This is the sort of thing that reminds me how very very happy I am that I learned English as a native speaker.
All hail Kamala the Great!
Joe Biden was nobody’s favorite candidate (except maybe Jill’s and Hunter’s). He was chosen in 2020 not by popular demand, but by the powers that be convincing all the other candidates to drop out and leave Biden as the last man standing. This was because he was considered the best candidate to beat Donald Trump, not for any other reason.
And Kamala Harris was markedly unpopular also and has remained so. She was chosen for her demographics.
But ultimately it became clear that Joe couldn’t win in 2024, so he had to go. Kamala has become the replacement for the simple reason that getting rid of her would require alienating much of the Democrats’ base, as well as for financial/legal reasons. She also seems to be polling somewhat better than Joe right now.
So here we are and Kamala Harris is the anointed successor.
The Democrats and the MSM have figured out a way to handle all of this. It involves three steps. The first is to re-invent Kamala as the ENERGIZED! EXCITING! FRESH! candidate, as though she just dropped in from planet Xenon and has no history. Her remarkably undistinguished record (and that’s being kind) as part of the Biden administration’s failures will be ignored, in hopes of Kamala 2.0 catching on with the public. Step 2 will be to hammer home the idea that Republicans threaten women’s “reproductive rights” and Kamala and the Democrats will protect them. Step 3 involves choosing a more moderate running mate in order to preserve the fiction that Kamala will not govern from the far left.
Menendez will be resigning August 20
Commenter “Nonapod” writes:
Bob Menendez is resigning from the Senate. So now we know there is an upper threshold for how much brazen venality a powerful Democrat politician is permitted, but it involves literal bars of gold being found.
That seem reasonable on the surface, but I don’t think it’s the case. Menendez was targeted, IMHO, because he strongly opposed the administration’s foreign policy – and by “the administration,” I mean both the Obama administration and the Biden administration. Otherwise I believe he would have gotten away with whatever he was doing.
I first noticed that the Obama DOJ was out to get Menendez in 2015 when Menendez opposed the Iran deal – see this, this, and this. They tried to convict him back then, unsuccessfully, but now they’ve caught their prey.
I just now noticed that Alan Dershowitz was in agreement with me back in 2015. It seems that Dershowitz also has had some questions about the current case:
Many Democrats are claiming that the recent indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., proves that the current Justice Department provides equal justice to Democrats and Republicans.
Although it’s necessary to wait for the evidence to emerge before judgment is passed on this most recent indictment, what appears so far may be closer to equal injustice.
In both the Menendez and Trump cases, prosecutors are engaging in the questionable tactic of seeking to influence the jury before trial.
The photographic display of gold bars and cash in the Menendez case is an image that will remain with everyone who saw it.
The same is true of the contrived photographic display by the Justice Department (DOJ) of allegedly classified documents spread on the floor.
This “show and tell “was produced by the DOJ and published in virtually every media outlet in the country.
Both show and tells are wrong.
Both are intended to prejudice potential jurors and witnesses and to try the case in the court of public opinion before it is subject to the adversarial process to the courts of law.
Both come close to ethically impermissible lines. And both should be opposed by all Americans who care about impartial justice for all defendants.
I haven’t followed the Menendez trial closely enough to have an opinion on his guilt or innocence. But I strongly believe that had he not been in opposition to the Democrats on foreign policy, he’d still be an unindicted senator. He will be replaced by someone more tractable, so the Democrats will lose nothing, and they get to pretend they care about ethics. Win/win for the Democrats.
Cheatle quits, having outlasted her usefulness to the Democrats
Cheatle dodged questions yesterday as she was attacked by both sides. The dodging was irrelevant to the question of whether she would be allowed to stay in her position; plenty of our public servants on the left have done exactly that and kept their jobs. However, the bipartisan nature of the attacks made it clear that her days as head of the Secret Service were already numbered, because the Democrats wanted her to go. I strongly suspect that was decided before her testimony.
And so she has resigned. What took her so long? Was it just a question of the time it took for the Democrats to decide she had to go?
More importantly, will anything really change? And we will ever find out the truth about what happened in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, and how purposeful the Secret Service’s neglect of Trump’s security was?
I think the answer to both of those questions is “no.”
Open thread 7/23/24
No, forcing Joe out isn’t actually thwarting the will of the Democratic voters …
… although it may appear that way.
After all, it’s not as though Joe was ever the popular choice; he just become the only choice in 2020 because of decisions made by unnamed Democrats on high. The reason was that he was thought to be the most electable of the candidates running.
And until he was forced to drop out now, he was pretty much the only choice in 2024 as well, for the same reason and because he clearly wanted to run and was difficult to push out. RFK and the relatively unknown and unheralded Dean Phillips weren’t really contenders for the Democrats’ nomination.
I know plenty of people who voted for Biden in 2020 and it was always a vote against Trump rather than a vote for Biden, and the same was true in the 2024 primaries. There was no enthusiasm whatsoever for the man, but lots of enthusiasm for the anti-Trump candidate.
Plus, by the time Biden dropped out, the majority of Democrat voters wanted him to do so. Therefore the primaries were mostly irrelevant in the emotional (not the legal) sense. Trouble is, Kamala isn’t exactly Ms. Popularity either. When Biden picked her as his VP, he was upfront about the fact that it was for her gender and race; she’d done very poorly in the primaries.
If Kamala Harris survives the Democrats’ convention as the nominee – which is not a foregone conclusion – the vast vast majority of Democrat voters will vote for her with no hesitation whatsoever. She will be the new anti-Trump candidate and that will be enough. On the other hand, if she’s replaced, the same will be true of whomever becomes the eventual nominee. I still tend to think it will be Kamala, for practical reasons: money and demographics. But behind the scenes there’s a lot of fighting going on.
Kimberly Cheatle testifies – and Congress shows bipartisan rancor
[NOTE: “Crooks and Cheatle” – doesn’t it sound like a law firm in a Dickens novel?]
The Secret Service lapses were so egregious, and Cheatle’s answers so awful, that both sides are getting into the act of criticizing her pretty harshly. I think that Republican rage is real; not so sure about the Democrats, though.
And don’t forget that just three months ago some Democrats proposed a bill to strip Trump of Secret Service protection as a convicted felon. I think the Trump campaign should point this out over and over. The bill was never voted on because Republicans control the House:
House Democrats have introduced a bill that would strip Secret Service protection from convicted felons sentenced to prison, a move directly targeting former President Trump who is currently on criminal trial in New York City for alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 election campaign and faces several other cases which could land him behind bars.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the former chair of the now disbanded Jan. 6 congressional committee, introduced legislation that would automatically nix Secret Service protection for those who have been convicted of a federal or state felony that carries a minimum one-year prison term.
The proposed bill is provocatively called the “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act.
It wasn’t just Thompson supporting this bill; nine other Democrats in the House were part of the effort.
Cheatle is in the hot seat and acquitting herself very poorly. You can read details here, here, and here. In addition, Raskin and Comer (that’s bipartisan again) will be sending a letter demanding that Cheatle resign.
Is Cheatle a knave or a fool? I’d say “both.” And yet she’s been the head of the Secret Service for nearly two years.
Where’s Joe?
I read today that, in the midst of all the brouhaha, Netanyahu left for Washington DC. I immediately wondered whether he’d really be meeting with Biden or someone else – say, Kamala? Who is the acting president right now? Why is Kamala making public statements from the White House?
For that matter, we know that there has been a person – or more likely persons – at least partially directing and dictating to Biden for a long time. Will they now dictate to Kamala?
And of course there’s also the very valid question as to whether Biden should continue to be allowed to be president, and whether the 25th Amendment should be formally invoked.
Which leads us to the demands for “proof of life” regarding Biden – meaning, was he really the person who made the decision to drop out of the 2024 race? He’s been awfully silent and invisible. I happen to think that, although he succumbed to major pressure, he probably did make the decision – for the simple reason that his family hasn’t objected to the reports.
Open thread 7/22/24
Biden drops out
And a huge sigh of relief is heard from Democrats, while a groan is heard from Republicans.
See this.
The race changes again.
The pressure on Joe must have been phenomenal. Or the promised payoff great. Or both.
He’s not resigning from the presidency, although of course to be consistent he should. He doesn’t mention illness, though; just says his dropping out is for the good of the country.
Oh, and he’s endorsed Kamala. So she’s the one. The Democrats realized it would be too costly and difficult to replace her, and it’s not as though anyone else would necessarily do better. Plus, now she gets to pick a VP.
Update on Gerard’s book
I’m getting very very close.
The books have been printed, and if I do say so myself I think they look very good. Now all I have to do is fine-tune the website so that the mechanisms for ordering and paying for the books work. That will take a while for various reasons, including figuring out some of the details of packaging and mailing and how much postage will cost.
Here’s a photo of the paperback; it looks better in real life. Ignore the background:
It has forty-six essays, each with at least one photo. Gerard really liked the visuals, so I thought I’d preserve that aesthetic in the book.
Secret Service screw-ups
The revelations continue as we learn more and more about the obvious failures of the Secret Service last Saturday. It is incompetence of such a depth and breadth that one can’t help but think that, at the very least, some of those doing the planning and preparation didn’t deeply care if Trump lived or died.
We all dodged a bullet that day – not just Trump:
Here’s a list of nine failures that led to the failed attempt. I’m especially interested in number seven, and in learning the protocol for taking out a shooter before a shot is fired. I’m assuming there is such a protocol, but I don’t know. From now on, there had better be, and it can’t amount to letting the would-be assassin get shots off before he is killed.
Another fact that came out yesterday is that, although (as number nine points out) security at the rally last week did not include any drones, the shooter had surveyed the venue by drone earlier that day:
Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks programmed the drone to fly over the Butler Farm Showgrounds before his assassination attempt on the former president, 78, law enforcement officials briefed on the incident said, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Investigators also believe he flew the remotely piloted aircraft around the campaign rally site more than once as he mapped out the course of the attack, further adding to the Secret Service’s stunning failure to protect Trump. …
A drone was later found in Crooks’ car after he was shot dead when he opened fire on Trump. …
He had reportedly staked the farm out days before Trump arrived and is believed to have also used a bike to explore the vast grounds of the Butler County Farm Show.
How do they know about the bike? Is there surveillance video that they’re only now viewing?