In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

One big thing I noticed from still photos of last night's speech was the continuing problem of his eyes: he's frequently squinting through a slit-eyed but otherwise expressionless mask, or, if his eyes are open, his pupils are unusually dilated. It's not a good look. The clenched fist in the lower photo is plainly rehearsed, but the pouty mouth contradicts it. Give 'em hell, Harry! He basiclly can't put together a public persona, much less a likeable one. The big episode that stood out, apparently for most commentators, was the exchange with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Joe Biden just confused Laken Riley, a college student killed by an illegal immigrant, with USC football coach Lincoln Riley. This just happened. The man’s brain is mush. Incredibly disrespectful. pic.twitter.com/SxYP3k174X — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) March 8, 2024 He then went off script and veered into incoherence : “Laken [Lincoln] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an i...

This piece notes , The speech’s March 7 delivery date is the latest one for a State of the Union address in history, Fox News noted. This is only the second occasion in history that the president has chosen not to speak in person to a joint session of Congress in January or February. On March 1, 2022, Biden made his first speech to Congress. This must certaintly reflect discomfort among Joe's handlers over his ability to stand up and read coherently from a teleprompter for an hour or more. Whatever ails him -- and I'm still hesitant about any answer that requires a medical diagnosis -- there's a general consensus that it's gotten worse . Former aides who worked directly with then-Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama administration have called current fears over his age “a very real issue” — with some alarmed at how he has become more “frail” and “mumbly.” “If you watch Joe Biden speak, oftentimes he sounds frail and he sounds more frail than he used ...

Yesterday's AP headline completely misses the point: Victoria Nuland, the third-highest ranking U.S. diplomat and frequent target of criticism for her hawkish views on Russia and its actions in Ukraine, will retire and leave her post this month, the State Department said Tuesday. Nuland, a career foreign service officer who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe during the Obama administration but retired after Donald Trump was elected president, returned to government as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Biden administration. She had been a candidate to succeed Wendy Sherman as deputy Secretary of State and had served as acting deputy since Sherman’s retirement seven months ago but lost an internal administration personnel battle when President Joe Biden nominated Kurt Campbell to the no. 2 spot. Campbell took office last month. Nuland had served at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in the tumultuous 1990s and was in the city during the attempt...

I've been noting here that Trump is moving to take over the Republican apparatus in light of his status as presumptive nominee, which he's achieved much earlier than he did in 2016. Not as much has been said, though it should be, about his role in pushing Mitch McConnell to announce his retirement as Senate Republican leader. A month ago, I noted that McConnell had been forced to reverse his support for the Senate border "compromise", citing a source, "McConnell said the political mood in the country has changed since negotiations began months ago." The change was Mike Johnson's election as Speaker and Trump's surge in the polls. Two weeks ago, having made it plain to RNC chair Ronna McDaniel that her resignation was expected, he sent the same message to McConnell : . . . I don’t know that I can work with him,” Trump said during a town hall on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" on Tuesday. “He gave away trillions of dollar...

As the presumptive Republican nominee in the November election and leading Biden in the polls, Trump has increasingly been taking over the party machinery, but he's also beginning to send serious foreign policy signals over the direction his next administration is likely to take. In the most recent example, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will meet former President Donald Trump on Friday, March 8 in Florida, Orban's press chief told Hungarian state news agency MTI late Sunday. Last month nationalist Orban endorsed Trump's bid to return to the presidency this year. "We hope the current president will go, and President Trump will return and he will have free hands to make peace [in Ukraine]," Orban said Feb. 23. Elsewhere, At the invitation of former President Donald Trump, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will be traveling to the USA next week. However, it seems unlikely that he will meet with President Joe Biden, reports eXXpress. ...

In recent weeks, both Joe Biden's son Hunter and his brother James have given closed-door depositions to the Comer Committee, and the transcripts have been released. On Thursday, the New York Post ran the headline, After years of denials, Hunter Biden FINALLY acknowledged Joe was ‘the big guy’ in $5M China deal . The next day, it had the story Joe Biden got $40K from China funds, brother James admits in bombshell impeachment interview . Nobody noticed. Last fall, this would have been much bigger news. I think there are several reasons. One is that by this point, the whole Biden family boodle has been factored in; the part of the public that follows the news has inferred everything there is to infer, and it's moved on. Second, while there's a there there, it's never turned into anything big. Joe got $40K from China? Heck, Nathan Wade go $600K from Fani, and that was for piddling stuff like wine tasting tours. Third, the Hunter-Joe-James story had nothing to do ...

Conventional wisdom is very slowly coming to accept that Plan A, securing a conviction in a Trump trial before the election, has effectively disappeared: whatever the outcome of Judge McAfee's decision in the Fulton County RICO case against Trump and his co-defendants, the losing side will appeal. The most conservative prognostications are that the judge will disqualify Wade, the special prosecutor, but not Willis, who would keep her position as DA, but she'd need to find someone new to serve as special prosecutor. That could be a problem, since Wade had been baked into the process from the start. A second contract prosecutor on the case, Anna Cross, disappeared from the proceedings for unkown reasons after attacking Terrence Bradley on February 16, when it had been assumed she would continue in a lead role. Instead, Adam Abbate, an assistant DA on the regular payroll, was called up from the secnd team to represent the DA's office in Ms Cross's absence; his performa...