming in and out at all hours of the night,” the neighbor, who did not want to be identified, told Fox News.

Were these “women coming in and out” prostitutes? As previously reported, Mackenzie was prostituting herself through “sugar baby” sites. Here is a report from Inside Edition on her “seeking arrangements”:

 

What is defended by Third Wave feminists as “sex work” is always dangeorus work, because the kind of men who pay for such “work” are not generally very nice guys. There are many thousands of college girls involved in this “sugar baby” racket, and in most cases, their parents have no idea how their daughters get their spending money.

These girls are always traveling — you see their Instagram profiles with pictures of them at resort hotels — and how do they afford it? Their parents either don’t care, or are afraid to ask.

Watch your daughters closely, America. Warn them: Don’t be a whore.


 

Category: Utah, Violence Against Women

Democrat Debate Post-Mortem: MSNBC’s Obvious Bias and the ‘Beautiful Lunatic’

Posted on | June 28, 2019 | Comments Off on Democrat Debate Post-Mortem: MSNBC’s Obvious Bias and the ‘Beautiful Lunatic’

 

The 10 candidates onstage for Round 2 of the Democratic National Committee debates Thursday night spoke for a combined total of about 66 minutes. Four of those candidates (Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg) consumed 45:21 of that time. In other words, 40% of the candidates got almost 70% of the speaking time. It might be argued, of course, that the former Vice President of the United States deserves more time than other candidates, especially given the poll numbers as reflected by RCP’s national average: Biden 32.0, Sanders 16.9, Elizabeth Warren 12.8, Buttigieg 7.0, Harris 6.6.

Why, however, would Harris — currently polling at fifth place, in single digits, more than 25 points behind Biden — be given more time than second-place Sanders? Isn’t it obvious that the MSNBC hosts made a decision to lift up Harris, to the disadvantage of other candidates?

The MSNBC crowd still has not forgiven Sanders for daring to challenge Hillary Clinton in 2016, blaming him for undermining her support and (so they think) contributing to Clinton’s defeat by Trump. Furthermore, it seems obvious, the MSNBC hosts don’t want an elderly white male to be the Democrat nominee in 2020, so they deliberately set up a confrontation between Harris and Biden over the issue of race:

Joe Biden’s praise for segregationists followed him to the Democratic presidential debate on Thursday evening and exploded into a racial controversy that could put a huge dent in his candidacy after Kamala Harris lectured him on busing.
Harris, who is Jamaican-American, inserted herself into a discussion on the thorny topic, saying, ‘As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak, on the issue of race.’
She said it was ‘hurtful’ that Biden had praised two notorious, Democratic segregationists who he served with in the Senate in the 1970s.
Harris confronted Biden about the remarks and his stance in the ’70s against busing encourage racial integration in schools – he worked with the two segregationists to try to prevent federal imposition of the policy.
She told him, ‘I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you, when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.
‘But I also believe – and it’s personal, and I was actually very – 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,’ she said.

This confrontation did not happen spontaneously or by accident. It was a piece of made-for-TV political theater, staged by MSNBC staffers who prefer either Harris or Elizabeth Warren as the 2020 nominee.

 

Notice the optics, by the way: Biden and Harris arguing, with Sanders in the middle forced to stand there silently between them. My guess is that Bernie’s supporters deeply resented the way Thursday’s debate went. They feel they were cheated by the DNC’s bias in 2016, and now they see obvious favoritism in the DNC-controlled debates. Of course, I’m not exactly an impartial observer in this primary. Jim Geraghty rather humorously describes the performance of my favorite candidate:

I wonder if non-Republicans felt about Donald Trump in 2016 the way I, and it seems quite a few other conservatives, feel about Marianne Williamson. Marianne, you beautiful lunatic. Every time you spoke, I didn’t know whether you were going to do a rain dance, cast a hex, or hold a seance. On those rare moments you got a chance to talk, I leaned forward because I had no idea what kind of absolute insanity was going to come out of your mouth. It was as riveting as a hostage situation. She contends American have chronic illnesses because of “chemical policies,” she wonders where the rest of the field has been for decades (er, in public office), and her first call will be to the prime minister of New Zealand, and she wants to harness the power of love for political purposes. In many ways, she is exactly the candidate that today’s Democratic party deserves.

More seriously, my hunch is that the “beautiful lunatic” could have a Trump-like impact. Doesn’t it seem logical that an outsider candidate might have the best chance of beating Trump? If the system is broken, you can’t fix it with someone from inside the system. I can’t get inside the minds of Democrat primary voters, but there’s actual evidence that Williamson caught people’s attention: She was the most-searched candidate on Google after Thursday’s debate. Here’s a video clip of her debate highlights:

A few excerpts:

I tell you one thing, it’s really nice if we have all these plans, but if you think we beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you’ve got another thing coming. Because he didn’t win by saying he had a plan. He won by simply saying, “Make America Great Again.” . . .
If you forcibly take a child from their parents’ arms, you are kidnapping them. If you take a lot of children and you put them in a detainment center, thus inflicting trauma upon them, that’s called child abuse. This is collective child abuse. … Both of those things are a crime. If your government does it, that doesn’t make it less of a crime. These are state-sponsored crimes.
What President Trump has done is not only attack these children, not only demonize these immigrants, he is attacking a basic principle of America’s moral core: We open our hearts to the stranger. . . .
I have an idea about Donald Trump: Donald Trump is not going to be beaten just by insider politics talk. He’s not going to be beaten just by somebody who has plans. He’s going to be beaten by somebody who has an idea what the man has done. This man has reached into the psyche of the American people and he has harnessed fear for political purposes.
So, Mr. President — if you’re listening — I want you to hear me please: You have harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out. So I, sir, I have a feeling you know what you’re doing. I’m going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.

Now, you’re a conservative, I’m a conservative, and we would strongly dispute the assertion that Trump is guilty of “state-sponsored crimes.” But we’re not Democrat primary voters, are we? And that’s the thing: Marianne Williamson is speaking to Democrat primary voters in Iowa, and she’s pitching straight into their wheelhouse.


 

Category: Debates, Democrats
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