FRIDAY short TAKES.

Dementia Joe was convincing enough at his scripted press conference to hang on through the weekend.

"Decency to the office" as staged by Leni Riefenstahl.

"Restore support for the middle class" as mortgage payments rise and milk and other staple prices do too.

"Unite our country" unless you are mega-ultra-MAGA.#BidenIsALaughingstock https://t.co/XAhTyieqr0

— Stephen Karlson (@StephenKarlson) July 6, 2024

"Can Joe Biden Get Over Himself?"  No.  Next question?  Remain calm, all is well.  "Better to elect a corpse than a convicted felon who will destroy American democracy. Besides, we all know the corpse isn’t really in charge of anything."  We'll see what the election brings.  "Biden could not have become an object of ridicule if he wasn’t first an object of derision. The contempt in which the public holds the president is amply earned."  Embrace the power of "both."  "What’s worse: A diminished president or failed policies?"  That Threat to Our Democracy^(TM)? "Democracy is the biggest problem for the Democrats right now because democracy has them getting their asses kicked by Donald Trump."  That is, if those Threats to Our Democracy^(TM)are even real.  "Democrats Sure Aren’t Acting as if Trump Beating Biden Is an Existential Threat to Democracy."  I still like the idea of gridlock, but then I'm just a guy venting on his web journal.  Is Trump actually worse than Biden?  Pass the popcorn!  "Defying Calls From Voters and Lawmakers, Biden Refuses to Step Aside."  This election is a farce.

The weekly round-up of mostly pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes resumes.

1.  Don't push the Normals too far.  "Abolishing the Electoral College is ample grounds for dissolving the Republic."  The self-styled progressives will keep pushing.  "The progressive Left doesn't want to win elections -- they want to rule by force."  It's easier to deplorable-shame.  "Progressives Can’t Give Up on White Voters."

2.  Public health is government coercion with a human face.

3.  Squandering the Victory Dividend.  "The achievements of mid-20th-century America were the achievements of a different civilisation, one now as distant and mysterious as the Moon."

4.  There's no Victory Dividend left to squander.  "Both nationally and locally, Democrats have reembraced many of the failed policies of the 1960s and 1970s."

5.  Celebrate diversity.  "I'm terrified to go downtown again in Halifax.  I just feel like it's so out of your control on what could happen. It's overwhelming. I didn't expect something like this to happen, especially with it happening during pride month as well."

6.  Critical legal studies, anyone?  "Justice Thomas is citing Montesquieu and the Founders, and Justice Jackson is citing Ta-Nehisi Coates."  That poor, pitiful Wise Latina.

7.  Biden runs his mouth.  “Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. Everything I do. I’m running the world."  What's Chinese for Tvoyu mat!

8.  Moutza Jill.  "We wouldn’t let a toddler play with a loaded gun, but we let a senile old man play with the U.S. nuclear codes?"

9.  Good.  "Affirmative action has resulted in severe damage to two major institutions: Harvard University, and the Democratic Party."

10.  Also good.  "There is some evidence that Team Sanity has been advancing the football lately."

11.  Freedom.  "You’re still free to believe that a mumbling misanthrope fronting a woke-globalist junta was what the American people wanted in 2020 and still want in 2024."  Or to pretend that everything is fine.  "The mainstream media didn't care that the country elected a vegetable back in 2020, and they were perfectly willing to do whatever they could to get him reelected in 2024. Well, the cat is out of the bag, and it exposed just how corruptly biased they are."

12.  When you start a war, you'd better be prepared to lose it.

13.  Courage.  "I'm an American before everything, and I look at it and say: Well, I used to see Russia -- Soviet Union, North Korea -- when they just make outrageous things."

14.  Or when they do outrageous things.  "Democrats are in serious danger in the upcoming election not merely because of Joe Biden’s body and brain, but because of how Democrats, led by Joe Biden, have governed over the past three and a half years."  If the Dems swap Biden out, will Team Trump be able to call attention?

15.  The Democrats made this bed.  They have to lie in it.  All hail Comrade Brezhnev Biden.  "Biden can no longer even perform his assigned ceremonial tasks of putting a moderate veneer on radical, nihilist agendas that are stagnating the country."

16.  Take command!  “Admiral, why is that destroyer covered in rust instead of gleaming? Wait, let me ask your second-in-command because he’s now in charge since you are relieved.”

17.  Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!  "Dems Outraged Over Vice President Chosen For Her Race And Gender Being Labeled ‘DEI Hire’."

18.  Won't you please come to Chicago?  "The only logical reason is for the DNC to try to put their thumbs on the scale ensure there’s so little time between now and the virtual nomination to make it even more difficult for Biden to be replaced by a more viable alternative."

19.  Amtrak is considering adding a third daily service.  That would make better use of the coaching stock.

20.  They brought it on themselves.  "Trump's support is half the country giving the middle finger to the other half. The more that other half engages in TDS, the higher that middle finger goes up."

21.  The arc of history is now bending in the direction of the hellchasm.