In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

A Breitbart story gives an account of two Biden experts from Conservative Inc trading scuttlebutt: Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow said that his new New York Times bestselling book Breaking Biden includes a number of forgotten biographical details about Joe Biden, including the fact that he was tapped as former President Barack Obama’s running mate “specifically for being bad with money.” Marlow recounted this detail during an interview about Breaking Biden on the Drill Down Podcast with seven-time New York Times bestselling investigative author Peter Schweizer. . . . “One of the reasons why Barack Obama picked Joe Biden was specifically because he was poor,” Marlow continued. “[Obama] actually liked the optics of having one of the poorest guys in the Senate. And this is so crazy to me because we were just in an era recently where if someone made money and someone made it in America, we pointed to those people as the example—like, ‘Wow, that person really has what it ...

Yesterday I suggested Trump is following a Chicago Seven strategy of baiting his trial judges into overreacting, committing reversible errors, and allowing themselves to be characterized as political hacks in the public narrative. This strategy is succeeding. A federal judge on Sunday reinstated a gag order she imposed on Donald Trump in the Washington case accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, denying his bid for a stay pending appeal. The order prohibited Trump from targeting the special counsel prosecuting his case or witnesses who might be called to testify about his efforts to upend his election loss. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed the gag order at the Justice Department’s request. She temporarily lifted it on Oct. 20 after Trump’s lawyers appealed. And she reversed that decision on Sunday evening, according to the court’s docket. A member of the former Obama administration outlined the thinking that likely drove Judge Chutkan's cha...

I've already mentioned the 1969 Chicago Seven trial here in the context of some of the January 6 defendants. Looking back at that post, I think the comparison is mild, especially in contrast to what's beginning to look like Trump's strategy in at least two of his cases, where judges are beginning to impose gag orders on Trump's speech outside the courtroom. On one hand, Trump's strategy is to play the legal issues straight, appealing the orders through established channels. On the other, as opportunties present themselves, he's using public statements to bait the judges into overreacting, turning them into villains in the public eye and forcing them into committing reversible errors. For instance, All this will do is enrage Judge Engoron, who has already fined Trump twice for violating a gag order that bars him from commenting about court staff: Justice Arthur Engoron fined Trump for the second time on Wednesday after he again appeared t...

I'm having a hard time getting my head around this exercise : Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) announced Thursday he is running for president against President Biden. The congressman confirmed he would be running against Biden in the Democratic primary, after previously signaling he would not do so. . . . The Minnesota Democrat has repeatedly called for a competitive primary instead of Biden running unopposed for the nomination. “I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country. But it’s not about the past,” Phillips said. “This is an election about the future.” According to Red State , [W]hat makes this especially interesting is who is reportedly behind the campaign. According to another report, The Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt, infamous for his late-night online meltdowns, is advising Phillips. . . . If Schmidt is the driving force behind Phillips' campaign, that's not a good sign for anyone involved. I wouldn...

Tolerance of anti-Semitic and even pro-genocide demonstrations on campuses in particular since October 7 has provoked a certain amount of recalibration among Jews over where their political alliances should lie. Some of it goes directly to the established Democrat party alignment that's persisted in many ways since Reconstruction. The playwright David Mamet wrote this past Monday , We New York Jews have always voted for the Democrats, as their policies appealed to the immigrants and the first generation (my parents). A Fair Shake, a safety net, and unionism were manna to the newly arrived — in spite of (in both their and my lifetime) quotas and antisemitic discrimination. The immigrant Jews did well here, and voted for Franklin Roosevelt. And we are voting for him still. His Advisor on Jewish Affairs (jude-suss, or “house-Jew”) was Rabbi Stephen Wise, the “dean” of the American Rabbinate. He referred to FDR as “Boss”, and brought home to his community Roosevelt’s...

Over the past week, Gavin Newsom has been on a trip to Israel and China : Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) joked about his presidential ambitions following a wartime trip to Israel, explaining the limits of his visit. “I wish I was president of the United States,” he told reporters when asked about meeting with Israeli leaders, particularly to discuss a potential ceasefire with Hamas. He added afterward that he was joking. “I could start doing all those things." According to Newsom, the brief and impromptu trip to Israel was “limited in scope.” . . . Newsom is the second governor to travel to Israel amid the war with Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, following Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY). New York has the largest population of Jewish people in America, as well as the largest population outside of Israel itself. California has the second-largest population in the U.S. The California governor has answered as to whether he supports a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, something g...

This is an intersectional story, because it links pilots who shouldn't be flying, magic mushrooms, and Oregon. According to KRON4, Joseph David Emerson, 44, of Pleasant Hill [CA], was off-duty and sitting in the cockpit Sunday evening when he suddenly tried to cut off the jet’s engines, according to on-duty pilots who flew Horizon Air Flight AS 2059. The pilots said they wrestled with Emerson for control of the aircraft, he pulled on emergency controls to cut the engines’ fuel, and the jet was “seconds away” from becoming a glider, prosecutors wrote in court documents. The quick-thinking captain, co-pilot, and flight crew were able to throw Emerson out of the cockpit, handcuff him, and make an emergency landing at a Portland airport. On Tuesday, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office filed 84 charges against Emerson, including 83 counts of felony second-degree attempted murder, and one count of endangering an aircraft. The flight had 11 passengers who were ch...