In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I've lately begun to gauge the extent of the Overton window, the range of opinions that can be expressed in public without seeming extreme, by looking at each day's Real Clear Politics menu, along with their aggregate poll listings. There are maybe 20 titles on a typical day, and their sources range from the New York Post on the right to The American Prospect and The Nation on the left, which skews things leftward in my view -- but of course, the poll aggregates do the same, and I'll get to that. The big thing I've noticed since Joe went to Italy is that RCP hasn't published a single headline that says anything major about Joe's cognitive struggles there. There's been absolutely nothing about Friday's forehead bump with Pope Francis, although the only thing that can reasonably be concluded about it is that Joe completely lost situational awareness and forgot that he was in a diplomatic forum with world leaders, expected to follow closely cicumscribe...

It's worth pointing out that the "meanderer in chief" episode in Italy took place on Thursday, while Joe's bizarre forehead bump with Pope Francis took place yesterday. Out of curiosity, I looked up the established protocol for meeting a pontiff. According to wikiHow , the rules are in part, especially for Catholics like Joe, Genuflect as the Pope approaches. If the Pope approaches you directly, you should kneel with your right knee bent to the floor. . . . Genuflection is a sign of high respect. If you are Catholic and if the Pope offers you his hand, that would be an appropriate time to plant a quick yet respectful kiss on the Piscatory ring, also known as the Ring of the Fisherman, traditionally worn by the Pope. . . . By kissing it, you show both respect and sincere affection for the man who holds that office. . . . Speak respectfully, clearly, and concisely. Plan what to say beforehand so that you do not stumble too much over yo...

WHAT IS BIDEN DOING? pic.twitter.com/iY33K2srII — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 13, 2024 Up tp now, I've been extremely reluctant to come to any medical-related conclusion about Joe's condition. Yesterday's vignette from Italy above changed my mind -- it shows him wandering away from the group of G7 leaders watching a skydiving demonstration. I've had several relatives who were affected by dementia, and what Joe did there was a little too familiar. According to the Mayo Clinic , Wandering and becoming lost is common among people with Alzheimer's disease or other disorders causing dementia. This behavior can happen in the early stages of dementia — even if the person has never wandered in the past. . . . Wandering isn't necessarily harmful if it occurs in a safe and controlled environment. The G7 meeting is about as safe and controlled an environment as you can find, but what we see in the video clip is Joe apparently becoming dis...

Jonathan Turley's reaction to Hunter's guilty verdict in his regular column raises a delicate question about why Bidenworld's judgment seems so poor: [T]he defense had to know that they were increasing the chances of prison time by pursuing a nullification defense. The hope was that Wilmington is Bidentown and no local jury would convict the son of the favorite son of Delaware. It didn’t work out that way. The team seemed to overplay its hand with defenses that were so implausible as to be insulting for the jury. They suggested that Hunter might not have checked the box or signed the form during a brief window where he was not using drugs. The prosecutors demolished those defenses within two days of the trial. Turley expanded on his written view in this video clip . At 4:00, he says, There are reports out today that many of the Biden family believe that a Delaware jury would not convict Hunter Biden, the son of the favorite son of Delaware. . ...

Most of my posts over the past several days have covered the move in respectable opinion through the five stages of grief to reach depression and finally acceptance that Trump is on track to win the November election. There's an increasing consensus that Biden, even five months out, has run out of time to turn things around, and the only possible remedy is maybe Gretchen Whitmer at the top of the ticket, or something like that, which is pure fantasy. But now we have two important people, Nate Silver and Sean Trende, suggesting a possible new reason for optimism, which I will call the 270-268 scenario, whereby Joe reverses the Republican strategy, loses the popular vote, but ekes out the thinnest possible Electoral College victory by flipping a few of the so-called "battleground" states at the last minute. Yes, right now at the aggregators, Biden is behind in all of them, but Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are closer. According to Nate Silver , ...

BIDEN: "...since the founding of our ideals that we don't know fully what American soil is" 🧐 pic.twitter.com/o2nAnm5EUI — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 11, 2024 A recent TV show that's exceeded my expectations is the History Channel's How Disney Built America , which focuses on the old-fashioned Disney of Snow White, Davy Crockett, and Disneyland and so far has ignored the trans dudes in fairy godmother outfits selling schlock to little girls in the gift shop. This past Sunday's episode focused on "animatronics", high-tech automatons that move and speak with astonishing realism. The example on the show was the famous Abraham Lincoln figure that was first demonstrated at the 1964 New York World's Fair. I thought of the moving, speaking Abraham Lincoln when I ran across this story at Red State , which carried the video above as well as several others. All I could think was that what we were actually watching was some beta version of a new ...

Several pieces turned up over the weekend showimg polite opinion moving through the final stages of grief over the potential November outcome. A major theme is that, even with five months still to go until the election, Joe has run out of time to turn things around. At Roll Call : The Biden 2020 campaign strategy was simple: portray himself as a seasoned centrist who would bring the country together and return the White House to normalcy. After three-and-a-half years governing with liberal policies to appease his base, that direction for Biden is no longer an option. Independents, who won him the election, now overwhelmingly have an unfavorable view of both the job he is doing and him personally. The majority coalition that elected him is gone, as those critical voters no longer view another four years of Biden as a positive. So another strategy has emerged, almost by default given Biden’s limited options. It is one that seems oddly familiar, as it mirrors Hillary...