Quick Hits
—Ace
New York Post @nypostMonica Lewinsky says former President Bill Clinton should've resigned from office after affair https://trib.al/n6XprzY
Secret Service agent Buzz Patterson agrees:
Buzz Patterson @BuzzPattersonI was there. She's right. This was 100% Hillary at the time. Hillary knew all along and lied about the affair as well. As soon as Bill's affair was revealed, Hillary threatened him and became the co-president. She ran the "crisis management" meetings at night in the residence. She told Bill to lie. She constructed the whole "vast right wing conspiracy" bullshit. Bill should've resigned but he hated Al Gore. It was, bar none, the longest 2-year assignment of my life. And I've been shot at a few times in anger.
Buzz Patterson @BuzzPattersonBILL CLINTON & THE AF-1 FLIGHT ATTENDANT
This one truly IS "Dereliction of Duty."
We were returning late one night from a long trip to Europe on AF-1, landed at Andrews, and helicoptered on Marine One to the White House. We landed on the South Lawn at about midnight and, after ensuring the president was on his way to his residence upstairs, I headed to my bedroom in the East Wing. Shortly thereafter, my phone rang and it was the AF-1 presidential pilot. "Buzz, we have a problem," he said. Oh shit," I thought.
Apparently, Clinton had cornered a female AF-1 steward in the galley and molested her. She was young, a staff sergeant, and married with children. I knew her, liked her, and she was super sweet. Now, she was in tears. I asked the pilot what she wanted. He told me that she didn't want to be another "bimbo," she wanted to remain in the Air Force and be promotable. All she wanted was an apology. In the world of Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey, this wasn't surprising to me. It was, however terribly disappointing and sad.
So, that morning, as a young major, I had to walk to the Oval Office and tell the commander-in-chief that he needed to apologize to the young lady. I've been shot at with hot metal but this was the toughest day in my life. I remember on my way to talk with him thinking "I didn't sign up for this shit."
Two weeks later, we got the two together onboard AF-1 in the president's office and he offered a very uncontrite "half apology." He didn't care.
If anybody in the military had done that it would've been jail, expulsion, or both. It would've been Fort Leavenworth. But not for this president, not for this man. It was just another day. Yet another in my experiences working for a man with absolutely no integrity and no moral fiber.
Adam Carolla brought this up with Doctor Drew. When the Hur report dropped and Hur said he could not prosecute Biden because he would come off as a "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" -- in other words, they would not convict him because he appears too mentally degenerated -- the Times claimed that Hur cannot tell when someone has memory issues, only "scientists" can, "experts" say.
Memory Loss Requires Careful Diagnosis, Scientists Say A federal investigator said that President Biden had "poor memory" and "diminished faculties." But such a diagnosis would require close medical assessment, experts said.
By Gina KolataFeb. 9, 2024, 7:40 p.m. ET
A lengthy report by the Department of Justice on President Biden's handling of classified documents contained some astonishing assessments of his well-being and mental health.
Mr. Biden, 81, was an "elderly man with a poor memory" and "diminished faculties" who "did not remember when he was vice president," the special counsel Robert K. Hur said.
In conversations recorded in 2017, Mr. Biden was "often painfully slow" and "struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries." So impaired was Mr. Biden that a jury was unlikely to convict him, Mr. Hur said.
Republicans were quick to pounce, some calling the president unfit for office and demanding his removal.
But while the report disparaged Mr. Biden's mental health, medical experts on Friday noted that its judgments were not based on science and that its methods bore no resemblance to those that doctors use to assess possible cognitive impairment.
In its simplest form, the issue is one that doctors and family members have been dealing with for decades: How do you know when an episode of confusion or a memory lapse is part of a serious decline?
The answer: "You don't," said David Loewenstein, director of the center for cognitive neuroscience and aging at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
The diagnosis requires a battery of sophisticated and objective tests that probe several areas: different types of memory, language, executive function, problem solving, and spatial skills and attention.
Well one thing you could do is take a cognitive health test -- which Biden conspicuously refused to do for fifteen years.
The tests, he said, determine if there is a medical condition, and if so, its nature and extent. Verbal stumbles are not proof, Dr. Loewenstein and other experts said. "Forgetting an event doesn't necessarily mean there is a problem," said Dr. John Morris, a neurology professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
No, you're not going crazy -- this is the same media which demanded Trump be removed by the 25th Amendment starting on his first day of office, and who routinely argued that Trump was crazy and unfit to serve in office.
Dr. Drew, who is a real medical doctor unlike Jill Biden, does not agree that you need "expertise" to detect obvious mental defects like poor memory or drunkeness.
Note that the media, which does not have expertise in anything, is always offering their own pig-ignorant opinions on every single story, while simultaneously telling the public that they are not capable of making even the smallest observation -- such as detecting when a man repeatedly loses his train of thought -- without "expert" guidance.
Also note the media uses their complete lack of expertise to decide which experts will be presented to the public as definitive. For example, there are thousands of doctors who will say "Of course a layman can observe that someone's memory is faulty and that they frequently lose their train of thought," but this not-an-expert-in-anything, Gina Kolata, decided to find one "expert" to say that someone failing to remember things is no sign of a poor memory and present that as the last word on the matter.
The non-expert media c*nts are picking which "experts" are right and worthy of presentation to the public, while having absolutely no training whatsoever that would permit them to sift between the competing claims of experts to determine who is right.
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Hunter Biden Acted as a "Chief of Staff" to Joe Biden; They Filmed a Fake Town Hall to Show Biden Interacting with "Real Voters" (Democrat Plants) But Had to Scrap It Because Biden Was Too Out-of-It
—Ace
Before getting to that, Joe Scarborough now says he was "obviously wrong" about this being the best, most cogent version of Biden ever, and eff you if you can't handle the truth.
Scarborough says he was 'obviously wrong' that Biden was fit for presidencyMSNBC's Joe Scarborough discusses his past Biden coverage, which included saying the president was better than ever in 2024.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough conceded on Wednesday that he was "obviously wrong" when he called former President Joe Biden the "best Biden ever" in March 2024.
Scarborough explained during a conversation with CNN's Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on "Morning Joe" that he was in Ireland with Biden in 2023, noting the president had done several events and spoke to the MSNBC host for an interview.
"He's doing well, he has a hero's reception in Ireland. I've told you about going in and talking to him for two and a half, three hours inside the White House, far beyond cogent. I mean really, really has a better, well, has a grasp of international politics in a way that only somebody who's been doing it since he was 29 years old," Scarborough said regarding the exchange.
"We get phone calls at home where the guy is like pounding me because of op-eds that I wrote, etc., etc. So, I said that this was Biden at his best. That's what I saw. That's what other people saw, I was obviously wrong, so I'm not sure what my takeaway is here, the next time," the MSNBC host said.
Yeah, this is the same pack of lies he insisted on to Mark Halperin who, apparently being a friend to this degenerate, did not push him hard on his claims. Joe Scarborough continues insisting that Biden was so "sharp" in his "interview" -- an "interview" which was conveniently not taped, not even audio-taped -- that he was convinced this was the greatest foreign policy mind of the last hundred years.
Can we check the tape? No we cannot, it doesn't exist, we'll just have to take Joe Scarborough's word for it. Ooopsie!
Scarborough was pressed on the clip of himself calling the former president the "best Biden ever" early in 2024 during a Tuesday conversation with journalist Mark Halperin on his show, "Next Up with Mark Halperin."The MSNBC host stood by his comments even as Halperin pressed him on whether he should have added a caveat of "except on the days when he's not the best Biden ever" to his remarks, as the pair discussed how the former president had good days and bad days in office.
...
"And so again, am I going to look at a clip that's gone viral and pay more attention to that than two and a half, three hours I had with a guy one-on-one going around the world? No, I'm just not going to," Scarborough said in response to the revelation. "Are some of the clips bad? Yeah, they certainly are bad."
Compare Scaborough then, when he could hide the lie, and now, when he can't.
From David Strom, the Washington Post is now pretending they didn't know that Biden was in cognitive decline but if someone had told them, hooboy, would they have reported that story to the public!
It now seems that, for a considerable time, Biden might have lacked the stamina and cognitive capacity the job demands -- and that his family and closest aides concealed this from the public.
LOL. You had no idea, huh?
THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF YOU?!?!
Their apparent decision to put personal loyalties ahead of their duty to the country must be reckoned with. A legal mechanism should be considered to ensure that this doesn't happen again.
Oh, you mean now that you let Basement Biden pretend to run for president and pretend to serve as president, we need laws to keep Trump in line.
How about investigations into the past crimes that you're so eager to sweep under the rug, Washington Post? No? No interest in that? You just want new laws to punish Trump, huh?
The people closest to Biden could hardly have avoided observing his infirmity -- indeed, the actions they took to hide it indicate that they knew all too well.
The same is true of you, Washington Post.
He was on video asking "Where's Jackie?" about a dead congresswomen whose memorial he was attending and whose "in memoriam" clip he just watched.
Early issues surfaced in the 2020 campaign, when he had memory lapses, including forgetting the name of one of his closest advisers and the opening lines to the Declaration of Independence. A Democrat interviewed by Tapper and Thompson who was involved in making Zoom videos of Biden speaking to constituents during the pandemic lockdown said that, after watching hours of mostly unusable footage, they concluded he was incapable of doing the job.
...Such observations then became more frequent. "Since at least 2022," Tapper and Thompson write, "he has had moments where he cannot recall the names of top aides whom he sees every day. He can sometimes seem incoherent. He is increasingly prone to losing his train of thought."
"By late 2023," the authors say, "Biden's staff was pushing as much of his schedule as possible to midday, when Biden was at his best." Even in small groups, the president often read from notes or a teleprompter.
This suggests that Biden might have been too impaired to responsibly lead the United States. The country was fortunate not to have experienced a late-night crisis that he would have had trouble handling. It would be folly to count on such luck in the future.
Weird how the entire right side of the media knew Biden didn't do appearances before 10 am and called a "Lid" on the day by 11:30 am most days.
See, we noticed that Biden was almost entirely absent from the stage and then checked the presidential schedule -- which is a public document available to anyone actually interested in seeing it -- and confirmed that yes, Biden did no appearances before 10am and rarely did any past 4pm. And most days, he called a "lid" after a couple of hours' "work."
The Washington Post is essentially admitting it's not in the journalism business at all.
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Democrats Plan to Spend Tens of Millions of Dollars to Create an Astroturf "Authentic" Propaganda Podcasting Army
—Ace
This new effort is led by a group calling themselves "AND -- Achieve Narrative Dominance."
Because owning the entire corporate media just isn't enough to keep the public gaslit and giddy on lies.
Democrats Throw Money at a Problem: Countering G.O.P. Clout Online At private gatherings, strategists and donors are swapping ideas to help the party capture the digital mojo that helped President Trump win. Yes, there's a price tag.Theodore Schleifer
Six months after the Democratic Party's crushing 2024 defeat, the party's megadonors are being inundated with overtures to spend tens of millions of dollars to develop an army of left-leaning online influencers.
At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by The New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party's rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, "find the next Joe Rogan."
As many have said, the left already had its own Joe Rogan. He was called "Joe Rogan." The left decided to excommunicate him because he did some Youthful Experimentation with ivermectin and noticed that most of what the left says is just lies.
The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump -- if only they can throw enough money at the problem.
They own the entire media, from the networks to Hollywood, but "can't compete culturally" with the right.
That sounds like a problem bigger than what a couple of astroturf podcasts can solve. If you're that disconnected from the rest of the country that you can't influence the country despite owning every network, magazine, publishing house, and movie studio -- maybe you need a couple of years of introspection to figure out why that is before you just dump a hundred million dollars into More of the Same.
Democrats widely believe they must grow more creative in stoking online enthusiasm for their candidates, particularly in less outwardly political forms of media like sports or lifestyle podcasts.
Oh, I forgot -- they also took over sports broadcasting. And comic books.
But still they can't "compete culturally."
Many now take it as gospel that Mr. Trump's victory last year came in part because he cultivated an ecosystem of supporters on YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, in addition to the many Trump-friendly hosts on Fox News.
Say, New York Times, were there any Biden- or Democrat-friendly "journalists" at the New York Times?
The quiet effort amounts to an audacious -- skeptics might say desperate -- bet that Democrats can buy more cultural relevance online, despite the fact that casually right-leaning touchstones like Mr. Rogan's podcast were not built by political donors and did not rise overnight.
The reason the right is powerful in the online space is the same reason it was powerful on AM radio -- because the left blackballed us from all positions in the corporate media and forced us to much-inferior platforms. But we thrived, because we tell the truth, and you lie, and it doesn't matter how inferior your platform is when you have the truth.
A Democrat explains that this astroturfed, billionaire-paid effort must also have an "organic" component, however tiny:
..."It needs to start with a legitimate investment," said Marissa McBride, a Democratic strategist who leads a donor group called Mind the Gap. But she added, "There has to be something that is happening organically as well."
Shedding a 'Hall Monitor' Reputation
...
In November, Ms. McBride and other liberal operatives gathered in Washington for a series of meetings to survey the election wreckage. At the headquarters of American Bridge, one of the largest Democratic donor networks, they eventually hatched a plan for a for-profit media company called AND Media, which stands for "Achieve Narrative Dominance."
The company, incorporated in March, says it is aiming to raise $45 million over the next four years. The group hopes to have a $70 million budget over that time frame based on predictions of $25 million in revenue. It says it has raised $7 million so far. Ms. McBride and Christian Tom, who led digital strategy for the Biden White House, have pitched the company to American Bridge donors as a broad cultural project.
Hoping to move away from "the current didactic, hall monitor style of Democratic politics that turns off younger audiences," AND Media will focus on directly funding influencers and co-producing their content, opening a creator talent agency and starting by "inking deals with four 'flagship' creators," according to a business plan shared with The Times.
People will flock to watch your highly-scripted billionaire-paid "authentic organic propaganda" if you just make it with cheaper cameras and microphones! You just need the veneer that this is DIY and bottom-up!
Another effort with ties to major donors is called Project Bullhorn, which is meant to pool contributions to back creator projects. The money is running through Jason Berkenfeld, who has advised the political giving of Eric Schmidt, the billionaire former Google chief executive, and others. Mr. Berkenfeld pitched the project to major Democratic contributors at a briefing this month featuring Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.Mr. Berkenfeld is seeking to raise $35 million in the first year for Project Bullhorn and aligned work, according to two people who have spoken to him. He is largely trying to amplify existing influencer networks: An early recipient of the money he raises will be a fund backing left-leaning creators on YouTube. Another will be a "matchmaking service" to book these creators on YouTube shows and podcasts.
Project Bullhorn plans to include a for-profit arm that will "have the potential to reap significant returns," according to a concept document obtained by The Times. "We will need to create self-sustaining businesses if we want to build an echo chamber with sufficient scale and reach."
Straight-up admitting they're trying to build an "echo chamber" with antiamerican billionaires' dirty cash.
And they can't stop admitting it:
...Mr. Flaherty is also advising Project Echo, a new four-year $52 million influencer program from People for the American Way, a progressive nonprofit group. The group is spending about $10 million of its own money and pitching donors for the rest, according to its president, Svante Myrick.
A program called Double Tap Democracy, meanwhile, is working with 2,000 mostly apolitical creators who generally have smaller followings.
So, shoot democracy twice in the chest?
...To some Democratic operatives, the repeated gatherings of donors to mull such ideas has felt like a ceaseless calendar of cattle calls.
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Mr. Flaherty, the former Harris strategist, who has been at some donor events, said emulating the right's success would take time.
"The key is building off what's already resonating and investing in it," he said. "If it all goes into more tools for delivering poll-tested messaging, it'll fall flat with its audience. At that point, you might as well just buy ads."
You are buying ads. You've already admitted you're just spending money on "Project Echo" to pay people to repeat Democrat propaganda, but pretending to be DIY basement podcasters while doing so.
Inside the Secretive $700 Million Ad-Testing Factory for Kamala Harris
Future Forward has ascended to the top of the Democratic political universe, but it has also drawn suspicion and second-guessing.
The biggest super PAC in American politics is in the middle of an unparalleled spending spree, unleashing more money on television advertising in the closing weeks of the 2024 race than the campaigns of Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris combined.The group, known as Future Forward, has ascended to the pinnacle of the Democratic political universe with remarkable speed, winning over some of the world's richest people with grand promises of a "Moneyball" method to political advertising that it has pitched as the most sophisticated ever undertaken.
The group is, in some ways, an ad-making laboratory masquerading as a super PAC, testing thousands of messages, social media posts and ads in the 2024 race, ranking them in order of effectiveness and approving only those that resonate with voters. Ad makers produce roughly 20 potential commercials for every spot that ever airs. And Future Forward has conducted nearly four million voter surveys since Ms. Harris entered the race -- and more than 10 million since January.
"They're probably the most analytics- and evidence-driven PAC I've ever seen," said David Nickerson, a political scientist who ran the experiments division of Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign.
Publicly, Ms. Harris and Democratic leaders are appreciative of the group's work. But Future Forward's insular approach to spending the staggering $700 million it has raised in combination with its affiliated nonprofit group has led to suspicion and second-guessing, including inside Ms. Harris's headquarters.
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Founded by a group of wonkish Obama campaign veterans, Future Forward is animated by the idea that a blend of data science, political science and testing can usher in a new era of rigor in advertising. The group's ads were widely praised in 2020, and Future Forward earned the coveted designation as the official super PAC first for President Biden and then for Ms. Harris.
They have no solutions and no agenda that they can admit to, because all of their ideas are insane, vicious, and Satanic.
So they always revert back to the same "new strategy" -- billions of dollars of billionaires' money on propaganda designed to trick the public into thinking it's "organic."
Rep. James Comer: We Know Who Was Running Biden's Autopen
—Ace
President Donald Trump and top House Republicans are ramping up a sweeping investigation into former President Joe Biden's use of a mechanical signature device known as the autopen, raising questions about the legitimacy of executive actions taken during Biden's presidency -- especially a wave of last-minute pardons signed with the device.The investigation, led by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), gained traction after the Washington Examiner first reported on Friday about Comer's plans for the committee to investigate whether Biden personally authorized all of his clemency orders and executive actions or whether his aides, acting on his behalf, used the autopen without valid authority.
At the center of the controversy are Republican claims that Biden lacked the cognitive ability to carry out key decisions and that unelected aides may have orchestrated policy behind the scenes. The Justice Department, now under Trump's control, has also pledged internal reviews of Biden-era pardons under newly appointed Pardon Attorney Ed Martin.
A staffer familiar with Martin's plans told the Washington Examiner that Martin "looks forward to being in a position to facilitate congressional inquiries from inside the building and to cooperate with those inquiries, because they're all on the same team."
Comer has made the autopen investigation a new front in the broader Republican effort to investigate Biden's fitness and decision-making while in office.
In a statement after his closed-door announcement of the investigation at the annual Republican National Lawyers Association event, Comer said his panel would commence its investigation into "the cover-up of President Biden's mental decline and use of autopen," even teasing that he believes he knows which former Biden staffer operated the device.
Comer said he plans to subpoena former Biden aides Annie Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, and Ashley Williams, who he says "ran interference" for the president and may have coordinated the use of the autopen.
"Now that Biden's top enablers can no longer hide behind the power of the presidency, we're continuing our investigation to expose the truth," Comer said.
Although Comer has named three former aides to Biden, Kyle Brosnan, chief counsel for the Oversight Project, formerly part of the Heritage Foundation, said House Republicans should consider additional names to subpoena, including those who received the blanket pardons from Biden just before he left office.
"I would hope and expect that the people that received those preemptive pardons are on the deposition list," Brosnan told the Washington Examiner. "They're certainly eligible to be deposed in this situation, and they cannot assert the Fifth Amendment for these pardons either."
Republicans have pointed to Biden's final-week pardons and clemency grants as a focal point for legal scrutiny. Among the figures who received preemptive clemency were former COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci, former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, and members of the House Jan. 6 committee.
Several of the pardons were signed between Jan. 16 and Jan. 19, just days before Trump's inauguration. According to public filings and internal memoranda obtained by congressional investigators, a significant number of clemency warrants were executed using batch-format autopen signatures, raising questions about whether Biden was directly involved in the process.
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When the South African President Denies His Country is Murdering White Farmers, Trump, Incredibly, Plays Him Video of White Famers Being Murdered
—Ace
This is so racist I can't even right now.
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Report: The CDC and FDA Knew the Clot-Shot Was Causing Myocarditis But Decided to Hide this Vital Information from the Public
—Ace
They chose to kill more people rather than admit they'd made a deadly mistake.
U.S. health officials knew about the risks of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccines but downplayed the concern and delayed informing the public about the risks of taking the jab -- that is according to a new Senate report released by Sen. Ron Johnson Wednesday.Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, has been investigating the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. Earlier this year, he subpoenaed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for records relating to COVID-19 vaccine safety data and communications about the pandemic.
The interim report, spanning 55 pages, obtained and reviewed by Fox News Digital, revealed that Biden administration officials "withheld crucial health information from the Subcommittee and the public."
Since 2021, Johnson has sent more than 70 oversight letters, which he says were "either completely ignored or inadequately addressed."
The report highlights the records Johnson has obtained pursuant to the subpoena from the new, Trump administration-led health agency. Specifically, the report focuses on HHS' awareness of and response to cases of myocarditis--a type of heart inflammation--following COVID-19 vaccination.
Johnson's report says the 2,473 pages of records he obtained "contain evidence of the Biden administration's efforts to downplay and delay warning the public about the risks of myocarditis associated with the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines."
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"Based on the subpoenaed records the Subcommittee has received to date, as well as public FOIA documents, this interim report will highlight records and present a timeline showing U.S. health officials knew about the risk of myocarditis; those officials downplayed the health concern; and U.S. health agencies delayed informing the public about the risk of the adverse event."
The report also highlights the Israeli Ministry of Health notifying officials at the CDC in February 2021 of "large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people, following the administration of the Pfizer vaccine."
The report also highlights documents showing CDC officials discussing "safety signals" for myocarditis with mRNA vaccines in April 2021 based on Defense Department and Israeli data, but "still not taking immediate steps to warn the public."
Documents obtained by Johnson also show CDC officials communicating with Moderna and Pfizer representatives about the risks.
Johnson also obtained "draft meeting notes from late May 2021 exchanged between U.S. public health officials which included the question: 'Is VAERS signaling for myopericarditis now?,' and the answer: 'For the age groups 16-17 years and 18-24 years, yes.'"
"VAERS" is an acronym for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
"Rather than provide the public and health care providers with immediate and transparent information regarding the risk of myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration waited until late June 2021 to announce changes to the labels for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines based on the 'suggested increased risks' of myocarditis and pericarditis," the report states. "Even though CDC and FDA officials were well aware of the risk of myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccination, the Biden administration opted to withhold issuing a formal warning to the public for months about the safety concerns, jeopardizing the health of young Americans."
The report added that the Biden administration's decision "to downplay the COVID-19 vaccine health risks and delay warning the public about cardiac-related adverse events associated with the mRNA vaccines jeopardized the public's health."
According to the report, as of April 25, 2025, VAERS reported 38,607 deaths and more than 1.6 million "adverse events worldwide associated with the administration of COVID-19 injections."
Of the more than 38,000 deaths, the report said 25% occurred on Day 0, 1, or 2 following injection, compared to "2,663 deaths reported to VAERS associated with the flu vaccine over a period of 35 years.""No other reports of adverse events associated with any other drug or vaccine even come close to these statistics," the report states. "And yet, those who oversaw the development and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines continue to insist it is safe and effective, without providing the data to prove their claims."
#TrustTheExperts, Bigots.
Good to see the covid cover-up being exposed.
Report: DOJ Investigating Andrew Cuomo for Lying to Congress About His Murder of Thousands of Grandparents By Packing Them Into the Nursing Homes During Covid
—Ace
I guess we can't prosecute him for mass murder, but we can prosecute him for lying about the mass murder.
The Department of Justice has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for allegedly lying to Congress about his role in downplaying COVID-related nursing home deaths.Key Details:
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the investigation is focused on whether Cuomo misled Congress during a June 11th, 2024, interview in which he denied reviewing or editing a July 2020 nursing home death report.
Evidence reviewed by House Republicans reportedly includes internal emails and handwritten edits suggesting Cuomo did, in fact, participate in shaping the report, which undercounted deaths by as much as 46%.
Cuomo's team has dismissed the investigation as "lawfare and election interference," while advocacy group Voices for Seniors called the probe "justified" and "overdue."
Diving Deeper:
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for allegedly making false statements to Congress regarding the state's handling of nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the New York Times. The inquiry, led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., reportedly began about a month ago and is now being overseen by Jeanine Pirro, who has long been publicly critical of Cuomo's pandemic policies.
At issue is Cuomo's June 11th, 2024, testimony before the House COVID subcommittee, in which he denied playing any role in drafting, reviewing, or editing the state's July 2020 nursing home report. That report significantly downplayed the number of COVID-related deaths in long-term care facilities, citing 6,432 fatalities instead of the more than 9,000 who actually died when hospital deaths were included.
House Oversight Committee Chairman, Kentucky Rep. James Comer referred Cuomo to the DOJ for prosecution, claiming there is "overwhelming evidence" the former governor misled lawmakers. Documents obtained by the subcommittee reportedly include internal emails among Cuomo aides and copies of the report with Cuomo's handwritten edits--including one margin note questioning the reported death toll and another replacing the word "death" with softer language.
Cuomo, now a leading candidate in New York City's mayoral race, has denounced the investigation. His spokesman Rich Azzopardi told the New York Post they were unaware of any probe and called the report "lawfare and election interference plain and simple.
Happy Humpday!
Wednesday Morning Rant
—Joe Mannix
Remember "dog whistles?" A "dog whistle" is, according (usually) to leftists, a form of spoken code uttered by somebody to help subtly inform those in the club - always a bad club, of course - that he's one of them. It's used to signal group membership and alignment. This one used to be bandied around a lot. Talk about "inner-city crime?" Why, that's a "racist dog-whistle." They used to accuse Trump of it a lot before everyone kept making fun of them for being stupid. But no stupid thing can ever be allowed to die, so it has instead changed form. "Dog whistles" are out, but "coding" is in.
Meet "coding:" the new(ish) idiot in town. Now, things are "coded" to mean something - exclusively in the eyes of the observer - that usually isn't really there. Examples abound. Ace uses it humorously but idiots use it seriously. Cartoon characters of yesteryear are "gay-coded" because contemporary gay writers need to contrive a justification for putting sex politics in children's programming. Competent, mechanically-inclined women are "trans-coded" because fake chicks need there to be real women who they perceive as like themselves.
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Mid-Morning Art Thread [Kris]
—Open Blogger
Dancing Colors
JoAnn Bird
In Dancing Colors, JoAnn Bird communicates through color, texture, and technique the energy and sound of the modern powwow. It's no accident the title is what it is. Color explodes off the canvas. Blues and blacks make up a base upon which Bird applied reds and oranges, which flash and pop against the dark background. They remind me of a bonfire.
Without the white, these colors would become a vibrating blob. White defines form. Notice how it’s used: as belts, feathered headdresses, leggings and sleeves. Unlike the cacophony of the others, white appears to be applied methodically. The strokes have a visual rhythm and remind me of the beat of the drums to which these figures are dancing.
The top of the painting is a white field splashed with red, orange, green, blue, and black — the same colors as below. I think this is a nice contrast against the lower section. There is so much commotion in the lower two-thirds that the calm top counters it. However, Bird understood that if the area were solid white, it would look odd. The lower half is so active and vibrant that it would overpower the top, so she adds quick, Pollock-like splatters of color to liven it up. Just as the white breaks up the colors in the bottom, the colors here break up the white. I think it’s visually interesting.
How Bird applied her paint is important, too. She didn’t paint this with a brush. She used a palette knife. Large gobs of paint were scooped up and slapped and smeared onto the canvas. As a result, the paint is thick and textured. If you could touch it (don’t do this, however), you’d be able to feel the ridges and edges of the strokes. Then, as mentioned above, she splattered more paint across the top. These techniques are, themselves, very active and dramatic and enhance the motion of the dancers.
When I look at Dancing Colors, I see a love and pride for tradition and culture. JoAnn Bird, a Dakota Sioux, could have painted a naturalistic scene with beautiful, colorful costumes, swaying tassels, and twinkling bells. She could have shown us the gestures and movements of the dancers. But that wasn’t her goal. This painting is expressively abstract. Bird wanted me to feel and hear this piece, not just see it. Bird’s tassels of color blaze with energy and movement. Her technique creates the beat. Dancing Colors is not about a powwow. It’s about the experience of the powwow.
The Morning Report — 5/ 21 /25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. Honestly, is it really all that surprising that the Democrats and their accomplices in the media/propaganda complex covered up Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants' stage 4 cancer, on top of his obvious dementia/Alzheimer's disease cognitive impairment on top of his decades-long career as a venal influence peddler selling his office and the national security of this nation to the highest bidder, including our greatest foreign adversaries and enemies. Of course not, because his criminality is their own.
On a number of levels, the adage of "the coverup is worse than the crime" is in full effect. I'll try and peel back the layers of the onion, so to speak, of my thought process on this. First, why did they decide to run him in 2020 in the first place, especially after the Hillary debacle of 2016? Her candidacy then was only because she was forced out to make way for Obama in '08, and Biden's role as VP was to put lipstick on the Stalinist/Muslim/Pig that was and still is Obama to try and reassure the low-info and middle-American crowd that Joe Biden, an old white guy, was a baseball hotdogs apple pie and Chevrolet influence that would prevail in an Obama Oval Office.
Yet with Obama gone, and Hillary by that time seemingly political kryptonite, surely the Democrats had some candidate that both checked off all the correct ethno/sexual political boxes and could fake normalcy in front of the cameras and while pressing the flesh at middle American state fairs when he or she had to?
So why Biden? Did they really think American wanted a return to the Obama years and that Biden represented that? Or even with the election-rigging machinery in place courtesy of the COVID lockdowns and Democrat amorality firmly ensconced in the key swing states and districts on top of it, did they still fear a Trump re-election and did not want to waste a future potential Democrat standard bearer and made Biden a sacrificial lamb? Of course, his "victory" so-called in 2020 still left all of Obama's henchmen and acolytes firmly in control.
Even still, between Burisma, the stolen.mishandled document revelations, the Afghanistan bug-out debacle, click here for news on that, his obvious stumbling and getting lost in the Rose Garden and at World Summits and all the other personal and political disasters that we all saw with our own eyes, To get rid of him in 2024 would have been tacit admission that his 2020 candidacy and Presidency in the first place was an absolute farce, and worse, one of the most monstrous crimes and frauds ever perpetrated against the American people.
He could not be replaced by Harris or whoever, and demented as he was, as everyone saw with that disaster of a debate performance, he knew he had his party by the short hairs. And so Trump destroyed him last November and the rest is history.
And to be an optimist, All the Democrats have are the very people and policies that are the absolute antithesis of President Trump and the MAGA agenda that so far, especially vis a vis illegal immigration/invasion are proving wildly popular not only with sane Americans and the MAGA base/faithful but even eroding some of the traditional support from key Democrat constituencies. Despite the propaganda, even President Trump's trade and economic policies are starting to bear fruit, in people's wallets and in their perceptions as polls also indicate.
That leaves the Democrats with two of their key options, political violence/terrorism and sabotage.
. . . the resistance has come from the federal judiciary, some 844 active members of the Article III branch of the American government. Except for the chief justice of the Supreme Court, all such judgeships have been created by and remain subject to the jurisdiction of Congress, while the judges themselves are appointed by the Executive. They're not referred to "inferior" courts (relative to the Supreme Court) for nothing, and the notion that the judiciary is "independent" is a rank fiction. . .. . .the unconstitutional power grab of Marbury v. Madison (1803), which created out of whole cloth the judiciary's "right" to meddle in absolutely everything the president or Congress does. The current crop of Resistance judges has taken that parlous doctrine to its logical conclusion. But the Law is only as valid as the men who write it and enforce it and defend it. The laws of the Weimar Republic were instantly invalidated by the National Socialists' Nuremberg Laws, and all the lawyers in the Reich couldn't save a single Jew, gypsy, homosexual, Catholic prelate, or Communist once the new Law came down on them. .
. . . Thus far, the Trump team has played it smart, avoiding provocation, fighting lawfare with lawfare and not overtly refusing a court order while at the same time punting it for all the right reasons of state. The president has every bit as much right to "interpret" the Constitution as John Roberts does, or the lowliest federal judge in Honolulu, and every bit as much right to ignore them, as both Jefferson and Jackson and even Biden did. But when the time comes, as it will, Trump will simply have to quote Andrew Jackson, who is supposed to have said to Chief Justice Marshall (the author of Marbury): "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it."
And then of course the question remains, How many divisions do Roberts, and the so-called "resistance" have and more to the point how many do We The People have?!
We are heading in the same direction as South Africa . .
And instead as some have postulated, Trump being added to Mount Rushmore, giant Jasmine Crockett Eyelashes will be welded onto Lady Liberty, while her dress is removed and a tranny phallus welded on, with a patina'd Rules for Radicals in her outstretched hands.
I have a nightmare today...
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Have a great day.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Michael Walsh: . . .You know the rest of the quote, which derives from the fourth act of Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2. Discussing ways in which to improve England, Dick the Butcher advises his fellow rebels that the quickest path to their objective is "first, let's kill all the lawyers."
THE COLUMN: 'The First Thing We Do'
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Daily Tech News 21 May 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- AMD has officially announced the eagerly-awaited 9060 XT graphics card, arriving June 5 and starting at $299. (Tom's Hardware)
Though that's for the 8GB model which you don't want to buy. The 16GB model costs $349, which is well worth it given that it's reportedly faster than the competing 5060 Ti from Nvidia and the 16GB model of that card costs $429.
And it also leaves the newly announced 5060 (non-Ti) dead in the water. It also costs $299 for 8GB of RAM, but it's slower than the 5060 Ti.
One shortcoming is that the 9060 XT only offers three display outputs. That's a bit odd because almost everything offers four outputs, and professional cards can offer six.
- AMD also announced the Radeon AI Pro R9700, which is the Radeon 9070 XT with double the RAM. (Tom's Hardware)
And probably more than double the price.
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Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - May 20, 2025 [scampydog]
—Open Blogger
Good evening, and welcome to the Tuesday ONT. We have some guest blogging contributions from our AoSHQ friend and commenter, Pete Bog. Did you pack your compass?
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Dog's Eye View Cafe
—Ace
Proof the moon landing was faked -- note that
the shadow of the cat does not align with the sun's position
If you've got some sticks to move, you better believe your dog needs to be a part of that action.
Otter just chillin' in a mountain lake. Looks like a sea otter so I don't even know what's going on.
"Land spout" tornado I thought all tornadoes over land would be "land spouts" but it's a special type.
Cute seal wants snuggles.
Adopted dog finds out that his family has also now adopted his sister.
Cant does great impersonation of Oscar the Grouch.
MimiSounds plays Comfortably Numb while ice-skating. In a boob shirt, of course.
Anteater family out for a stacked stroll.
Hawk doesn't know what to do with a wooden mallard.
Kitten establishes the power hierarchy quickly.
Border collie shows who's boss.
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Quick Hits
—Ace
Nancy Mace has got to be the most pathologically attention-seeking women to have ever lived.
86 James Comey. I also have never, ever heard that to 86 someone is to take them out violently, so my statement is also innocent.
"Dank Brandon" has a message about his recent diagnosis.
The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has launched an investigation into the employment practices of the city of Chicago after Mayor Brandon Johnson made comments on Sunday suggesting that he has "made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race."Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon wrote in a letter to Johnson that the probe was opened to investigate potential violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"Our investigation is based on information suggesting that you have made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race. In your remarks made yesterday at the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, you 'highlight[ed] the number of Black officials in [your] administration,'" the letter stated, noting that Johnson highlighted multiple high-ranking positions that were held by black men and women.
"You then said that you were 'laying' these positions 'out' to 'ensure that our people get a chance to grow their business,'" Dhillon continued. "Considering these remarks, I have authorized an investigation to determine whether the City of Chicago is engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination as set forth above. If these kind of hiring decisions are being made for top-level positions in your administration, then it begs the question whether such decisions are also being made for lower-level positions."
Because I have age-related cognitive decline, I forgot to link this earlier:
Tapper's critics have frequently highlighted his Lara Trump interview, but a review of the record clearly shows the CNN host repeatedly promoted Democratic talking points on the air, and aggressively bullied those who questioned the official narrative. One month prior to his confrontation with Lara Trump, Tapper interviewed H.R. McMastter, the national security adviser Trump fired, and implied that Republicans questioning Biden's mental acuity were promoting Russian disinformation. "What do you make of the fact that so many of the criticisms that you're talking about, the Russians are trying to do to make us and the public not trust in our election integrity, the election is rigged, Joe Biden has dementia, and all this stuff, is stuff that we're hearing repeated by leaders, by American political leaders?" the CNN host asked, channeling the Democratic Party's bizarre conspiracies about Vladimir Putin as an all-powerful puppet master.
Hakeem Jeffries insists that all discussion of the Biden Dementia Cover-Up must stop now, and also declares that anyone saying that Biden's had cancer for years -- like most oncologists -- is a "conspiracy theorist."
Western Lensman @WesternLensmanHakeem Jeffries wants talk of the Biden cognitive coverup shut down.
Says it's "entirely inappropriate" for Republicans to discuss such "conspiracy theories" after the cancer diagnosis.
"Republicans want to look backward...Democrats are going to look forward."
There it is.
Hakeem Jeffries also says that fat black Democrat women should be allowed to hit cops with impunity.
"The proceeding initiated by the so-called U.S. Attorney in New Jersey is a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders said in a statement Monday night. "House Democrats will not be intimidated by the Trump administration. Not today. Not ever."
This BLAWFL is on videotape repeatedly striking cops.
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Hollywood's Favorite Gay-Coded Pudgy Hispanic Plank of Wood Rails Against the Conservative Half of the Country as Disney Sends Him Out to Promote the Upcoming Marvel Bomb "Fantastic Four"
—Ace
Ambiguously-sexed Hispanic man
delights the ladies like Liberace used to do.
His Dead Eyes smolder with zero intensity
Word is, Disney had much more faith in the Thunderbolts movie, and saw greater fan interest in it, than in the Fantastic Four movie.
And the Thunderbolts movie just sputtered to a sub-$300 million haul. Yes, it will cross the $300 million (global) threshold over the next couple of weeks, but it won't come anywhere close to $400 million. Or close to $350 million.
Even The Eternals made $400 million... during the pandemic.
And Disney expects Fantastic Four to perform even more poorly.
And Pedro Pascal will be part of the reason for widespread fan disinterest.
Pascal has recently attacked "toxic masculinity" with fellow gay-coded actor Oscar Isaac.
The internet is buzzing once again over Pedro Pascal, but this time, it's not because he's promoting some radical ideology or starring in just about every project Hollywood announces. No, this time it's all about an Instagram story featuring Pascal and his longtime friend Oscar Isaac full-on snuggling--something that has the legacy media predictably tripping over itself to declare yet another victory against so-called "toxic masculinity."
He also attacked an actual woman, JK Rowling, as a "heinous loser" for not wanting to shower with rando mentally-ill dudes in wigs.
Pedro Pascal, best known for his role in The Mandalorian and The Last of Us has inserted himself into the ongoing debate over gender terminology and women's spaces by publicly disparaging bestselling Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. The actor left a comment on activist Tariq Ra'ouf's Instagram post calling Rowling a "heinous loser," following her support for a recent UK Supreme Court ruling that clarified legal definitions around biological sex.
And now: This shapeless void of anti-charisma attacks half the country has fascists.
And he's starring in a movie that seems to support Covid fascism!
Pedro Pascal Went Off in Profane Political Meltdown at Cannes and Got Applause, Gina Carano Got Fired for a Meme
Its becoming impossible to ignore the way Hollywood treats Pedro Pascal compared to the way it treated Gina Carano.Pedro Pascal stood in front of the international press at Cannes, dropped an F-bomb on political opponents in the United States, promoted a film that vilifies conservatives, and walked away with applause and headlines. Meanwhile, Gina Carano -- who said far less, without profanity or attacks -- remains blacklisted from Hollywood, forced to take her fight to court.
That's the double standard on full display.
While promoting A24's Eddington, Pascal was asked whether he was concerned about returning to the U.S. given the film's political message. His response was blunt.
"F*** the people who try to make you scared," he said. "Fear is the way that they win... keep expressing yourself and don't let them win."
The film itself is set in New Mexico during the 2020 lockdowns and features a clash between Pascal's left-leaning mayor and Joaquin Phoenix's sheriff. The story has been described by critics as a direct attack on conservative populism, set in a town tearing itself apart. Variety praised its aggressive tone and message, with Pascal calling the script a form of "whistleblowing" and saying it felt like someone was finally speaking out "from the inside."
There has been no public reprimand from Disney for these comments. No distancing from Marvel. No statement from Lucasfilm. And there won't be.
Pascal remains the star of The Mandalorian & Grogu and is still playing a prominent role in Avengers: Secret Wars.
In 2021, Carano shared a social media post warning that demonizing political opponents could lead to dark consequences. It didn't include any foul language. It didn't target anyone. It simply referenced historical patterns from the 1940s in Germany, when neighbor turned against neighbor. It was a call for awareness. For that, Lucasfilm terminated her contract, issued a public statement condemning her, and effectively erased her from the Star Wars universe.
She has not worked with a major studio since.
The very normal actor further wooed the straight young men that make up what remains of the superhero movie audience by dancing suggestively with a rainbow-colored phallic glowstick, because that's what normal men do.
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Supreme Court Orders Maine to Restore Speaking and Voting Rights to State Congresswoman, Who Was Illegally Barred from the Statehouse for Stating That a Transgender "Athlete" Is In Fact Transgender
—Ace
Seven Supreme Court Justices ordered an end to this illegal deprivation of representation. Sotomayor and Jackson, of course, dissented.
The Supreme Court restored Representative Laurel Libby's voice in the Maine Statehouse on Tuesday, letting the Republican lawmaker avoid apologizing to a transgender athlete she attacked in a social media post.Without explanation, the high court granted Libby's emergency appeal in an apparent 7-2 ruling. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Jackson suggested that her colleagues had acted prematurely, intervening in a case without critical and exigent circumstances.
"Denying emergency relief in a case that does not satisfy the usual certiorari factors also avoids creating perverse incentives to seek our intervention prematurely," Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in her solo dissent. "Why would any applicant who thinks the lower courts are mistaken wait for those courts' final word on any issue if real-time error correction via our emergency docket is readily available?"
Libby was censured for a Facebook post complaining that the winner of a high school track meet was transgender, unable to participate in debate or vote under a centuries-old rule of the Maine House. The Legislature said she had to apologize to the transgender athlete to regain her privileges.
Libby turned to the courts instead, asking the justices to intervene so her constituents could have their voice heard in the Legislature.
"The Constitution does not tolerate respondents' unprecedented punishment for Libby's speech on a debated issue of exceptional importance," Libby wrote.
Maine says Libby agreed to the House rules for how the body would govern. According to the statehouse, any member found to be in breach of its rules may not participate in floor debates or votes until they have remedied their breach.
Libby's colleagues said she must apologize for her conduct.
CNN Reveals More Details About Biden's Obvious-On-Its-Face Senility and Jake Tapper Continues to Insist That Only After the Election Was He Able to Confirm That Biden Was Mentally Diminished
—Ace
Don't think of this as promotion for the dickbag's phony book. Think of it as releasing all the relevant material so that no one has to buy it.
CNN continues spinning for Biden even in this article purporting to reveal the details of his mental unfitness.
In the final two years of his presidency, Joe Biden had private moments where he could not recall the names of top aides, had an increasingly limited private schedule, was prone to incoherence and losing his train of thought, and was hidden from the public eye to shield the extent of his decline, according to a new book from CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson.
We saw that Biden was given reporters' questions before they were "asked." We saw on those note-cards that Biden was given the exact question and also given his scripted answer.
Did Tapper and Thompson not notice that then? They seem to continue not noticing that, because noticing that would force them to name "reporters" eager to join a fraud on the American people.
The book details episode after episode where Democratic lawmakers, White House aides, members of Biden's Cabinet and Democratic donors were shocked at Biden's diminishing mental and physical capabilities while the president embarked on an ill-fated 2024 reelection bid. But nearly all did not speak out publicly or try to stop him from running."What the world saw at his one and only 2024 debate was not an anomaly. It was not a cold; it was not someone who was underprepared or overprepared. It was not someone who was just a little tired," Tapper and Thompson write. "It was the natural result of an eighty-one-year-old man whose capabilities had been diminishing for years. Biden, his family, and his team let their self-interest and fear of another Trump term justify an attempt to put an at times addled old man in the Oval Office for four more years."
...
Tapper and Thompson report that concerns about Biden's health from those working for him dated all the way back to 2020, but his mental and physical diminishment accelerated in 2023 and 2024 before his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump.
As I keep saying, they're lying about it only getting noticeably bad in 2023 to 2024 to limit their own exposure.
Although I should say that CNN is lying about what the book says -- the book doesn't say it goes back to 2020, it says it goes back to 2019, and Tapper says in his Megyn Kelly interview (linked below) that it goes back to 2015.
At one point in December 2022, Biden could not remember the names of his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and communications director, Kate Bedingfield, the authors write. In fall 2023, he did not appear to recognize Jamie Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee (Harrison disputes this). And in early 2024, Tapper and Thompson report that Biden did not recognize movie star George Clooney, whom Biden has known for years.Some members of Biden's Cabinet told Tapper and Thompson they did not believe Biden could be relied upon to perform at 2 a.m. if there was a national emergency.
"Things that would have been considered a disaster in 2023 -- by 2024, we would have said, 'Okay, we got through that,'" a top aide told the authors.
Tapper and Thompson write that Biden was protected by an insular group, including his wife, his son and a group of longtime aides nicknamed the "Politburo," a reference to the leadership committee of a communist party.
Biden's top aides -- Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed -- valued loyalty to the president. Those not in the inner circle, including campaign staff, pollsters and members of Biden's Cabinet, believed the aides were protecting Biden from negative information as the president decided to run for reelection with no discussion or input from others in the White House or campaign, according to the book.
"It was a theology that bordered on zealotry: In January 2025, Donilon continued to hold the viewpoint that while Biden might forget and mix up names, when the president decided what the proposal should be for a peace deal between Hamas and Israel, he was pretty damn smart," Tapper and Thompson write.
Biden was long known as one of the stupidest braying jackasses in the Senate, a body known to be filled with self-important mediocrities and zeroes.
...Tapper and Thompson found that concerns about Biden's health issues dated back to his 2020 campaign. Biden shot campaign videos talking to voters on Zoom ahead of the convention but the hours of footage were largely unusable and stunned some on Biden's team.
"It was like a different person. It was incredible. This was like watching Grandpa who shouldn't be driving," said one Democrat, according to the book. "I didn't think he could be president."
...
Multiple lawmakers told the authors the Biden they saw reminded them of ailing parents and grandparents.
Publicly, questions swirled in 2024 about Biden's health, fueled by the scathing report from Hur, who opted not to charge Biden for mishandling classified information in part because of how a jury would view his age.
Privately, Tapper and Thompson report Democrats were shocked at their interactions with Biden last year, both in closed-door meetings and donor gatherings. Democratic senators told the authors they saw a noticeable change in Biden during private meetings in early 2024, which they found alarming but gave their former colleague the benefit of the doubt.
One senior administration official angrily confronted a White House colleague after a meeting with Biden's task force on reproductive health-care access. "What the f**k are you guys doing?" the official said. "I don't get how this guy can do any campaigning to run for reelection."
...
After Biden's rousing March 2024 State of the Union speech -- a performance many Democrats pointed to in justification he could run for reelection -- some White House aides who didn't normally get access to him were disturbed at his deteriorating condition when he addressed a room of high schoolers later that night and gave a rambling speech. One aide, the authors write, couldn't help asking "what on earth they had just seen."
"This isn't going to work," the aide thought, according to the book. "He can't do it. This is crazy. Crazy. Crazy."
After Biden's disastrous June debate with Trump, Tapper and Thompson report that Biden's closest aides tried to move past the debacle as though nothing happened.
"If anything, the debate made Biden aides more watchful for signs of disloyalty," the authors write. "They saw the debate as just the latest instance of counting Biden out."
Behind the scenes, Democrats urged Biden's inner circle to get the president out there in unscripted events. But the authors write that Biden "couldn't do what folks were calling on him to do to prove his acuity."
One campaign adviser recounted a post-debate discussion with Biden aboard Air Force One. "What are we doing here? the adviser thought as the president spoke. This guy can't form a f**king sentence," according to the book. "If I had a conversation like this with someone who wasn't the president, I would be worried about his health. And here he is, the sitting president of the United States."
Via John Sexton, who also complies the comments from the CNN article. The top comments? "Why are you talking about Biden's mental unfitness, which is old news, when there is so much New News to cover, like Orange Man Still Bad."
Below, Megyn Kelly confronts Jake Tapper with his own frantic efforts to spin for Biden, including playing back clips of his infamous Laura Bush attack dogging. He claims he "already apologized" to Lara Trump -- privately, of course, because Tapper doesn't want to admit his egregious bias publicly.
And I imagine he was told to fake-apologize to Lara Trump privately by his crisis communications advisor, who told him to do this so he could offer the Big Reveal that he "already" apologized to her. Probably a few weeks ago when he was stunned to learn that people thought he showed his usual Democrat bias in covering for Biden.
He continues insisting that only knowing what he "knows now" does his past partisan service for the Democrats give him "humility." Megyn Kelly points out that much of what Tapper is "reporting" now was reported by the right years ago, but Tapper ignores that and insists that only Now I Can All Be Told.
Maddening.
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"A Restoration of... Trust:" FDA Will Stop Recommending the Clot-Shot to Anyone Under 65
—Ace
So they've joined the Russian Conspiracy Theory too.
Did you know that the FDA approval process for the COVID vaccines does not require that the shots be safe and effective?It doesn't, and never has. All that has been required is that the vaccines be proven to increase antibodies, which is a very low and atypical standard.
Vaccine approval for people over 65--those who face the greatest risk from COVID and who are most likely to have a favorable risk/reward profile--will remain the same as before, but for anybody under 65, the approval standard will be the more common and more stringent standard of proven clinical benefit.
From the Free Press:
In a paper published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, Martin Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Vinay Prasad, the newly appointed head of the FDA's vaccine division, have unveiled a new policy in which the government will no longer recommend Covid booster shots for healthy Americans ages 64 and younger.In addition, as of today, Covid vaccine manufacturers like Moderna and Pfizer will have to conduct trials to prove that their updated vaccines offer clinical benefits such as fewer symptoms, hospitalizations, or deaths. Previously, pharmaceutical companies only had to show that their updated booster shots produced antibodies. That less rigorous standard will still apply for people 65 and older and the immunocompromised.
It is well established that people 65 and older account for the vast majority of Covid deaths, while most children, in particular, show few effects from the virus.
In an exclusive interview with The Free Press, Prasad said that the previous one-size-fits-all approach--in which the federal government recommended Covid vaccine boosters for everyone, including healthy 6-month-olds--"fatigued" the country.
"The American people were skeptical, and some of them took that skepticism to every single vaccine, which has led to some big problems," said Prasad, referring to the fact that a growing number of Americans have stopped having their children vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella, leading to measles outbreaks in pockets of the country. "This is a restoration of that trust. It's bringing us back to evidence."The move is one part of what is expected to be further changes in federal Covid vaccine policy. According to The Wall Street Journal, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to scrap guidelines recommending routine Covid vaccinations for pregnant women, teenagers, and children. Late last month, in an interview with Phil McGraw (popularly known as Dr. Phil), Kennedy advised parents to "do your own research" before vaccinating their newborns. That skepticism is increasingly shared by the public: Less than a quarter of Americans received boosters in recent years, according to Makary and Prasad's paper. Even healthcare workers have been slow to roll up their sleeves--fewer than one third reported getting a booster in 2023.
DOJ Charges One of the Democrats Who Attacked Guards at the Newark ICE Facility
—Ace
But but but Democratic Immunity!
It's just been revoked.
Dem Rep. LaMonica McIver charged with assaulting officers during ICE protestDemocrat Rep. LaMonica McIver has been charged with assaulting and obstructing law enforcement during a protest at a Newark ICE facility. U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charge Monday and said McIver declined repeated chances to resolve the issue.
Key Details:
Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba said McIver "assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement" in violation of Title 18, U.S. Code § 111(a)(1) during the May 9th standoff at Delaney Hall.
Habba emphasized she gave McIver "every opportunity to come to a resolution" before filing charges, stating: "No one is above the law -- politicians or otherwise."
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, arrested the same day for alleged trespassing, will not be prosecuted. Habba said the dismissal was made "for the sake of moving forward."
Diving Deeper:
Democrat Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey is now facing federal criminal charges for her conduct during a tense confrontation outside the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark earlier this month. Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charge Monday, saying McIver violated Title 18, Section 111(a)(1) of the U.S. Code by "assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement."
That May 9th incident saw several Democrat officials gather outside the ICE-contracted facility, where tensions boiled over and ended in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for alleged trespassing.
Habba, who previously served as President Donald Trump's personal attorney, stressed that she had worked to avoid bringing charges but was left with no choice. "I have persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges and have given Representative McIver every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined," she said in a statement.
"No one is above the law--politicians or otherwise," Habba continued. "It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are. Now we will let the justice system work."
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The Morning Rant: Negotiating like The “Donald” Lesson 1 [Pete Bog]
—Open Blogger
This is not news, but Trump tends to polarize viewpoints. For years I thought of him as a guy whose personality got in the way of some very sensible policies. To some degree I still do, however he has successfully humanized and reintroduced himself to a lot of people over the last couple of years. Getting shot can do that.
The first step to learning to negotiate like The Donald is to remember who he is, a Real Estate Developer. He has made a fortune in one of the most competitive markets in the world by recognizing opportunities, understanding the path forward and negotiating that path. Does he have an enormous ego and get prickly when people mock him? Yes, so does Obama, and so does almost every member of the Press.
As a rule, Real Estate people hate the Press. Most Developers try to avoid the Media. They need a villain for every story and only by making their story heard will they prosper. Developers are always the villain. The truth is not relevant to the journalist’s goal of getting heard. If they had real talent and brains they would probably have been something other than Journalism majors. Maybe even Real Estate Developers. To his credit The Donald has developed a more subtle relationship with the Press. They are a tool, and he treats them as such. They know they are being used and as a result despise him and themselves even more.
One of the key lessons to negotiating like the Donald is to keep your opponent guessing. If you pay attention you will see that he runs the exact same playbook every time he sets out to accomplish something. He makes a brash claim or laughable statement. Say for example, “The US should own Greenland, it is our destiny!” Of course, the Danish hoi polloi, and the useful predictable press wail and scream. But with whom is Trump negotiating? How about in his first Campaign when he named Marco Rubio “Little Marco” or Ted Cruz “Lying Ted”? Why would he be so unnecessarily rude? How about when he muttered under his breath in the debate with Hillary “what a nasty woman”? Because he was not negotiating with the Danish government, his Primary opponents or Hillary. He was negotiating with the people of Greenland, and the in the other examples with the voters. He was demonstrating his product, that is the US to the inhabitants of Greenland, and himself to the voters, while distinguishing that product from the competition. In these examples the competition is an inattentive Danish government, and his political opponents.
Apply this same lens to the Tariff Hoopla. Same playbook. Same application.
