In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Ever since the G7 "cheap fake" vignettes, outlets across the board have been spitballing new strategies to replace Joe on the November ballot. Via the UK Daily Mail , [I]t seems no matter how much cold water the Biden campaign or Democratic Party throw on this raging fire of speculation, Americans will not be put off the Great Joe Biden Replacement Theory. It's the idea that somehow, some way the President will be swapped out as the Democratic Party's candidate ahead of the 2024 election. But the obstacle is always Kamala, who is the other horn of the dilemma. The Daily Mail points this out: [The substitute] would not be Vice President Kamala Harris, according to sources, who observed that Harris has already had to fend off a push to replace her on the ticket. 'It doesn't just become Kamala. Kamala only becomes the nominee if Biden dies,' one blunt consultant said. Another Democratic political insider believes that Harris has failed so badl...

YIKES: Watch Joe Biden incoherently babble at his Hollywood fundraiser as Obama looks on in SHOCK. This is so bad… pic.twitter.com/W7WsF74zvM — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 17, 2024 The conventional wisdom, even before the 2024 presidential debate dates were set, has been that Joe's handlers will be able to prep him well enough for the first debate, now a little over a week away, that he'll surpass a low-bar standard and "win" the debate against Trump simply by avoiding major embarrassments. For instance, Biden’s performance at his State of the Union address — which went over largely well and led to many public reconsiderations of whether he was too diminished to run for a second term — is very much on the minds of some Trump aides. They expect that Biden’s team will get him into similar shape ahead of the debate. As of now, even though I'm a contrarian in any case, I have serious doubts about this. The CNN story at the link was written l...

Biden freezes before Obama grabs his arm and leads him off stage. Yikes! 😳 pic.twitter.com/nCgAGitoQ6 — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 16, 2024 I wasn't going to post on Joe's freezeup at the Hollywood fundraiser on Saturday -- I was convinced the headbump with Pope Francis was as bad as things could get, and having Barack Obama forced to lead him off the stage was just a weak aftershow. But I sat up in bed early this morning thinking about the scene in Hitchcock's Vertigo where Midge, John "Scottie" Ferguson's ex-fiancee, visits him in a psychiatric ward where he's recovering after losing his obsessive love Madeleine Elster in her phony suicide. Scottie is sitting dazed and unresponsive with Mozart playing on a record player. Midge says, It's Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus. I had a long talk with that lady in musical therapy, Johnny, and she says that Mozart's the boy for you. The broom that sweeps the cobwebs away. Well, that'...

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. . ...