May 24, 2025

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden Ads Never Ran Because the Campaign Believed They Were ‘Unusable.’

Before Joe Biden dropped out, his campaign team had a devil of a time trying to find footage from campaign events they could use that would demonstrate Biden’s ability to go “off script” and communicate with voters.

According to the book “Original Sin” by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, at one point, the campaign decided to stage a town hall with handpicked audience members and staffers. Biden was given the questions in advance, supposedly ensuring he would provide the kind of answers that would make for footage showing him in charge of his faculties and with a firm grasp of the facts.

It was a failure. According to “Original Sin,” the event “went so poorly” that “people in the campaign determined the town hall yielded unusable material.”

The event was closed to the press. Only his most fervent supporters were present and asking questions Biden knew were coming. “Biden had trouble. The campaign ultimately decided that the footage wasn’t usable,” according to one of Tapper/Alexander’s sources on the campaign.

As I wrote last week, in 2023, the New Yorker linked to Biden’s video announcing “his” reelection bid, but failed to reference how little Joe himself actually appears on camera during the video, and how despite all of the audio editing in the voice over, he’s still slurring some words — but no member of the DNC-MSM wanted to go first in fear of throwing the election to the Bad Orange Man, and losing their access to the Obama Biden White House.

The following year, the conservative New York Post* reported, “Biden mocked over number of jump cuts in Trump debate challenge video: ‘Like a Claymation film.’” But the Democrats acted like their media really was Pravda, and forgot that in an age of diversified media, voters were still going to actually see see how badly Biden was performing, and how he was being propped up by his party’s operatives with bylines.

* A Murdoch newspaper, which was how Jake Tapper sneered away the Wall Street Journal’s reporting of Biden’s health declines in June of 2024: Wall Street Journal calls out Tapper for sneering at paper’s story about Biden’s decline.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called out CNN host Jake Tapper on Sunday for previously dismissing the paper’s June 2024 article about former President Joe Biden showing “signs of slipping.” The criticism comes as Tapper’s new book on Biden’s decline while in office is set to be released.

“The Wall Street Journal reported, in a detailed piece on June 4, 2024, that those who observed Mr. Biden in person were concerned about his decline. Mr. Tapper quoted a White House dismissal of the story, including a sneer that the Journal is ‘owned by News Corp, which is run by the Murdochs,’ as if that rebutted the story. He then interviewed a Democrat who dismissed it,” the paper’s editorial board wrote, recalling a segment from Tapper’s CNN show, “The Lead,” from last year.

“A more curious journalist would have explored if it were true, and maybe even done some of his own reporting. Only now does he tacitly admit the Journal was right,” the board added.

The Journal reported at the time that the president was showing “signs of slipping,” as its reporters spoke to 45 lawmakers and administration officials about Biden’s mental faculties. Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s new book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” will be released on Tuesday.

“The Biden senility coverup is also a media reckoning. Whenever someone dared to point out that Mr. Biden wasn’t up to the job, a praetorian media guard assembled to deny it. We could quote chapter and verse from many media sources, but one example worth citing is none other than Mr. Tapper. Grabien, the TV clip service, has compiled a montage of the CNN host casting doubt on those who cast doubt on Mr. Biden’s mental fitness,” the WSJ editors wrote.

Now that the campaign is concluded, and Jake needs to sell some books, can it can be told.

Posted at 5:42 pm by Ed Driscoll 38

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Southern Poverty Law Center Puts Largest Conservative Grassroots Youth Group on ‘Hate Map’ With Klan Chapters.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is comparing the largest conservative grassroots youth organization to the Ku Klux Klan, adding Turning Point USA to its “hate map” that plots KKK chapters and claims to expose “the groups upholding white supremacy in the United States.”

The latest version of the SPLC hate map, released Thursday, lists Turning Point USA for the first time, categorizing the group as an “anti-government extremist group.” The hate map also includes PragerU, a nonprofit that uses digital media to spread conservative ideas, putting it in the same category as Turning Point USA.

Critics have long accused the SPLC of liberal bias in applying its “hate” accusations, though the SPLC contests these claims.

Having seen many of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s videos “owning the libs” on YouTube, it’s tough to picture him as a crypto-Woodrow Wilson supporter who admires “the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party.”

As for Prager U, Tyler O’Neil writes:

PragerU told The Daily Signal that the SPLC did not reach out to them before putting the group on the “hate map.”

“No, they did not notify us and if they’d like to know how we feel about SPLC, we actually have an entire 5 minute video about them titled The “Anti-Hate” Group That Is a Hate Group,” a PragerU representative said.

Here’s that video:

Ultimately though, isn’t this all academic? As America’s Newspaper of Record noted in 2021: KKK Disbands As Progressive Left Accomplishing All Their Goals.

Posted at 5:19 pm by Ed Driscoll 61

JUST GOOD OLD ENGLISH VIOLENCE: The Roman massacre that never happened according to a new study of an iconic archaeological site. “A re-analysis of the burials, including a new program of radiocarbon dating, has revealed that, rather than dying in a single, catastrophic event, individuals fell over periods of lethal violence spanning multiple generations, spread across the late first century BC to the early first century AD. This is suggestive of episodic periods of bloodshed, possibly the result of localized turmoil, executions or dynastic infighting during the decades leading up to the Roman Conquest of Britain.”

Posted at 2:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 92

GET WOKE, GO…: Sales collapse forces ‘woke’ mega-brand to make humiliating U-turn and relist on Amazon.

America’s most popular shoe is coming back to Amazon.

After a five-year hiatus, Nike shoes, clothing, and accessories are returning to the e-commerce giant.

The athletic brand swiped its products from the platform in 2019, as part of a push to sell more directly to consumers.

Things began getting awfully weird at Nike in 2019, a company that once existed to sell sneakers, starting most prominently when they issued a pair of Betsy Ross-flag embedded sneakers, likely only so that uber-woke Nike endorser Colin Kaepernick could dunk on them, to coincide with the Fourth of July. In Nike’s collective mind, this was evil and “offensive:”

Last month, Nike displayed this billboard at the London Marathon:

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman tweeted, “The idea that @Nike would make light of the holocaust using Hitler-red imagery in a post-October 7th world is stunning. Heads need to roll. WTF Nike?”

WTF, indeed.

Posted at 12:44 pm by Ed Driscoll 164

I MEAN HE’S NOT WRONG:

Posted at 12:34 pm by Glenn Reynolds 158

DISPATCHES FROM A WANNABE VICE PRESIDENT:

Here was the “land of the free” in 2020:

Perhaps Walz is referring to this sort of “freedom,” which was Tweeted by his campaign partner during the riots in 2020, and is still online:

As Ed Morrissey wrote last year, ‘Light ‘Em Up:’ Paintball Tim? “The entire episode speaks to Walz’ utter incompetence as an executive in the public sector. He’s an authoritarian whose instincts run to either inaction or over-reaction. His pandemic management speaks volumes in that regard, especially his COVID-19 Snitch Line and his vicious punishment for those who dared defy his authoritarian rule by decree. Just ask Lisa Hanson, who served most of a 90-day jail sentence for trying to re-open her coffee and wine bistro…The Walz administration was still prosecuting these cases in December 2021. By that time, practically the entire country had reopened. Even most of Minnesota had reopened by that time. Rather than drop the case as moot, the state threw a business owner in jail for two months, which is about two months longer than nearly all of the rioters got. That’s how authoritarian Walz is by nature, and that’s the Tim Walz that Republicans need to expose.”

Mission very much accomplished there. So why is Walz still acting like Hiroo Onoda? When does he get word that the war is over?

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 114

A COOL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BICYCLE MENACE: Julie Burchill: Do cyclists know how hated they are?

I’ve found that people who support green politics are slightly nastier than others in their everyday life, feeling that they had ticked the nice box and therefore somehow won the right to be nasty. When I was a volunteer at a blind home a while ago, I’d regularly take a couple of sightless ladies out for a walk; we’d set out along the bustling main streets of our city, one on each arm, only for me to have to shove them roughly into the nearest doorway as some hulking brute drove a bike at us right there on the pavement.

Inevitably, people have been killed by cyclists; when they are, sentencing is risible. Until last year it was based on legislation from 1861 only allowing for a maximum two-year sentence; things are better now, but cyclists who kill are still treated far more leniently than motorists.

It’s not being paranoid to believe that a lot of this behaviour is another form of male violence towards women, as female cyclists also report frequent harassment by their male counterparts. Victoria Pendleton said: ‘If I’m out about on my road bike and I overtake a man, I will hear a rapid crunching of gears as they try to “make amends for it”… usually followed with a pedal-mashing stomp past me.’

Funny, I would think male lefty cyclists would be uber-Alan Alda-style feminists, but as Kate of Small Dead Animals likes to say, “Scratch a leftist, find a misogynist.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 10:45 am by Ed Driscoll 280

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: George Washington University Slapped With Lawsuit Alleging ‘Pervasive and Severe Antisemitic Harassment’ on Campus.

George Washington University (GW) was sued in federal court by Jewish students on Thursday, alleging it allowed “pervasive and severe antisemitic harassment” on campus for years without any action from the school’s leaders.

Students Sabrina Soffer, Ari Shapiro, and a group of anonymous plaintiffs accused GW of failing to address a surge in hostility towards Jewish students, particularly following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by allowing a “hostile educational environment” to flourish unchecked.

The 176-page complaint details a litany of incidents that paint GW as a campus where Jewish students face relentless intimidation. According to the filing, anti-Semitic acts include physical assaults, vandalism, and verbal harassment, with university administrators allegedly turning a blind eye. The lawsuit cites specific examples, such as anti-Israel protests that escalated into violence and Jewish students’ property being defaced with anti-Semitic slurs.

The lawsuit comes at a precarious time for elite universities as the Trump administration takes action against schools that fail to rein in campus anti-Semitism. The same day the complaint was filed, the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard University’s ability to accept international students, though a judge paused that order on Friday.

Still though, look on the bright side!

 

Posted at 10:14 am by Ed Driscoll 28