You know the drill

Reason: "Berkeley Students Violently Shut Down Event Featuring Israeli Attorney." 

Biden goes to the border today

I'm just going to leave this here:

Will the last shoplifter in San Francisco turn out the lights?

Hot Air: "Of Course: Employees Say Shoplifting was Rampant at San Francisco Macys."' 

Now it's a crisis

Shot: "Gallup Poll: Biden’s Border Invasion Is Americans’ No. 1 Worry"

Chaser:

Q    Mr. President — Mr. President, you’re heading to the border on Thursday.  Why go to the border now, Mr. President?  You’re going on Thursday.  Why go now?

 

THE PRESIDENT:  I’ve been planning to go Thursday. 

Yeah, that's what they meant: why are you going Thursday instead of, say, Friday?  His brain has turned to mush. 

Who among us hasn't lied in a text?

Fox News: "Key witness in Fani Willis case testifies he may have lied in texts about friends' affair = Terrance Bradley claims he may have lied about once saying Wade 'absolutely' was in a relationship with Fani Willis before she hired Wade."

Attorney Richard Rice later asked Bradley if he makes a habit of passing on "lies about your friends." 

"Do you tell lies about your friends? About a case of national importance?" Rice asked. 

"I could have had, I don't know," Bradley responded. 

Convincing!  Bradley went from "absolutely" to "who can really say what 'sex in my office' means?"

President Unity tries to speak

PJ Media: "Biden Says 'I Wanna Get This Quote Exactly Right' Before Hilariously Failing."

Pity the White House transcriber:

And, you know, standing here in front of this portrait of the man behind me here, he — he said — and I want to make sure I get the quote exactly right.  He said, “We — the better angels” — he said, “We must address the counsel — and adjust the better angels of our nature.”  And we do the — and we do well to remember what else he said.  He said, “We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends.”  This is in the middle of — this is in the — in the part of the Civil War.  He said, “We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends.  We must not be enemies.” 

This "speech" (I guess) was during a dinner for the National Governor's Association.  The previous day, Dementia Joe gave an address that was noteworthy because he avoided his usual badmouthing of Republicans.

Have no fear, though.  Dementia Joe is doing a lot of campaign receptions and the "better angels of our nature" will be stopped by the Secret Service at the door so Biden can run through his enemies list.

Sandwich struggle session at the NYT

This story is both unsurprising and impossible to parody: "This Insider Account of New York Times Leftist Insanity Is Something Else."

Absolute clown show.

You don't hate the media enough

National Review: "AP Whitewashes Murder of Nursing Student by Illegal Immigrant"

It's really a mystery why trust in the mainstream media keeps dropping:

That’s not the story @AP and your fear or lack of offending Lord know who or complete lack of news judgment of putting in the headline what the story is underscores why Americans' distrust in my profession has plummeted to a whopping 68% in the most recent Gallup survey. https://t.co/TN1bXgSJlD

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) February 25, 2024

Good question

Reason: "If Semiconductor Chip Demand Is High, Why Do We Need More Subsidies? - Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says more chip subsidies are needed, even before the Biden administration has distributed $52 billion or measured how effective that spending was."

Coincidentally, I just finished reading "Chip War" by Chris Miller, a 2022 book about the rise of the semiconductor industry.  After finishing it, I thought to myself: "I should invest in this industry" only to discover that every company related to the chip industry was already hitting new stock highs.  ASML, TSMC, NVidia - all of them are positively rolling in cash.

Why do these trillion-dollar companies need my taxpayer $$$?  

The AOC-Amazon dynamic at work

Boston Globe: "Blame Elizabeth Warren and the FTC for iRobot layoffs - Their opposition to a merger between iRobot and Amazon is not a victory — it’s a defeat for Massachusetts workers and American innovation." 

Texting each other like teenagers

Daily Caller: "‘Real Consequences’: Latest Evidence Against Fani Willis Could Get Her Disbarred, Land Her In Jail, Legal Experts Say."

I just find it amazing that two grown adults could send 12,000 text messages over the course of eleven months.  I think I send like a 100 texts a year and 80 of them are "pick up milk." 

It's MSNBC, so...

Power Line: "How dumb are these people?" 

Dementia Joe can't function

Axios: "Biden's cheat sheets at fundraisers worry donors."

And here's the Morning Jolt: "Why Does the President Need Notecards to Talk to Donors?"

On the menu today: No, it’s not the biggest deal in the world to hear that President Biden now uses notecards when giving remarks and answering questions at his closed-door, high-dollar campaign fundraisers. But considering how rarely the American public gets to hear Biden give off-the-cuff, unscripted remarks of any length and substance in any other venue, it’s an indication that Biden really is notecard- and teleprompter-dependent now. This means the usual advice that the president needs to get out there, interact with voters more, and make the case for himself and his policies is akin to asking him to demonstrate gymnastics or run a marathon. The guy just can’t do it anymore. And the White House would have you believe that he can keep going at it for another four to five years or so.

It's been a little over two weeks since Biden's disastrous press conference and despite the advice to increase public appearances, Dementia Joe has had no public events if you don't count clipped answers to shouted questions as he walks by. 

By the way, it's astonishing that Biden still needs notecards for these donor events since he simply repeats the same lines and anecdotes over and over and over again.

Posting because I love the headline

The Corner: "Sugar Daddy Joe Biden and the Student-Loan Hustle,"

Hey, those votes ain't gonna buy themselves.

Extra - Twitchy: "Biden Admits SCOTUS Ruling on Student Loans Didn't Stop His Forgiving Billions." 

But the $35 insulin

The Corner: "Solving the ‘Puzzle’ of Negative Consumer Sentiment in One Chart."

Here's the chart:

Golly, I wonder why consumers have negative views about the economy. pic.twitter.com/XuvywfiiT4

— Michael R. Strain (@MichaelRStrain) February 21, 2024

The Kafka trap

New Neo: "The intricacies of Judge Engoron’s vindictive ruling on Trump" - "This aspect of Engoron’s ruling is like Catch-22: you must do the impossible before you even get to appeal, and one of the things you want to appeal is the fact that the judge has made it nearly impossible to appeal." 

A modest proposal

Here's 538 pollster Nate Silver: "It's time for the White House to put up or shut up - Shielding Biden from public appearances might be a rational strategy -- and that's why it's a bad sign."

Here's what I'd propose. Over the course of the next several weeks, 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 public. The interviews ought to include a mix of different media (e.g. television and print) and journalistic perspectives.

Oh, man, this will never happen.  There's already a general acknowledgement that there won't be Presidential debates and frankly I think Dementia Joe is 50/50 for the State of the Union address.

President's Day

Is this disrespectful to our greatest President?  Don't care...I laughed.  I think George would too.

The media shifts into CYA mode

National Review: "The White House Press Corps Discovers the Biden Age Issue"

They can’t say they simply hadn’t noticed Biden’s yearslong decline. No, that’d make it look as if they are bad at their jobs. Imagine that: a White House reporter who hadn’t noticed until recently that the president of the United States has struggled for his entire presidency, and even before then, to express a coherent thought.

They can’t say they ignored the issue for political convenience. That would give the game away.

Aha! They can tell someone such as Byers, anonymously of course, that they’ve struggled to cover the issue that everyone else has noticed and asked about since even before 2020 because — wait for it — they are just too damn conscientious.

How convenient.  When the media's self-preservation is on the line, they suddenly discover an issue they should have covered all along if they weren't besotted with bias.  And - bonus! - they get to justify it by claiming they were "struggling" on how to report the topic because they didn't want to be mean.

Biden broke the law. That's the headline.

Here's former federal prosecutor Elie Honig in NY Magazine: "The Real Biden Documents Scandal (It’s Not the Old-Man Stuff)"

Lots of good stuff but here's some key grafs:

Here’s the report’s biggest revelation: Biden held on to classified top-secret national-security documents after he left the vice-presidency, and he did it intentionally. This was no accident. Biden had those documents for this specific reason: He believed he had been right on American policy in Afghanistan (and that President Barack Obama had been wrong), and he wanted to paint himself as the visionary hero (and Obama as the heel) in the historical narrative. That’s why Biden shared some of their contents with his ghostwriter — though Hur acknowledges that Biden may have disclosed that classified information inadvertently, citing Biden’s “lapses in attention and vigilance.”

Here’s the single most important piece of evidence in Hur’s report: In a recording made by the ghostwriter in February 2017 — a month after Biden left the vice-presidency — Biden says he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” That, folks, is the needle-scratch moment. Up until last week, the party line has essentially been, “Hey, classified documents are strewn all around the White House, a bunch of boxes got moved around, transition is chaotic, documents end up in various places; big mistake, whoops, sorry.” Now we know that’s untrue.

The part about Biden trying to prove that he finally got a foreign policy position right sounds exactly like something Dementia Joe would do.  

Return to normality

Between the United States and Russia, one country just arbitrarily seized the assets of an oligarch opposed to the regime, and is trying to jail him

The other country is Russia

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) February 16, 2024

The Cash Queen

Federalist: "Fani Willis Is Daring You To Call Her ‘Angry’ Because Race Baiting Is All She Has Left" - "It’s a desperate, albeit rational attempt to distract from what the rest of Thursday’s hearing demonstrated — that Willis and Wade likely lied to the court about the extent of their involvement, as Willis’ former close friend attested, and that Willis also probably lied about receiving improper gifts from Wade, whom she retained and paid with taxpayer money." 

The Left hates free speech, continued

Reason: "Progressives Are Ditching Free Speech To Fight 'Disinformation' - From limits on liability protections for websites to attempts to regulate the internet like a public utility, these proposals will erode Americans' right to express themselves." 

Drillable hours

Ace has been absolutely all-over the Fani Willis story, so I have to throw this to him: ""Drillable Hours:" Some Thoughts on the Sweetick/Fani Gangbang of Lies - Update: The Judge Scolds Fani, Tells Her to Answer the Questions Posed With Fewer Histrionics Or He'll Strike Her Testimony."

There's one point here that just beggars belief: Willis would have us believe that she took lavish vacations and cruises with her paramour (who was getting fat stacks from Georgia taxpayers) and then she reimbursed him in cash.

Any evidence of withdrawals from the bank?  Nope.

Any evidence of deposits from these reimbursements?  Nope.

Fani said she took the cash her daddy told her to save for a rainy day from the stash in her home.  And then Nathan Wade would take that cash and add it to his big cash pile.  Sounds totally legit.

Biden will fight against release of the Hur transcripts

Is there anything that Dementia Joe won't lie about?   When I said "things will only get worse for Biden" I meant stuff like this: the Administration will fight against release of the Hur transcripts and it will only look like they're hiding something.

Because they are.

NBC News: "Biden attacked Hur for asking him when Beau died. That didn't happen, sources say."

President Joe Biden lashed out at Robert Hur last week over one particular line in the special counsel's report on his handling of classified documents: that Biden "did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died."

“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden told reporters in an impromptu White House press conference. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself, it wasn’t any of their damn business.”

But Hur never asked that question, according to two people familiar with Hur’s five-hour interview with the president over two days last October. It was the president, not Hur or his team, who first introduced Beau Biden’s death, they said.

The fact that it was Dementia Joe who bought up Beau is very on-brand for Biden who uses his son as a shield whenever he gets caught in a tough situation.  The transcripts and/or audio tapes will demonstrate Biden's confusion, therefore they must never see the light of day.

Mayorkas impeached

I largely agree with Rep. Ken Buck that this is an unconstitutional gimmick that does not meet the standard of impeachment for "high crimes and misdemeanors."  Now the Senate has to dust off the old (almost 150 years!) rulebook for a sitting Cabinet official.

But then Charles C.W. Cooke makes some salient counterarguments about the utter failure of this administration to "Take Care" that immigration laws are enforced.

Two-tiered system of justice

Julie Kelly: "Why Joe Biden's Handling of Classified Records is Worse than Trump's Case" - "The report by Special Counsel Robert Hur reveals shocking details about Biden's sloppy possession of top-secret documents, the destruction of evidence, and possible attempts to thwart investigators."

Related - Volokh Conspiracy: "Donald Trump is the Victim of Selective Prosecution" - "Trump is the victim of political witch hunts by Democrats suffering from Trump derangement syndrome." 

I think most Americans have caught on to the double-standard here.

Update - Suspicion confirmed: "Half of Americans think Biden got special treatment in document probe: Reuters/Ipsos poll." 

Biden's classified notes on Afganastan

 

Reminder: Merrick Garland green-lit the Hur report

The Attorney General in charge of the Biden Department of Justice could have redacted or held back the report, but he allowed it to be released in full:

Still, releasing it at all was Garland’s decision, noted Barr’s former deputy, Rod Rosenstein, particularly because Hur recommended no charges against anyone involved. Rosenstein noted that prosecutors regularly write documents explaining their decisions not to bring charges. And those documents are typically kept secret.

“Rob Hur didn’t issue a public report,” Rosenstein said. “He wrote a confidential internal memo. Attorney General Garland made the decision to release it.”

Yes, it would have created a political firestorm for the DOJ, especially with no charges filed.  But Garland released the Hur report without any redactions or spin as Bill Barr did with the Mueller report.

Extra fun - NY Post: "Merrick Garland lies low as White House blasts his special counsel’s report brutally describing Biden’s mental decline." 

Analysis: true

The Corner: "Democrats Are Going to Call Republicans Entitlement-Cutters No Matter What." 

The marching orders are out

Jonathan Turley: "“That is Not the Judgment of the Press”: The White House Calls the Media to Heel" 

Listen to the New York Times, Joe

Red State: "Head Spinning NYT Editorial Admits Biden Incapable, Then Demands He Do More."

Here's the key graf from the NYT editorial:

The president has to reassure and build confidence with the public by doing things that he has so far been unwilling to do convincingly. He needs to be out campaigning with voters far more in unrehearsed interactions. He could undertake more town hall meetings in communities and on national television. He should hold regular news conferences to demonstrate his command of and direction for leading the country.

Please, please, please, listen to the New York Times, Joey.

Take it from me, somebody who reads the Presidential transcripts on a regular basis: Biden will not increase his public appearances for the simple reason that he lies all the time.  Dementia Joe will not place himself into a situation where he will be confronted with this congenital mendacity.

That's why yesterday I said "it's going to get worse" for Dementia Joe.  There will be increasing pressure for him to make public appearances (see: NYT) but he can't do it.  Every minute he spends on his extended Delaware vacation will only confirm the suspicions of Americans that he can't do the job.

They are telling you why right there

Columbia Journalism Review: "They gave local news away for free. Virtually nobody wanted it."

When 2,529 people were offered a free subscription to their local newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Philadelphia Inquirer, only forty-four accepted—less than 2 percent—according to an academic study set to be published this year in the American Journal of Political Science. 

Will we ever unravel this mystery why people don't want to consume the mainstream media?

One returned an invitation to subscribe to the Post-Gazette with a message: “[t]he P-G is an awful newspaper run by horrible bigoted people.” Other comments collected from the social platforms read: “no thanks! Fake News” and “GOTTA BE BAD FOR THE MEDIA WHEN YOU CAN’T GIVE THE CRAP AWAY.” 

It's an enigma.

By the way, the largest paper in Western Massachusetts has - as of this morning - printed exactly nothing about Biden's career-ending press conference.  We did hear about a 7-11 selling a winning lottery ticket, so we got that. 

Prediction: 8-1

Jonathan Turley on the Trump v. Colorado case in the Supreme Court: "The “Unassailable” Theory Faces a Potential Unanimous Rejection"

I predict an 8-1 decision with Sonia Sotomayor doing her usual backwards-justification to craft a legal theory that just happens to meet her personal beliefs.  

And then there's MSNBC

Legal Insurrection: "Morning Joe Crew Lose Their Minds Over Special Counsel Describing Biden as ‘Elderly Man With a Poor Memory’ - "The Morning Joe crew on MSNBC has gone ballistic this morning. I’m seriously trying to find the words but cannot stop laughing." 

I sense a disturbance in the force

It's no secret that many on the right side of the political spectrum view the mainstream media as hopelessly biased.  So I was curious to see how CNN would spin Dementia Joe's primetime speech.

This seems different...

"Fact check: Biden makes three false claims about his handling of classified information."

"Opinion: Is Biden an out-to-lunch president?"

"Biden tries to lay to rest age concerns, but may have exacerbated them."

A fact check?  Of a Democrat?  What in the wide world of sports is going on here?  It appears to be a random act of "journalism." 

Here comes the clean-up crew

Townhall: "Liberal Media Goes Into Full Panic Mode Over Biden's Messy Presser About Special Counsel Report."

Dementia Joe didn't do himself any favors last night.  Oh well, it's Friday so you know what that means: escape to Delaware.

"Elderly man with a poor memory"

Well, I work all day, and I'm way behind on this story but here's the upshot: the Special Counsel looking into Dementia Joe's retention of classified documents reported that he "willfully retained" the documents, "disclosed classified materials" but that because Biden had "diminished faculties and a faulty memory" he could not be charged with a crime.

Simply unbelievable.  I've been calling Biden "Dementia Joe" for months and now the Department of Justice is saying the same thing.

Take it away Ace:

"DOJ Defends Decision to Prosecute Trump for Missing Document, While Excusing Biden: It's Hard to Win a Conviction Against an "Elderly Man With a POOR MEMORY"

JOE BIDEN PLEADS SENILITY AS A DEFENSE"

"SILVER ALERT: SPECIAL COUNSEL REPORTS THAT BIDEN CANNOT REMEMBER WHAT YEARS HE WAS VICE PRESIDENT, OR EVEN WHAT APPROXIMATE, BALLPARK YEAR BEAU BIDEN DIED"

"Special Counsel: Biden Shared Classified National Security Information With Someone Not Permitted to Receive It, But That's Okay, Because Biden Has "DIMINISHED FACULTIES"

"Biden's Ghostwriter, To Whom Biden Divulged National Security Secrets, DELETED HIS RECORDINGS OF BIDEN AS SOON AS THE SPECIAL COUNSEL WAS APPOINTED"

I just finished watching the video of Dementia Joe's impromptu press conference tonight (he did take questions!) and let me say this: it's going to get much worse for Biden.  I'm going to have to see the transcript but he was extremely combative with the press, pushed back on questions of mental acuity with the non sequitur of "look at what I've accomplished" and - worst of all IMO - took absolutely no responsibility at all for holding on to these documents and instead blaming his staff.

Somebody in the WH Press Corps tonight noted that Biden said "watch me" whenever there were questions on his fitness but since then Americans more and more think Joe is not up for the job.  Biden's response was weird, I think saying the press believes it but the American people don't.  It made no sense.

It's going to get worse for Biden because he's going to have to make more public appearances to demonstrate his mental and physical vigor, but he can't and he won't.

Man Ruled Too Senile To Stand Trial Still Fine To Run Country https://t.co/vFcfq36IwW pic.twitter.com/CY4EFh8a8F

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 8, 2024

Tomorrow's the day!

ICYMI, here's Dementia Joe yesterday:

THE PRESIDENT:  Folks, you’re going to ask me questions.  Hang on a second.  I’m going to be back on Thursday, and I don’t want to prejudice what may be going on in negotiations now, so I’m not going to be answering any questions on this. 

 

I’ll be back Thursday to stand here with you and answer all the questions you want about this issue. 

I suspect that "all the questions you want" will be determined to be "two" by the White House.

Prove me wrong, Joe! 

Retribution in Baghdad

Fox News: "Drone strike in Baghdad kills high-ranking commander involved in attack that killed 3 US soldiers."

Looks like Dementia Joe finally got some good military advice:

Biden Touts Productive Climate Change Meeting With French Leader Napoleon Bonaparte https://t.co/nO7INuKYtu pic.twitter.com/uTQ435IrYs

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 6, 2024

Now that it's a political problem

I found this explanation from Jim Geraghty as to why the immigration bill got squashed to be best:

The key problem with the border-security bill is that it required congressional Republicans to trust Joe Biden to take a wide range of actions to deter illegal immigration in the final year of his term, when he has done so little to do so during the first three years of his term.

....

There is little evidence that Joe Biden worries about high levels of illegal immigration per se. Joe Biden worries about the political fallout from high levels of illegal immigration, or more specifically, the political fallout from the perception that Biden can’t or won’t do anything about high levels of illegal immigration. Congressional Republican skeptics concluded that even if Biden were given what he wanted in this deal, Biden’s goal would be to change the perception of the insecure border, not change the facts of the insecure border.

I don't think anybody outside the insane asylum of MSNBC is going to buy this cock-and-bull story that, gosh darn it, Dementia Joe would defend the border if only he had this extra funding.  This bill has provisions allowing the President to suspend deportations at will.  It's useless to expect Biden to enforce new laws when he's ignored the old ones.

Joe and his Ouija board

Red State: "Peter Doocy Pins Karine Jean-Pierre Down on Biden Talking to Dead People, Her Answer Says It All." 

Poison pill

What fresh hell is this?  Twitchy: "Border Bill Gives US District Court in DC 'Sole and Original Jurisdiction' Over Challenges to Law."

This is like handing over sole power on immigration law to Sonia Sotomayor.  No sale.

It was a masterstroke

Shipping migrants to sanctuary cities, turning virtue-signaling to virtue-fact, was brilliant.  Breitbart: "Axelrod: Biden is shifting on border because of politics, migrant busing 'very effective' at getting Dems to shift." 

Don't make me tap the sign on the Statue of Liberty.

Remember when "it's a banana, how much could it cost, $10?" was a joke?

Reason: "The Bankruptcy of Bidenomics - Biden's economic policies gave us three years of excessive, wasteful, and poorly targeted federal spending." 

Last year was Fox

Politico: "Biden sits out Super Bowl interview for a second time"

President Joe Biden will again skip a pregame Super Bowl interview embraced by recent presidents as an annual tradition.

Presidents have traditionally sought to leverage the marquee football event’s broad viewership, making Biden’s decision particularly notable in an election year.

Last year, you could argue that Dementia Joe didn't want to sit down with Fox News, since Fox was hosting the Super Bowl.  This year it's CBS, home of the softball "60 Minutes" interview.

He can't do it anymore.  Dementia Joe can't do public appearances anymore without a teleprompter or a prepared script.  His trip to East Palestine is going to be a hoot.

Extra - Red State: "Biden Can't Handle Softball Super Bowl Halftime Interview, Chickens Out for Second Year in a Row." 

It's the weekend!

 

This is Ringo and he loves to swim
(ringo.swims.a.lot IG) pic.twitter.com/1v5vRfw0uZ

— theworldofdog (@theworldofdog) February 1, 2024

We tried Martha's Vineyard

Boston Globe: "‘Why Roxbury? Try Wellesley!’ Has Boston done enough to ease the state’s migrant crisis?"

A little backstory: illegal migrants were sleeping in Boston's Logan Airport so the governor decided to ship them out to Roxbury.

Seven years later, that visual of immigrants living in a government building in Boston became a reality when dozens of migrants had to sleep on the floors of a baggage claim area at Boston Logan International Airport. The untenable situation, coupled with a crisis of emergency shelter locations across the state, forced Governor Maura Healey to convert the Melnea Cass Recreational Complex in Roxbury, a state-owned facility, into a temporary overflow shelter to accommodate up to 100 homeless families, including migrants.

The move prompted mixed reactions in Roxbury, where some people protested outside the recreational complex with signs that read “Boston’s full” and “Why Roxbury? Try Wellesley!” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu initially expressed disappointment over Healey’s decision to use the facility in Roxbury, a predominantly Black neighborhood, in light of the area’s history of economic disadvantages. “For the first community where this is being proposed to be Roxbury, a community that over so many decades has faced disinvestment, redlining, disproportionate outcomes. It’s very painful, and it’s painfully familiar,” Wu said on a radio show on Monday.

So we can't house them with the rich in Wellesley or Martha's Vineyard but we also can't shelter them in Roxbury because of economic disenfranchisement.  Sheesh, what happed to "no human is illegal?"

Here we go

Fox News: "US begins Middle East airstrikes in response to deaths of three soldiers." 

By the way, I was on a business trip this past week but my wife said that there was a lot of activity at the local air force reserve base.