Changing The Rules As You Go Along

The Democrat party claims to be the party of diversity, yet after a number of primary elections in which mainly Democrats voted, there were only three candidates left–two old white men and one woman. Now they have changed the debate rules so that the woman won’t be eligible to participate in the next Democrat debate. Doesn’t sound very diverse to me.

The Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday that under the newly announced rules for the March 15th Democrat debate, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat who represents Hawaii, is not eligible to participate.

The article reports:

Under the newly announced rules for the March 15 CNN/Univision debate, candidates must have at least 20 percent of the awarded pledged delegates in order to qualify.

…Elderly white male candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have already locked up the required delegates, but the rule change makes it nearly impossible for Gabbard to qualify, even with a strong showing in the next round of primaries. The congresswoman needs 335 more delegates to lock up 20 percent by March 15, but only 352 are up for grabs on March 10.

Gabbard suggested on Thursday that she would attend the debate if invited, tweeting that she would “welcome the opportunity to raise & discuss the foreign policy challenges we face.”

DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa appeared to downplay the prospect of Gabbard making the debates in a Super Tuesday tweet, saying, “of course the threshold will go up.”

It’s  interesting to me that they changed the rules to let Mayor Bloomberg participate and now they have changed to rules to exclude Tulsi Gabbard. I suspect her presence would make for a much more interesting debate.

The article concludes:

The exclusion of Gabbard comes one day after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) suspended her campaign, leaving the race with only one female candidate and prompting extensive soul-searching and criticism from Democratic women and media figures.

“I so wish that we had a woman president of the United States, and we came so close to doing that,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I do think there’s a certain element of misogyny.”

Former presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) omitted Gabbard entirely in her reaction to Warren’s departure, telling reporters, “Look at what’s happened. There are no women currently in this race.”

The Democrat presidential primary has reached the point where it is a soap opera that is moving very slowly toward something. I think it’s time to get out the popcorn!

Sad, As Well As Misleading

Joe Biden is running for President. He probably shouldn’t be–he has definitely lost a few steps in recent years. Yesterday in a speech, he asked people to vote for him because he was running for the Senate. Last night in the Democrat debate, he illustrated that at times he has a very tenuous relationship with the truth.

The U. K. Mail reported today that during the debate, Joe Biden stated that 150 million Americans have died from gun violence since 2007. The estimated population of the United States is approximately 330 million. According to Pew Research, there are approximately 40,000 gun deaths in America annually and roughly six in ten of those are suicides. That is a far cry from the numbers former Vice-President Biden was citing.

The article reports:

Biden’s blunder came as he sought to take aim at party front-runner Bernie Sanders during Tuesday’s Democratic debate over his past support of a law that protected gun manufacturers from being held responsible for gun-related deaths.

According to that logic, car manufacturers would be held liable for deaths caused by drunk drivers. In both cases, something was misused by the person using it–the user–not the manufacturer should be held responsible. If you carry the idea of having the manufacturer held responsible for product misuse, how would that impact manufacturing in America? This is another Democratic idea that would unintentionally cripple the American economy.

The article continues:

According to the Center for American Progress, the number of firearm deaths – both violent and accidental deaths – in the US between 2007 to 2017 was 373,663, a mere fraction of the 150 million Biden stated. 

Voters took to Twitter to mock the outlandish claims, sparking fresh concerns over his mental capacity. 

One person tweeted: ‘How many people does he think there are in America?’

Another posted, ‘Biden for Senate 2020’ – a reference to the candidate’s other blunder just hours earlier where he had told crowds he was running for the Senate.  

Biden addressed a crowd in South Carolina on Monday and appeared to forget which campaign he was running in.

He said: ‘My name’s Joe Biden and I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see help out, if not, vote for the other Biden.’

A clip of his latest gaffe was posted on Twitter by activist Shaun King, who wrote: ‘This is so sad.’

He added: ‘I honestly wish he would’ve retired & not subjected himself to the rigors of this campaign.’

It truly is time for Joe Biden to leave the stage.

If You Are A Democrat, Does Your Primary Vote Matter?

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about a question asked at the end of the recent Democrat debate.

The article reports:

It was the final question in a wild and furious Democrat debate last night: “If no candidate earns the majority of delegates how should a nominee be chosen?”  Should the candidate with the most delegates be selected as the nominee?

Every candidate on stage -except Bernie Sanders- stated the private Club rules should determine the nominee at the DNC convention in Wisconsin; regardless of who comes to the convention with the highest number of delegates.   Bernie Sanders position is that whoever has the highest number of votes and earned delegates should be the nominee.

The super delegates at the Democrat Convention do not vote on the first ballot (although that could change if Bernie Sanders has a strong lead). They do, however, vote on the second ballot. The smoke-filled-room Democrats do not want Bernie Sanders as the candidate–they see him as another George McGovern.

The article concludes:

With proportional distribution this difference of opinion could be problematic if most of the candidates stay in the race (quite probable now, except Biden) and split the non-Bernie vote. Yet, Bernie Sanders beats them all in the popular vote and earned delegate count.

After the first round delegate count at the convention the 700 ‘Super Delegates’ could select a ‘non-Bernie’ nominee in round two. This has always looked like the Club plan; however, Team Bernie will likely go bananas.

My question is this, “If you are a Bernie Sanders supporter and see him robbed of the nomination twice, will you still vote Democrat?” That is the question the people in the smoke-filled rooms need to consider. Although Bernie Sanders as the candidate would probably give the election to President Trump, wouldn’t taking the nomination away from Bernie Sanders after he won it also give the election to President Trump? It’s an interesting dilemma.

One Disturbing Aspect Of The New Hampshire Democrat Debate

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about the Democrat debate in New Hampshire last week. The article noted that none of the Democrat candidates would have killed terrorist Qassem Soleimani. That is really amazing. Soleimani was the head of the Quds Force, a division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operation from 1998 until his death. He was responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of American soldiers in Afghanistan. It was also reported that he was planning terrorist attacks on numerous American Embassies in the Middle East.

The article reports:

Mayor Pete at least went so far as to say that Soleimani was “a bad guy.” But he then claimed that “taking out a bad guy is a bad idea if you do not know what you’re doing.” Oh, really? Seems to me that our military knew precisely what they were doing. They knew where Soleimani was, where he was heading and took him out with a single drone shot. And the collateral damage was minimal. He also referenced learning lessons from Iraq in that context. Was he implying that Saddam Hussein should still be alive? Is he aware that Hussein was executed by his own people, not the Americans?

…Biden simply says he wouldn’t have ordered the strike because “there’s no evidence yet of an imminent threat that was going to come from [Soleimani].” Two points about that response should have been obvious. First of all, Biden has been out of office for more than three years. He’s not getting the daily intelligence briefings anymore. Much of the intelligence about Soleimani couldn’t be released to the public because it could have exposed sources and methods. So Joe Biden has no way of knowing conclusively about any imminent threats.

And second, the President can and should make the argument that an imminent threat wasn’t even required. The amount of blood on the hands of Soleimani and the Quds Force could be used to paint a mural the size of Texas. At some point, you run out of second chances. We’d been trying to track Soleimani’s movements since the Bush 43 administration. The opportunity came to take him out and Trump took it. You’ll also recall that Joe Biden disagreed with Barack Obama about the raid to take out Osama bin Laden. Sounds like bad guys around the world should sleep well at night if Joe Biden is elected.

The article concludes:

Bernie believes you can’t “go around saying you’re a bad guy and we’re going to assassinate you.” That, he believes, would lead to “international anarchy.” He would also prefer that such matters be handled through stronger diplomacy at the State Department. Perhaps he’s pining for the good old days of the Obama administration and thinks Iran will behave better if we go back to sending them pallets of cash. We all saw how that worked out during the previous administration.

Notice how Sanders, along with many other Democrats, chooses to use the word “assassination” when referring to the death of Soleimani, as if he was some sort of public figure deserving of respect. The General wasn’t assassinated. He was a battlefield casualty in the war on terror and a very high-value target.

This crew has demonstrated that they’re basically carbon copies of each other on many key issues. As for the current topic of discussion, they are soft on crime domestically (with calls for criminal justice reform and emptying the prisons) and soft on terror both at home and abroad. And if voters want to pick one of them this November they will fully deserve the whirlwind we’ll reap from that decision.

Just for the record, killing Soleimani made the world safer for everyone. Soleimani had no problem killing innocent civilians if they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Obviously, he felt that the rules of war did not apply to him (as if everyone plays by the ‘rules of war’). It appears that the current field of Democrat candidates has no idea that they should be protecting America or any other nation from terrorism. That’s sad.

 

The Recent Democrat Debate

I have only one comment on the Democrat debate held this week. Beto O’Rourke stated, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47, we’re not going to allow it to be used against fellow Americans anymore.” The audience cheered.

Mr. O’Rourke, the Second Amendment was put in place to limit the powers of government–not the freedom of American citizens. The Bill of Rights was included in the U.S. Constitution so that the states would approve the Constitution. The Bill of Rights was an insurance policy against the rise of a tyrannical government in America similar to the one America had just fought hard to overturn. The Americans of the Revolutionary Era wanted to make sure that another tyrannical government was never allowed to rise up in America. The Bill of Rights was their protection against that.

The statement from Mr. O”Rourke is disturbing. What is even more disturbing is that the audience cheered the statement, not understanding that the suggested action was not only unconstitutional, but would be only the first step in severely limiting the freedom of Americans. The Second Amendment is what protects all of the other Amendments.