The Incompetence Party

The Democrats’ biggest problem isn’t Bernie Sanders. It’s that many voters doubt the party’s ability to govern anymore.

Now that Bernie Sanders—once an obscure socialist senator from Vermont—is officially the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, it is time to confront what that means.

It does not mean the U.S. is flirting with socialism. That’s not going to happen. The meaning of Bernie’s ascent is that the Democratic Party, older even than he is, has simply run out of gas.

The Democrats resemble Europe’s aging political parties—Britain’s Labour, France’s Socialists, Germany’s Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. All have simply deflated with voters.

Signs of public fatigue with the Democrats could be seen in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Besides incompetence, the big story out of Iowa was low turnout. In New Hampshire the story was voter indecision. Once past Bernie’s 25% cement-block base, many voters were flipping a coin in the voting booth to pick from the other candidates.

What does it mean that Elizabeth Warren, by now a household name, got dropped to fourth place? Joe Biden’s humiliating fifth is a personal disaster, but what does that say about the party itself?

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The Agony of the Democrats

Bernie Sanders is riding the intellectual currents that the party and its elites have nurtured.

Civilization Is History at Yale

Great art is too ‘white, straight, European and male,’ so it’ll have to give way to the latest agitprop.

The Heckler’s Veto at Georgetown Law

Students shut down a speech. Now they want impunity for disrupters.

How Communist Ideology Infiltrated America’s Security Agencies & Fueled Spygate—Diana West

American Thought Leaders – The Epoch Times

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Why does Diana West believe that communist ideology has infiltrated America’s intelligence agencies? After looking into key figures involved in the Spygate scandal, what information did Diana West uncover about their ideological beliefs? How is Donald Trump a “counter-revolutionary” president, in West’s view? This is American Thought Leaders , and I’m Jan Jekielek. In this episode, we’ll sit down with Diana West, a journalist and author of “The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy.”

Philadelphia’s Top Prosecutor Pursues ‘Social,’ Not Actual, Justice

Larry Krasner said he wouldn’t prosecute certain offenses and the bad guys got the message.

District Attorney Larry Krasner speaks to the media in Philadelphia, March 6, 2019.PHOTO: MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Michael White didn’t deny killing Sean Schellenger. He admitted to police and at his trial that he plunged a knife several times into Schellenger’s back during a July 2018 scuffle in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square. Numerous witnesses and a cellphone video confirmed what happened. Yet in October 2019 a jury acquitted Mr. White, a 22-year-old college student, of voluntary manslaughter. Many, including the victim’s family, blame Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s soft-on-crime district attorney.

Mr. Krasner is one of a new crop of “progressive prosecutors” who have won election in liberal cities. They include San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin, who was raised by Weather Underground radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn because his own parents were in prison for participating in the murder of police officers. Mr. Krasner was a virulent critic of law enforcement before running to become the city’s top prosecutor. During a 30-year career as a defense lawyer, Mr. Krasner gained notoriety for filing 75 lawsuits against Philadelphia police. In a 2017 campaign video he said “policing and prosecution are both systematically racist,” and he called poverty and crime consequences of “mass incarceration.”

Mr. Krasner’s candidacy was laughed off until George Soros dumped $1.7 million into the campaign. At his primary election night victory party, Mr. Krasner smiled while his supporters chanted, “No good cops in a racist system!” and “f— the FOP!” (the Fraternal Order of Police). He has refused to prosecute certain gun and drug crimes and ordered the 300 prosecutors in his office to seek lighter sentences. These moves have confirmed the suspicions of many Philadelphians that Mr. Krasner is more interested in coddling the city’s criminals than he is in providing justice to the victims of crimes.

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Radical changes imposed on our military by progressives, begun in earnest during the Obama administration, are negatively impacting our combat readiness and jeopardizing the lives of our men and women in uniform and, ultimately, our national security.  In Stand Down:  How Social Justice Warriors Are Sabotaging America’s Military, author James Hasson elucidates how Barack Obama fundamentally changed military culture to make our nation less secure. Hasson, a former Army captain, Army Ranger School graduate, and Afghanistan veteran, argues that military readiness was sacrificed for identity politics and progressive rhetoric. He lists examples such as policies that established “safe spaces,” prohibited “micro-aggressions,” denigrated “hyper-masculine” traits, implemented unwise “green” standards and injected “social justice” guidelines in military operations.

In his revealing book, Captain Hasson describes how Obama’s military appointees, mainly progressive ideologues lacking military experience and hailing from academic, political, and the private sectors, were placed in charge of seasoned combat generals with decades of combat experience.  The priorities, experience, and philosophies of the officers and appointees couldn’t have been more disparate. 

Many senior military staff members suffered in silence at Obama’s attempt to use the military as a “laboratory for progressive social engineering,” according to Hasson.  Exemplifying this shift was the naming of Navy ships after Leftist political heroes. Socialist labor-activist Cesar Chavez and slain gay-rights advocate Harvey Milk — who left the Navy for being gay — were among those who Ray Mabus, Obama’s secretary of the Navy, announced would have ships named after them.  This practice flew in the face of the hallowed Navy tradition of naming ships after presidents and war heroes.  

Obama, who, Hasson says, took pride in his lack of military knowledge and experience, made widespread changes to personnel policy, budgetary expenditures and resource allocations that harmed readiness, training and troop safety.  Obama’s transgender policy of “mixed genitalia in the bathrooms,” took precedence over established military culture.  Soldiers were judged by the gender they wished to be rather than their biological sex.  Obama essentially used the military to lead social change in American society rather than preserving time-honored traditions that emphasized troop cohesiveness and readiness. 

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