Month: July 2019

This week, the National Security Agency (NSA) made a major announcement regarding America’s plan to combat international threats in the midst of an ongoing and seemingly never-ending series of cyber-skirmishes. 

A new unit within the NSA, the Cybersecurity Directorate, will focus on the growing threat to America posed by international hacking and is set to be led by Anne Neuberger.  Neuberger was previously the agency’s chief risk officer, its first, a position that was created to plug leaks after the Edward Snowden fiasco.  She also was the NSA’s deputy director of operations and, most recently, the former head of an NSA unit known as the Russia Small Group.  That group was tasked with managing threats posed by foreign hackers during the 2018 midterm elections. 

The new group is expected to be operational by this October.  According to the NSA website, the “Cybersecurity Directorate is a major organization that unifies NSA’s foreign intelligence and cyber defense missions and is charged with preventing and eradicating threats to National Security Systems and the Defense Industrial Base.”  The website also says, “This new approach to cybersecurity will better position NSA to collaborate with key partners across the U.S. government like U.S. Cyber Command, Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

That sounds good on the surface, but will this new group make a significant impact in what we can more easily identify as the embryonic stages of World War 3?  There have been several reshufflings over the past few years at the Department of Homeland Security as well as at the highest levels of America’s so-called “Cyber Command.”  These changes include the passage of the bipartisan Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Act, which rebranded DHS’s main cyber-security unit, known as the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency or CISA. This designated CISA as a full-fledged operational component of DHS, similar to the Secret Service or FEMA.

The White House also eliminated the position of cyber-security coordinator in April of 2018.  Former White House cyber-security coordinator Rob Joyce vacated that post to return to the NSA amid a shakeup that also saw Joyce’s boss, White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, pushed out of his position by national security adviser John Bolton.

Continuity and consistency will be key to American cyber-defense efforts as the newest theater of war continues to heat up.  Just last month, the New York Times reported that the United States had executed hacking attacks against Russia’s power grid.  The speculation is that these attacks were, in part, a response to the supposed election meddling that was the central theme of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

These revelations came on the heels of a two-pronged cyber-attack that not only disabled a computer network, but could also interfere with half the production of the conventional weapons of war.  The April 2019 attack against raw material–producer Norsk Hydro created a blueprint for state-sponsored hacks that could be executed in the event of total war.  The attack was carried out using a malware strain known as LockerGoga. 

Malware, a nuisance mainly thought to hold value only for profiteers on the “dark web,” has long found a militaristic purpose.  Many experts point to the malware attack of Iran’s nuclear program in the beginning of this decade as the genesis of cyber-warfare.  As technology and creativity continue to evolve, the United States will have its work cut out for it, with high-leverage targets like infrastructure serving as low-hanging fruit for countries at a militaristic disadvantage against America. 

Now more than ever, agencies like the newly forming Cybersecurity Directorate will play a critical role in our nation’s defense strategy.

Julio Rivera is a NYC-based writer, news personality, columnist, business consultant, and editorial director for Reactionary Times.  His writing, which is concentrated on politics, cyber-security, and sports, has been published by websites including Newsmax, The Washington Times, Breitbart, The Toronto Sun, The Hill, The Washington Examiner, Western Journal, LifeZette, Townhall, American Thinker, The Epoch Times, Real Clear Markets, PJ Media, and many others.  He is a fixture on cable news talk shows, making regular appearances on American and international television.

This week, the National Security Agency (NSA) made a major announcement regarding America’s plan to combat international threats in the midst of an ongoing and seemingly never-ending series of cyber-skirmishes. 

A new unit within the NSA, the Cybersecurity Directorate, will focus on the growing threat to America posed by international hacking and is set to be led by Anne Neuberger.  Neuberger was previously the agency’s chief risk officer, its first, a position that was created to plug leaks after the Edward Snowden fiasco.  She also was the NSA’s deputy director of operations and, most recently, the former head of an NSA unit known as the Russia Small Group.  That group was tasked with managing threats posed by foreign hackers during the 2018 midterm elections. 

The new group is expected to be operational by this October.  According to the NSA website, the “Cybersecurity Directorate is a major organization that unifies NSA’s foreign intelligence and cyber defense missions and is charged with preventing and eradicating threats to National Security Systems and the Defense Industrial Base.”  The website also says, “This new approach to cybersecurity will better position NSA to collaborate with key partners across the U.S. government like U.S. Cyber Command, Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

That sounds good on the surface, but will this new group make a significant impact in what we can more easily identify as the embryonic stages of World War 3?  There have been several reshufflings over the past few years at the Department of Homeland Security as well as at the highest levels of America’s so-called “Cyber Command.”  These changes include the passage of the bipartisan Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Act, which rebranded DHS’s main cyber-security unit, known as the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency or CISA. This designated CISA as a full-fledged operational component of DHS, similar to the Secret Service or FEMA.

The White House also eliminated the position of cyber-security coordinator in April of 2018.  Former White House cyber-security coordinator Rob Joyce vacated that post to return to the NSA amid a shakeup that also saw Joyce’s boss, White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, pushed out of his position by national security adviser John Bolton.

Continuity and consistency will be key to American cyber-defense efforts as the newest theater of war continues to heat up.  Just last month, the New York Times reported that the United States had executed hacking attacks against Russia’s power grid.  The speculation is that these attacks were, in part, a response to the supposed election meddling that was the central theme of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

These revelations came on the heels of a two-pronged cyber-attack that not only disabled a computer network, but could also interfere with half the production of the conventional weapons of war.  The April 2019 attack against raw material–producer Norsk Hydro created a blueprint for state-sponsored hacks that could be executed in the event of total war.  The attack was carried out using a malware strain known as LockerGoga. 

Malware, a nuisance mainly thought to hold value only for profiteers on the “dark web,” has long found a militaristic purpose.  Many experts point to the malware attack of Iran’s nuclear program in the beginning of this decade as the genesis of cyber-warfare.  As technology and creativity continue to evolve, the United States will have its work cut out for it, with high-leverage targets like infrastructure serving as low-hanging fruit for countries at a militaristic disadvantage against America. 

Now more than ever, agencies like the newly forming Cybersecurity Directorate will play a critical role in our nation’s defense strategy.

Julio Rivera is a NYC-based writer, news personality, columnist, business consultant, and editorial director for Reactionary Times.  His writing, which is concentrated on politics, cyber-security, and sports, has been published by websites including Newsmax, The Washington Times, Breitbart, The Toronto Sun, The Hill, The Washington Examiner, Western Journal, LifeZette, Townhall, American Thinker, The Epoch Times, Real Clear Markets, PJ Media, and many others.  He is a fixture on cable news talk shows, making regular appearances on American and international television.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that President Trump can indeed build the wall from already appropriated funding is a sweet one. Here’s the Washington Post’s report:

A split Supreme Court said Friday night that the Trump administration could proceed with its plan to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to build part of the president’s wall project along the southern border.

The court’s conservatives set aside a lower-court ruling for the Sierra Club and a coalition of border communities that said reallocating Defense Department money would violate federal law.

Friday’s unsigned ruling came in response to an emergency filing from the administration during the court’s summer recess. The majority said the government “made a sufficient showing at this stage” that private groups may not be the proper plaintiffs to challenge the transfer of money.

At long last, one gets the sense the world is back on its axis. Suddenly, the Sierra Club’s ‘enjoyment’ of natural scenery is not quite as important as Americans’ right to hold off a million-strong illegal foreign invasion. At long last, we learn there are some kind of limits to the demands of the open borders lobby which up until now have seen continuous expansion; some kind of check-and-balance between justice for the citizens and the ‘rights’ of illegal foreigners. There’s some kind of acknowledgment that if you don’t have borders of any kind, you don’t have a country. And there’s some kind of sense that the president we elected, precisely to protect us, has some kind of power to do that. Up until now, the constant series of court rulings, by unelected leftists, has left one with the sense that the entire power structure of the country was hinged on what these leftists think.

There’s some kind of balance now, some kind of limit… and for that, the ruling was an immense relief.

Combined with the decent compromise accord reached with Guatemala, reducing the incentives of migrants to file phony asylum claims in order to get a few good years working here, and preserving the asylum system for those who truly need it, it’s a great victory. One cannot help but feel a sense of celebration.

Because the whole thing has been blown so out of proportion to what it is, by the press, the open borders lobby, and the Democrats.

The ruling itself wasn’t that extraordinary. A president has some discretion about how certain already-congressionally appropriated monies can be spent.

A wall is not that extraordinary, either. In the face of a border surge, a wall is reasonable, if for nothing else to free up the Border Patrol from babysitting illegal migrants so that they can go after real drug dealers, who’ve been having a field day as a result. Dozens of countries have them. It’s a simple, uncompromising proxy for rule of law that favors no special interest groups.

And a president has a duty to defend the country. Any country faced with more than a million foreign invaders, all unvetted, and with plenty of criminal, terrorist and deadly disease elements among them – has an obligation to protect its people. Using defense dolars to do it, instead of fight some country in the Middle East, makes perfect sense. This isn’t rocket science. The leftist lower courts’ continuous rulings in favor of all comers has reached the lunatic point, the point at which one can only see something else going on beyond mere defenses of every individual right at the expense of the whole, some different agenda.

The Democrats, of course, are unhappy, because they’ve made such a political stink about there never, ever, being a wall to go up. The wall was President Trump’s signature issue, the issue that got him unexpectedly elected. Democrats have made a huge deal about the keeping the status quo, keeping the border open, keeping the asylum loopholes in place to encourage illegals to not only abuse the system, but to keep coming, too.  That’s why they want no wall to ever go up, no matter what the circumstances. Never mind the will of the voters, of course. These Democrats were determined to get their will over his will and in so doing, get him ousted.

Their tweets are revealing for their hypocrisy:

 

This evening’s Supreme Court ruling allowing @realDonaldTrump to steal military funds to spend on a wasteful, ineffective border wall rejected by Congress is deeply flawed. Our Founders designed a democracy governed by the people — not a monarchy.

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 26, 2019

 

 

Yea. How dare President Trump spend defense dollars to defend our border rather than that of some country in the Middle East.

— Steph (@steph93065) July 27, 2019

 

 

Congress did not appropriate these funds for Trump’s medieval vanity project. Let’s be clear: Trump’s wall has never been about keeping the American people safe. https://t.co/tlZ9GRp7Wd

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 27, 2019

 

 

Schumer: It’s a sad day when the president is cheering a decision that may allow him to steal funds from our military to pay for an ineffective and expensive wall for which he promised Mexico would foot the bill. This is a deeply regrettable and nonsensical decision

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 27, 2019

 

Since when has Nancy Pelosi ever been concerned about presidential overreach? She let President Obama walk all over her on that one. Or stealing funds – which by the way, are not being stolen? Or kingly power in the post-Obama era, the world she built? Or the biggest of all – government waste? Why would a piddly $8 billion loss due to ‘waste’ bother her, given the gargantuan losses she’s signed off on in Obama’s assorted green and welfare schemes?  And if a wall is ineffective, why is she upset about it? We all know she wants the illegal migrants to flood in. Her hypocrisy is amazing.

Then there’s Kamala Harris, who calls it a medieval vanity project. Really? Why are so many nations doing them now, Kamala? Medieval suggests something rather useless and behind the times. But cocaine smugglers know what a wall means and for them it’s not a figment of the past. Again, if it’s useless, why is she against it? As for vanity, the only vanity we see is her own. Millions of unvetted foreigners are flooding into the country in an unprecedented invasion. Democrats benefit from it, as illegals roll in with impunity, encounter no law enforcement, put down roots, have children, and then vote Democrat. She can call Trump’s project as vain as she wants but the voters elected Trump for this very reason. She’s effectively calling us and our voting choices vain. The vanity is hers. And the hypocrisy.  

There’s also Chuck Schumer, crying his crocodile tears about the military and its funding. The military’s doing fine on funding, but more important, a wall is national defense, a bulwark on the border, protection of the citizens. All of this is the very thing a military is supposed to be used for. Schumer seems to think Middle Eastern wars are a better use for the military. As if Democrats have ever supported our military. Lay the hypocrisy thick on this one, too.

As for the rest of us, something is finally happening. A wall will go up. The people’s will is finally getting some respect. The law is perfectly in place. And leftists are free to un-elect President Trump, get their own operatives in there, and tear it down if they can persuade enough of us.

Let’s celebrate in the meantime.

 

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that President Trump can indeed build the wall from already appropriated funding is a sweet one. Here’s the Washington Post’s report:

A split Supreme Court said Friday night that the Trump administration could proceed with its plan to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to build part of the president’s wall project along the southern border.

The court’s conservatives set aside a lower-court ruling for the Sierra Club and a coalition of border communities that said reallocating Defense Department money would violate federal law.

Friday’s unsigned ruling came in response to an emergency filing from the administration during the court’s summer recess. The majority said the government “made a sufficient showing at this stage” that private groups may not be the proper plaintiffs to challenge the transfer of money.

At long last, one gets the sense the world is back on its axis. Suddenly, the Sierra Club’s ‘enjoyment’ of natural scenery is not quite as important as Americans’ right to hold off a million-strong illegal foreign invasion. At long last, we learn there are some kind of limits to the demands of the open borders lobby which up until now have seen continuous expansion; some kind of check-and-balance between justice for the citizens and the ‘rights’ of illegal foreigners. There’s some kind of acknowledgment that if you don’t have borders of any kind, you don’t have a country. And there’s some kind of sense that the president we elected, precisely to protect us, has some kind of power to do that. Up until now, the constant series of court rulings, by unelected leftists, has left one with the sense that the entire power structure of the country was hinged on what these leftists think.

There’s some kind of balance now, some kind of limit… and for that, the ruling was an immense relief.

Combined with the decent compromise accord reached with Guatemala, reducing the incentives of migrants to file phony asylum claims in order to get a few good years working here, and preserving the asylum system for those who truly need it, it’s a great victory. One cannot help but feel a sense of celebration.

Because the whole thing has been blown so out of proportion to what it is, by the press, the open borders lobby, and the Democrats.

The ruling itself wasn’t that extraordinary. A president has some discretion about how certain already-congressionally appropriated monies can be spent.

A wall is not that extraordinary, either. In the face of a border surge, a wall is reasonable, if for nothing else to free up the Border Patrol from babysitting illegal migrants so that they can go after real drug dealers, who’ve been having a field day as a result. Dozens of countries have them. It’s a simple, uncompromising proxy for rule of law that favors no special interest groups.

And a president has a duty to defend the country. Any country faced with more than a million foreign invaders, all unvetted, and with plenty of criminal, terrorist and deadly disease elements among them – has an obligation to protect its people. Using defense dolars to do it, instead of fight some country in the Middle East, makes perfect sense. This isn’t rocket science. The leftist lower courts’ continuous rulings in favor of all comers has reached the lunatic point, the point at which one can only see something else going on beyond mere defenses of every individual right at the expense of the whole, some different agenda.

The Democrats, of course, are unhappy, because they’ve made such a political stink about there never, ever, being a wall to go up. The wall was President Trump’s signature issue, the issue that got him unexpectedly elected. Democrats have made a huge deal about the keeping the status quo, keeping the border open, keeping the asylum loopholes in place to encourage illegals to not only abuse the system, but to keep coming, too.  That’s why they want no wall to ever go up, no matter what the circumstances. Never mind the will of the voters, of course. These Democrats were determined to get their will over his will and in so doing, get him ousted.

Their tweets are revealing for their hypocrisy:

 

This evening’s Supreme Court ruling allowing @realDonaldTrump to steal military funds to spend on a wasteful, ineffective border wall rejected by Congress is deeply flawed. Our Founders designed a democracy governed by the people — not a monarchy.

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 26, 2019

 

 

Yea. How dare President Trump spend defense dollars to defend our border rather than that of some country in the Middle East.

— Steph (@steph93065) July 27, 2019

 

 

Congress did not appropriate these funds for Trump’s medieval vanity project. Let’s be clear: Trump’s wall has never been about keeping the American people safe. https://t.co/tlZ9GRp7Wd

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 27, 2019

 

 

Schumer: It’s a sad day when the president is cheering a decision that may allow him to steal funds from our military to pay for an ineffective and expensive wall for which he promised Mexico would foot the bill. This is a deeply regrettable and nonsensical decision

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) July 27, 2019

 

Since when has Nancy Pelosi ever been concerned about presidential overreach? She let President Obama walk all over her on that one. Or stealing funds – which by the way, are not being stolen? Or kingly power in the post-Obama era, the world she built? Or the biggest of all – government waste? Why would a piddly $8 billion loss due to ‘waste’ bother her, given the gargantuan losses she’s signed off on in Obama’s assorted green and welfare schemes?  And if a wall is ineffective, why is she upset about it? We all know she wants the illegal migrants to flood in. Her hypocrisy is amazing.

Then there’s Kamala Harris, who calls it a medieval vanity project. Really? Why are so many nations doing them now, Kamala? Medieval suggests something rather useless and behind the times. But cocaine smugglers know what a wall means and for them it’s not a figment of the past. Again, if it’s useless, why is she against it? As for vanity, the only vanity we see is her own. Millions of unvetted foreigners are flooding into the country in an unprecedented invasion. Democrats benefit from it, as illegals roll in with impunity, encounter no law enforcement, put down roots, have children, and then vote Democrat. She can call Trump’s project as vain as she wants but the voters elected Trump for this very reason. She’s effectively calling us and our voting choices vain. The vanity is hers. And the hypocrisy.  

There’s also Chuck Schumer, crying his crocodile tears about the military and its funding. The military’s doing fine on funding, but more important, a wall is national defense, a bulwark on the border, protection of the citizens. All of this is the very thing a military is supposed to be used for. Schumer seems to think Middle Eastern wars are a better use for the military. As if Democrats have ever supported our military. Lay the hypocrisy thick on this one, too.

As for the rest of us, something is finally happening. A wall will go up. The people’s will is finally getting some respect. The law is perfectly in place. And leftists are free to un-elect President Trump, get their own operatives in there, and tear it down if they can persuade enough of us.

Let’s celebrate in the meantime.

 

Democrats are turning on each other. Out of money, out of ideas, zero accomplishments, and with no goodies to dispense, they are now moving into a full-blown hatefest against one other. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her squad, it turns out, were just the least of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s problems.

Here’s the dumpster fire going on with angry black and Latino representatives effectively accusing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the group charged with holding the House for the Democrats, of racism, according to Politico:

Senior Hispanic and black members of Congress have privately clashed with Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) over her personnel decisions, what they say are tone-deaf comments on race and whether she’s lived up to the promises she made during the campaign to win the chairmanship of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“There is not one person of color — black or brown, that I’m aware of — at any position of authority or decision-making in the DCCC,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It is shocking, it is shocking, and something needs to be done about it.”

Bustos sought a meeting with Fudge, and Fudge said no.

“Until they show me they are serious about diversity, there’s no reason for me to meet with them,” Fudge said.

And Fudge isn’t alone. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists detailed months of frustration and unanswered questions about Bustos’ efforts to retain staffers of color in top positions, boost Latino voter outreach and hire firms run by people of color. They said Bustos was tactless when challenged by lawmakers of color.

“The overall plan for Latino outreach seems to be some 1980s playbook, which doesn’t work anymore,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said.

So it’s not about winning, it seems, it’s about winning with the right color of people on staff that’s what’s important. As if one person could perform the job as well as the next one, so get the chocolate box right. This is some amazing bean-counting, focused less on actual winningm which would mean more black and Latino seats in Congress, than it is on the meta-process, on how the winning is done. This is how far-left splinter groups, turning inward on themselves, behave. Far-left communist groups always spew their biggest rage on internal dissenters, which is one reason why they never get anywhere in politics, they are always focused very intensely upon themselves. As I have argued earlier, the Democratic Party is becoming DSA-ified, and apparently, the phenomenon is extending well beyond DSA catspaw Ocasio-Cortez. Even the Democratic consultants on the outside are growing angry, yelling racism, too.

And it’s not all that surprising. Grandstanding about Getting Trump has turned out to be a fast road to nowhere with voters. Democrats have wasted their two years in office, spending so much time thwarting President Trump’s reasonable requests on border security as well as promoting the now-collapsed Russian collusion narrative that they have not gotten around to passing much legislation, certainly nothing they can brag about. They haven’t even bothered to secure goodies for their districts, a Democrat speciality. In the absence of any record they can point to with pride, the donor money has dried up, diminishing the party further. All of that acts to reduce their prospects for more of this nonsense in the coming election.  Now they’re busying themselves with accusations of racism within their own group, sending a message to the voters that all they are interested in is looking at themselves. They’re naval gazing, except by color. And they’re getting pretty public, just as the Ocasio-Cortez – Pelosi fight got real public.

What’s more, Fudge is not the lightweight born-yesterday flash in the pan that Ocasio-Cortez is, she’s a substantial established black congrresswoman who’s often called ‘respected’ in the press. For Pelosi and her DCCC to have Fudge on their backs is a real problem, probably a bigger one than the fringy freshman squad. 

And for grizzled old Grijalva to be calling the Democratic playbook something out of the 1980s is pretty damning, too. It highlights again that Democrats are out of ideas.

For Republicans, it’s all good. The infighting is a signal that the path is clear toward retaking the House in 2020. A rival party that hates itself that badly is a party that offers nothing to voters. It’s time to throw them out. 

Image credit: Tim Evanson, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democrats are turning on each other. Out of money, out of ideas, zero accomplishments, and with no goodies to dispense, they are now moving into a full-blown hatefest against one other. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her squad, it turns out, were just the least of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s problems.

Here’s the dumpster fire going on with angry black and Latino representatives effectively accusing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the group charged with holding the House for the Democrats, of racism, according to Politico:

Senior Hispanic and black members of Congress have privately clashed with Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) over her personnel decisions, what they say are tone-deaf comments on race and whether she’s lived up to the promises she made during the campaign to win the chairmanship of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“There is not one person of color — black or brown, that I’m aware of — at any position of authority or decision-making in the DCCC,” said Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It is shocking, it is shocking, and something needs to be done about it.”

Bustos sought a meeting with Fudge, and Fudge said no.

“Until they show me they are serious about diversity, there’s no reason for me to meet with them,” Fudge said.

And Fudge isn’t alone. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists detailed months of frustration and unanswered questions about Bustos’ efforts to retain staffers of color in top positions, boost Latino voter outreach and hire firms run by people of color. They said Bustos was tactless when challenged by lawmakers of color.

“The overall plan for Latino outreach seems to be some 1980s playbook, which doesn’t work anymore,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said.

So it’s not about winning, it seems, it’s about winning with the right color of people on staff that’s what’s important. As if one person could perform the job as well as the next one, so get the chocolate box right. This is some amazing bean-counting, focused less on actual winningm which would mean more black and Latino seats in Congress, than it is on the meta-process, on how the winning is done. This is how far-left splinter groups, turning inward on themselves, behave. Far-left communist groups always spew their biggest rage on internal dissenters, which is one reason why they never get anywhere in politics, they are always focused very intensely upon themselves. As I have argued earlier, the Democratic Party is becoming DSA-ified, and apparently, the phenomenon is extending well beyond DSA catspaw Ocasio-Cortez. Even the Democratic consultants on the outside are growing angry, yelling racism, too.

And it’s not all that surprising. Grandstanding about Getting Trump has turned out to be a fast road to nowhere with voters. Democrats have wasted their two years in office, spending so much time thwarting President Trump’s reasonable requests on border security as well as promoting the now-collapsed Russian collusion narrative that they have not gotten around to passing much legislation, certainly nothing they can brag about. They haven’t even bothered to secure goodies for their districts, a Democrat speciality. In the absence of any record they can point to with pride, the donor money has dried up, diminishing the party further. All of that acts to reduce their prospects for more of this nonsense in the coming election.  Now they’re busying themselves with accusations of racism within their own group, sending a message to the voters that all they are interested in is looking at themselves. They’re naval gazing, except by color. And they’re getting pretty public, just as the Ocasio-Cortez – Pelosi fight got real public.

What’s more, Fudge is not the lightweight born-yesterday flash in the pan that Ocasio-Cortez is, she’s a substantial established black congrresswoman who’s often called ‘respected’ in the press. For Pelosi and her DCCC to have Fudge on their backs is a real problem, probably a bigger one than the fringy freshman squad. 

And for grizzled old Grijalva to be calling the Democratic playbook something out of the 1980s is pretty damning, too. It highlights again that Democrats are out of ideas.

For Republicans, it’s all good. The infighting is a signal that the path is clear toward retaking the House in 2020. A rival party that hates itself that badly is a party that offers nothing to voters. It’s time to throw them out. 

Image credit: Tim Evanson, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0