In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

One story that's been at the back of my mind since I started this blog is the Jason Bourne series of neo-noir movie thrillers, and as the details about Trump's attempted assassination have trickled out, I keep wondering how I might try to fit them into a Robert Ludlum style plot. Let me say from the start that this is pure speculation driven by an overactive literary imagination. We have Joe, an elderly, shallow, and self-absorbed president who's been propped up by the organs of state security since his time as vice president -- and as best we can determine, his son, a dissipated drug addict, has been one of his closest advisors since that time as well. Even while Trump was in office, the organs of state security coordinated an effort to impeach Trump on Joe's behalf; since Joe came into office, the same organs assisted the January 6 "insurrection" investigation and either conducted or assisted a series of criminal indictments and civil actions designed ...

The impression, possibly fostered by Fr Schmitz and his Bible in a Year podcast, has been forming in my mind for a while that belief in space aliens is a form of idolatry. It's been enough to make me put a limit on the shows I watch on History that cover the subject. Here's an example of what's begun to bother me, an episode of Ancient Aliens that aired Aug 26, 2022 : Ancient cultures around the world often referred to the gods as the "Immortals" - but could they have encountered extraterrestrial beings that had achieved eternal life? And if these visitors genetically engineered the human race, as Ancient Astronaut Theorists suggest, is it our destiny to become immortals as well? Note how quickly the story elides from archaeology through sci-fi to immortality, which is the province of religion -- if we somehow believe strongly enough that the ancient aliens were immortal, then maybe we can live forever ourselves, or sorta-kinda something like that. Nobody ...

I didn't watch Joe's big boy press conference last night, but I did check the aggregators later to see if there'd been any major blunders. My sense of things was that, although he'd started out by misgendering Vice Preasident Trump, his performance was good enough : The Democrat Party is left in limbo as President Joe Biden’s NATO press conference avoided total disaster despite several gaffes, and it could stave off internal efforts among Democrats to remove him as the nominee in the immediate future. . . . Biden’s former White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on MSNBC that she thinks the press conference “gave [Biden’s campaign] more time, which for the campaign is a win.” Nevertheless, the consensus that seems to be emerging is more aligned with Susan Glasser in the New Yorker : And sure enough, Biden was barely into his first response before he let loose another gaffe, arguably even cringier than the first. Asked about Vice-President Kamala Harris a...

Biden describes giving NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg the Medal of Freedom: "I sorta got on my knees and begged him." pic.twitter.com/ONvsEIcWbC — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 11, 2024 It took me some time to connect the dots between two cryptic clips of Joe's remarks surrounding the NATO summit yesterday. It looks as though he was trying to tell some sort of private joke that stayed in his mind over two separate contexts. The clip above was in a discussion with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, while the clip belolw that more or less explains it was made at the NATO summit itself in a direct exchange with retiring Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg: 😳Oh boy… “I realize after _____ing your wife. “ “I personally ask you to extend your service….laughs......... Forgive me?” ⁉️What did Joe just say he was doing to his wife? pic.twitter.com/KHi4bojNfY — RoamingRN (@roaming_rn) July 9, 2024 Nobody is quite sure what the word was as Joe slurred out "_____ing...

Whether it's thought to be a cynical betrayal or a belated acknowledgement of the obvious, there's been a general recognition that the legacy media -- more or less except for MSNBC -- has turned against Biden in its news coverage and often editorially called for Joe to "step aside", although without explaining precisely what that should imply. Piers Morgan sums it up at the New York Post : The US mainstream media are currently gorging on President Biden’s cognitive decline like ravenous hyenas on the freshly slain carcass of a decrepit old buffalo. In fact, since his train-wreck debate debacle, the nation’s predominantly liberal-skewed, Democrat-defending journalists have competed with each other as to who can sound the most faux shocked, horrified, appalled, and furrowed-brow-uncomprehending about the physical and mental state of their president. But why? I think if Rush Limbaugh were still around, he'd give the same reason he gave at the end of his l...

Regarding what may or may not ail Joe, I'm not qualified to say, except that the media has suddenly taken a lot of interest in the question. What intrigues me is the evasiveness of the White House's attempts to answer the questions from the press. I know almost nothing about Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, but as a truie crime fan who reads and watches the insights of detectives about interrogation, I've learned a few things about lying -- and in particular, the truism that a lie is as good as a confession. In other words, if you can catch someone in a definite lie, you're starting to get a road map to just what it is they're trying to cover up. It's hard to avoid thinking that Press Secretary Jean-Pierre is displaying signs of lying in her answers to a couple of the questions she was asked in her press briefing yesterday . The relevant sequence starts at about 38:00 Q: When you were here last Tuesday, you were asked if the president had had any medic...

Voter: We need Dark Brandon back President Biden: Dark Brandon is coming back Voters: *burst into applause* pic.twitter.com/fBPL01ReeK — Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) July 7, 2024 So the latest we hear is that Joe has written a letter to congressional Democrats this morning saying it's time to end talk of his withdrawing . This comes as reports from last week indicate that his inner circle of advisers has shrunk to Hunter, Dr Jill, and the Rasputin-like Anthony Bernal. Bernal, who as we've seen often represents himself to the rest of the White House staff as speaking for "the family", seems to be behind reports that the family blames staff for his poor performance in the June 27 debate. Meanwhile, the New York Post reports that A senior White House official who has worked with President Biden since his days as vice president reportedly joined the growing chorus of calls urging him against running for reelection. That unnamed official, described as working w...