ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Would the Democrats rather win in 2020, or eat themselves alive?

I WISH HE WOULD, JUST FOR ALL THE EXPLODING HEADS: Trump Could Declare Himself ‘The First Female President’ Under the Equality Act, Rep. Gaetz Warns.

BATTLELINES: Valerie Jarrett defends Biden: ‘I have an enormous amount of respect for him.’

“I had the honor of working with Joe Biden every single day for eight years. And I have an enormous amount of respect for him,” Jarrett said in a interview with NPR. She maintained that she saw Biden “be extraordinarily demonstrative to both men and women alike — and never did I take it as a sexual advance in any way.”

Plus:

Former [Obama] national security adviser Susan Rice, in a series of tweets Monday evening, said she personally never found Biden‘s “actions inappropriate or uncomfortable,“ adding that she had “always appreciated his kindness and warmth.”

I wonder if these former Obama hands see Biden as their best bet back into power.

NATO’S 21ST CENTURY VALUE

LCACS ON A BEACH: Two landing craft air cushion (LCAC) wait on a beach somewhere in the eastern Pacific. One is preparing to unload Marines and vehicles, the other is preparing to depart.

HOPE: Erdogan’s party suffer surprise defeats in Turkish mayoral elections in three biggest cities.

I wasn’t sure such a thing was possible, given Erdogan’s control of the media, and his purge of opponents real and imagined around the country.

LIFE UNDER THE LEFT’S CLIMATE OF HATE: It Is Outrageous that Supporting Trump Is Dangerous.

THEN NOW IS THE TIME TO PRESS THEM HARD: China’s economy is hurting and a trade deal can’t come a moment too soon for Beijing.

GOVERNMENT IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR THE THINGS WE CHOOSE TO DO TOGETHER: Government Agrees to Stop Feeding Research Kittens Parasite-Infected Meat, Other Kittens.

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LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Welcome to Subpoena City and Much, Much More. “Social media personality James Comey told ‘journalist’ Christine Amanpour that he ‘fears’ an investigation of the deep state coup, massive abuse of power and greatest political scandal in the history of America that took place on his watch.”

My only fear is that his fear might not be well-founded.

BUT THE NARRATIVE! Hispanics Rally to Trump, Boosting His 2020 Chances.

“ENGAGING IN SYSTEMATIC DEFAMATION IS NOT A TAX-EXEMPT PURPOSE:” Sen. Tom Cotton Demands IRS Investigation into SPLC’s Tax-Exempt Status.

PAUL CARON: What Is A Law School Dean’s Equivalent Of Hitting A Home Run In Your Final At Bat?

THE MARINES, THE F-35B, AND THE RETURN OF THE LIGHT CARRIER: U.S. Amphibious Assault Ship In South China Sea With Unprecedentedly Large Load of F-35Bs.

#TIMESUP: Biden’s Tactile Politics Threaten His Return in the #MeToo Era.

Related: Joe Biden’s Identity Reckoning: He may have been VP, but he’s old, white, male and heterosexual. He can solve all his problems at once by identifying as a lesbian between now and the convention.

JON GABRIEL: The Electoral College is undemocratic? Of course. That’s why it works.

The world’s first democracy was ancient Athens, which allowed around 30,000 free adult male citizens to choose their leaders. They made up less than 15 percent of the population, but it was the most egalitarian political innovation to date.

It didn’t take long for the system to implode amid rampant corruption, an economic downturn, immigration headaches and unpopular foreign wars. (Sound familiar?) The plan of “one man, one vote” devolved into a kind of mob rule, the populace veering with wild swings of opinion. Voters overthrew leaders, exiled the unpopular, and executed generals and politicians – even Socrates himself.

As the saying goes, democracy is four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. The Founders looked to Athens less as a political model than an object lesson in what not to do.

James Madison said that democracies are “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Therefore, America was set up as a republic, filled with countless checks and balances to avoid one group gaining power and using it to punish or exclude everyone they didn’t like.

That’s a bug, not a feature, to those seeking to abolish the Electoral College.

LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Journalist Describes An ‘Almost Unimaginable’ Crisis In Venezuela. “The U.N. estimates that it’s upwards of 3 million people who have left. Now remember, this is a country of 30 million people. So we’re talking about 10 percent of the population that has gone. And you see this when you walk around the streets of Caracas, which I have, or Maracaibo, which I did just a few weeks ago. There are areas which are completely empty. You walk down streets and you see that there’s two or three people in one house, and then another house is gone, or another house has got a family of what looked like squatters, because they’ve just moved into the place.”

More:

On one end, these countries are trying to pressure [President] Maduro now to step down, because they know that this migrant crisis is going to get even worse the more politically unstable the country gets. Countries like Colombia understand that Venezuela used to be a country that took their immigrants, especially during the darkest days of the paramilitaries and the guerrilla fighting, but at the same time, they understand they can’t take every Venezuelan that comes.

And not only that, because of this crisis that’s getting worse and worse, because of lack of medicine mainly, people are coming into these countries with diseases that should be controlled in Venezuela — diseases like diphtheria, malaria, tuberculosis have made a huge comeback in Venezuela. So if you’re a neighboring country like Brazil or Colombia, or a country like Ecuador or Peru, who are farther away but are also taking immigrants, this is a very scary situation that’s right on your doorstep.

So many lessons in those two brief paragraphs, which will remain ignored by those who most need to learn them.

MALE PRIVILEGE: For a million U.S. men, failing to register for the draft has serious, long-term consequences.

HARD OUT: Brexit Rebel Leader Now “90% Sure We Will Drop Out With ‘No Deal’.”

TWO MEN SAY THEY’RE JESUS; ONE OF THEM MUST BE WRONG: Fan of Robert Francis O’Rourke displays sign at Austin Rally labeled “BETO IS OUR CHRIST.”

Flashback: The entire archives of the Is Barack Obama the Messiah? blog.

(Classical reference in headline.)

MICHAEL LEDEEN: The Failed Spanish Inquisition Offers an Important Lesson to Modern Anti-Semites. “Countries that built their futures on religious toleration, countries with substantial Jewish populations, are, we can hope, the future of mankind.”