Democrats in a nutshell

The Corner: "Ben Kamens Is a Perfect Spokesman for the Democratic Party"

“Just got a call to let me know my student debt has been canceled. This is why elections matter. Thanks @JoeBiden.”

Ben Kamens, the communications director for Representative Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio), posted that on X today. It included a picture of the letter he received from Nelnet, the company that serviced his student loans. The letter begins, “Congratulations! The Biden-Harris administration has forgiven your federal student loan(s) listed below with Nelnet in full.”

Kamens’s two loans were taken out in 2010. The original principal balances were $2,750 and $5,500. Again, he posted this on X for the entire world to see.

As the text of his message demonstrates, he’s not the least bit ashamed about the fact that he, a grown man and college graduate with a full-time job, was apparently unable to repay debt with a principal of $8,250 over a span of 14 years.

In related news: "Student loan relief contributing to 27% jump in projected federal budget deficit, per CBO."

Whenever Republicans pass a tax cut, Democrats scream that letting Americans keep more of their own money "wasn't paid for."  Well, this little defiance of the Supreme Court isn't paid for.  I'm sure the mainstream media will be all over this.

Extra - Freeloader Ben has been having a good time spending money.

Biden won't debate

Here's your regular update.  PJ Media: "The Media Knows Biden Will Lose the Debate With Trump."

MSNBC - naturally - is making pre-emptive excuses:

Can anyone explain how Joe Biden, whose campaign set the terms of the debate, is at a structural disadvantage? The rules they proposed — which Trump agreed to — were designed to benefit Joe Biden, yet Wagner feels the need to preemptively make excuses for Biden’s anticipated poor performance. Not only will there be no audience present, but there will be no opening statements, microphones will be muted when it’s not the candidate’s turn, and it will be just one hour, not the usual 90 minutes. 

The media is desperate.  They know what's coming.  Biden's biggest mistake was agreeing to no pre-written notes and he simply cannot function without them.

Nobody cares

Hot Air: "CBO: National Debt Will Pass $50 Trillion in 10 Years."

The national debt is an abstract that currently affects nobody and nobody will care until it becomes an intractable problem, whereupon it will be too late to stop Frankenstein's monster.

"The media gaslighting is embarrassing."

Federalist: "Stop Trying To Convince Me Joe Biden Isn’t A Confused, Doddering Old Man." 

Another executive action on immigration

Dementia Joe lets his executive action pen go wild whenever it comes to letting more illegals into the country but - gosh darn it - he just can't do anything at all to enforce the law unless Donald Trump says so.

The Corner: "Amnesties All the Way Down"

The amnesty the White House announced today is simply the latest — and maybe not even the largest — of its many unilateral decrees legalizing and/or letting into the country individuals who have no right to be in the United States. 

Just like Biden's YOLO student loan forgiveness scheme, I hope Democrats remember this latest perversion of the law when Trump is back in office.  Anything goes, man: you opened the door.

Your lyin' eyes

PJ Media: "White House Denies Biden Froze at Hollywood Fundraiser."

Sharp as a tack...behind closed doors, we've been assured.

Imagine believing this

Twitchy: "Yeah, Go With THAT Strategy: Axios Says Hollywood Stars Could Be the Key to Biden's Campaign."

In case you hadn't noticed, the producers of the Academy Awards had to tell actors to STFU because Americans were tired of being lectured to by Hollywood phonies.

Hey, how's the box office lately?  Have you considered making another "strong girlboss" movie?

NYT is gonna NYT

Which means: simping for Democrats.  Althouse: "The Biden campaign is a disaster and this is what the NY Times dredges up?"

This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in The New York Times.

Competition is fierce!

Time to recalibrate the "battleground states"

Red State: "Shock Polls: Trump Edges Biden in Two Blue States That Haven't Gone With the GOP for President in Decades"

Those states are Virginia and Minnesota.  

Real Clear Polling has a running update of seven battleground states but - let's face it - four of them are going to Trump.  (Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia.)  The battleground has shifted.  Time to add Virginia, Minnesota, and how about Maine? 

Extra - Wall Street Journal: "Virginia Hasn’t Backed a Republican for President in Two Decades. Is It About to Flip?" 

Joe ain't got no rizz

Ace: "NYT: Biden Is Trying to Get TikTokers and "Influencers" on His Side But They Don't Trust Him and Think He's Cringe"

The subtext of this story is that, denials notwithstanding, the Biden campaign is paying influencers to shill for Uncle Joe.

The slightest of pushbacks

PJ Media: "Even the WH Correspondents’ Association Is Sick and Tired of Biden's Press Conference 'Rules'."

She concluded the statement with what sounds like a barb at Biden: “WHCA would welcome more opportunities to pose a range of questions to the president in a press conference setting.”

It's telling that even the more sycophantic press members see fit to push back against the "rules" that Biden insists govern his press conferences. It makes one wonder if they're beginning to get tired of his shtick, too.

Maybe!  But you ain't gonna get that press conference.  Also: Biden won't debate.

Of course

Reason: "The Mainstream Media Is Still in Denial About Hunter Biden's Laptop - Case in point: The Washington Post's Philip Bump."

Speaking of which: "Charles C.W. Cooke Takes Philip Bump APART for Refusing to Admit He Eff'd Up Hunter Laptop Story."

It's a mystery why the Washington Post is a dying newspaper.

Sweden leads the way for Europe

Wall Street Journal: "Europe Follows Sweden in Tilting to the Populist Right - The new right’s success has alerted liberals to the threat to social cohesion from mass immigration."

Wonder why the immigrant backlash started in Sweden?  Probably all the grenade attacks: "Sweden’s new normal: Bombs in the suburbs on a weeknight." 

Nothing will happen

He's a Democrat.  Fox News: "House votes to hold Garland in contempt, refer him for criminal charges at own DOJ" - "Republicans went after Garland for not handing over the Hur-Biden audio tapes."

Hunter's conviction

I don't care much about the Hunter Biden gun crime for this very reason: "Hunter’s Conviction Is A Fig Leaf To Cover The Biden Family’s More Serious Crimes." 

Have you considered calling them "racist"?

Ace: ""Far-Right" Parties Make Big GAINZZZ in European Parliament and the Leftwing Media Is Angry."

No kidding.  The hyperventilation on NPR this afternoon was something else.  Positively apocalyptic.  Whelp, you didn't want to protect the borders and this is whatcha got, Europe.

More insight from the Paper of Record:

Biden Asks Why Europe Didn't Just Arrest Conservative Candidates Before Election https://t.co/3MgAh4kIB4 pic.twitter.com/HcP16crCUA

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 10, 2024

The threats to democracy are coming from inside the house

Jonathan Turley: "Can democracy survive the ‘defenders of democracy’?" - "The most obvious threats today to the democratic system are coming from the left, not the right." 

The NY Times suddenly decides to do its job

NY Times: "Biden Loves to Tell Tall Tales. We Cut Them Down to Size. - By President Biden’s account, he was a fierce civil rights activist in his youth, had an uncle who fell prey to cannibals and used to drive an 18-wheeler."

The cynic in me suggests this is a way for the Times to get this out well before the election so they can claim they covered Biden's perpetual lies like an honest newspaper.

I was fooled. Not.

Biden takes unscripted questions from reporters in France, and jogs off stage showing his tremendous vigor.

Just kidding. None of that happened. pic.twitter.com/0gfpCDj9lv

— Sara Rose 🇺🇸🌹 (@saras76) June 8, 2024

At this event dubbed "remarks to the press," Dementia Joe read directly off his laminated binder, barely looking up, then bid a hasty retreat.  It is so very rare when he has an unscripted event and when he does (like the CNN interview), it's a disaster. 

This is interesting

Wall Street Journal: "Wall Street Moves to Texas - Financial firms want competition for the NYSE and Nasdaq." - "New York politicians, watch out. A new stock exchange based in Texas could soon challenge Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange—and the Empire State’s status as America’s financial capital."

Population, business, and now finance seems to be gravitating towards the red states. 

We found the collusion in Washington

Victor Davis Hanson: "Dems, media fool no one: White House is knee-deep in Trump prosecutions." 

Plagiarist

Dim bulb Biden pretty much copied Ronald Reagan's classic D-Day speech: "Pointe Du Hoc- Biden’s Sad Echo."

Oh, cool, World War 3

NY Post: "NATO preparing for potential ground war with Russia — including plans for US troop involvement." 

Can't we just go back to leaving billions of dollars of equipment to the Taliban? 

Let me just leave this meme right here

The Nation: "Under a Second Trump Term, the DHS Will Be Even Harsher Than Before."

"The game is up"

I've written about the crisis at the Washington Post but Ace (unsurprisingly) has a much funnier take:

Listen to this guy's answer. It's an energizing spa day for your boner.

"Don't we need our brilliant social journalists and service journalists as embedded in our core product to make sure that people are actually reading the thing that's out at the center of the mission of the Washington Post?" one staffer asked, to which Lewis replied, "You haven't done it. I've listened to the platitudes. Honestly, it's just not happening."

I love how this person used such flowery and woke language in xir's question and the publisher responded: "No, you suck." 

Biden won't debate

Zero point zero chance of it happening.

Wall Street Journal: "Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping."

Jim Geraghty condenses the article here: "What Did the President Know, and How Long Did He Remember It?"

On the menu today: Way back in June 2022, I wrote, “I think the single most predictable ‘bombshell’ of the coming years is that sometime in 2025, someone like Bob Woodward or Robert Costa will publish a book with a title like Perpetual Crisis: Inside the Biden White House, and we will ‘learn’ something like, ‘the president’s official health report said he was in fine shape for his age. But behind the scenes, Jill Biden, Ron Klain, and Susan Rice were deeply concerned the president’s health was rapidly declining, and that he would soon be unable to perform his duties.’” This morning, the Wall Street Journal takes us another half-step toward that minimally shocking revelation, interviewing more than 45 sources and offering a grim portrait of President Biden behind the scenes: forgetful, mumbling, increasingly reliant on notes to remember basic facts, and seemingly oblivious to his own administration’s policies and decisions. 

I don't mean to keep harping on this sick man, but he brings it on himself with his unearned self-regard and the contempt he pours upon half the country. 

Historic figure Karine Jean-Pierre will be out soon repeating the story about how she can't keep up with Dynamo Joe...behind closed doors:

The media explain Biden’s “stellar mental abilities” with all the fervor of Sasquatch hunters. “I’ve seen it, it’s real, but it is impossible to capture on film.” https://t.co/lj54B7YdSS

— Magills (@magills_) June 5, 2024

Good Lord, Morning Joe, have a soupcon of respect for yourself. 

The failing media has its priorities

Outkick: "Washington Post Is Failing But Some Staffers Are Only Concerned With Diversity."

Don Surber: "Media pays for getting Trump wrong." 

After losing half their readership and $77 million over the past three years, the Washington Post replaced their diversity hire with a bunch of white guys.  The newsroom was not amused. 

Dementia Joe speaks to Time magazine

Here's the transcript from Time.  It was another train wreck full of non-sequiturs, (unintelligible) moments, and outright lies - so many that Time felt obliged to include a fact-check.

What's striking about this interview is how Biden falls back onto the same lines and tropes, without deviation, that he's been using for three years.  For example:

"And what do you say to Americans who are worried about [your age]?"

Biden: Watch me. Look, name me a president that’s gotten as much done as I've gotten done in my first three and a half years. When all of you wrote in Time magazine I couldn't get any of it done.

OMG, the "watch me" thing again?  Yeah, we've been watching Joe.  Also, the interview is dotted with misremembered history to provide the basis for a humblebrag moment.  Everybody doubted the great Joe Biden and he proved them wrong!  His invented stories about European leaders insisting he must win is part of the same mythology.

Don't change a thing, Joey.  You're doing great.

The media is trash

I guess the disembodied knife just "went in" to this policeman.

Just amazing work honestly… pic.twitter.com/LOXFJu1l6k

— EducatëdHillbilly™ (@RobProvince) June 3, 2024

Biden won't debate

Hot Air: "Why Joe Biden's Hur Interview Recording Was Hidden."

So why would this transcript be altered in that fashion? That much should be obvious. It's the same reason that Biden is refusing to allow the recording to be made public. The removal of awkward pauses ("uh... um") and repeated words ("and... and") makes Biden sound less like a cognitive mess. If he started rambling and losing the thread in the middle of the unscripted interview, that would look even worse as he pursues his reelection bid. Having an audio tape floating around in the media could be politically toxic.

Those cognitive deficits won't disappear in a debate and will probably be exacerbated.  This is why Dementia Joe gives so few media interviews and no press conferences.  He won't debate.

Extra - "Deepfake privilege?"

Lavrentiy Beria nods

Old and busted: "Give me the man, and I will find the crime."

New and shiny: "Bragg...pushed his prosecutors to scour the penal code for a workable theory."

But don't call it a Soviet show trial.