In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

The headlines want to pretend there's something new here, Trump now leading in 5 battleground states — all of which Biden won in 2020: poll , but the polls have been the same for months. In April, according to Reuters , Republican Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden in six battleground states in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday that cited concerns about the economy and Biden's performance. Trump garnered a lead of between 2 and 8 percentage points among voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina on a ballot that included third-party and independent candidates, the Journal said. The results were similar in a one-on-one matchup with Biden, it said. In Wisconsin, a seventh state where the contest is expected to be close, Biden was ahead by 3 points on a multiple candidate ballot and tied in a head-to-head contest with Trump, the Journal said. In February, According to Mor...

Biden ally and Democrat US Senator Chris Coons was on ABC’s “This Week” with Martha Raddatz yesterday to spin Joe's acknowledgement Wednesday night that he was pausing military aid to Israel. But this attempt at damage control came between Trump's Saturday rally in New Jersey that was estimated to have drawn 80-100,000, and Michael Cohen's anticipated appearance in Trump's New York trial, which will likely focus all of this week's media attention on Trump as well. Poor Joe's handlers can hardly get a word in edgewise. The odd part about Coons's defense is that it walks nothing back, despite commentators calling Biden's move a " terrible miscalculation " that threatens the loss of the Jewish vote from the traditional Democrat coalition. Instead,Coons tries to shift the blame onto Netanyahu: RADDATZ: So, you’re saying he’ll stop offensive weapons? . . . So are you saying offensive weapons should be stopped? COONS: Look, I think wha...

Thinking about my last several posts on Dershowitz and Netanyahu, I'm puzzled why it is that if I do a web search on "Biden Israel betrayal", I get so many hits, like at the UK Telegraph, Biden’s sudden betrayal of Israel is a terrible miscalculation . This was neither sudden nor a surprise, or at least it shouldn't have been. It almost certainly wasn't sudden or a surprise to Netanyahu. Yesterday I linked to a 2016 article at the Times of Israel that said, "On January 20 — Inauguration Day — President Barack Obama will exit the world stage, and with him the specter of vindictive action against the Israeli government." Netanyahu fully understood where he in particular stood with Obama and any of his Democrat allies. A 2015 story at CBS made this plain: President Obama sent top political advisers to Israel to influence the election's outcome and prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's win, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Tuesday. ...

According to Wikipedia , Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu . . . is an Israeli politician who has been serving as the prime minister of Israel since 2022, having previously held the office from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021.He is the chairman of the Likud party. Netanyahu is the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history, having served for a total of over 16 years. He is also the first prime minister to have been born in Israel after its establishment. . . . Netanyahu rose to prominence after being elected as the chairman of Likud in 1993, becoming Leader of the Opposition. In the 1996 election, Netanyahu beat Shimon Peres, becoming the first Israeli prime minister elected directly by popular vote, and its youngest-ever. Netanyahu and Likud were heavily defeated in the 1999 election by Ehud Barak's One Israel alliance; and Netanyahu chose to retire from politics entirely, entering the private sector. Netanyahu later returned to politics, and ser...

I keep returning to Nate Silver's Feburary advice to the White House , in which he warns [H]e's losing now and there's no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong[.] I'm starting to think that Silver, like Alan Dershowitz, is a highly intelligent traditional Democrat who's sincerely trying to think his position through, and it's a fascinating process to watch. Let's revisit his February position on Biden interviews: Biden’s doing a lot fewer interviews than even the media-hostile Trump. And when he does them, his performance is still just mediocre. Again, he recommended that Biden turn things around: Over the course of the next several weeks [i.e, in March}, Biden should do four lengthy sitdown interviews with “non-friendly” sources. “Non-friendly” doesn't mean hostile: nonpartisan reporters with a track record of asking tough questions would work great. A complete recording of the interviews should be made publi...

Yesterday, in response to news that the Biden administration had "paused" certain arms shipments to Israel in an attempt to hold back Israel's intent to go into Rafah to eliminate the threat from Hamas, I quoted Alan Dershowitz's statement from back in March, "If you stop supplying ammunition and arms to Israel and deny them the right to defend themselves, you have crossed my red line." I'd been waiting, as apparently many others have, for Dershowitz's reaction to this latest development. It's come, at least for now, in yesterday's Dershow podcast, which is linked above. If I had to vote today, I would not vote for President Biden . . . For those who have asked me, has my red line been crossed, this is the red line, and if it is crossed by the Biden administration, I will abide by my commitment and not support those who have crossed my red line, and I'm sure it's a red line for many of you as well. So I hope it hasn't...

Michael LeBron, who posts as Lionel on his YouTube channel, summed up yesterday's New York trial: As the Skank Tanks . I can't possibly top that, and otrher things are happening, so I'll mention just three of them. First, according to Politico , The Biden administration is holding up shipments of two types of Boeing-made precision bombs to send a political message to Israel, according to a U.S. official and six other people with knowledge of the deliberations. The U.S. has yet to sign off on a pending sale of Boeing’s Joint Direct Attack Munitions — both the munitions and kits that convert them to smart weapons — and Small Diameter Bombs, according to six industry and congressional sources with knowledge of the discussions. While the Biden administration has not formally denied the potential sale, it is essentially taking action through inaction — holding off on approvals and other aspects of the weapons transfer process — to send a message to Israel, a U...