The great coverup

The Democrats are rallying around Joe Biden while the rest of the country wonders out loud about the extent of his degeneration and decline. Biden’s mental health has become the talking point in the US, if not the whole the world. That other “d” word, dementia, is trotted out routinely. In political terms, it’s worth remembering dread and doom also start with “d”.

It’s an almost perfect mix of denial and derision. The DNC has tried to rally the troops. Big and powerful Democrats have come out, hand on heart, declaring Biden a man untroubled by the ravages of age, while other senior colleagues who urge Biden to withdraw his candidacy receive calls politely and then not so politely telling them to please stop talking about Biden’s neurological shortcomings.

It’s not working.

Questions were asked directly of Biden as to his state of cognitive function on Sunday in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on America’s ABC network.

Had the President undergone “specific cognitive tests and have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?”

“No one said I had to,” Biden replied. “No one said … No. I’m good.”

It wasn’t reassuring. Biden’s descent into geriatrics could not have been more marked if Joe and Jill were seen patiently waiting outside Arby’s for the early bird specials to kick in.

When directly asked if he would undertake cognitive testing and release the results publicly, Biden baulked and claimed that, as President, he does a neurology test everyday. No, Joe. That’s the lunch menu.

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham went a step further in calling for mandatory presidential cognitive testing of a type he probably does not know exists but is a standard, quick diagnosis tool in gerontological medicine around the world, known as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test (MoCA).

“All nominees for president going into future should have neurological exams as part of an overall physical exam … Let’s test Trump. Let’s test Biden. Let’s test the line of succession”, the 68-year-old Graham told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, local time.

“This is a wake-up call for the country,” he added. “We need to make sure that the people who are going to be in the line of succession are capable of being commander-in-chief under dire circumstances.”

Graham believed Biden was in denial and posed all manner of perils for the smooth functioning of the executive branch, saying: “This is a dangerous time for the American people to have somebody … leading the ship of state who seems to be compromised.”

Asked if Trump, 78, should have the test, too, Graham said: “Yes, yes, I think both.”

But Trump did have a version or a form of the MoCA in 2018 and we know this because in the Donald’s own words, he “aced” it.

The precise results? We don’t know if the 30-minute MoCA test ran from go to whoa or was truncated in some way. What we can safely conclude from Trump’s test is that the baseline for determining a POTUS’s neurological health or otherwise is now set at him or her remembering five unrelated nouns in a passage of speech read out for a minute containing around 60 nouns. If you can remember five of the 60, congratulations, you can be president of the United States.

Trump proudly repeated his noun mantra for the camera four times to a startled Fox News journalist: “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”

“It’s actually not that easy,” Trump said. “But for me it was easy.”

Telling the story later, Trump got the doctor’s name wrong. But at least he did it. Biden is refusing.

One wonders how Biden would handle a MoCA. I don’t want to be unkind but if the leader of the free world can’t perform the same basic memory functions I’d expect of your average adult Labrador, then it might be time for a long lie down. But that’s where we are now. Pass the Adderall and the Penny Pads.

Biden’s speech celebrating the 75th anniversary of NATO in DC on Tuesday was said to be a great opportunity for him to recover after the debate. The general view after the speech was that Biden had been “strong” and “confident”. The talk earlier from some Democrat sources had been that Biden’s NATO speech was his last chance at a recovery from the disaster of the first presidential debate. That race has been run. Shutting the gate now after the horse has not only bolted but fled, galloping wildly, only to appear as a dot on the horizon briefly before vanishing altogether three weeks ago is a fool’s errand.

It does raise the delicious though unlikely event that the presidential debate could be scrapped in favour of televised cognitive testing where Presidents Biden and Trump line up and work through a series of exhaustive word association tests, mnemonic exercises and building things with blocks before a live television audience.

Then it’s onto the physical trials. Jenga at 20 paces. Hungry, Hungry Hippos moderated by Sean Hannity. And as the two men quibbled over Biden’s golf handicap at the first debate, Bingo Bango Bongo over 18 gruelling holes at the local pitch and putt. Winner takes the White House.

It could lead to the resurrection of free-to-air television if handled properly. Or it could end up in a fully blown civil war in the US. Either way, circling the wagons around Biden, with or without cognitive testing, should be shouting, if not screaming, to all senior Democrats, including Joe and his wife Jill, that when questions of the President’s mental decline are being asked directly during a softball interview, it is a sign time is up. Or to quote a line from Joseph Heller’s parody of US government and academia, Good As Gold: “Don’t force anything mechanical, never kick anything inanimate, and don’t fart around with the inevitable.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/five-simple-nouns-isthat-all-it-takes-to-lead-the-free-world/news-story/53baab29bb2189208485f837300547d3

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Biden administration agrees to ship 500-pound bombs to Israel

The US will soon begin shipping to Israel the 500-pound bombs the Biden administration had previously suspended, ending a two-month pause it had imposed in a bid to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza, US officials said.

The decision came as the Israeli army said overnight on Wednesday it had completed its mission in Shujaiya, a neighbourhood in the east of Gaza that had been the scene of violent fighting for two weeks.

The bombs “are in the process of being shipped”, and are expected to arrive in Israel in coming weeks, an administration official said. Heavier 2000-pound bombs meant to be part of the same shipment were still on hold, the official added. The US announced in May it had held up one shipment that included 2000-pound bombs and 500-pound bombs. Israel sent a ship to Charleston, South Carolina, to pick up the shipment before the decision was made.

President Joe Biden’s decision to hold delivery of certain types of bombs marked an escalation of tensions between his administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Mr Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza, where more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since last October, according to Palestinian officials. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants.

The US suspension came in response to Israel’s plans to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah without what the Biden administration regarded as a credible plan to protect civilians. More than one million people had taken shelter there, fleeing fighting in other parts of Gaza.

Mr Biden had described a major operation in Rafah as a “red line”, but not one that would lead to a total cut-off of US arms supplies.

“Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2000-pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza,” a US official said. “Because our concern was not about the 500-pound bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process.”

The Israelis had argued they needed heavy bombs to destroy tunnels. US officials said that was outweighed by US concerns about potential civilian deaths when such large bombs are used in densely populated areas.

Axios reported last month that the 500-pound bombs would be shipped soon. During its Rafah operation, Israel seized control of the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, achieving one aim of the war by cutting off what it said was a key route for smuggling weapons. The operation forced a majority of the displaced Gazans in Rafah to flee the city.

At least 46 Palestinians were killed on May 26 during an Israeli airstrike in Tal al-Sultan, a refugee camp in Rafah. The White House said the strike didn’t cross the “red line” the President had drawn in March during his MSNBC interview.

“This is an example of the administration folding their hand. They were called out on their bluff of Rafah and now they’re relenting,” said Seth Binder, director of advocacy for the Middle East Democracy Centre, a policy institute in Washington.

A State Department spokesman said on Monday it believes the Rafah operation caused fewer civilian casualties than previous phases of the war. Israeli officials have in recent weeks signalled a shift to a lower-intensity phase of the war. Some security analysts said the perceived reduction in civilian deaths could be because of a slower pace of strikes in recent weeks, rather than a change in Israel’s approach to targeting.

“There’s not much evidence of that, but certainly some evidence the operational tempo is lower,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department official and now a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group.

Reducing civilian casualties continues to be a challenge for the Israeli military in Gaza. An Aair strike on Tuesday in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, near the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killed at least 25 people and wounded 50 others in a school where thousands of displaced people were sheltering, Palestinian health officials said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/biden-administration-agrees-to-ship-500pound-bombs-to-israel/news-story/ebe099a243874796504bc9019619c979

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ALG Urges Yes Vote on SAVE Act

July 10, 2024, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the House to pass H.R. 8281, the Safeguard American Voting Eligibility (SAVE) Act:

“There is no excuse not to pass the Safeguard American Voting Eligibility Act. The sacred right to vote by citizens which so many have fought for from Selma, Alabama to remote corners of the world where freedom has continued to be won, is under attack. Rep. Chip Roy is right when he says, ‘Federal law currently PROHIBITS states from verifying citizenship status during registration for federal elections. The SAVE Act requires proof of citizenship to register and would remove non-citizens from voter rolls. What are Democrats fearful of?’

“The answer is simple. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrat members of Congress oppose democracy by seeking to destroy the one-person, one-vote constitutional principle, through annihilating chain of custody of live ballots and engaging in a deliberate campaign to register illegal aliens to vote as they enter the country and sign up for free stuff from the government.

“Joe Biden has stated many times that this election is a battle for the soul of America. He is right and protecting the fundamental principle that American citizens have a unique franchise to determine the direction of the country is essential to maintaining our freedom and liberty.

“Americans for Limited Government strongly urges a Yes vote on the SAVE Act.”

https://getliberty.org/2024/07/alg-urges-yes-vote-on-save-act/

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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All change: Britain's general election produced a result no less seismic for being predicted

MELANIE PHILLIPS

King Charles invites Sir Keir Starmer to form a government
Here are my initial thoughts on the results of Britain’s general election.

The most significant results are: Labour 412 (up by 211), Conservative 121 (down by 250), Liberal Democrats 71 (up by 63), Scottish National Party 9 (down by 38), Independent 6 (up from zero), Reform 4 (up from zero), Green 4 (up by 3).

Labour’s enormous overall majority of 170 seats means that it can broadly do whatever it wants because it faces a fractured and weak opposition.

However, the country did not express any enthusiasm for Labour. The party achieved less than one third of the popular vote — the lowest of any governing party in modern history, and even less than the 40 per cent secured by the hard-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. Yesterday’s Labour share of the vote had hardly changed from the last general election in 2019.

The country remains wary and suspicious of Labour and the new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. What voters were determined to do was get rid of the Conservative party, whose share of the popular vote accordingly imploded. Some 11 Cabinet ministers were swept away along with swathes of other former MPs, leaving a pitiably small rump of Tories in parliament to face the jubilant and crowded Labour benches. The Conservative party — previously known as Britain’s “natural party of government” — is now in the wilderness for the forseeable future.

The Reform party led by Nigel Farage achieved extraordinary success from a standing start. Despite the high bar against third parties set by the British electoral system — and despite some deeply questionable candidates, the result of a campaign thrown together at a moment’s notice with next to no organisation or party discipline — Reform won four seats, putting Farage himself into parliament for the first time.

The significance of this achievement, however, goes much deeper than the number of seats the party actually won. Reform did enormous damage to the Conservatives (and more than a little to Labour too) by the high numbers voting for it, costing the Tories no fewer than 180 seats. Reform is now a serious insurgency on the pattern of “populist” insurgencies against a monolithic political establishment that we have seen developing in Europe.

A deeply ominous development is the emergence of an Islamic sectarian vote, with four previously Labour-held seats lost to independent candidates whose pitch — in a British general election concerning British national interests — was about Gaza and “Palestine”.

Although even Labour “moderates” generally side with the international “human rights” and “humanitarian” establishment which is virulently hostile to Israel, British Muslims are angry that Starmer supported Israel’s defence against Hamas after the October 7 pogrom. As a result, Labour candidates have been harassed and intimidated by Muslims and other anti-Israel types and lost votes in yesterday’s election.

In the Birmingham Yardley constituency Labour’s Jess Phillips, who only narrowly kept her seat under pressure from this “Gaza” lobby, was met with boos and jeers as she made an angry acceptance speech in which she denounced the “aggression and violence” in “the worst election I have ever stood in”. All this is entirely foreign to British democratic traditions and does not bode well.

So what is likely to be the outcome of this election?

This is a deeply paradoxical result. Starmer has an unassailable majority in parliament, but must now govern a country that has not embraced his agenda. To his credit, he detoxified the Labour party to make people feel it was safe enough to give it their vote — which they needed to do to achieve their principal objective to get the other lot out. But now he has to win hearts and minds. This will be a tough call.

He inherits a country with severe structural economic, social and cultural problems. He has made promises which he won’t have the money to deliver. Crises with which Rishi Sunak unsuccessfully struggled, such as stopping the migrant boats in the English Channel, collapsing public services and rising lawlessness and anarchy on the streets, all now land in Starmer’s lap.

He also inherits an appalling epidemic of Jew-hatred, which will undoubtedly worry him greatly — not least because he has Jewish family members, and because he is a decent man. However, dealing properly with antisemitism will mean acknowledging the symbiotic link between the Palestinian cause and Jew-hatred — which, as a man of the left, he has never done — and standing up to both the Muslim community and the far left, constituencies which are represented within his own party.

Buoyed by the success of the “Gaza” election campaigns and by the refusal of the authorities to stop the pro-Hamas intimidation and disorder on the streets, Islamic sectarianism is now likely to increase. A Muslim bloc has emerged which is likely to demand not just policies hostile to Israel but measures to adapt aspects of British society to Islamic requirements.

Starmer will be less hostile towards Israel than the far-left or the Muslim bloc are demanding; but since his instincts remain those of the radical human rights lawyer he originally was, he is unlikely to stop the demonisation of Israel that oozes from every pore of the liberal establishment (including the Foreign Office) and which is fuelling the harassment of Britain’s Jews.

Moreover, while he will be economically cautious he’ll let rip on the “culture wars”. The result will be more transgender abuses of children and women and more demonisation of white people and British “colonialism”. He’s also likely to outlaw “Islamophobia” — which could have an even greater chilling effect on necessary discussion of Muslim antisemitism or Islamic terrorism than is currently the case. The rumour that the veteran “human rights” ideologue Harriet Harman is to become head of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in place of Baroness Falkner, who has bravely tried to counter the transgender lunacy, chills the bone.

Starmer is also committed to an insane acceleration of the already ruinous Net Zero target, and to developing “ever closer” ties with the EU which will further stifle the entrepreneurial freedoms that Brexit enabled but the Tory government never delivered.

With this agenda, the Labour government will be as one with the entire administrative state and the entire cultural and intellectual establishment — precisely the dogmatic cultural tyranny against which millions of Europeans and Americans are in revolt.

And so what of the Tories? They will now descend into civil war. Indeed, it’s already started, with different factions accusing each other of having lost the country.

The fact is that for decades the Conservative party has failed to articulate basic conservative values — conserving what was best and most valuable in British and western culture. Ricocheting between liberal universalists and free market ideologues, the Tories persisted in the lie that the welfare state could coexist with reduced public spending; they broke their promise of controlling mass immigration; they failed to break the grip of the administrative state to take advantage of Brexit; they were largely supine in the face of the transgender lunacy and anti-white racism; they were paralysed in the face of widespread anarchy on the streets; and they failed to protect Britain’s Jewish community against attack.

So when it comes to opposing Labour’s agenda, the Tories will have nothing to say because they helped enable much of it.

Meanwhile Nigel Farage, who has now achieved what he set out to do in pulverising the Conservative party, will be moving onto the next part of his agenda — taking the fight to the Labour government in order to bring about the reconfiguration of British politics, by reconnecting it with the British mainstream and recovering the true centre ground, that he has long envisaged.

Farage — the true and only begetter of Brexit — is the most consequential politician of the post-Thatcher period. He has his own flaws. His free market principles line him up with the wing of the Tory party that disappeared inside its economic tunnel vision. And his tendency towards international isolationism and indifference towards defence are alarming.

But he speaks for millions by his promotion of the independence of the nation within borders that are properly policed and with immigration kept to manageable levels, and his defence of a culture based on its own history and traditions enshrining fairness, social order and a grounding in reality that people can recognise as a shared national endeavour and that they can call home.

Unless the Tories acknowledge that this is the ground they have so disastrously abandoned — and unless they become committed to promote and defend it — they’re finished.

On the steps of Number Ten, Starmer said he would govern “unburdened by doctrine”. A disillusioned and sceptical nation is about to see just what he thinks that means.

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/all-change?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

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Haley Releases Delegates, Urges Them to Back Trump Ahead of RNC Convention

She was very popular so this is good. Aiming for Veep?

Former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced on July 9 that she is releasing her 97 delegates and urging them to support former President Donald Trump.

The move comes days before the Republican National Convention when the 45th president is set to be nominated as the party’s 2024 presidential candidate.

“The nominating convention is a time for Republican unity,” said Ms. Haley in a statement.

“We need a president who will hold our enemies to account, secure our border, cut our debt, and get our economy back on track,” said the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Ms. Haley went on to call on her delegates to back former President Trump at the Republican National Convention, which will be held July 15–18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Politico first reported the news.

The former candidate will not be attending the convention.

“She was not invited, and she’s fine with that,” Ms. Haley’s spokesperson, Chaney Denton, told The Epoch Times.

“Trump deserves the convention he wants,” Ms. Denton said. “She’s made it clear she’s voting for him and wishes him the best.”

In May, a few months after suspending her presidential campaign, Ms. Haley announced she will be voting for former President Trump.

She said that she wants a “president who would support capitalism and freedom. A president who understands we need less debt, not more debt.” While former President Trump “has not been perfect on these policies,” she said, he is preferable to President Joe Biden.

Ms. Haley also urged the GOP frontrunner to “reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him.”

After dropping out of the race in March, Ms. Haley continued to receive a notable share of votes in Republican primaries around the country. She notched 20 percent of the vote in the primaries in Maryland, 18 percent in Nebraska, and 22 percent in Indiana.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/haley-to-release-delegates-to-trump-ahead-of-rnc-convention-5682895

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Electorates are increasingly being divided between those supporting the status quo and those who want radical change

Politics in the 21st century are witnessing a new type of divide. Rather than being between the Left and the Right, electorates are increasingly being divided between those supporting the status quo and those who want radical change.

Joe Biden exemplifies how the political establishment that formed in the 1980s and persisted through the 2000s is on its last legs. Biden, clearly ill and delusional, struggles to fulfill the responsibilities of the president of the United States, much like the old consensus fails to meet the demands of the 21st century. Despite calls for change, Biden remains resolute in his intention to shape the future, mirroring the establishment’s desire to maintain the status quo.

While the mainstream media has only recently started to question Biden’s performance, younger voters have long been disillusioned with his performance and the status quo he represents. Gen Z and Millennials desire more radical actions from Biden, such as raising the national minimum wage, implementing single-payer healthcare, and supporting “Palestine” over Israel.

Biden, who comes from an older generation of Democrat leaders, is interestingly serving as a bulwark against these radical ideas. The same Democrat establishment that stole the 2016 Democrat nomination from democratic socialist Bernie Sanders has been working overtime for the past five years to protect Biden from his left flank in an effort to maintain its ideological influence on national affairs. Biden’s history of moderation may even explain why so-called or former conservatives like Stuart Stevens, Joe Scarborough, and Tim Miller have been some of the biggest Biden cheerleaders during his four years in office.

Another development from the past two weeks that reveals the division between status-quo statists and change-makers is the loss of Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good to the Swamp-backed state senator John McGuire. While one can levy justified critiques of Good’s management of the Freedom Caucus, he is a conservative stalwart whose voice is greatly appreciated in Congress.

Why did such a strong, prominent conservative lose a race in a red district? Two words: Donald Trump. The septuagenarian endorsed McGuire, ostensibly as payback because Good endorsed Ron DeSantis at the beginning of the Republican primary.

I call BS on this explanation. Over the years, Trump has shown immense forgiveness to those who have initially shown reluctance toward his candidacy. Consider J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, David McCormick, and more. Why could he not extend this forgiveness to Good?

I suspect that this endorsement by Trump is just another step in his long march toward currying favor with the establishment. This past week, Trump even denounced the anti-statist Project 2025, claiming he knew nothing about it.

Trump’s preference for stability over change is consistent. He endorsed primary challengers against Thomas Massie in 2020, recently called for Chip Roy to be primaried, and supported Mike Rogers for a Michigan Senate seat over Freedom Caucus cofounder Justin Amash. Both Trump and Biden are favoring continuity over disruptive change.

A similar pattern is observed in France. In the recent snap elections, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally received the highest share of votes at 33.1%, running on an anti-immigration platform. This outcome has shocked the French political establishment and might force Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party to collaborate with the left-wing New Popular Front to prevent Le Pen’s return.

The election results also reflect an age-based divide. Older voters (70+) showed significant support for Macron’s coalition (32%) and Le Pen’s RN (29%), with less support for the New Popular Front (18%). Conversely, younger voters (18-24) gave only 9% of their votes to Macron’s coalition, 33% to RN, and 48% to the New Popular Front. This indicates a greater polarization among younger generations, similar to trends in the United States, where the youth reject bipartisan centrism embraced by older generations.

The growing political polarization presents both challenges and opportunities. While it is good that the youth are rejecting the entrenched political establishment and its antiquated ideas, it also suggests a future marked by even more disunity and discord.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/108305-new-divisions-2024-07-09

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In Brief: Joe Biden Is Not a Decent Man

Even as they attempt to force him out, Democrats are still praising the sterling character of the president, especially in contrast to Trump. But that’s always been a lie. …

We can dismiss the claim that his administration has been a great success, an astonishing disconnect with the reality of an inflation-ridden economy, open border, and a world in chaos on his watch, that is nonetheless ritually repeated regularly on the left-wing news channels. But Democrat partisans actually think they are on firmer ground in affirming that he’s a great guy — and therefore a stark contrast to Trump, whom they denounce as personally evil — even as they come to grips with the fact that he lacks the mental acuity to be the leader of the free world.

But the notion that “Scranton Joe” is a nice guy is as wrongheaded as the claim that he’s mentally competent or a brilliant leader.

Tobin begins with Biden’s demeanor and adversarial relationship with the truth.

The one constant about Biden has been his essential meanness, which, when combined with his well-known predilection for telling tall tales about his own life, is a formula for slander of all those who are not materially contributing to his success.

He recounts his lies even about the man involved in the traffic accident that tragically killed his first wife and daughter. Biden’s grief, says Tobin, “is to be pitied,” though his lies about it are “despicable.” LIkewise despicable was his family’s treatment of another family that lost a loved one in an accident caused by Joe’s brother Frank, who was egged on by Joe’s son Hunter.

Tobin moves on to the fact that “the evidence of his meanness in his public life has been just as abundant.” That includes plagiarism for speeches, smearing of judicial nominees, and the personal destruction of a woman — Tara Reade — “the woman who has accused him of sexual misconduct.” He continues:

Even as he showed us just how unfit he was to be president during the debate with Trump, he also gave the nation more reasons to doubt his good character. Recycling the lie that Trump claimed the neo-Nazis at the 2017 Charlottesville rally were “very fine people” is standard Democrat rhetoric. But a decent politician would have dropped it since even Snopes labeled the claim as “false” only a week before the debate.

But Trump, scream Biden’s supporters. And they have a point, concedes Tobin, though he concludes:

But, unlike Biden, Trump has never claimed to be a paragon of virtue. In fact, he has enjoyed his “bad boy” reputation, and a lot of voters love him because he doesn’t dissemble about it.

But whatever one can say about Trump not being an example of a virtuous public figure, Biden’s reputation as a good guy is as unfounded as any assertions of his greatness as a leader.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/108296-in-brief-joe-biden-is-not-a-decent-man-2024-07-09

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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Change of direction

As you will see below, I have stopped posting here about Covid and have reverted this blog to its original purpose of  examining Leftism critically.  My posts about Covid are now going up on a special new blog for that purpose called COVID WATCH

The change is the result of the fact that Google, who host this blog, have got very energetic in deleting my posts about Covid, so I need to put them up on a site that is out of their reach.  There are a  LOT of skeptical reports coming out now about  Covid and the responses to it so I want to be able to refer to them.

The new blog includes some posts that Google have censored in the past

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Is Trump a Fascist?

It's almost a conditioned reflex for Leftists these days to call Trump s Fascist. But they generlly just spit it out without making any real argument to support their claim. So the Leftist guy writing below is a refreshing change. He actually defines what he means by Fascism. And it is in part an accurate definition.

His basic problem is that he simply has no awareness of history -- no idea of what Fascism was when Italian dictator Benito Mussolini invented it. And a lot of national leaders of his time followed in Mussolini's footsteps, Franco, Pilsudsky, Salazar, Horthy, Peron and a certain Mr. A Hitler

So what WAS Fascism, historically? It was socialist. Mussolini was a respected Marxist intellectual. Is Trump a respected Marxist intellectual? I think you can see the problem.

The one thing the Fascists believed in and pursued is state power. As Mussolini defined his creed: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato".

Trump by contrast, is a fairly traditional American conservative, with a committment to capitalism, patriotsm and individual liberty. He has never even tried to maroon his political opponents on remote islands (as Mussolini did) nor has be sent them to concentration camps, as Hitler did. And he has gained power exclusively by way a democratic election, which neither Hitler nor Mussonini did. Mussolini gained power via the famous "March on on Rome"

So in good Leftist style, the writer below is simply blind to the facts. He cannot see the difference betweeen a popular conservative and a dictator. He puffs up trivialities into major issues: Very Leftist.

Mainstream media have treated President Biden with prejudice and arrogance. Quite a few Democrats, reacting to this, treat any mention of President Biden’s fitness as disloyalty. This is mistaken, if understandable.

One source of the negative energy is Trump’s fascism. Focusing on it will not answer the question of what Democrats do, but will help us to understand the context in which the discussion is taking place. By fascism I just have in mind (1) the cult of personality of a Leader: (2) the party that becomes a single party; (3) the threat and use of violence; and (4) the big lie that must be accepted and used to reshape reality: in this case, that Trump can never lose an election.

Much more could be said (as I have done elsewhere), but it is the official big lie and the threats of violence that are dangerous to those whose job is to report truth. Trump is on the record as regarding reports as enemies of the people. What should I make — a journalist might ask — of Trump’s talk of arresting journalists? When not confronted, such questions become self-realizing fears.

That’s the subtle version. Meanwhile, those higher up in corporations might like the ratings Trump brings, or like Trump himself. And so it is easiest to keep things personal — give Trump time, on the self-deluding logic that he will discredit himself, and focus on Biden’s age rather than his achievements. For reporters it can feel like the work is being done when only Biden is at the receiving end of criticism — whereas, in fact, the ground has been shifted by fascism, or by the inability to confront it.

And so fascism spreads and settles in our minds during this, the crucial period between Trump’s first coup attempt and his second. The Biden administration is being held to standards, while the previous Trump administration is not; and Biden personally is being held to standards, while Trump as a person is not. This helps to generate a fascist aura. There must be something special about Trump such that he is different from others: a Leader beyond criticism rather than just an indebted hack or a felon from Queens or a client of a Russian dictator.

It should seem odd that media calls to step down were not first directed to Trump. If we are calling for Biden to step aside because someone must stop Trump from bringing down the republic, then surely it would have made more sense to first call for Trump to step aside? (The Philadelphia Inquirer did). I know the counter-arguments: his people wouldn’t have cared, and he wouldn’t have listened. The first misses an important point. There are quite a few Americans who have not made up their minds. The second amounts to obeying in advance. If you accept that a fascist is beyond your reach, you have normalized your submission.

When media folks describe discussions among Democrats as chaos and disarray, they are implicitly suggesting that it is better for a leader of a party to never be questioned. (Why, after all, is being part of an array a good thing?) An obvious point goes missed: Democrats can say what they want, because none of them is afraid. And that is good! Governor Maura Healey can express her dissent and Joe Biden can express his frustration with her — but no one is worried about her physical safety.

Trump, by contrast, controls his party through stochastic terror, threats issued through social media that his cult followers can be expected to realize. Republicans leave politics because they fear for themselves and their families. Those who remain all obey in advance. That is new, and it should not be normal, and it should not spread any further. But it becomes normal when we treat discussions, and not coercion, as abnormal.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/fascist-froth

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Rachel Reeves: 'I'll rip up rules on planning within days'

Well blow me down! This is the last thing I would have expected to hear from a British Labour party minister. It is almost Trump-like. Whether she will be able to stick to her guns is the question. It will be very good for Britain if she manages it

Rachel Reeves will declare war on Britain's planning system today. Vowing to take the 'difficult decisions' needed to boost economic growth, the new Chancellor will use her first major speech to reveal that the Government is beginning its assault on the planning rules.

Before MPs break for the summer at the end of the month, councils will be issued with mandatory targets to clear the way for hundreds of thousands of new homes.

And ministers will begin work on controversial plans to weaken protections for some parts of the green belt to make room for development.

Ministers are also looking to relax planning rules for major infrastructure projects, such as the installation of hundreds of miles of new electricity pylons needed to link up wind and solar farms to the grid.

Ms Reeves will today declare that, with the public finances already stretched, boosting Britain's sluggish economic growth is the 'only route to improving the prosperity of our country'.

She will say last week's landslide election win gives Labour a 'mandate' for radical change – and will insist that planning reform is among the 'first steps' needed to 'fix the foundations of our economy, so we can rebuild Britain'.

'Our manifesto was clear: Sustained economic growth is the only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working people,' she will say. 'Where governments have been unwilling to take the difficult decisions to deliver growth – or have waited too long to act – I will deliver.

'It is now a national mission. There is no time to waste.' Ms Reeves was appointed as Britain's first female Chancellor on Friday, and warned that there was 'not much money around'.

But union leaders, who have bankrolled Labour for decades, are already pushing her to open the spending taps.

Unite boss Sharon Graham said there was scope for the Government to borrow tens of billions of pounds to 'invest' in the economy and public services. She urged Ms Reeves to scrap Labour's tight fiscal rules and pour billions into Britain's 'crumbling public services'.

'We are going to have to borrow to invest,' she told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. 'We have not got time to wait for growth. 'People are literally hurting out there and we are going to have to borrow to invest – our crumbling public services need money.'

Ms Graham's intervention is the first warning shot from the Left – and an early sign that the Labour leadership may find it hard to resist reverting to its tax-and-spend traditions.

The union boss warned that new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer 'won't have a lot of honeymoon period' unless he delivers quickly.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, on the same programme, called for a 'decisive break with austerity'.

Sir Keir yesterday began a whistle-stop tour of the UK with a visit to Scotland, where he promised an 'immediate reset' of relations with the devolved administrations.

Tomorrow he will travel to the Nato summit in Washington where he will seek to reassure leaders that his Government can be trusted on defence despite ditching Rishi Sunak's pledge to raise military spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade.

Labour's decision to target the planning system immediately is likely to bring it into conflict with both countryside campaigners and those communities that feel they are already at the limit of development their area can take.

It could also trigger a backlash from some of its own MPs who represent a swathe of constituencies across southern England where planning reform has been resisted for years.

During the election campaign, one Labour official said the party was prepared to 'flatten the whole green belt'. This was denied by Labour.

Ben Houchen, Tory mayor of Tees Valley, said promising rapid growth on the back of planning reform could become 'a noose around the Labour Party's neck'.

He added: 'How keen are the Labour Government to tinker with environmental regulations which is one of the largest delays in the planning system?'

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/rachel-reeves-i-ll-rip-up-rules-on-planning-within-days/ar-BB1pzola

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://jonjayray.com/covidwatch.html (COVID WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

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