From the right: More Democratic Debates, Please

At Townhall.com, Ann Coulter sarcastically lauds Tuesday’s Democratic debate, when the candidates “came together in peace and harmony,” agreeing that “Trump should be impeached,” “abortion is great” and “Obamacare sucks.” Hooray, cheers Coulter: “At least we’re all finally agreed on Obamacare!” But Dems’ solution — “another massive government intervention” — isn’t much better. “The motto of all socialist schemes should be: ‘This time, it will be different,’ ” she snarks. To fix America’s drug problem they “say they’d go after the pharmaceutical companies and then, in the next breath, demand that we legalize drugs.” Meanwhile, Joe Biden bragged about an assault-weapons ban that resulted in Republicans’ “jaw-dropping” 1994 takeover of the House. “Please, Joe, promise to ‘beat’ the NRA again!”

From the left: Dems Should Remember 2004

The American Prospect’s Alexander Sammon begs Democrats to learn from the “electoral disaster” of 2004 — because frontrunner Joe Biden is “flashing more than a few John Kerry-like traits.” In both elections, a Republican incumbent (George W. Bush then, Donald Trump now), was at the end of a “first term he’d secured after losing the popular vote” and had “a favorability rating under 50 percent.” A Vermont radical (Howard Dean then, Bernie Sanders now) inspired the left with an “ambitious plan” for “publicly provisioned health care.” Yet in 2004, Democrats stamped out Dean’s “insurgency,” instead nominating the “electable” John Kerry — who lost miserably. Now “electability” is the argument for Joe Biden. The similarities “should be instructive” for Democrats — but they “may prove unwilling to learn the lesson.”

Conservative: Leahy Praises an Anti-Semite

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) tried to defend “the indefensible” when he offered “a glowing defense” of Saudi preacher Salman al-Awda,” who faces charges of sedition in Saudi Arabia, writes Erielle Davidson at The Federalist. Leahy called al-Awda “courageous” and a “true reformer,” despite his “history of virulent antisemitism.” The cleric, she notes, has said Jews consume human blood, lauded the Taliban, pushed a boycott of the United States and voiced “unsettling views on women.” Yet Leahy ignores all this, arguing only that al-Awda is suffering at the hands of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. The senator’s likely goal: “to undercut” President Trump’s bid to boost ties to Riyadh. Leahy’s approach shows what’s plagued Democrats since Trump’s election: They are “terrible at picking heroes because their primary criteria is ‘Does this oppose Trump?’ ”

Religion beat: Dems’ Anti-Religion Fervor

Democrats won’t “sic the feds on you” just for being religious — except, warns the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney, if you “try to live your faith in public.” At a recent CNN town hall, Beto O’Rourke “said he would deploy the IRS against any church that didn’t practice gay marriage.” More broadly, Carney notes, he argued that people who “emerge into the public square or attempt to serve others” must scrap their beliefs if they “clash with contemporary morality.” So far, O’Rourke’s the only candidate to “put it so bluntly, but it’s pretty obviously the position of the Democratic Party that the freedom of conscience doesn’t extend beyond the church door.” Our “liberal tastemakers,” certain of their “righteousness” and “religious conservatives’ perfidy,” are stripping Americans” of their religious freedom. “This isn’t toleration. It’s tyranny.”



Impeachment desk: Schiff Must Go

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, “President Trump’s chief antagonist” in the impeachment inquiry, has committed violations so “egregious” that “it’s time to sanction him and remove him from his position,” argues the Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin at Real Clear Politics. Example: swearing “on multiple occasions” that he’d never had contact with the anti-Trump whistleblower, when he in fact had. For that, The Washington Post awarded Schiff “four ‘Pinocchios’ — the worst prize possible for telling deliberate lies.” Then, in his opening Ukraine hearing, Schiff “put words” into Trump’s mouth, “trying to pass him off as a mob boss.” Fact is, in his “fanatical pursuit” of the president, Schiff has abused his position. “It is time for him to go.”

— Compiled by Karl Salzmann & Adam Brodsky