Signs of intelligent life: SCOTUS hears Trump’s appeal of Colorado ballot case
SCOTUS hasn’t heard a potentially more consequential election case since Bush v. Gore in 2000, which involved another portion of the 14th Amendment, Bush’s right to the equal protection clause.
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Daily Bible Verse
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
Newsletter Notes
9 stories
3,879 words
Reading time: About 18 minutes
JOBS NUMBER UPDATE:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that a staggering 353,000 jobs were created in January, a shocking number considering the general state of the economy under Biden and that it was nearly double what economists predicted. It also seemed odd compared to a different metric, the Household Survey, which estimated a net loss of 35,000 jobs. So how is this possible?
As Steven Green at PJ Media reports, it isn’t possible, unless you make a lot of “assumptions” about job creation, and you know what the word “assume” means (Hint: ass+u+me.)
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/02/05/january-jobs-data-actually-sucked-n4926132
“The Unhappy Meal”
The White House can’t figure out why Americans aren’t grateful for the great economy that’s been created by Bidenomics. Maybe they’re sore because they just came from McDonald’s, where they had to pay $18 for a Big Mac, medium drink and medium fries. Or as I call that, “The Unhappy Meal.”
Craziness
Continuing its never-ending crusade to take on the real issues that are most vital to animal welfare, the group PETA is calling on America’s largest manufacturer of amusement park rides to stop using wooden or plastic representations of animals on its merry-go-rounds.
This might be a good time to note that “The Merry-Go-Round Ran Down” is the actual name of the theme song for Looney Tunes. I don't know why that just occurred to me…
Trump wins the Nevada GOP caucuses
Thursday, Donald Trump won the Nevada GOP caucuses with a staggering 98% of the vote. Nikki Haley didn’t participate, claiming it was “rigged” by Trump supporters. That might explain Trump’s huge margin of victory, but it doesn’t explain why there was also record turnout.
Click that link to read Trump’s comments upon winning. He was surprisingly somber and subdued, as he recounted the many problems and tragedies that America and the world have suffered under the Biden Administration, tribulations that he said would never have happened if he had remained in office. I think what’s terrifying a lot of Democrat politicians is how many Americans are starting to realize that that isn’t just Trump’s ego talking. He’s right.
Trump also won the GOP primary election in the Virgin Islands, where Haley was on the ballot. He beat her by 74%-26%.
Line of the Day:
Trump lawyer Alina Habba told Sean Hannity that Trump is running against an opponent (Biden) who “can’t even spell ‘Bob’ backwards.”
Non Compos Mentis
By Kenneth Allard
Live long enough and your greatest achievements may come back to haunt you. Since last fall, the Harvard diploma hanging on my wall arouses only mixed feelings. I feel the same way about the counter-intelligence officer badge, proudly framed on my living room wall. Being an Army special agent once seemed like a dream come true; our duties fighting national security crimes closely paralleled those of the FBI, particularly a shared ethos of professionalism and impartiality.
But today those ideals seem as sadly tarnished as academic objectivity at Harvard, the accountability waiver issued by James Comey to Hillary Clinton or the Russia-gate hoax of Robert Mueller. On February 8th, that infamous record was extended yet again, when special counsel Robert Hur stated in his report to Attorney General Merrick Garland:
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen. These materials included (1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and (2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden's handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods. FBI agents recovered these materials from the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden's Wilmington, Delaware home.”
Despite these damning findings, however, Mr. Hur concluded that this “evidence is not sufficient to convict, and we decline to recommend prosecution of Mr. Biden.” Although the classified documents in Mr. Biden’s possession reached back years, the prosecutor also opined that, “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf
How can such an addled octogenarian run for re-election? Even sympathetic-to-a-fault CNN had to add that the report “painted a picture of a forgetful commander in chief who failed to properly protect highly sensitive classified information – a depiction that could hurt Biden politically.”https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/08/politics/takeaways-joe-biden-special-counsel-report/index.html.
Somewhat predictably, the New York Times noted that “Former President Donald J. Trump, is likely to seize on the report to downplay his own legal woes — and to claim the Justice Department has targeted him politically while letting Mr. Biden escape punishment.” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/07/us/politics/robert-hur-biden-special-counsel-report.html
To summarize the report and its findings: The good news is that Joe Biden dodged yet another set of criminal charges; but the bad news is that his steadily worsening mental condition raises more fundamental issues. Mr. Biden’s gaffes have already become so frequent as to raise serious questions about his grasp of fundamentals: Who is Hamas and which foreign leader(s) are still alive and kicking? With his difficulties seemingly worsening daily, questions abound concerning Mr. Biden’s competence on the world stage as well as his suitability as a presidential candidate. Like a telescope gradually coming into focus, the public picture of Joe Biden is not what the American people were told four years ago, COVID-restricted glimpses amidst an intrinsically deceptive campaign. Nowadays, hearing his voice weaken to the point of incoherence inevitably sets off alarm bells; his rants look even more alarming when repeated endlessly on late-night TV.
Some observers are already wondering if the Biden presidency may end with the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which covers presidential disabilities. Naturally, the publication of the Hur Report set off new speculation, House Speaker Mike Johnson arguing that Mr. Biden “is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2024/02/08/republicans-call-for-bidens-removal-by-25th-amendment-after-hur-report-what-it-is-and-why-that-wont-happen/?sh=1776d3804ca7
But in an incisive 2022 article, Merrill Mathews wrote that the recent Donald Trump controversies showed that most invocations of the 25th Amendment were little more than partisan flag-waving. Looking ahead, he wrote presciently,
“More likely, I think, would be a full-court press by Democratic leaders to convince Biden not to run for reelection…So, if Democratic leaders feel Biden isn’t up to running again, they could use the 25th Amendment provision as leverage to get him to agree.” https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3714038-is-a-25th-amendment-removal-in-joe-bidens-future/
With wars on the far horizon amidst unrest at home, is there a Non Compos Mentis moment in our future?
Colonel Ken Allard is a former West Point faculty member, Dean of the National War College and an on-air military analyst for NBC News.
Tucker interviews Putin
Last night, Tucker Carlson posted his two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Twitter (X.) With so much other big news to cover, we haven’t had time to watch it all yet, but here are some recaps of some of the main points. The first one includes a link to the entire interview, but it's queued up to near the end, where Carlson presses Putin to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovitz, who’s been held in a Russian prison for nearly a year.
I noticed that USA Today once again tried without evidence to tie Trump to Putin, headlining a story about the interview with the claim that Trump’s plan for ending the Ukraine war “echoes Putin.” But in the article, they took another gratuitous slap at Trump for saying he would end the Russian-Ukraine war within days but without saying how. My question: If he didn’t say what his plan was, then how could it “echo Putin”?
Frankly, if Putin sounded like any Western politician, it was during his ludicrous defense of China as a peaceful, non-aggressive trading partner, which echoed Joe Biden.
Finally, show of hands: How many who watched the interview believed everything Putin said and were swayed to rally to his side? Nobody? Good, then free speech is working just as it's supposed to, and we don't need any government or media censors telling us what we're not allowed to hear.