Buttigieg Had Good Reason

For those who understand what "genocide" truly is, Israel is not committing genocide. However,Israel hater Mehdi Hasan at least does seem to ask a good question:

Glad to hear Buttigieg describe what happened in Gaza as war crimes, but if that’s what he believes, then why didn’t he resign from the Biden administration in protest? Why would he want to be part of a government that was arming and funding what he believed to be war crimes? https://t.co/fBP3Vs9tCM

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 3, 2026

Buttigieg didn't resign in part because he is a careerist, which characterizes most prominent politicians. However, there may be at least a couple of other reasons.

According to an analysis by U.S. War Explained, the law governing war crimes "is a complex tapestry woven from international treaties and domestic statutes".  The latter include the Geneva Conventions; the Rome Statute (the founding charter of the International Criminal Court); and U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Therefore, to determine whether something is a "war crime," then, we should consider the source and intent (where the allegation is coming from); the principle of distinction (whether the target is civilian or military); the principle of proportionality (a question of balance); evidence of intent (e.g., purpose of the attack); and command responsibility (which individuals along the chain should be held accountable).

Whew! That's a lot for one paragraph. And that's the point. Accurately distinguishing a war crime from bad act by someone we don't like is not a simple matter, despite the wish of activists.  Laws and regulations typically are written by lawyers and often are very hard to interpret. That's not a coincidence 

In such cases, there is, somewhere, an objective truth. However, in the absence of a declaration from God, what one views as the truth is in the eyes of the beholder.  Most likely, Israel has committed war crimes, though the vast majority of its actions probably don't qualify.

One of the factors cited by US War Explained, the matter of proportionality, illustrates another reason Buttigieg didn't find the Biden Administration's policy toward Gaza horrendous.  The Biden Administration had been supplying Israel with the relatively precise 500-pound bombs, as well as with 2,000-pound bombs, with a significantly greater blas radius and collateral killing of unintended bystanders. However, in May of 2024

the White House announced a decision to withhold a shipment of 1,800 2,000-lb bombs and 1,700 500-lb bombs, with then-US president Joe Biden threatening to freeze additional offensive weaponry if Israel launched a major military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where over one million Palestinians were sheltering at the time.

In July, the 500-lb bombs were eventually released by the Biden administration after the IDF entered Rafah. The Palestinian civilian population in the Strip’s southernmost city had largely evacuated by then.

The Biden administration had asserted that only the 2,000-pound bombs were withheld, over concerns that Israel would use them in densely populated parts of Gaza, and that all other shipments had been processed.

That was a politically tricky decision to make, for soon after the Trump Administration returned, Donald & Co. hastily shipped 1800 of these heavy bombs to Israel. Suspending shipment in 2024 upehld both the principle of distinction and the principle of proportionality. Pete Buttigieg was part of an Administration which understood that our ally must defend itself, including killing Hamas fighters, while avoiding extraneous deaths. 

That's never addressed by critics of Israel, those who blithely accuse the nation of "genocide," a policy they don't understand; of the apartheid they don't understand; and of war crimes, which are extraordinarily difficult to figure out. (August is semi-colon month.) Hatred of the only democracy in the Middle East blinds them to complexities and to truth, neither of which captures their interest.

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Hero Worship

Oh, get a room. Sally Jenkins, reportedly an award-winning journalist, writes in a recent column in The Atlantic

Suavity is a sorely missed ingredient in the American presidency. The effortless charm of a Roosevelt or a Reagan, a Bush or a Clinton, projected a particular brand of power. Suave means a kind of athletic ease and self-command in difficult, spotlighted circumstances, the assurance that solutions are at hand if only we all hold our composure and act right-headedly. Here was the ultra-suave Barack Obama’s message to the basketball player Caitlin Clark in a small but noteworthy exchange over the WNBA All-Star weekend: It never hurts to be winsome. In fact, it can help you win.

Almost unbelievably, it goes downhill from there.

You can read in her piece about the soiree of the ex-President and Clark's Indiana Fever as the team was "milling around an indoor court at the newly opened Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side." Obama, the breathless Jenkins recounted, was suave enough "to gently remind them of certain truths." When he spoke to Clark, there was "a sweetness in the moment, a subtle teaching. In the nicest way, Obama shored Clark up..."

Jenkins remarks that the young superstar guard

can be either mesmerizing to watch or tiresome, depending on how aggrieved she feels on the day. Clark has complained that she is intentionally targeted with hard fouls—and sometimes she is, but not because she’s white. Mauling is the guaranteed, time-honored way to stop an otherwise insuperable player.

Highlights from video and television suggest that Clark can be mesmerizing to watch or tiresome and is sometimes "intentionally targeted with hard fouls."  Further, Jenkins comments, "mauling is the guaranteed, time-honored way to stop an ohtewise insuperable player."

I don't watch WNBA games. But if the journalist believes that "mauling is the guaranteed, time-honored way to stop" a great player, she has not watched the National Basketball Association much in the past quarter century. The men often play an o'le defense (defense, optional), much to the annoyance of most of us in middle-age or above. And when the ball handler is a star, it is even more common for the defender (word used loosely) to make only a disinterested effort at stopping him. (If Jenkins were referring specifically  to the women's league, she would not have used "time-honored" and would have clarified her remark.)

Nonetheless, she really is more interested in aleging that the mauling of Clark is "not because she's white."

But we don't know that, and Jenkins makes no effort to explain why she believes that.  It is very likely that jealousy is involved. Though there have been seveal excellent players in the NBA, all have gone under the radar, elicing little attention or endorsements. Caitlin Clark joins the league,  garners tremendous publicity and while lighting up the league, reaps endorsements and credit for making the WNBA a hot ticket (or at least much hotter than in the past). 

Gun to head, I would say that race and/or the sexuality (straight) of Clark plays a role. However, that's only speculation- I would not assume, unlike Jenkins. I admit I may be wrong; she leaves no doubt of her certainty.

She also is certain about the ex-President.  The article was not only about Jenkins' perception that the player embodies a sense of entitlement but also about Barack Obama's awesomeness.  The latter "gave her grace" and "a lesson in how to be winning."

As it happens, President Obama was himself given a lesson in winning in his second term.  One chapter in the recently-published U.S. Foreign Policy and Presidential Leadership in an Age of Strategic Uncertainty

explores the rise and fall of President Barack Obama’s “reset” policy toward Russia, highlighting its conciliatory approach and strategic missteps. ​ Obama sought to improve US-Russia relations, leveraging cooperation on arms control, counterterrorism, and nuclear nonproliferation. ​ However, his administration underestimated Russia’s expansionist ambitions, particularly in Ukraine, where limited sanctions and non-lethal aid failed to deter Russia’s aggression. ​ The reset policy, rooted in Obama’s consequentialist worldview, prioritized avoiding escalation but overlooked long-term security risks. ​ Ultimately, the policy’s shortcomings contributed to strained US-Russia relations, emboldened Moscow’s neo-imperialist aspirations, and left lasting negative impacts on European and global security.

In early 2012,  President Obama assured outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that he would have "more flexibility" in dealing with Russia once he was re-elected later that year. Medvedev told Obama that he'd relay the information to incoming president Vladimir Putin.

Message received. Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, part of which still is occupied by the Kremlin. The US response, consisting of mild sanctions, was tepid.

In 2024, we learned

According to Watergate journalist Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, War, (President Joe) Biden expressed discontent during a private conversation late last year over how his former running mate handled Russian troops invading Ukraine's eastern Donbas region in February 2014. At the time, Biden was serving as vice president under former President Barack Obama.

"They f***** up in 2014," Woodward quoted Biden saying to a close friend in December 2023, according to the Associated Press, who obtained a copy of Woodward's book before its publishing date of October 15. "Barack never took [Russian President Vladimir Putin] seriously."

Biden is also quoted as telling the friend that the White House "never should have let Putin just walk in there" and that Washington "did nothing" when Russia invaded.

Many Ukrainians consider the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 merely a continuation of the war begun in 2014. This is the particular "brand of power projected" by four presidents, whom she believes include Barack Obama and not Joe Biden. Yet, President Biden did what President Obama did not do and chose to defend Ukraine aggesively. As Sally Jenkins will tell you, Barack Obama knows "winning"- he did it twice. Unwittingly, he helped Vladimir Putin also do it.

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Not Again

As Tim Balk of The New York Times reported on Tuesday

Hillary Clinton suggested in a new interview that the Democratic Party’s loss in 2024 boiled down to a “terrible miscalculation” — President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s decision to run for re-election.

At an event in Manhattan on Monday, Mrs. Clinton told The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, that Mr. Biden had made a “terrible mistake for himself, his legacy and for the country” in trying to run again at age 81.

If Mr. Biden had decided to “pass the torch” and the Democratic Party had held a competitive presidential primary, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Remnick, “whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the vice president, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump.”

Chris Cillizza acknowledges that there has been a bit of a rivalry between Biden and Clinton but believes that the latter was correct to note that the President should have bowed out considerably earlier than he did. However, he argues also (at 7:20)

Now, would someone who emerged in an open primary process had Biden dropped out in the summer of 2023- would that person have definitely beaten Donald Trump in November of 2024?

No, I think there was sigificant unhappines with the state of the econnomy, with Democrats, with Joe Biden in particular, with how he had led the economy, how much he understood about the economy. So I don't think it would have- it's not just an easy fix, that they just nominate somebody else in an open primary process and that person beats Donald Trump. But the way that it played out by Biden staying too long, he should never have run for a second term, staying on for too long, the debate, the three weeks of is he going to stay on, is he going to get out- and eventually he gets out and Kamala Harris steps in without any primary or anyone voting on anything, that clearly doomed them, right?

Wrong.

Cillizza adds "I'm not sure the Democrats would have won anyway but the way that played out doomed them.

        "

Of course we don't know if the new candidate, assuming it was not the Vice President, would have won. And Cillizza, admittedly, reflects conventional wisdom, as does The Times' Balk, who wrote "Mr. Biden ultimately left the race in late July 2024, immediately putting his weight behind Ms. Harris, his vice president, but leaving her just three months to build her own campaign before Election Day."

Do you see what they're doing? In the case of Cillizza- a straight shooter- it is unintentional, and perhaps also in case of The Times. 

It's in the title of Harris' memoir about the general election campaign.  Whether it was the decision of the ex-candidate, the publicher or someone else, the title of the book was 107 Days, in part as an argument that the Vice President faced an uphill battle to win the election.

But she did not. Almost to the moment that Biden dropped out, the nomination of Harris was a fait accompli. In a review of her book, Vanity Fair explained that on that day

By 10 p.m. at the Naval Observatory, jigsaw pieces were still strewn across the kitchen table. But the puzzle of Harris’s nomination had been solved. She’d called more than 100 people. Not a single potential rival had challenged her. By Monday, Harris had the backing of a majority of Democrats in Congress. Within 48 hours she had the support of most delegates who would be at the convention. A senior adviser summed up Harris’s two-day marathon as a political tour de force: “A lot of people were like, ‘We need a process.’ Well, there is a process: getting the delegates to commit. We just needed to do it and we did it.”

Aside from incumbents, most candidates for a presidential nomination- especially in the Democratic Party- have to run a gauntlet before securing sufficient delegates. Not so, Kamala Harris, behind whom most prominent Democrats, including virtually any possible challenger, quickly lined up. The national convention was highly successful, Harris won her debate with Trump going away, the Party was united behind the nominee, enthusiasm was impressive, and victory seemed likely. However 

One hundred seven days later, as history will recount, Team Harris hit rock bottom. Yet it didn’t seem so as Election Day dawned. Though Harris was behind in the battleground states, her spokespeople were oddly upbeat. Appearing on MSNBC back on October 27, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon had declared, “We are very confident we’re going to win this thing.” On Friday, November 1, senior adviser David Plouffe posted on X that late-​breaking undecided voters were going for Harris by more than 10 points.

A campaign has a gravitational pull, and chief of staff Voles was feeling it. “You get sucked into the momentum,” she said. “Like you believe it. I’ve been on winning ones and losing ones, and this felt more like [Bill] Clinton’s [in 1992] than [Michael] Dukakis’s [in 1988].” Voles wasn’t talking poll numbers or analytics, but intangibles. “The rallies were so big and so enthusiastic. People were lining the streets.” But Harris’s pollsters didn’t share the kumbaya cohesion.

Although Biden should have withdrawn from the race earlier, his failure to do so did not doom his replacement on the ticket- far from it. Harris had a great opportunity to win, especially given that the GOP had less timefor opposition research about her than it would have if it had been clear for months that she would be the nominee.  It was not the brief nature of the campaign nor the quality of her campaign; it was her.

After she lost to Donald Trump in 2016, Hillary Clinton could have opted to seek a rematch. However, she realized that she might not win the 2020 nomination and if she did, couldn't be certain that she'd win the general election. She understood the limits to her popularity and electability.

Individuals in or around Joe Biden in 2023 and the first half of  2024 refused to warn the President that he was old and appeared too feeble to mount a successful campaign for re-election. Now Harris, she of  the "107 days," is reportedly eyeing a run for the 2028 presidential nomination.  Self-awarness is not her strength. The Democratic Party cannot afford another loss. For the good of the Party, someone needs to read Kamala Harris the riot act. 

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If Only She Had Said "Israel, Go to Hell"

Quit your whining.

On May 21, the day the Democratic National Committee's "autopsy." written by party strategist Paul Rivera, was released, Sophie Hurwitz of the left-wing Mother Jones noted that it was accompanied by a note from Committee chairperson Ken Martin reading

"For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word."

It is understandable that an unedited and unendorsed draft would include numerical and grammatical errors, as well as notes saying things like “No sourcing provided for this claim” and “Methodology appears internally inconsistent.”

The DNC didn't like it, its critics didn't like it, and even Rivera was lukewarm toward it. It is a mess. That doesn't matter because the report didn't matter. In early 2013, following the Republican Party's second straight loss to Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee commissioned an autopsy. It recommended increased sensitivity toward immigrants and minority groups generally. Then along came Donald J. Trump, and the rest is history.

Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones, though, was focused on a more sustantive ommission, in which

Amont the more than 50,000 words in the DNC's 192-page autopsy of why it lost the 2024 presidential election, here are a few that do not appear even once: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Jewish, Muslim, foreign policy, protest, genocide.

Here are a few other words that do not appear even once: Hamas, Islamofascism, and October 7 slaughter, each of which, unlike "genocide," actually exists in the conflict. Nonetheless, Hurwitz continued

During the 2024 election cycle, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military, often using US-supplied bombs. At every turn, when confronted by protesters asking her to do more to stop the slaughter, the party’s nominee, Kamala Harris, demurred. When Democrats outraged by the war asked that a single Palestinian speaker be allowed to speak onstage at the DNC—and endorse Harris in doing so—they were snubbed.

Yet, at that time, it was not insignificant that 

The second night of the Democratic National Convention was intensely Jewish: Along with Emhoff and Schumer directly discussing their Jewish identities, two other prominent Jewish elected officials — Bernie Sanders and J.B. Pritzker — took the stage, while the night opened with an invocation by Rabbi Sharon Brous. Jewish heritage, inclusion in America and the fight against antisemitism all got prime-time attention.

But just one of the politicians alluded to Israel, in an anguished reference to the war it is waging against Hamas in Gaza. Absent altogether were references to the unshakeable U.S.-Israel alliance, once a staple of Democratic political conventions, and an orthodoxy that permeated last month’s Republican convention in Milwaukee.

Even Schumer, the New York Democratic senator who has long played on the Hebrew origins of his name, “shomer,” to say he sees himself as a guardian of Israel, left the country entirely out of his speech....

The sole mention of the hostages during prime time came from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermonter who is the unofficial leader of the progressives and among Israel’s harshest critics.

“We must end this horrific war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire,” Sanders said, pausing after the first clause to allow for cheers that were some of the loudest of the evening.

No one at the convention spoke against a ceasefire, which would have been (and ultimately was) needed to "bring home the hostages".  Sanders understood that, and so did the bloc of  "Uncommitted" delegates eager to bring on a Palestinian speaker to speak of the suffering of Gazans while ignoring the events of 10/7/23.

It became more obvious two nights later when the parents of a young Jewish Israeli man spoke from the podium. There

Both of the couple called for a deal to release the hostages and agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, drawing the loudest applause of their speeches. Their appearance came at a time when negotiations between Israel and Hamas over a deal are again faltering, as they have in successive rounds of talks over the past several months. They said both Republicans and Democrats have sought to help them, and thanked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s nominee, for working “tirelessly” for a deal.

“In a competition of pain, there are no winners,” Jon Polin said. “In an inflamed Middle East, we know the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region: a deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza. The time is now.”

The crowd fell into silence as the couple strode onto the stage. Delegates stood up, including those scattered throughout wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with the Palestinians. A man sporting a Hebrew Harris-Walz button started a “Bring them home” chant, and soon the whole room picked it up.

It wasn't "win the war" or "get them back".  It was "bring them home," which anyone paying any attention whatsoever knew meant "Israel, make a deal, now"! Yet, Hurwitz assumes that all one-issue Gaza voters were ones opposed to Israel's actions defending itself. She wrote

According to polling by the IMEU, 29 percent of former Biden voters who did not choose Harris—equivalent to roughly 122,380 votes across six swing states—were influenced by Gaza. There were of course other factors: broad economic dissatisfaction, as well as a late-game candidate switch, among them—but to omit mention of Gaza is avoidant at best and dishonest at worst.

How many voters would have shunned Harris-Walz at the polls or switched to Donald Trump had the Vice President succumbed to anti-Israel/pro-Palestine sentiment is, unsurprisingly, ignored. It's impossible to determine, though it's extraordinarily unlike that Harris would have scraped together 270 electoral votes whatever position she had taken. The Democrat lost not only Michigan, with a tremendous number of Muslim voters, but also Pennsylvania, in which Muslim voters are outnumbered by Jewish voters.

There are many reasons, some of them noted by Rivera and others not, that the Democratic Party lost the last presidential election. With such a multitude, I would be unable to argue with any certainty that the major factor was the candidate herself, whose selection as V.P. nominee in 2020 I abhorred. Neither can the anti-Israel crowd legitimately argue that Kamala Harris' failure to break with President Biden's policy and condemn Israel in 2024 was the primary factor in her defeat. 

The "autopsy" brings us no closer to  understanding why Donald Trump was (re-) elected. However, it's always instructive to be reminded of the hostility born of narrowmindness of the All Hail Palestine! gang members. Perhaps they also can enlighten us as to how Iranians and other Muslims of the Middle East have benefitted as a result of Trump's victory over the candidate they believe was so unfair to Palestinians during the Democratic National Convention. 

 

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Boosting Mainland China

In the infamous June, 2024 debate which ultimately led to the withdrawal from the presidential race of President, Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump claimed

We now have the largest deficit in the history of our country under this guy. We have the largest deficit with China. He gets paid by China. He's a Manchurian candidate. he gets money from China. We have to- I think he's afraid to deal with something. Buit you notice he never took out my tariffs becasue we bring in so much money with the tariffs that I imposed on China. he never took them away.Can't, because it's too much money. 

A few weels after Donald was (re-) elected, we were reminded

One of Trump's key promises on the 2024 campaign trail ws imposing 60% tariffs on  all Chinese imports to the U.S., a drastic increase from when his previous administration raised tariffs on most Chinese products to 25%. Trump has said that tariffs "are the greatest thing ever invented," and will protect american manufacturing and businesses. The president-elect also promised to revoke China's trade status, which was meant to provide mutual advantages such as low tariffs and other trade advantages.

God is in the details, and whatever the benefits of a less China-friendly policy than we had been accustomed to, the tariffs of the second Trump term have proven economically disastrous. But enough about  the economy! 

Recently, David Frum interviewed Phillips O'Brien, a military historian and professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews.  Frum asked his guest

If the war ends with some kind of armistice, where Trump gets some piece of paper with the word nuclear on it, Iran has effective control over the Strait of Hormuz—which I suppose it had before, but now it’s really proven that it can do it—and a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s missile program, some damage in turn to the American forces, who’s the winner of that war?

O'Brien responded, "the winner of that war is China" and when asked to explain, stated

Well, because, basically, the Chinese will come out of this as a far more influential force in the region. The United States will come out looking much weakened, with a degraded military, an inability to get what it wants through military force, and looking capricious and, in some ways, unable to assert itself over Iran. The Iranian regime will not come out of it in great shape. It’s been damaged. It has been damaged militarily. Certainly, the Iranian people will be the losers ’cause they will suffer a great deal of oppression, one assumes, coming out of that. But the Iranians would have survived, and the other regimes in the area are gonna have to cut some kind of deals with them. But the Chinese are just sitting there. They are gonna be seen [as] a bastion of stability. They’ll get a huge amount of reconstruction contracts. Their ally in Iran will still be there. And one assumes that a lot of the other powers in the region will want good relations with China going forward.

Regardless of whether the U.S. secures concessions from Iran, China will emerge the victor from the conflict, the military historian Phillips O’ Brien tells @davidfrum: “They are going to be seen as a bastion of stability.”

Watch The David Frum Show: https://t.co/KTgrYBoU1p pic.twitter.com/T1gxFL7pU5

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) May 20, 2026

I don't know whether President Trump "gets paid by China," as he so dishonestly claimed of President Biden. And he's not quite as owned by President Xi Jinping as he is by President Putin, though he was sliced and diced by the Chinese leader last week earlier this month in Beijing.

Mainland China is the country which could use regime change. Obviously, that was not going to happen but Trump's elective war against Iran has made Beijing and Russia stronger and the USA weaker. Imagine that (militarily) Iran loses a campaign but then refuses to concede and, unfortunately, comes out the stronger in the long run. It's what apparently is happening, a scenario which Donald Trump, with his experience, should have considered before he began this disastrous war.

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Come Clean, Fellas

And from the anti-Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, we have Van Jones:

Van Jones: “If progressives have a politics that says all White people are racist, all men are toxic, and all billionaires are evil, it’s kinda hard to keep them on your side. If you’re chasing people out of the party, you can’t be mad when they leave.” pic.twitter.com/WchdC0u5wx

— Taya (@travelingflying) February 23, 2026

Jones added "and maybe if we had a different politics, dignity for everybody everybody is respected and we need you, more pople might stay."

Actually, though, the Democratic Party does have the kind of politics embodied in Jones. It is a politics of self-flaggelation. Last July, James Carville described his own party as "Constipated. Leaderless. Confused..... The Democratic Party is in shambles." Similarly, Rahm Emanuel a year ago maintained "politics is adddition, not subtraction, and we've been doing subtraction really well." he claims "both the political and economic establishment.... and we're all part of it, I'm part of it- we have failed the American people."

Not that the Republican Party has failed the American people- us, too! And Van Jones appears to be concerened that Democrats are chasing white people, men, and billionaires out of the party, which would repesent significantly more than half of voters.

Nonetheless, if there is a better way of chasing voters generally from your political party, there may be no better way than by saying "we have failed the American people" or "we stink, too."

The criticism of Emanuel and Jones- and the other Democratic politicians who have said something similar- is particularly ironic. They both see their Party as subtracting people and they are, in an odd sort of way, correct- just not in the manner they believe (Jones, probably) or not as they care to admit (Emanuel, probably).

Because a funny thing- somewhat controversial but insufficiently so- happened three years ago this month, when the Democratic Party placed South Carolina first on the party's presidential nominating calendar. It was catapulted to the head of the table, granting the state status which New Hampshire had previously possessed. Two months earlier, President Biden had written the Rules and Bylaws Committe, maintaing

For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process. We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.

Prior to 2024, South Carolina had been sixth on the party's presidential primary/caucus schedule and as the state immediately preceding Super Tuesday, had more than once proven pivotal. However, as was noted shortly before the 2/24 primary in the state

The campaign's not just signaling. It's broadcasting to Black voters that they are the priority, and they're why the Party chose South Carolina to lead the nominating contest.

Toutin a "six-figure" ad blitz in South Carolina, Demoratic Party officials noted it's the party's earliest ever spending during a presidential contest on outreach to Black voters.

"When you think about he heart and the backbone of the Democratic Party,if there are any folks who deserve to go from the back of the bus to driving the damn bus, it's the Black folks here in South Carolina," Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said last week at a historically Black college in Sumter.

South Carolina was not given the interests of diversity. Not only are there many black voters in the Democratic primary in the state, they are a clear majority. If the Party wanted to reward a state which has a large number of black voters but which is more racially representative of the nation, it could have chosen Maryland, Illinois, or perhaps a couple of others. If it wanted to give a nod to a swing state, it could have chosen to be first New Hampshire (as it had been), Nevada, Wisonsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or perhaps Colorado, Minnesota, or New Mexico, which typically vote Democratic but not by rock-solid margins.

Instead, the Party selected South Carolina for reasons of racial preference and, as usual in presidential and statewide elections there, got their rear-ends kicked, as it expected.

Perhaps that's wise,or at least not grossly unwise, because black voters have been particularly supportive of the Democratic Party. Yet, choosing a state precisely because its (primary) voters are predominantly black should be abhorrent to  a prominent Democrat who complains that his Party "says all White people are racist." Nor is it consistent with advocating that Democrats concentrate on "addition."

Similarly, in 2020, neither Jones, or Emanuel (nor Carville) was heard offering criticism or even skepticism, maybe a word of caution, of the Black Lives Matter protests or the movement it symbolzied. That would have demonstrated leadership, boldness, or prescience.

But there was no criticism then, nor was there more than a tiny bit when the Democratic Party decided race would trumpet all considerations. Now, people are questioning the Party while being either ignorant or dishonest about it, and they're doing it without offering specifics. It all rings hollow. 

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Cultist Finds Her Home, for Now

Pete Hegseth. Kristi Noem. Karoline Leavitt. Donald Trump, himself.  This Administration brings to mind the title of one of Al Franken's books, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them."

One of the finest liars in the Trump Administration, however, is the Director of National Intelligence, now in Georgia scouring, probably illegally, for those 11,780 votes from 2020

OMG 🚨

Tulsi Gabbard says Biden was never calling the shots.... and neither was Kamala

She says Hillary, Obama, Blinkin Jake Sullivan and the Deep State

They needed a figurehead they can control

They used the Autopen to run a shadow Govt... and the media wasn't interested pic.twitter.com/jBhWiZDRva

— @Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 (@Chicago1Ray) January 29, 2026

 

President Biden used an autopen just as have most recent presidents, including Donald Trump himself. This myth began ten months ago by the Liar-in-Chief when he contended about pardons issued by Biden "in other words, Joe Biden did not sign hem but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!"

In a written opinion of July, 2005, the Office of Legal Counsel, argued

The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law. Rather, the President may sign a bill within gthe meaning of Article 1, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the President's signature to such a bill, for example by autopen.

This may have been an unsound opinion, not unlike that of the same office when it decided that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted. (Mr. anti-deep state has not specifically criticized either opinion.

If there were any evidence that President Biden didn't know whom he was pardoning- let alone that there was some sort of "Deep State"- there would have been at least a hint of evidence. None ever has been produced, notwithstanding the Republican Party's enthusiasm for condemning Biden and Democrats' avoidance of defending him- because there is no reason to believe J. Sullivan, A. Blinken, B. Obama, or Hr Clinto had any control whatsoever over the 46th President.

However, my favorite Tulsiism is the following because it is not only preposterous but indicative of deep-seated hypocrisy on the part of the DNI.

One of the main reasons I left the Democrat Party was because of their hostility towards God and those who have faith in or are trying to cultivate their love for God. Those so-called 'protestors' who tried to intimidate and terrorize innocent women, children, and men in the…

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) January 20, 2026

Fourteen months ago, a Hawaiian news organ explained that in 2015 during her second term in the US House of Representatives 

Longtime political activists here were raising alarms about her connections to the Science of Identity Foundation, an offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement launched in the 1970s by a Kailua surfer, Chris Butler. Gabbard’s family, including her father, Sen. Mike Gabbard, were adherents of Butler’s and Tulsi Gabbard grew up going to schools run by the group.

Over the years, Gabbard has stopped short of denying her membership in the foundation, which many consider a cult. She married a man whose family also was part of the organization. Questions were raised when she hired friends she’d grown up with in the organization to help advise her on policy and run her congressional office. Later, she paid others affiliated with the Science of Identity Foundation to work on her campaign.

Longtime political activists here were raising alarms about her connections to the Science of Identity Foundation, an offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement launched in the 1970s by a Kailua surfer, Chris Butler. Gabbard’s family, including her father, Sen. Mike Gabbard, were adherents of Butler’s and Tulsi Gabbard grew up going to schools run by the group.

Over the years, Gabbard has stopped short of denying her membership in the foundation, which many consider a cult. She married a man whose family also was part of the organization. Questions were raised when she hired friends she’d grown up with in the organization to help advise her on policy and run her congressional office. Later, she paid others affiliated with the Science of Identity Foundation to work on her campaign.

When Gabbard decries Democrats' alleged "hostility towards God," it is not clear what she means by "God."  There was this from six years ago: "Imagine there's no heaven; easy if you try. No sky above us; no religion, too."

 

Gabbard has re-invented herself as a cultural right-winger to a left-winger, now to a right-winger in the Trump orbit (and Administration). She may have found the God of the Old and New testaments, but it's not probable. In either case, it's rich that someone who belonged to a Hindu cult and promoted John Lennon's atheism should now accuse Donald Trump's critics of "hostility towards God."

It may have been sheer ambition that Tulsi Gabbard, after being squashed in her bid to become the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, decided to swithc jerseys. Her afffinity for Vladimir Putin's Russia may have been a factor. And that may not be all. 

At the 50th anniversary gala in 2016 of ISKCON, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, Gabbard remarked

Real spiritual understanding, or real religion, transcends sectarianism. Each and every one of us, whether we call ourselfves a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu or any other designation, we each have this intrinsic opportunity to cultivate our own personal loving relationship with God.

Muslim, Christian, Hindu.  It's not surprising that the same individual who  absurdly slams President Biden would omit the party of Jake Sullivan, Chuck Schumer, and J.B. Pritzker. Or maybe Tulsi Gabbard is just generally clueless. 

  

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Something Is Wrong with that Man

This is not quite the own Karolyin' Leavitt thinks it is:

No he didn’t, Libby. His written remarks referred to Greenland as a “piece of ice” because that’s what it is.

You’re the only one mixing anything up here. https://t.co/awRQO3eN3Y pic.twitter.com/pkAQysW06h

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 21, 2026

Trump did not refer to Greenland as a "piece of ice."  At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he referred to Iceland as a "piece of ice."   

And I’ve until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me. They called me “Daddy.” The last time, a very smart man said, “He’s our daddy. He’s running it.” I was like running it. I went from running it to being a terrible human being. But now what I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located, that can play a vital role in world peace and world protection. It’s a very small ask compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.

But the problem with NATO is that we’ll be there for them 100 percent. But I’m not sure that they’d be there for us if we gave them the call, “Gentlemen, we are being attacked, we’re under attack by such and such a nation.” I know them all very well. I’m not sure that they’d be there. I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they’d be there for us. So with all of the money we expend, with all of the blood, sweat and tears, I don’t know that they’d be there for us. They’re not there for us on Iceland, I can tell you.

In those two paragraphs, the President referred to Iceland, not once but twice, and not at all to Greenland. He stated "now what I'm asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located" and "they're not there fo rus on Iceland, I can tell you."

Given the immediate context and that of the past couple of weeks, Donald clearly was referring to Greenland. Leavitt protests that he was referring to Iceland because, well, "ice" and "Iceland."  If Trump were the jokester Leavitt and others have claimed he is when he says something absurd and is called out for it, he could have referred to the similarity between the two words.

If Trump had invoked the nation of Iceland for some sort of reason, it would be very troublesome. Iceland? Really? However, contrary to Leavitt's assertion, the President mixed up Greenland and Iceland.

Now, just imagine if President Joe Biden had made a similar error.  Biden was forced to renounce a bid for re-election when a victory in November seemed highly unlikely because he was widely viewed as a feeble old man.  

Imagine if President Biden had gone before roughly 1,000 world business and political elites and complained about a "rigged" election of five years earlier; referred to the Federal Reserve Chairman as Jerome "Too Late" Powell, as Trump did; or then-Representative Kevin McCarthy as a "fake congressperson, the description Trump gave Ilhan Omar; or a former President as "warmongering Ronald Reagan," comparable to Trump's "Sleepy Joe Biden."   Or if President Biden had said that he would be bringing drug prices down by 90 percent or "you could say 1,000 percent, 2,000 percent," which would mean the pharmacist might pay you for the prescription he filled.

The Republican Party in near-unison would demand that Biden resign and the media would follow by interviewing countless Republicans with that same message.Video of the Democratic president making those outlandish statements would run in a continuous loop.

Yet Democrats are silent as they are faced with a Republican president who alternatively appears crazy, ignorant, or plainly vile or suffering from dementia, aphasia, or another physical ailment. Donald Trump is suffering from a major physical, mental, or psychological ailment and Democrats don't want to press the point. We still don't know why President Trump suddenly went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in November 2019 or whether he was hit by even a bullet fragment in Butler, Pennsylvania in July, 2025.

A scandal usually does not materialize on its own without help from partisans who would beneift from it. Something is wrong with the man and Democrats should settle on a message to get it out to the public.  Depending on a blogger or two to do it for them won't cut it.

 

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All Biden's Fault, As Usual

In a major upset, the Trump Administration has said something truthful. NPR notes

Two West Virginia National Guard members deployed to Washington, D.C., remain in critical condition after being shot while on patrol just blocks from the White House on Wednesday afternoon.

"Two families are shattered and destroyed and torn apart as the result of the actions of one man," said Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

"Two families are shattered and destroyed and torn apart as the result of the actions of one man," said Pirro, in what should be obvious but, judging from most of the response from the Administration, apparently is not.

Immediately after a report (not substantiated at the time) that an Afghan national was responsible for shooting two members of the National Guard deployed to Washington, D.C,. the X right got into action politicizing the crime.. One was Bo Loudon, of whom during last year's campaign it was reported

Despite barely being old enough to vote, 18-year-olds Bo Loudon and Barron Trump were unofficially recruited onto team Trump to help the oldest presidential candidate in history tap into the manosphere and capture the “bro vote.”

Earlier this year Trump, 78, began experimenting with the new audience by engaging with YouTubers and podcasters, many of whom are sympathetic towards the MAGA movement....

 Loudon, a conservative content creator, and the youngest Trump heir were apparently tasked to help Trump navigate the complex web of internet celebrities and influencers.

“The strategy is reaching an audience that maybe isn’t being recognized,” Loudon told Piers Morgan on Thursday.

Much to the distress of the vast majority of the world not named Javier Millei, Viktor Orban, or Vladimir Putin, we know how that turned out. The 19-year-old maintains his influence in Trumpland. Therefore, he promptly amplified Donald's stridently partisan and anti-American response to Wednesday's shooting:

🚨BREAKING: President Trump just revealed the Biden admin. extended the stay of the foreigner "animal" who shot our National Guard.

Follow: @BoLoudon pic.twitter.com/UJzsF8dGuh

— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) November 27, 2025

Before we even knew the suspect's motive(s), Trump had decided the real culprit was not American policy or the (presumed) offender himself. It was a former President. And that is turning out to be less than the entire truth.

🚨 BREAKING: The Trump administration is suddenly blaming Biden for the D.C. shooter’s asylum approval…

…but CNN just confirmed the shooter applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved in April of THIS YEAR, under Trump. pic.twitter.com/bUe5iJzJSF

— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) November 27, 2025

Nor could we have been surprised that the Trump rot has seeped even into the Central Intelligence Agency, where in an e-mailed statement Director John Ratcliffe claimed

In the wake of the disastrous Biden Withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden Administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation.

This individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here. Our citizens and servicemembers deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden Administration's catastrophic failures.

In such cases, it's customary to say "before the bodies are even cold...."  Yet, the the Administration quickly not only decided, but proclaimed, that Operation Allies Welcome was a grave error ("and so many others") but that the primary culprit was not Rahmanullah Lakanwal but Trump's immediate predecessor.

Those "so many others" slandered by Donald's C.I.A. director served as partners to the C.I.A. in Afghanistan and deserved exceptional consideration by Washington when the war in Afghanistan ended. They sacrificed in their capacity for the USA and had they remained in Afghanistan, would have been targeted by the new Taliban government. The program has been imperfect but that was not the message of either the President or the C.I.A. director, who slammed the program itself and the President who created it.

And that Taliban government did not come about magically when the USA withdrew from Afghanistan in spring of 2021. Rather

The Trump Administration February 2020 negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the tAliban tha t excluded the Afghan government, freed 5,000 imprisoned Taliban soldiers and set a date certain of May 1, 2021 for the final withdrawal.

And the Trump administration kept to the pact, reducing U.S. troop levels from about 13,000 to 2,500, even though the Taliban continued to attack Afghan government forces and welcomed al-Qaeda terrorists into the Taliban leadership.

The withdrawal, though chaotic in execution, was planned and orchestrated by the first Trump Administration, negotiated with the Taliban and behind the back of the Afghan government. As we now see with the Russia-Ukraine war, it is Donald's style figuratively to pull the rug out from under our allies and shoot them in the back.

Very few other Democrats, liberals, or progressives are doing what tweeter Allen is doing, indirectly defending the Biden Administration by explaining that the Trump Administration does not have clean hands in the case of Rahmanullah Lakanwal. Notably, his bio reads "America FIRST," in contrast to the MAGA crowd which inaccurately portrays itself as "America First."  

At the very least, though, the Trump Administration should be held responsible for caring less about the Guardsmen or the nation they were representing than they do in condemning another American President. Donald speaks for the America Last crowd or, perhaps, the Hate America gang. 

In either case, more Democrats need to realize that a narrative has quickly formed and a counter-narrative, that President Trump has put our soldiers in harm's way, must arise. It will be hard to motivate Democrats to do that. Here is a suggestion: pretend Donald Trump is blaming Barack Obama, not Joe Biden, and Democrats will do something about it. 

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Mysterious Disappearance

The ignorance or, more likely, dishonesty of the far left on the matter of the Israel-Hamas war rivals the ignorance or dishonesty that the right exhibits on so many issues.

Sorry, Emma V, but Elissa Slotkin is clearly, obviously, and demonstrably correct.

It's hard to pick the most satisfying moment of this interview, but this part where Slotkin tries, and fails, to insinuate that the pro-Palestine protestors are soft on Trump might take the cake. pic.twitter.com/3n3kZvjHr0

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) July 30, 2025

Senator Slotkin is seen stating "I just think it's interesting, right, that there was a ton of protests when Democrats were in charge." Co-host Krystal Ball responds "there was a protest in Manhattan yesterday."

Imagine! A protest in New York City! The heartland has spoken!

To be fair, the interchange appears to have taken place on July 29 and there was a protest in Manhattan on July 28, in front of a building at 26 Federal Plaza, at which many ICE detainees (and others) are held. The previous day, eight rabbis were arrested in NYC while protesting restriction of aid to Gazans.  By contrast, this from May 2, 2024:

An organization which tracks USA political protest activity reported on 5/30/24 that since October 7, 2023, there had been encampments on more than 130 campuses.  Nonetheless, the 1639 pro-Palestinian encampment days accounted for only 44% of the 3704 total days of protest activities on 625 campuses overall.  Although particularly prevalent on the coasts, there were protests throughout the USA, and a lot of them, as the Michigan senator recognizes.

The pro-Palestinian protestors- wherever they are now- are soft on Trump, for whatever reason(s).  Continuing the theme of useful idiocy on the far left, there Peter Daou:

I'm old enough to remember when students protesting the Gaza genocide were smeared, expelled, arrested, and brutalized under the Biden-Harris administration. In just about every way, Trump has continued Biden's policy on Israel. Dems laid the groundwork for 14+ months. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/uJXmTCuvN5

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) July 28, 2025

The "Biden-Harris administration" was so mean that, as The Guardian explained

In March, the Trump administration listed Swarthmore College as one of 60 schools at risk of losing hundreds of millions of federal dollars for allowing what it considered antisemitic harassment on campus. Colleges and universities across the country were already quashing pro-Palestinian protests by suspending and arresting students, and several revised their policies to ban encampments prior to Trump’s inauguration. But some have gone even further to penalize students in light of the government’s threats to pull their funding.

The federal government- under President Donald J. Trump- has taken punitive action. Before his inauguration- but apparently after his election- numerous colleges began to suppress "pro-Palestinian" protests.

The Mideast policy also changed. As Yair Rosenberg of The Atlantic writes. in January 2021

Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to the region and assured America’s Arab allies that it opposed forced displacement. “Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,” he said at a press conference in Doha, Qatar. “They cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave Gaza.” Blinken then traveled to Israel, where he apparently delivered the same message to Netanyahu. The next day, the Israeli leader posted a video in which he declared, “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.” A member of Netanyahu’s party told the press that the prime minister’s stance had shifted because of American pressure. For the moment, maximalism had been shoved back into the box.

Then Donald Trump won reelection, and everything changed. The same day Trump defeated Kamala Harris, Netanyahu fired Yoav Gallant, his defense minister, who had opposed the resettlement of Gaza and publicly criticized the prime minister for refusing to commit to returning the territory to Palestinian control. In one fell swoop, the chief external (Biden) and internal (Gallant) obstacles to conquering Gaza were removed. The only pressure exerted on Netanyahu now was from the hard right. And then Trump himself seemingly joined its cause.

 On February 4, sitting next to a surprised Netanyahu in the Oval Office, Trump dramatically undid all of Biden’s efforts, promising to take over Gaza, relocate its residents, and turn the area into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The president may have conceived of this vision out of some misdirected sense of compassion, believing it would provide better lives for Palestinians now stuck in what he correctly termed a “demolition site.” But whatever Trump’s intentions, his proposal was immediately taken as affirmation of the maximalist dream of many Israelis, and an explicit warrant for ethnic cleansing by the Israeli far right. Once that prospect turned from a pipe dream into a president’s plan, it quickly became an obstruction to concluding the conflict.

At a press conference in May, Netanyahu declared that implementing Trump’s vision was now a condition for ending the war. Last week, the director of the Mossad reportedly visited Washington to discuss the “voluntary” relocation of “hundreds of thousands of Palestinians” to third-party countries. All the while, Gaza’s hunger crisis has dramatically worsened, while hostages continue to languish in Hamas dungeons. Far from expediting the conflict’s end, Trump’s proposal has been marshaled to prolong it. And as long as the president does not explicitly reject the goal of removing the Gazan population, it will continue to bedevil his plans for the region.

Most recently, President Trump said of Israel's campaign against Hamas "they're gonna have to fight and they're gonna have to clean it up. You're gonna have to get rid of 'em."Yet, Peter Daou claims "in just about every way, Trump has continued Biden's policy on Israel."  Krystal Ball and Emma Vigeland suggest that pro-Palestinian activism has not abated. Blindness seems to be contagious as the anti-Israel activists, once so very militant, have turned into sheep. And as Senator Slotkin implied, one has to wonder why that is.

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No Big Thing, Evidently

With no sense of irony, Politico editor and columnist Michael Schaffer writes

A few ew weeks ago, my POLITICO colleague Nicholas Wu and NBC’s Sahil Kapur ran into D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton in the Capitol. Like good congressional reporters, they jumped at the opportunity to pepper a lawmaker about the news of the day. In this case, one question concerned Norton herself, a civil rights icon who is now the oldest House member: Would she run for another term next year, by which point she would be 89 years old? “Yeah, sure,” Norton said.

Coming on the heels of multiple stories about Norton’s alleged cognitive decline, the statement made news. But a few hours later, Norton’s office began unmaking that news. The Democrat “wants to run again but she’s in conversations with her family, friends, and closest advisors to decide what’s best,” a spokesperson told Wu. There was still no final decision.

It was all awkward and embarrassing- and did little to buttress Norton's insistence that she's as shar as ever. And then, amazingly, it happened again. Last week, Kapur once again approached the delegate and asked about her plans. Once again she said she's running. "Yeah, I'm going to run for re-election." And once again, her spokesperson quickly walked back the comment, telling Axios that "no decision has been made."

The spokesperson, Sharon Nichols, did not offer any explanation for the discrepancy.

Well, maybe because the discrepancy was trivial. Admittedly, the concern has been precipitated by a legitimate fear that veteran 88-year-old legislator Norton has lost her fastball just as the District of Columbia "faces escalating threats to its home rule" from a hostile Trump Administration. Alert Thompson and Jake Tapper! Eleanor Holmes Norton was asked whether she will run for re-election and said "yeah, sure" while there still had been no final decision

This in turn comes on the heels of the scandal captivating Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper about the last 12-18 months of the Biden Administration. When the duo was doing the rounds before publication of their book, Thompson remarked "beginning in 2023, the ration of that functioning and non-functioning starts to change dramatically and also non-functioning Biden is getting worse."  Tapper claimed (emphasis his) "we're talking about to the point of you not being able to have a conversation. You are not able to come up with data information, knowledge, names that you should have at the ready."

So of course, this has prompted controversy: No, actually not:

Donald Trump took off on a winding rant about his summer vacation plans Tuesday when asked a crucial question about “Alligator Alcatraz.”

During a press conference at the ICE facility in the middle of the Florida Everglades, the president was asked whether there was an “expected time frame” that detainees would be kept at the hastily constructed immigrant detention center, and whether it would depend on the immigration judges staffed there.

“When you say, uh, what was the first part of your question?” Trump asked, clearly confused.

“Is there a specific time frame you expect the detainees to spend here—days, weeks, months?” the reporter repeated.

“In Florida?” Trump asked.

“Yes, here at Alligator Alcatraz,” the reporter responded, but the president had already jumped into a response about how much he loves the Sunshine State.

“I’m gonna spend a lot of—this is my home state. I love it. I love your government. I love all the people around—these are all friends of mine. They know me very well. I mean I’m not surprised that they do so well. They’re great people,” Trump said, singling out Governor Ron DeSantis, who previously campaigned against Trump but now acts as a cheerleader for his new wetland-themed concentration camp.

“I feel very comfortable in the state—I’ll spend a lot of time here,” Trump continued. He said that he would continue to visit despite his current digs at the White House, which had allowed him to “fix up” the “little Oval Office.”

“But I’ll spend as much time as I can here. You know my vacation is generally here ’cause it’s convenient. I live in Palm Beach. That’s my home. And I have a very nice little place—nice little cottage to stay at, right? But we have a lot of fun,” Trump continued, joking about his massive estate at the Mar-a-Lago resort.

Sometimes, Trump's meanderings are referred to as an "off-the-cuff style," as when he told West Point graduates at a commencement ceremony six weeks ago about the trophy wife of the late real estate developer, William Levitt. Sometimes it's joking, or being "playful," or even a "preternatural gift." 

Whatever is wrong with Donald Trump- and there is, and has been for a few years, something wrong with him- we must not call it "cognitive decline."  You see, "cognitive decline" is Joe Biden in physical decline with a terrible debate performance or Eleanor Holmes Norton's uncertainty about seeking another term. 

Yet, the President of the USA is standing immediately in front of us, in real time, claiming divine intervention for everything which works in his favor. God did this, God did that, says the ultra narcissist who shut out God while leaning on the power of positive thinking until he was wounded by shrapnel last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania.

This is happening now; a President of the United States of America. Yet, somehow he has escaped the scrutiny which a mere member of the House of Representatives and an ex-President got. Across the board, our media is failing us.

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