In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

What nobody's much noticed is that, with daily news items that call Biden's fitness into question, Kamala Harris's profile has gotten lower and lower . Kamala Harris may have crashed and burned as a 2020 presidential candidate, dropping out well before the first votes were cast in Iowa. But Biden chose her as his running mate anyway. It’s not clear exactly what Harris brought to the ticket outside of checking off a few demographic boxes. Now, Harris has been taken off the field almost completely. Last week Harris was sent to Vietnam and Singapore amid the chaos in Afghanistan. When that trip was over, she stopped off in Hawaii to visit Pearl Harbor. Any Americans who wanted to hear why Harris supported the decision to pull U.S. forces out of Afghanistan last spring would have to wait, because the press was blocked from the event. . . . Last year, then-Vice President Mike Pence held dozens of press conferences as the head of the White House coronav...

Alex Berenson, who apparently prefers to be called a "former New York Times reporter", but whom I would probably call a sometime COVID skeptic, was permanently banned from Twitter this past weekend for the post at right. As I've been pointing out here, his wording is actually a fair summary of recent public remarks from figures like Drs Fauci and Walensky: in fact, they've made statements themselves that the vaccine stops neither infection nor transmission. News reports routinely cite individuals who've been hospitalized after the two jabs, and regional masking rules have been reimposed on the clear principle that vaccinated people can transmit the virus. Various figures have urged Berenson to sue Twitter, but I think this is incredibly bad advice. If he were to do this, he'd be sinking millions of dollars into a doubtful, years-long process of negotiations, injunctions, verdicts, and appeals that would divert his energy from any other projects. Even if...

The most recent controversy (or by now, the second-most recent, which I'll get to) over Biden is the allegation that he fell asleep in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Mainstream media fact-checking has countered, correctly I think in this case, that photos and video clips have been edited to focus on several seconds where Biden's head is lowered. Conservative YouTuber Brandon Tatum , also of the not-asleep school, makes the point that, although Biden's eyes are slits in the sequence, close examination suggests that they aren't actually closed. However, I also agree with the UK Express that calls the sequence "bizarre" , asleep or not. Biden's body language often demonstrates incongruous affect, like the even more recent photo of him checking his watch during the transfer of the Kabul service members' remains in Delaware yesterday. I think the bottom line is that he either doesn't give a flip how it looks -- after all...

They've been moving the goalposts yet again. The CDC website still carries the categorical statement, COVID 19-vaccines are effective. They can keep you from getting and spreading the virus that causes COVID-19. But for months now, we've been hearing the opposite from the same public health authorities. Elsewhere on the same CDC site, we read : On July 27, 2021, CDC released updated guidance on the need for urgently increasing COVID-19 vaccination coverage and a recommendation for everyone in areas of substantial or high transmission to wear a mask in public indoor places, even if they are fully vaccinated. CDC issued this new guidance due to several concerning developments and newly emerging data signals. . . . [N]ew data began to emerge that the Delta variant was more infectious and was leading to increased transmissibility when compared with other variants, even in some vaccinated individuals. So the vaccines will keep you from getting an...

The puzzling thing about the California recall election, scheduled for September 14, is how few polls have been made public. According to Five Thirty Eight , there have been only three since July, none well publicized, and they're all over the landscape. Yet establishment media seems to be prepping its audience for Newsom's removal. The Atlantic ran a story yesterday in which the reporter met with Newsom for breakfast in a San Francisco cafe: At the café, he quickly ate a banana and slurped the top of his coffee. He’d dropped his breakfast on the floor before I arrived. More bad luck, he said. “I was always that lucky one, too,” he said, shaking his head. “Just the whole damn thing flipped on me.” How did things go sideways for a governor who three years ago won his first term by the biggest margin in California history? Yahoo News reported Thursday: Every California governor since Ronald Reagan in the 1960s has inspired quixotic recall petitions. Prior to Februa...

If nothing else, I'm finding it therapeutic at least to try to analyze what's happening with President Biden. As I've said, I'm less and less convinced thst loss of cognitive function is at the root of the problem, but I don't think simple incompetence is a good answer, either. There are probably several factors involved, but observable behavior is at least one pathway to parsing out what's going on. The big thing I noticed when he began speaking at yesterday's press conference was how much slower he spoke than usual, and as he did, how much less he slurred or stumbled over his words. The first thing that came to mind was the common standup routine about being pulled over for DUI: the experienced drunk knows that to avoid slurred speech, you talk slowly: "Goood . . . ev-en-ing. . . of-fi-cer!" I couldn't shake this impression. The next thing that struck me was the awfulness of the speech he gave. He had to have drafted it himself, in front ...

The remark I quoted from a commentator yesterday, that it was difficult to see the whites of Biden's eyes, set me to thinking. I started to review his photos in general, and his eyes are frequently just slits, especially when he's "smiling". The combination of slit eyes and perfect white teeth is chilling; those teeth are clearly manufactured, and they look sharp. None of this speaks to cognitive decline. But this raises another question. Does this guy actually know what he's doing? And although I've mentioned that I'm studying Spanish so I can talk with the lizards in the back yard, I'm not the only person starting to think this way. It’s one thing for us to believe that a single addled, stupid, narcissistic old man might plan something this bad. But why would so many people go along with it? Are they all merely dumb? I doubt it. Frightened of Joe? I doubt it. The proper remedy, if they couldn’t change his mind or stop him, would have bee...