Just One Thing: Different presidents, similar flaws
MONDAY UPDATE: In letter to House Democrats, Biden says he's staying in the race
Here's the letter: President Biden Letter to Congressional Democrats 7.8 - DocumentCloud
Some of the key criticisms of Donald Trump are that he was willing to hurt the country to stay in power, that many of his supporters cheered those efforts, and that he surrounded himself with “yes-men” which prevented him from getting accurate information and making the best decisions. I think those assertions are basically correct, but something remarkable has happened: Every single one of those things is now clearly true of Joe Biden as well. Our nation would be at massive risk if a man with significant cognitive decline were re-elected but he intends to stay, his supporters back him despite the risk, and he’s clearly only hearing from people who are telling him that he can beat Donald Trump. Truly incredible that the US can’t do better than these two men.
Trying to recover from his disastrous debate performance on June 27, President Biden waited 8 days, until July 5, to sit down for an interview. While I expected a very friendly questioning from former Bill Clinton Press Secretary (and Trump hater) George Stephanopoulos, the opposite was true. Stephanopoulos asked hard question after hard question and basically never stopped. This doesn't mean that George was actually practicing journalism as much as he was both implicitly and explicitly imploring Biden to get out of the race so that Dems might have a chance to beat Trump. (I maintain my view that it's more likely than not that Biden doesn't get pushed out. The only way he gets out is if Jill tells him to and I don't see that coming.) While the ABC interview wasn't a train wreck for Biden, it also did nothing to calm the nerves of Dems who think that keeping Biden as their nominee will not just get Donald Trump re-elected but also hurt Democratic candidates for the House and Senate (and maybe in state and local races too.)
The interview is 22 minutes long and if you watch it at a higher speed (changeable in settings, with the gear icon), you can get through it pretty quick. The short version: Biden doesn't believe the polling that shows him behind, will not take a neurological/cognitive test and share results with the public, and has no plans to get out of the race unless "the lord almighty comes down" and tell him to do so.
Which brings Nate Silver to call for Biden to drop out...
Meanwhile, the most likely replacement for Biden if he is replaced is Cackling Kamala Harris. I mean, she can't be a complete idiot and gotten where she's gotten, although Biden did it and he was always one of the dumbest people in the Capitol.
I note that there's some conversation among Dems about something like a "mini-primary" to choose a replacement for Biden. I think that's a mistake. If Harris (or anybody else) wins a narrow and contested victory, it weakens that candidate. The last thing Dems need is to have an even weaker candidate.
Kamala's past few years have been a policy and PR disaster. She's the "border czar"...how's that working out? Her staged conversation with kids about NASA. Her insane word salads. And this insanity...you only need to play a minute or less to get the idea:
Which brings us this from The Babylon Bee: Report: Kamala About To Unburden Herself From What Has Been | Babylon Bee
And as if the jabs at Biden couldn't get more merciless: White House Installs Touch And Learn Activity Desk In Oval Office So Biden Can Feel Like He's Working While Jill Is Running The Country | Babylon Bee
Today's Guests
Jeremy Fey is the mayor of Central City, Colorado. We had him on to discuss a proposal at the city council, that he seems to support with moderate enthusiasm, to allow a sexually-oriented business ("SOB") aka a strip club on Main Street in the heart of the town. We had a resident of the town on a day or two later and that person said that Mayor Fey has significant conflicts of interest including having sold a building to RCI aka Rick's Cabaret, the company proposing the strip club. Additional claims are that Fey rents space from RCI and has taken a private airplane flight, paid for by RCI, to meet with them in Texas. I wanted to give the mayor the chance to respond to these accusations, along with anything else he wants to add about the issue itself.
Central City strip club plan gets pushback | FOX31 (kdvr.com)
Antjuan Seawright is a Democratic strategist and founder of Blueprint Strategy. We'll discuss the state of the Biden candidacy and in particular implications for "the black vote" if Biden gets out and is replaced by Harris...or if somehow, and I think this is very unlikely at this point, he's replaced by someone else.
Home - Blueprint Strategy, LLC (blueprintstrategyllc.com)
Follow him on Twitter/X here: https://x.com/antjuansea
Other Stuff
You don't see this very often with a company this large: Boeing will plead guilty to fraud in 737 Max crash case - The Washington Post (subscription may be required)
Three stories on non-US elections: France, the UK, and Iran
"Tactical voting" crushes right-wing election hopes in France. Seriously, even with the coordination that I explained on the show last week, I don't think anybody predicted this outcome. In particular, in the first round of French parliamentary elections (like congressional elections here, more or less), the right (or far-right, depending on your viewpoint) National Rally ("RN") party had a significant lead and were hoping they might actually achieve an outright majority of at least 289 seats in the National Assembly. However, for the second round, left-wing and center-left parties coordinated to have their lowest-polling candidates drop out of races hoping that voters who didn't support the RN would then coalesce around a single candidate. (Imagine, for example, in the Colorado Republican congressional primary won by Lauren Boebert what might have happened if she had had one opponent instead of 5.) It worked. Beyond the left's wildest expectations. Now the RN is expected to have fewer than 150 seats. The far-left New Popular Front ("NFP") will have about 180 seats and the centrists (the party of the current president, Emmanuel Macron) nearly 170.
Nobody is close to an outright majority. It's a recipe for stalemate and chaos, especially with the largest party being run by an anti-Semitic socialist lunatic. Some relatively sane people may need to try to assemble a coalition to get over 289 while trying to exclude the craziest folks in the RN and the craziest folks in the NFP. I don't know if it's possible. One thing that could happen is that some folks on the not-quite-insane left would offer to partner with Macron's party if Macron reverses his national pension reform...which he absolutely should not do.
I remind American voters that the far left in France is way to the left of the American left...the least crazy of them is basically aligned with Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris. And their leader is an anti-Semite: 'No future for Jews': Prominent French Jews decry far-left's gains in vote | The Times of Israel
[Muslim immigration into France is a big problem for Jews and for economic sanity. There appears to be significant overlap between Islam and leftism though I don't know why: Why French Jews Believed the Political Right Could Save Them—and France | The Free Press (thefp.com) It's certainly true here in the US as well that there is more anti-Semitism on the left than on the right...which is not to say that there isn't right wing (such as neo-Nazi) anti-Semitism. But if you look at Congress, for example, and at universities, the openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel voices are all of the left.]
And the least crazy on the French far right would be as far right as the most 2 or 3 "ultra-MAGA" members of the House of Representatives. It's hard for many Americans to understand just how radical the politics can be there. Also, the French people are, compared to Americans, lazy and entitled. They want 35-hour work weeks and massive pensions when they retire young and the strike at the drop of a hat when the government does anything to try to delay running out of other people's money.
By far the biggest loss for Britain's Conservative Party in its history, but it doesn't actually mean there's strong support for the left-leaning Labour Party: UK election tracker: Map of results hour by hour | CNN
I note that Keir Starmer, the leader of Labour, is a relative moderate...far more palatable that the socialist anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn whose pathetic "leadership" put Labour so far behind that it took a truly monumental amount of Tory (conservative) incompetence to bring Labour not just back into contention but into a huge majority: UK election tracker: Map of results hour by hour | CNN
I agree with this analysis that the result is far more anti-incumbent and anti-incompetence than pro-Labour/leftism: Why a disillusioned, angry Britain voted for change – POLITICO
In Iran, another surprise outcome, as the hardliner was expected to win: Just because he's not the "hardliner" doesn't mean he's actually a moderate. No moderates are allowed to run. Still, I suspect he'll be modestly better for the Iranian people than the alternative. Masoud Pezeshkian wins Iran's presidential runoff election | AP News
Biden Stuff
When I saw Biden holding a pen throughout his ABC interview, my thought was that it was an effort to suppress a tremor such as one might have with Parkinson's disease. This is of course pure speculation on my part though this adds fuel to that fire: President Biden's physician met with Parkinson's disease specialist in White House (nypost.com) Here's the doctor who visited: Dr. Kevin Cannard, MD – Bethesda, MD | Neurology (doximity.com)
Wait…what? The Question of Joe Biden’s Age May Be a Matter of Style - The New York Times (nytimes.com) (In which a NYT writer compares Joe Biden's senescence to the "late style" of Beethoven and Clint Eastwood. I'm not kidding. I reads like satire but it isn't.)
So what % of the time is OK for the “leader of the free world” to be “confused and forgetful”? Biden at 81: Sharp, focused but sometimes confused, forgetful | AP News
Et tu, New York Magazine? The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden (nymag.com)
Et tu, Ruth Marcus? Opinion | What we’ve already learned from the cognitive test Biden won’t take - The Washington Post (subscription may be required)
Speaks for itself: Hollywood donors urge Biden to step aside as they feel deceived (axios.com)
And this: Walmart Billionaire Calls For Biden To Drop Out (forbes.com)
This is not uncommon. The hosts could/should have agreed to ask at least one or two of the suggested questions but also retained the right to ask their own questions: Biden campaign sent questions for post-debate interviews (thehill.com)
I agree: Trump’s New Running Mate Imperative - WSJ
In global military news, the Netherlands will start sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine "without delay": Ukraine war briefing: Chinese troops hold military exercises with Belarus on Polish border | Ukraine | The Guardian
I'm not sure why I want to share this story with you, but I do: My Wife Died. Here Is How I Deal With Grief. | HuffPost HuffPost Personal
I believe that supporting Ukraine -- intelligently and with as good an understanding as possible regarding the actual destination of our tax dollars (which are mostly in the form of weapons in this case) -- is in America's national interest. But I'm impressed with the evenhanded treatment of the "skeptics" in this Politico article: The War Vets Who Want to Erode Support for Ukraine - POLITICO
I don't care about "net zero" but anyone who does should be pounding the table in support of rapid deployment of more nuclear power: Google’s Net Zero Plans Are Going Up In Smoke (substack.com)
I have no idea if this will work, but that doesn't mean I think it won't. AI really is going to change almost everything. AI-Driven Behavior Change Could Transform Health Care | TIME
One heck of a cleanup job: Mount Everest's highest camp is littered with frozen garbage | AP News
You know what I'm going to say, right? STDs jumped nearly a quarter among seniors during the pandemic (axios.com)
This is a shockingly poorly written headline: GLP-1 drugs may lower risk of 10 cancers, including Ozempic
Come on, you can be more creative than this: Drugs disguised as Taco Bell burritos found during traffic stop | WFLA
Today's Videos
Another great John Stossel video, taking apart the idiots who have for many decades been saying that the human race is "not sustainable."
NASCAR unveils electric race car prototype
Chicago sequel spotlights evolution of wet-weather racing in NASCAR