Will Kamala Harris get the nod to replace Biden despite her obvious baggage? It is certainly possible.
However, the longer the Democrats take to settle on a Biden replacement the weaker they look.
At the moment Harris is staying very loyal to Biden, which makes tapping her for the top spot on the ticket difficult. The longer she stays with Biden, the less credible she's going to look if/when she tries to step up into his spot on the ticket. That's the real damage of the June 27th debate debacle. Plausible deniability ended with that debate performance, and now it's plain that every Democrat of consequence knows full well Biden's mental state.
Which means Harris is not going to be all that believable when she has an 11th-hour revelation that Biden has dementia right before the convention.
The domino theory gets wildly overstated, but we need to remember that Russia's security doctrine for the past 300 years has required them dominating Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Caucasus.
In 2022 Medvedev spoke of the "need" to redraw Poland's borders.
The reason NATO opted to turn Ukraine into a meat grinder is they want to neutralize Russia's military force projection capacity. The reason Poland and the Baltic States joined NATO as quickly as they could was because those peoples firmly believed Russia would eventually use force to rebuild its historical defensive borders -- borders which involve the subjugation of a few hundred million non-Russians.
I have maintained all along that Putin's strategic blunder was sacrificing his economic leverage over Europe for military pressure in Ukraine.
Given that there is no retirement plan for Putin, blunders like that are something we need to be worried about.
And the US security doctrine is the meddle anywhere and everywhere, destabilizing countries at our discretion.
Russia is completely justified is defending their interests in Ukraine and anywhere else.
The admission of Finland into NATO was another needless provocation - that could easily have started a formal world war - which is apparently what the US and NATO are looking for and may still get.
Let us be crystal clear on one thing: Russia had NO justification for invading Ukraine.
Whatever security concerns Russia has, those do not justify invading another country, nor can they ever be used to justify invading another country.
Any argument to the contrary is immoral and frankly obscene.
As for Finland joining NATO, given Russia's history of aggression towards Finland (Winter War, Continuation War), Putin's decision to invade Ukraine (WITHOUT provocation) shifted the geopolitical calculus in Europe to where Finland was always going to exchange its longstanding position of neutrality for joining NATO as a consequence.
There is plenty about NATO policy regarding the war in Ukraine that deserves criticism and which can also be described as morally obscene, but none of that alters the reality that Vladimir Putin and Russia started this war in Ukraine, not the United States and NATO.
I try not to gloat - really - but, boy, this no-win mess is nobody’s fault but the Democrats themselves. They’ve played dirty politics and DEI-correct endorsing, and used tactics to get around every Constitutional measure meant to prevent power-usurping. Now they have an impossible situation. I wonder if even THEY have thought, “wait - do we really want word-salad Harris at the helm in the event of WW3?” (What a horrifying image!)
Peter, I am intrigued by your idea (from yesterday’s Substack note) of ‘pulling a Spiro Agnew’. That’s brilliant! Sure, hope that Biden wins, then politically stab Harris so that she can be booted out, then Biden steps down and - a la Gerald Ford - a fresh, new Democrat is appointed President, “for the good of the country”.
The cringe-worthy part is WHO would be appointed? God no, not Gavin Newsom! Or Michelle, or Hillary. That’s why I’m wondering about what factions are coming together to put forward the ‘eventual replacement’ of Biden. We can count on you, Peter, to keep us informed about developing back-room deals. Thanks!
Yes! And if YOU can see that our current leaders are paralyzed and helpless, what do you suppose is going on in the minds of Putin, Xi, and the nut cases in charge of North Korea and Iran? “Time to strike, comrades!” Horrifying, indeed!
The thing also to remember is that the reason we even have a President defined in the Constitution is to ensure the country was able to respond effectively to military crises.
Shay's Rebellion in 1786 was one of the catalyzing events for the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Even if Putin or Xi were inclined to mischief, the military and foreign policy spheres are where the President has the greatest freedom to act. That means Biden's handlers can act behind the scenes as they arguably have been doing.
Biden's infirmity does not make any sort of attack by Putin or Xi more likely. What it does is give us concern for the decisions that are being made day to day. Biden's handlers have not exactly shown themselves to be a bunch of brainiacs.
is a measure of reliability, expressed as the period of time of continuous operation and availability.
For the governing and managing a country like the US, uptime should be reasonably expected at 100%.
OK, things happen. Web hosting companies offer 99.9% network uptime guarantee - which is both reliable enough and acceptable when performance counts (which is the case of any branch of the government).
What does 99.9% uptime means?
364 days and 15 hours of excellent availability and flawless operation in each year.
This goes for your website. Now, think how much uptime you would like to have in matters concerning your life, health, safety, earning capacity, business opportunities, finance, or determinants of your personal life…
In business and politics, the show is more important than the real thing. The appearance is the key to draw attention (media), accumulate free money (stock exchange), discourage competition (patents), attract more powerful protectors (public relations), skew the public opinion into believing into what we want them to invest their time, money and trust (advertising).
I may be a lazy university dropout, with little interest in anything, and very little respect for anybody, but my websites and my podcasts will bring in tons of money if the put up a good show.
We always pretend to be better than we actually are.
Considering what we are seeing… how terrible the real thing must be…
Having been in businesses of several kinds for most of the past 30 years, I can say without any doubt or fear of contradiction that in business the "show" is not more important than the real thing.
The idiots covering for him are in trouble, and they know that they are. Their political futures are in doubt, and they don't know how to do anything else. The few at the top can look for 'media' jobs, the rest can look for anything, Biden Administration will net look good on a resume.
I was aware that the presser was happening. However, I tend to only prefer digests of such events, no matter who speaks. Courtesy of my Substack with Ms Emily Miller, I became aware of the Oval Office occupants mental degradation during the speech. The folly of the progressives keeping this very sick individual in power to further their own means and goals, is in my eyes an Eighth Amendment violation...not just on Biden but for the American constituency at large. Such a treatment angers me extremely.
As a general rule, I don't find press conferences to be worth the time and effort of watching.
However, given the fracas that has been ongoing since the June 27th debate, if I'm going to be commenting on this topic I needed to see for myself how he acquitted himself during the press conference.
This has to be the first press conference in Presidential history where the fact-checking takes a back seat to whether or not the President sounded like he still had a functioning brain.
Mental function... should that be a very overarching concern on anyone that we give power to? I see a pandemic of unchecked insanity while my mental health needs to remain enthralled.
Good analysis about Kamala being tainted with child trafficking.
The meltdown in support for Biden continues:
https://www.startribune.com/donors-to-pro-biden-super-pac-are-said-to-withhold-roughly-90-million/600380300/
What's interesting in that story is the statement that Harris is being poll-tested against Donald Trump.
Virtually all previous polling of that matchup favors Trump. Until recently Trump has been heavily favored in one-on-one polling against Harris.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris
Will Kamala Harris get the nod to replace Biden despite her obvious baggage? It is certainly possible.
However, the longer the Democrats take to settle on a Biden replacement the weaker they look.
At the moment Harris is staying very loyal to Biden, which makes tapping her for the top spot on the ticket difficult. The longer she stays with Biden, the less credible she's going to look if/when she tries to step up into his spot on the ticket. That's the real damage of the June 27th debate debacle. Plausible deniability ended with that debate performance, and now it's plain that every Democrat of consequence knows full well Biden's mental state.
Which means Harris is not going to be all that believable when she has an 11th-hour revelation that Biden has dementia right before the convention.
And he still trots out the “domino theory” - the classic non-thinkers line to demonize Russia.
The domino theory gets wildly overstated, but we need to remember that Russia's security doctrine for the past 300 years has required them dominating Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Caucasus.
In 2022 Medvedev spoke of the "need" to redraw Poland's borders.
The reason NATO opted to turn Ukraine into a meat grinder is they want to neutralize Russia's military force projection capacity. The reason Poland and the Baltic States joined NATO as quickly as they could was because those peoples firmly believed Russia would eventually use force to rebuild its historical defensive borders -- borders which involve the subjugation of a few hundred million non-Russians.
I have maintained all along that Putin's strategic blunder was sacrificing his economic leverage over Europe for military pressure in Ukraine.
Given that there is no retirement plan for Putin, blunders like that are something we need to be worried about.
And the US security doctrine is the meddle anywhere and everywhere, destabilizing countries at our discretion.
Russia is completely justified is defending their interests in Ukraine and anywhere else.
The admission of Finland into NATO was another needless provocation - that could easily have started a formal world war - which is apparently what the US and NATO are looking for and may still get.
It’s crystal clear alright - everything since the coup of 2014 was a pretext to draw Russia into a fight - and it worked.
The problem is that there is no end game short of a nuclear exchange - Russia will never back down.
Let us be crystal clear on one thing: Russia had NO justification for invading Ukraine.
Whatever security concerns Russia has, those do not justify invading another country, nor can they ever be used to justify invading another country.
Any argument to the contrary is immoral and frankly obscene.
As for Finland joining NATO, given Russia's history of aggression towards Finland (Winter War, Continuation War), Putin's decision to invade Ukraine (WITHOUT provocation) shifted the geopolitical calculus in Europe to where Finland was always going to exchange its longstanding position of neutrality for joining NATO as a consequence.
There is plenty about NATO policy regarding the war in Ukraine that deserves criticism and which can also be described as morally obscene, but none of that alters the reality that Vladimir Putin and Russia started this war in Ukraine, not the United States and NATO.
I try not to gloat - really - but, boy, this no-win mess is nobody’s fault but the Democrats themselves. They’ve played dirty politics and DEI-correct endorsing, and used tactics to get around every Constitutional measure meant to prevent power-usurping. Now they have an impossible situation. I wonder if even THEY have thought, “wait - do we really want word-salad Harris at the helm in the event of WW3?” (What a horrifying image!)
Peter, I am intrigued by your idea (from yesterday’s Substack note) of ‘pulling a Spiro Agnew’. That’s brilliant! Sure, hope that Biden wins, then politically stab Harris so that she can be booted out, then Biden steps down and - a la Gerald Ford - a fresh, new Democrat is appointed President, “for the good of the country”.
The cringe-worthy part is WHO would be appointed? God no, not Gavin Newsom! Or Michelle, or Hillary. That’s why I’m wondering about what factions are coming together to put forward the ‘eventual replacement’ of Biden. We can count on you, Peter, to keep us informed about developing back-room deals. Thanks!
At the moment, there's no faction stepping up at all.
If any part of this is truly horrifying, it's that the Democrats are completely paralyzed and impotent here.
Yes! And if YOU can see that our current leaders are paralyzed and helpless, what do you suppose is going on in the minds of Putin, Xi, and the nut cases in charge of North Korea and Iran? “Time to strike, comrades!” Horrifying, indeed!
Thankfully, Putin and Xi have their own problems.
The thing also to remember is that the reason we even have a President defined in the Constitution is to ensure the country was able to respond effectively to military crises.
Shay's Rebellion in 1786 was one of the catalyzing events for the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
Even if Putin or Xi were inclined to mischief, the military and foreign policy spheres are where the President has the greatest freedom to act. That means Biden's handlers can act behind the scenes as they arguably have been doing.
Biden's infirmity does not make any sort of attack by Putin or Xi more likely. What it does is give us concern for the decisions that are being made day to day. Biden's handlers have not exactly shown themselves to be a bunch of brainiacs.
Uptime
is a measure of reliability, expressed as the period of time of continuous operation and availability.
For the governing and managing a country like the US, uptime should be reasonably expected at 100%.
OK, things happen. Web hosting companies offer 99.9% network uptime guarantee - which is both reliable enough and acceptable when performance counts (which is the case of any branch of the government).
What does 99.9% uptime means?
364 days and 15 hours of excellent availability and flawless operation in each year.
This goes for your website. Now, think how much uptime you would like to have in matters concerning your life, health, safety, earning capacity, business opportunities, finance, or determinants of your personal life…
As a matter of practicality, 100% uptime for any human being is not possible. This includes the President of the United States.
However, the performance we're seeing from Biden means his uptime as President is damn near 0%.
In business and politics, the show is more important than the real thing. The appearance is the key to draw attention (media), accumulate free money (stock exchange), discourage competition (patents), attract more powerful protectors (public relations), skew the public opinion into believing into what we want them to invest their time, money and trust (advertising).
I may be a lazy university dropout, with little interest in anything, and very little respect for anybody, but my websites and my podcasts will bring in tons of money if the put up a good show.
We always pretend to be better than we actually are.
Considering what we are seeing… how terrible the real thing must be…
Having been in businesses of several kinds for most of the past 30 years, I can say without any doubt or fear of contradiction that in business the "show" is not more important than the real thing.
Ha, you probably mean business by honest people who care and who deliver :-)
The idiots covering for him are in trouble, and they know that they are. Their political futures are in doubt, and they don't know how to do anything else. The few at the top can look for 'media' jobs, the rest can look for anything, Biden Administration will net look good on a resume.
I was aware that the presser was happening. However, I tend to only prefer digests of such events, no matter who speaks. Courtesy of my Substack with Ms Emily Miller, I became aware of the Oval Office occupants mental degradation during the speech. The folly of the progressives keeping this very sick individual in power to further their own means and goals, is in my eyes an Eighth Amendment violation...not just on Biden but for the American constituency at large. Such a treatment angers me extremely.
As a general rule, I don't find press conferences to be worth the time and effort of watching.
However, given the fracas that has been ongoing since the June 27th debate, if I'm going to be commenting on this topic I needed to see for myself how he acquitted himself during the press conference.
This has to be the first press conference in Presidential history where the fact-checking takes a back seat to whether or not the President sounded like he still had a functioning brain.
Mental function... should that be a very overarching concern on anyone that we give power to? I see a pandemic of unchecked insanity while my mental health needs to remain enthralled.