Tag Archives: Biden

The Bidens must have known about his cancer for years

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First, my sympathies for the Biden family. I’ve been there.

Now, here’s my puzzlement. Prostate cancer is notoriously slow-growing. Although prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among men (second to only lung cancer), that’s not because it’s so deadly, but because it’s so common. It’s a fact that more men die with prostate cancer than of it.

Of those who die, the typical mechanism of death is by the cancer cells metastasizing to other organs and/or to the bones. It takes years for that to happen – typically something like 5-10 years even without treatment, and even longer with treatment.

Even after the metastasizing occurs, death is usually half a dozen years away or more. After all, the cancer cells are still slow-growing prostate cancer cells, even though they’re now in a new home in another organ or in the bones.

The usual treatment for prostate cancer is to remove the prostate gland, a walnut-sized gland “down there” whose main function is to provide the ejaculate that is the vehicle for sperm cells produced in the testicles. After a prostatectomy, a man can still have an orgasm, and it’s a much tidier affair. The surgery is usually done with what’s often called a “robot” but, in reality, is a human-operated arthroscopic system that utilizes fine motor controls and a viewing system.  

An alternative treatment that is often elected is radiation treatment. The prostate is irradiated five times a week for about six weeks. In one of nature’s happy coincidences, prostate cancer cells are more vulnerable to radiation than normal cells. The intended result is for the prostate cancer cells to die (or, more accurately, be sufficiently damaged that they cannot reproduce) while the other cells survive.

In practice, the radiation damages other cells to some extent, which sometimes inconveniences the patient with regard to, for example, urinary and sexual functions.

Neither approach is thought to directly impact a man’s cognitive function. But it should be mentioned that prostate cancer is a disease of older men. Radiation five times a week for six weeks has an effect on older men, even when the radiation is all below the waist. And being under anesthetic for four hours for a prostatectomy is not trivial trauma for a 75-year-old man.

Both treatments are effective, but recurrences are common. A prostatectomy tends to leave at least a few viable cancer cells behind in the prostate “bed” from which the prostate gland is removed. Radiation treatment, too, is known not to kill all the prostate cancer cells. The hope is that it kills enough of them that the man dies of something else before the remaining ones regroup and reproduce.

If the cancer has spread beyond the prostate – i.e., it has metastasized – then all bets are off. Neither a prostatectomy nor radiation treatment are directed toward anything other than the prostate gland.

The announcement from the Bidens is that he has “an aggressive form” of prostate cancer which has metastasized to his bones. The particular bones are not specified, but the hips and pelvis are the most likely. Nor is it specified to what extent the bone metastasis has taken place.

In advanced stages, metastasizing will spread to many bones. The common symptom is worsening bone pain, a deep, achy, persistent and ultimately agonizing sensation.  

Prostate cancer is usually detected long before any symptoms are noticeable. A routine blood test, which is part of every older man’s annual physical, measures a compound called “prostate specific antigen” or PSA.

Elevated levels of PSA suggest, but do not prove, prostate cancer. The doctor typically orders up further tests to confirm the suspicions. The ultimate confirming test is a biopsy.

Here’s my puzzlement. How is it that Biden’s first inkling that he has prostate cancer is when it has metastasized to his bones, given that metastasizing takes years and he presumably has been getting PSA tests at least annually?

My guess is that the Bidens have known of his cancer for a long time. It’s quite possible – nay, it’s likely – that he has undergone radiation treatment for it. (Prostatectomy treatment appears out of the question, because reports are that a nodule was discovered on his prostate; so it’s still there.)

The radiation treatment appears to have ultimately failed, as it not infrequently does. When the cancer became detectable again, it would have produced elevated PSA levels. By the time it was metastasizing, those levels would be very high.

Again, this does not happen in a matter of weeks or months, but years. It’s inconceivable that the Bidens were unaware of this cancer last November.

Joe, don’t go!

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On those rare occasions when I’m in need of an emetic, I’d rather have a finger stuck down my throat than have the image of Joe Biden stuck through my retina.

But he’s baaaaaack anyway. Democrats hate that he’s back.

What my enemy hates, I should like.  And so, I do. Even though it hurts my eyes and turns my stomach.

Democrats hate it for the same reasons that I like it. Every Joe sighting reminds people of why they voted against him. He demonstrates that he’s a creaky, corrupt, cardboard cutout that is incapable of thought and practically incapable of reading a teleprompter containing the thoughts of people who do his thinking for him.

Every appearance reminds people that the Democrats lied that he was “sharp as a tack” right up to the minute that he proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was dull as a dullard, at which time they dumped him like a stained, plaid Laz-Z-Boy from the 70s and declared that their hand-picked replacement (why bother with primaries to ascertain the people’s preference when you have Nancy, Chuck and Barack?) was

. . . wait for it . . .

. . . “sharp as a tack.”

And joyous, to boot. And no known hair plugs, capped teeth, or criminal family.

I almost feel bad for Joe that the Democrats are not even pretending to welcome him. Almost.

“Joe, please go” Is their typical greeting. Guffaws are their typical reaction to his tiresome contention that he would have won the election (if only he’d had the courage not to quit). Yawns are elicited by his warnings that the Republicans want to end Social Security, end motherhood, and end the world.

Rage is the emotion generated by him reminding Democrats of his truculent, selfish refusal to quit when the quitting was good – back when the primaries were playing out and a competent new candidate could be chosen in the way they’re supposed to be. Embarrassment is what they feel when they see him stumbling, bumbling, humbling and crumbling on a stage.

Mind you, I don’t blame Joe for being semi-senile. Lots of people wind up there. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her final years comes to mind.

Ginsburg is another person whom I adore because she screwed the Democrats by quitting long after the quitting was good. Ginsburg’s encroaching senility so clouded her judgment that she could not see it encroaching, and so she failed to quit in time for Barack Obama to name her replacement.

She died at age 87 while still on the bench (when she was not in the hospital). After decades of reliably liberal votes, the legacy she left is that her replacement is Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by Republican President Trump and confirmed by a Republican Senate.  

Back to Joe being back. Surely, he can still distinguish between friends and enemies. Given that his friends wish he’d go away for good, and his enemies are happy he doesn’t, one might ask, why doesn’t he go away?

This might shock you, but politicians have big egos. They crave attention. It’s not exactly a monastic profession.

I don’t hold that against them. The need for attention is fundamental to mankind (and, to a slightly lesser extent, womenkind). Some people achieve it by being loved, others achieve it by being hated, and still others achieve it by writing stupid blogs where they weave themselves into the narrative.

What I hold against Joe is not his basic need for attention. What I hold against him is his terrible policies, his family corruption, his gross incompetence, and his shameless lies.

I’m glad he’s back to remind Americans of those things. As he continues to decline, I hope he sticks around. Cement that legacy, Joe.

Are the Democrats trying to assassinate President Trump, or are they just rooting for it?

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Shortly after Donald Trump was inaugurated after the 2016 election, a so-called comedienne posted a picture of herself holding Trump’s severed, bloodied head. That apparently passes for comedy among Democrats.

In a presentation of Julius Caesar in the venerable Shakespeare in the Park production in New York City a few months later, a likeness of Trump was cast in the role of Caesar. I don’t need to remind you what happens to Caesar in the end.

The violent rhetoric from Democrats just keeps on coming, through Trump’s first term, into this year’s re-election campaign, and right up to weeks before the election. And now, it’s predictably escalating from violent rhetoric and into violent acts.

A month ago, a would-be assassin missed Trump’s cranium by a quarter-inch with a bullet from an AR-15, only because Trump luckily turned at the last possible second. It came out that the Trump campaign had requested beefed-up security prior to the incident, and the White House had denied his request.

The Secret Service at the time was headed by a DEI hire, and the agents at the event were test-failing amateurs. They allowed the shooter within 130 yards of Trump on an unsecured rooftop. Even after they saw him there, with a gun, they failed to take him out and failed to alert Trump or his staff until he’d fired eight shots, killing one man, seriously wounding another, and grazing Trump’s ear.  

In an apparent admission of near-lethal negligence by the Service, five agents were later suspended.

Their replacements seem not much better. In yesterday’s attempt, a Democrat donor got within easy range of Trump on a golf course with a rifle equipped with a high-powered scope. The shooter was wearing a Go-Pro, apparently to post his assassination on YouTube where Democrats everywhere could cheer it. He was thwarted only because he was foolish enough to poke his rifle out of the bushes, where an agent happened to see it.

The shooter had been on the golf course for at least 12 hours. One must wonder, how did he know Trump’s golfing schedule at least 12 hours in advance?

Even now, after two assassination attempts that missed due only to incredible luck or Providence, President Trump is not afforded the level of protection that President Biden or even Vice President Harris receives.

Most recently, President Doofus again falsely accused Trump of saying that neo-Nazis are “fine people” even though that accusation has been thoroughly debunked even by leftist fact-checkers.

Kamala Harris repeated the lie in her debate with Trump – and was not corrected by the moderators even though the moderators purported to correct at least seven Trump statements (some of which were not factual claims, but mere opinions).

You might think the mainstream media would condemn these assassination attempts in the strongest words possible. But if you do think that, then you haven’t been paying attention to the mainstream media for the last ten years.

The mainstream media is implying – no, they’re outright stating – that Trump has all this coming because he’s a Republican who says nasty things. The Washington Post has already dismissed the assassination attempt and has framed it instead as Trump unfairly capitalizing on the incident politically.

The media take their cue from Biden and Harris. They routinely equate Trump with Adolf Hitler, the mass murderer of millions.

The Democrats let their rank and file connect the dots: Everyone has been taught, correctly, that killing Hitler would have been a heroic act that would have saved millions. So, the Democrats don’t exactly say “kill Trump” but they do suggest you’d be a hero if you did.

Joe’s pardoning of Hunter will seal historians’ judgment on Joe

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Hunter, it seems, just can’t get a break. First, he gets convicted of all three counts on an illegal gun purchase. That doesn’t sound like much but it carries a potential 25-year sentence.

Bad luck, that conviction.

This week, his trial for tax evasion was to begin. At the last minute, he trotted out a scheme where he pleads guilty without admitting guilt. (It’s a lawyer thing.)

The prosecutors were having none of it, and the judge was skeptical.

So then, Hunter just entered a straight guilty plea on all nine counts. They carry a potential 17-year sentence.

If he were sentenced to the maximum on both the gun and the tax charges, he’d be looking at 42 years in the federal penitentiary. He’d get out when he’s 96.

More bad luck, that.

Hunter’s lawyer suggests that we should feel sorry for this gun-toting, tax-evading, crack-addicted, influence-peddling, deadbeat dad because of the third of those hyphenated adjectives – he is or at least was addicted to illegal crack cocaine.

For that crime, he was never even charged. Ah, a bit of good luck at last.

Joe has said he won’t pardon Hunter. But Joe has also said he graduated high in his law school class; he was the guy who stood up to Corn Pop; his surrender of Afghanistan along with billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment to barbarians from the 11th century was “an extraordinary success;” he won’t quit his run for reelection; and his uncle was eaten by cannibals.

No joke.

Hunter’s lawyer said the reason that Hunter pleaded guilty to the tax crimes was not because he committed tax crimes, but “to protect those he loves from unnecessary hurt and cruel humiliation.”

The prosecutors, you see, were prepared to show a trail of money from Romania, Ukraine and other foreign sources, and into the hands of the Biden family – a total of over $26 million. I don’t know whether Hunter actually “loves” the unidentified “those” people, but his guilty pleas were certainly to protect them from hurt and humiliation.

Whether you see that hurt as “unnecessary” and that humiliation as “cruel” may depend on whether you believe that justice should uncover the truth and crimes should be punished, or you’re a Democrat.

All this leaves two questions. First, what did the foreigners get for their $26+ million that they paid the Bidens? We may never know.

Second, given Hunter’s adept mercantile talents, what did, or will, he get for his guilty plea – a plea that dodged a trial that would have produced “unnecessary hurt and cruel humiliation” to “those he loves”?

I can answer that one. He got a promise for a pardon from the only person he allegedly loves who has the power to grant that pardon: Dad.

Dad will commit yet another selfish act of raw mendacity and corruption – one that probably rises to the level of criminal obstruction of justice.

But I can live with that. Because this time there will be a price to pay. Historians seeing the outrageous final act of this crime family will finally give Joe his due. Joe won’t like it, but he’ll be gone in a few years anyway.

I won’t be, however. It will please me to see historians – even the liberal ones, and almost all are liberals – roast Joe along with his cheesy, corrupt, grifting family.

As for Hunter, it’s not very important to me that he go to jail. Even if he skates, he’s virtually untouchable now anyway. He’s in OJ territory.

Even crack jobs like MSNBC won’t hire this crack head. He’ll launch a podcast, but nobody will listen. He’ll start a GoFundMe site to raise money to find “the real” tax evader. Nobody will donate.

He’ll learn all about hurt – the necessary kind. And humiliation – the righteous kind.

As a last resort, he’ll “co-author” a book (meaning he tells the story and someone else writes it) detailing the criminal shenanigans of the Biden crime family. He alone will be protected by Joe’s pardon. The others, not so much.

Bye-bye Bidens.

Joe Biden’s quiet quit

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The latest craze among lazy people is “quiet quitting.” That means they quit working, but don’t tell their company. By doing it that way, they continue to collect their paychecks.

It’s easy to “quiet quit” in an age when objective measures of productivity are out of fashion because they reflect badly on bad employees whose feelings must be spared, and it’s especially easy when employees “work” from home.

In my opinion, it’s theft.

Which brings us to Joe Biden. Joe was never exactly a workaholic. To get elected, he did a virtual campaign from the basement of his Delaware house. The poodle press permitted him to get away with that under the pretense of COVID but it was really because . . .

ORANGE MAN BAD!

Early in the first and only term of his presidency, Joe routinely worked 30-hour weeks. It’s common knowledge that he spent about 40% of his time back at that Delaware beach house.

From that low baseline, he’s descended still further after being defenestrated from the 2024 race by the three Y’s – Nancy, Barry and Kammy. (More about them later.)

I would say Joe is pouting, but he seems to lack the energy for even that. He has simply checked out.

Let’s look at his schedule for the last couple of weeks. For that, we have the venerable non-partisan newspaper “Roll Call” which keeps tabs on such things based on the White House official reports.

Last week, Joe did nothing all week, except “receive the President’s Daily Brief” each day. The official reports don’t mention whether he was awake for those briefings, or was in his briefs for those briefings.

Even the daily briefs didn’t happen on Saturday or Sunday when, apparently, nothing happens in the world that is worth mentioning to the Leader of the Free World.

The prior week he did do something. On Monday of that week, he shouted at the teleprompter in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. His shouting was pushed back to 11 pm, in order to minimize the number of people watching it.

That’s way past Joe’s bedtime, so then he immediately jetted off to wine country in Napa Valley where he recuperated for the rest of the week at the 8,000-acre estate of a rich Democrat donor. He did nothing at all the whole rest of the week other than to “receive” those daily briefings. And once again, he didn’t even do any brief “receiving” on Saturday or Sunday.

The office of the President of the United States is notoriously difficult and arduous. It’s often described as the hardest job in the world, at least when performed committedly.

Joe is not performing the job committedly. He’s barely performing it at all.

Speaking of the Y’s, it’s been reported that they collectively threatened Joe with invoking the 25th Amendment if he continued his refusal to drop out of the 2024 race. That’s the Amendment that allows the President’s Cabinet to report to Congress that he’s physically or mentally unable to perform the duties of office. It requires the Vice President’s sign-off.

As the sitting Vice President, Kammy evidently was part of this palace coup that told Joe he must go, so that she could take his place, else they’d rat him out to Congress on the grounds of 25th Amendment unfitness.

But recall that Kammy was telling people simultaneously that Joe was sharp as a tack – and still is, notwithstanding his quiet quitting.

So, which is it? If Joe was unfit for office, as Kammy and her gang threatened to tell Congress in order to leverage him out the window and onto the White House lawn, then she has lied to the American people by stating that he was sharp as a tack. Moreover, Joe’s continued employment as the President while he’s unfit for office puts the nation and world at risk.

On the other hand, if he is indeed sharp as a tack, as she has contended all along, then her threat to falsely invoke the 25th Amendment so that she could replace him was probably an illegal blackmail – and perhaps an impeachable offense.

An honest media would ask Kammy, “Did you go along with threatening the President with the 25th Amendment while you were telling the American people that he was sharp as a tack?”

But alas, we do not have an honest media.

Kamala is not as stupid as advertised

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In the death throes of his presidency (at least) Joe Biden threw his DEI hire, Kamala Harris, to the back of the bus. Then off it. And then under it.

The Worst President Ever promised/threatened that if he were to withdraw from the 2024 race, his $200,000,000 in campaign funds, plus or minus, would go to her.

Left unsaid was what everyone knew: She’d waste it because she was unelectable.

Joe’s threat became less threatening as time went on and campaign donors went away. Moreover, his physical state became shakier, as did his mental state. Everyone could see it. Even the poodle media like WaPo and NYT, which had covered for him just months earlier, were forced to acknowledge his state and their lie.

Kamala became what might be called in baseball “a late-inning substitution.” Or maybe they would call her “a closer.” If she succeeds, she gets the “save.” She’ll be a “saver” for the Democrats, and perhaps even a savior.

She may well succeed.

President Trump dismisses her as “not very smart.” In a literal sense, he’s right. She’s not very smart.

But Trump uses “not very smart” to mean “stupid.” In that, I think he’s wrong. She’s not as stupid as advertised. For example, she’s not as stupid as Vice President Dan Quayle was deemed to be (and neither was Dan Quayle).

Her Indian mother received a PhD in endocrinology from UC Berkeley. Her Jamaican father was an economics professor at Stanford. I know you’re not supposed to say this, but she comes from pretty good stock.

She earned a law degree from UC Hastings, the tenth-best law school in California according to US News and World Report. She should have gotten into a better school, given her parents’ academic connections, but she did get in and did graduate (sans honors).

Upon graduating, flunking the bar, and then passing it, Harris became a government employee, and has been one ever since. She started as a prosecutor in San Francisco, and was not a bad one. Although she pledged never to seek the death penalty in a case – and kept that promise – she defended the California death penalty in a court challenge, as her position required. She was considered fairly tough on criminals. She pushed for higher bail for violent ones, and issued citations against the parents of truant students for failing to get their kids to school. 

She dated a well-connected California politician who was 31 years her senior named Willie Brown. He obligingly appointed her to several state government positions. She ultimately wormed her way up to the position of Attorney General of California, and then was elected United States Senator.

She gets difficulty points for those high acrobatic positions, even if no style points.  

Her 2020 presidential campaign flopped before the year 2020 began. But give her credit. Four years later, she’s the Democratic candidate. She’s done that without having won a single delegate, ever. She has now jockeyed herself into a close race with former President Trump.

For a person who lost humiliatingly four years ago and got thrown under the bus this year, she’s done alright. She’s in the Big Leagues.

Her policies? To me as a conservative, most of them are terrible. But since when do American voters bother to evaluate policies? It’s about politics, not principles.

In politics, she’s far more clever than the guy currently in the Oval Office basement, because she’s far smarter.

Here’s an illustration. She decided this week not to choose as her running mate the governor of Pennsylvania, a must-win state for her.

The reason Harris passed over him is that he’s Jewish and has been outspoken in his defense of Israel against the barbarian invaders. The governor’s religion and his outspokenness have earned him the contempt of the well-funded terrorist sympathizers in the Democratic Party.

Harris thus showed an abhorrent willingness to compromise principles in order to pander to antisemitism, but also showed a remarkable political shrewdness in doing so.

She might not be very smart, but she’s plenty crafty.

Joe, did you just break up with us – by text?

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One of three things happened this afternoon. Either (1) the Lord Almighty told Joe to quit the race, or (2) the polls said there was “no way” he could win, or (3) he got hit by a train.

Because he assured us over the last weeks – most recently the last few days – that those were the only things that would cause him to quit.

I suppose there’s one other possibility that he neglected to mention. Barack might have told his butt boy to get the hell out, else Barack would spill the beans on Joe’s family business.

So . . . Joe did what Joe had to do.

But by text??? What kind of chickensh*t scoundrel breaks up by text? No press conference? No teleprompter speech from the Oval Office? Not even one from his Delaware basement?

It’s bad enough to be Starbucked. We’ve been texted.

Oh, I know there’s the story that he has a bout of COVID, which is why he’s retreated to the basement again (though we were also told the symptoms were mild).

But wait? Wasn’t he vaccinated with that stuff that makes it impossible to get COVID?

It’s we the people who’ve been dumped, but somehow I’m not feeling particularly humiliated. But since the relationship is over, Joe, would you, Lady McBiden and Hunty please get out of our damn house?

Right now – before I get a restraining order!

P.S. I owe one of you discerning readers a prize for coming closest to picking the date on which Joe would announce his quitting. I have a boatload of entries to sort through to figure out which of you is the winner. But stay tuned!

Trump’s enemies make him stronger

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What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger

— Friedrich Nietzsche, tormented soul

Back in the 2016 election, Donald Trump was a bit of a joke. He was a flamboyant, pussy-grabbing, orange-haired, reality show-hosting, real estate tycoon with improbable aspirations to be President of the United States. Just before the election, the New York Times gave him about a 4% chance of winning.

Assigning those odds was not just the Times’ effort to inform their readers. It was also an effort to crush him. They came not just to condemn Trump, but to bury him.

Imagine their chagrin when Trump proved them wrong. Imagine, too, the chagrin of Hillary Clinton and the rest of the establishment.

In discerning their chagrin, you don’t actually need to use your imagination at all. We saw it. They blocked Trump’s every effort at governance with dishonest smears like the Russian collusion hoax, two impeachments, and the pee-pee dossier. In their effort to prevent Trump from governing the country effectively, they were willing to prevent him from governing the country at all – the country be damned.

But the attacks on Trump in his first term didn’t kill him; they only made his stronger. He found a way to govern the country, and he did it effectively. A good example is his nomination of three conservative Supreme Court Justices, every one of which he successfully got confirmed by the insiders of the world’s most exclusive club – the United States Senate.

Americans today give Trump’s presidency higher marks than they give Joe Biden’s, and in the most important issues like the economy, immigration and foreign affairs, they prefer Trump. That’s why he’s leading in the polls (that, and the fact that his opponent is a senile dolt).

In the 2020 election, the establishment pulled out the stops to prevent Trump’s reelection. With a combination of a little election fraud, a lot of election shortcutting in the form of relaxed vote-by-mail rules enacted under the cover of COVID, the Democrats’ undemocratic kneecapping of Bernie Sanders, and a ton of media bias, they narrowly defeated Trump.

His 2020 loss didn’t kill Trump; it only made him stronger. He didn’t get the memo that he was supposed to retire to Mar-a-Lago and play golf. He instead started campaigning for the 2024 election.

Again chagrined, the Democrats decided to declare “lawfare” against Trump. They filed a series of bogus criminal and civil cases against him. They aimed to discredit him by labeling him a “convicted felon.”

The lawfare didn’t kill Trump; it only made him stronger. He fought and largely won. The Supreme Court has thrown out most of the charges against him. Democrat incompetence has undermined most of the rest. The American people see the lawfare for the corrupt scheme that it is, and Trump’s fight as the righteous one that it is. He’s gone up in the polls.

And this time, he shows a discipline that he’d never shown in 2016. He more often thinks and takes advice before he opens his mouth. He’s stronger.

A good example is his handling of the Democrat civil war over Biden’s candidacy. It must be tempting for Trump to pour gasoline on the self-immolating Democrats, but he’s mostly smart enough to let them do it themselves.

Leftists are by nature authoritarians. See, e.g., Stalin, Joseph; Zedong, Mao; Pot, Pol. That is why they’re so quick to label anyone who disagrees with them a “fascist.” It’s projection in combination with authoritarian shout-down.

And so, the leftists – all of whom are Democrats (though not all Democrats are leftists) – have always alluded to violence against Trump. A two-bit comedienne depicted herself with Trump’s severed head. A theater depicted Trump in the role of assassinated Caesar. Just last week, Joe Biden told donors in a conference call that it was time to “put Trump in the bullseye.”

Yesterday, someone did exactly that.

Fortunately for Trump, his supporters, the country and the world, and unfortunately for Democrats, the someone missed Trump’s head by a half-inch. The high-powered hollow point bullet merely took off the top of Trump’s ear (though sadly it instantly killed the man behind him).

As always, this assassination attempt didn’t kill Trump; it only made him stronger. He fell, but with Secret Service assistance quickly stood back up, blood streaming down his face, fists pumping the air defiantly.

Somewhere in hell, Nietzsche must be smiling.

A respectful response to never-Trump Republicans

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This piece isn’t for confirmed Democrats. They are not persuadable.

They’ll vote against Donald Trump and call him “Hitler” to boot, just as they did with Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.

Never mind that Hitler’s party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. In the greatest rebranding coup of history, today it’s not the socialist Democrats but the capitalist Republicans that are deemed just like the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

No, this piece is instead for my Republican friends who still refuse to support the party’s soon-to-be nominee in the presidential race against Joe Biden (or whomever). This piece is for the never-Trumpers.

I understand that Trump is a mixed bag. Aren’t we all? In one side of the bag, he pushed through potent tax cuts that produced the best (or is it the goodest?) economy in three generations. Contrary to the claim of the current White House occupant, inflation was not 9% but less than 2% at the close of Trump’s term and unemployment was at record lows.

He engineered the Abraham Accords in a major step toward peace in the Middle East. He kept Russia and China on the margins cowering in the dark while squeezing more money out of NATO countries for their own defense.

He nominated three solid conservative Supreme Court justices (one or two of whom could become great) and got all three confirmed. He supported the crash development of a COVID vaccine while staying skeptical of calls for shutting down schools and businesses.

In the other side of the bag, Trump had a tendency to talk before thinking. He was deliberately provocative. Perhaps the worst thing he did was something he didn’t do – he didn’t immediately call on the January 6 rioters to go home. He also unsuccessfully pressured Vice President Pence to refuse to certify the Electoral College votes against his reelection.

It’s those two things that Democrats and their never-Trump allies point to as a “threat to democracy.”

Fine; but other Presidents have been mixed bags, as well. John F. Kennedy inspired millions and promised to put a man on the moon, but he also suffered the Bay of Pigs fiasco where he tried but failed to create a counterrevolution in an independent foreign country.

That attempted counterrevolution was not exactly democracy at work.  

Reagan won the Cold War but also tolerated and then covered up the Iran-Contra affair where his administration illegally sold arms to the Ayatollahs in Iran to generate cash for the rebels in Nicaragua.

Not very democratic.

Bill Clinton governed mostly from the center-left, effectively, but he also had Monica Lewinski (and she him).

OK, that one was probably democratic, though Hillary presumably didn’t get a vote.

George W rallied the nation after 9/11, but he also made false claims (though probably unknowingly) of weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion and regime change in Iraq, all while letting the administrative deep state grow unchecked.

That exploding deep state is the most antidemocratic phenomenon in American history.

Nixon masterfully played China off Russia to recalibrate the Cold War in a way that changed history for the better, but, alas, went along with a criminal coverup of a two-bit burglary of the Democrats at the Watergate Hotel.

Covering up a burglary? Not very democratic.

Joe Biden, on the positive side . . . well . . . I’ll get back to you on that. On the negative side, he produced near-runaway inflation with a series of mega-moola payouts to encourage people not to work.

He catastrophically surrendered in Afghanistan, leaving billions of dollars of weapons behind for the Taliban in a show of incompetence and weakness that likely encouraged the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Hamas invasion of Israel – two of the bloodiest wars in those parts of the world since WWII.

He not only ignores Supreme Court rulings, but brags that he does so. He refuses to enforce the immigration laws, to the point that we have tens of millions of unscreened illegal aliens in the country. He vehemently opposes laws to prevent non-citizens from voting.

He, his influence-peddling family, and his White House courtiers have deliberately, fraudulently and venally concealed his mental and physical decline – at the expense of their party, their people, their country, and the world.

Talk about a threat to democracy.

I don’t see myself socializing with Donald Trump. He’s not my type. I don’t play golf. I do drink wine and whiskey. I tend to be respectful of women, and sometimes even men. I like to think my name-calling is more creative than “Little Marco” or “Crazy Bernie.”

But I do see Trump as my President. That vision takes very little imagination. After all, we saw it in real life just four years ago, though it seems longer ago than that.

It was before inflation took a bite out of everyone, before the epidemic of wokeness, before Cabinet members were chosen on the basis of skin color and bedroom habits, before America and her President were a laughing stock around the world.

It was before our democracy became frayed, torn and soiled under a load of incompetence and corruption.

Donald Trump could have taken his marbles and gone home to Mar-a-Lago three years ago to live ever after in his version of happiness. Instead, at age 78 but still going strong, he’s making another run at the office of presidency that he filled well for four years. In doing so, he’s been the target of the opprobrium of effete elites (See? I told you my name-calling was more creative!) and numerous unfair “lawfare” attacks from true threats to democracy.

I don’t believe Trump is doing this because he wants to be a dictator for the limited years left in his life, nor is he doing it to cash in on some small-time influence peddling scheme for himself or his family.

Rather, he’s doing it because he loves America and wants to serve – and to serve well, as he once mostly did. For that, I don’t love him. But I do admire him, I do respect him, and I do intend to vote for him.

There’s a reason they won’t release Joe’s cognitive test

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I’m almost young enough to be Joe Biden’s son. (But I’m not.)

When I see the doctor for my annual physical, she typically tells me at the outset that she wants me to remember three arbitrary words – something like “elephant, ice and automobile” – and intends to ask me what the three words are at the end of my examination.

I always see it as a challenge. At the end, I’ll remind her impishly, “Didn’t you intend to ask me what the three words are?”

“Oh, right,” she’ll reply.

That’s my cue: “The words are ‘elephant, automobile and ice’ except you asked me to remember them in the order ‘elephant, ice and automobile.’ By the way, did you know that elephants are closely related to mammoths, and that mammoths survived almost into recorded history? It’s thought that humans coming to the New World were responsible in part for their extinction – they hunted the mammoths to extinction. Those native Americans weren’t living in such harmony with nature after all.”

She’ll roll her eyes, convinced that I’m not senile but might well be something worse.

I report this because Joe Biden has doctors too. As an 81-year-old, he’s undoubtedly given at least informal cognitive tests by those doctors, similar to the one my doctor gives me. In view of his significant seniority over me, and the apparent diminution in his cognition, he’s probably given tests more formal than mine. It would be medical malpractice not to give him such tests.

Donald Trump appropriately noted in the debate that he himself has taken and aced such tests, and released them to the public during his presidency. That is true.

But Trump uncharacteristically understated his case in challenging Biden to take such tests too.

The fact is, almost certainly, that Biden has indeed taken such tests. The fact that he hasn’t released the results tells you volumes. As if you need to be told anything more after his performance last night.