NOAH ROTHMAN: Reporters Congratulate Themselves on Being Shamed into Doing Their Jobs.

New York magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi’s deep dive into the worst-kept secret in American politics may be the most damning entry in this genre. Biden is reported to have “stared blankly” at a “Democratic megadonor and family friend” until he was reminded to say “hello.” “Longtime friends of the Biden family, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, were shocked to find that the president did not remember their names,” Nuzzi wrote. One guest at a White House event came away from it appalled by the president’s inability to make it to the end of the reception. “The guest wasn’t sure they could vote for Biden, since the guest was now open to an idea that they had previously dismissed as right-wing propaganda,” the report continued. “The president may not really be the acting president after all.”

This is hard-hitting investigative reporting, and it takes time to develop the sources required to flesh stories like these out. Perhaps it was the debate alone that shook those in Biden’s orbit out of their complacency and made these dispatches possible. But that doesn’t alone suffice to explain the sudden enthusiasm reporters have shown in their effort to chase those sources and their stories down. Nor does it explain the degree to which journalists have declined to paper over the president’s manifest impairment.

In a segment on his CNN program on Tuesday, host Jake Tapper exposed the degree to which even Biden’s efforts to reassure Democrats of his acuity have fallen short by simply reading verbatim transcripts of the president’s extemporaneous remarks. It was an effective tactic, but also one that could have been employed at any point in the president’s term — throughout which, Biden has mused over the “cumalidefasredsulc” benefits of student-debt forgiveness, touted his efforts to repair the country’s “bldhyindclapding,” and summed up his affection for America in a single word: “Asufutimaehaehfutbw.”

Allen and VandeHei’s observation about the press corps’ motives here is undeniably true, but it’s not something of which the press should be proud. The robust display of retrospective journalism to which Americans have been privy these last twelve days is a function of reporters’ professional embarrassment, yes, but also their anger over their own exploitation. An unspoken compact has been broken, and that infidelity must be punished. After all, you cannot be scorned if you never loved in the first place.

And as Ace of Spades notes, keeping the readers in love with the current Democrat president (or at least not letting them know about his cognitive decline in recent years) was part of their business model, until Biden’s pathetic debate performance and equally bad follow-up interviews with George Stephanopoulos and the since-fired AM radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders have made it impossible to hide the decline:

[Matt Taibbi] points out that the media has changed its “commercial business model.” Previously, he says (a bit naively) that the corporate media attempted to inform a broad audience.

Under Trump, the media became more overtly biased, of course. He says that’s because Trump was a huge draw commercially, even for — especially for — leftwing news outlets. They knew that when they ran segments about Trump, their ratings went up. When they posted about Trump, their clicks went up.

So under no circumstances would they stop making their channels and papers Trump News 24/7. This would benefit Trump, of course — if they reported on him neutrally.

So the new business model they chose would be to continue filling their airwaves and newspapers with almost nothing but Trump, but they would appease their audiences, and their own consciences, by making it unrelentingly negative and biased coverage.

As David Harsanyi wrote yesterday, “If You Were Duped On Biden’s Cognitive Decline, You’re Too Dumb To Be A Journalist,” which is of course true — but Biden’s former stenographers need some excuse to explain to their readers their latest 180 pivot.

INTRODUCING A NEW FAITH-BASED PODCAST WITH PAULA BOLYARD AND LINCOLN BROWN: The Intersection of Faith and Politics Episode 1: We Wish We Were Making This Stuff Up.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is the 2025 Porsche 911 Hybrid Sacrilege or a Breakthrough?

BEEGE WELBORN: Go Woke, Go Broke? Just Do It! “I have a warm fuzzy about this one – a fuzzy that’s at least twice as big as multi-millionaire, failed quarterback, and professional race-grifter Colin Kaepernick’s fro when he’s feeling really oppressed and needs to victim signal.”

HEH: Hail to the Chick: Dirty Jill Is at it Again.

READER FAVORITE: Keurig K-Express Coffee Maker, Single Serve K-Cup Pod Coffee Brewer, Black. #CommissionEarned

SELF-DEFENSE: Know Who You Are, And Carry What You Need: There’s more than one way to save a life.

SO MUCH OF “SOCIAL” MEDIA IS JUST BOTS COPYING BOTS: How disinformation from a Russian AI spam farm ended up on top of Google search results. “Vérité Cachée is part of a network of websites likely linked to the Russian government that pushes Russian propaganda and disinformation to audiences across Europe and in the US, and which is supercharged by AI, according to researchers at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future who are tracking the group’s activities. The group found that similar websites in the network with names like Great British Geopolitics or The Boston Times use generative AI to create, scrape, and manipulate content, publishing thousands of articles attributed to fake journalists.”

On the other hand, are the fake journalists that much more dishonest than the real ones?

JUST ONE DAY AFTER THE “REVOLT” SEEMED TO HAVE FAILED: Clooney, Pelosi, and… Obama??? Maybe Biden Is Being Pushed Out After All.

READER FAVORITE: Vantrue N2 Pro Uber Dual Dash Cam Infrared Night Vision. #CommissionEarned

JOHN ONDRASIK: America’s Invisible Hostage Crisis in Gaza.

I’m old enough to remember the yellow ribbons. In 1979, Islamic radicals in Iran took 52 Americans hostage, holding them for 444 days. The hostages’ plight captured the nation’s attention. Some of them became household names. Across the country people prayed for their release.

The crisis was the lead story on the news every night. Tying a yellow ribbon on a tree or lamppost became a public expression of sorrow and concern. Even the White House Christmas tree had one.

What a contrast to our current hostage crisis. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas killed more than 30 American citizens and took as many as a dozen Americans hostage. Of those who were taken, at least two have been murdered. Five, we pray, are still alive. Do you know any of their names? Have you seen one yellow ribbon?

Say their names, Mr. President.

HEATHER MAC DONALD: The Times Turns on a Dime.

To measure the terror now gripping the mainstream media in the wake of the Biden–Trump debate, consider this: the New York Times is now fact-checking Joe Biden in favor of Donald Trump.

Monday’s print edition of the Times contains an article titled “In ABC Interview, Exaggerations about Polling and Trump.” The article applies a level of scrutiny to Biden’s Friday interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos that is nearly unprecedented toward a Democratic candidate.

The Times now quotes Biden verbatim, with the clear intention of putting his verbal shuffles on full display:

Biden: “After that debate, . . . I did events in—in—in Georgia, did events like this today, large crowds, overwhelming response, no—no—no slipping.”

So remorseless is the Times toward Biden’s speech stumbles that it even records a missing syllable:

“The New York Times had me behind before anything having to do with this race—had me hind—behind 10 points.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper was also pointing out Biden’s fractured speech patterns in his interview with Stephanopoulos in the video we posted earlier today, gaffes that the media ignored for over four years.

So what happens if Biden manages to ride out the ever-growing calls to leave the race? Mac Donald writes:

On Monday, Biden sent what the Times characterizes as a “defiant” letter to Congress, daring his Democratic critics to challenge him at the convention. He also delivered what the Times calls “fiery remarks” on MSNBC denouncing the skeptical “elites.”  Until Biden bows before the inevitable, we can expect to live in an inverted reality in which the mainstream media applies the same journalistic standards to the Democratic frontrunner as it does to the Republican frontrunner. As soon as Biden withdraws, we will return to the status quo ante.

Or as Kyle Smith wrote in March of 2019, “When he became veep, any attack on Biden risked looking like casting aspersions on the man who made him his number two, and the media could not countenance any naysaying about the judgment of the Precious. For the next few months, though, we’re in an amusing interstitial period when the media actually has a reason to attack their fellow Democrats: any hacks out there who think their party can do better than Biden (or Sanders, or Warren, or Harris, or etc.) can rip into their disfavored candidates in order to give an assist to their preferred picks. All of this goes away as soon as the Democratic pick for 2020 becomes evident, but until then we’ll be seeing some actual vigorous reporting.”

ENVIRONMENTALISM STANDS IN THE WAY OF PROGRESS AGAIN: SpaceX’s Starship may mess up the lunar surface: A Starship landing on the moon could contaminate nearby ice.

QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Can Gladiator II save a genre — and a studio?

The trailer for Ridley Scott’s new epic, Gladiator II, is undeniably impressive, but then it rather had to be. Rumors that its already massive budget had ballooned to as much as $310 million — which would mean it would have to be one of 2024’s highest-grossing movies just to break even, never mind making a profit — may have suggested that the film was in trouble, but an early screening of the preview at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas reassured exhibitors and studios alike, with the few journalists who had seen the footage rushing to extol its scale and grandeur. Now it’s been released online, and viewers have a chance to judge for themselves. (Its cinematic debut will come with Deadpool vs Wolverine.) Does it look like a worthy follow-up to Gladiator?

There will be an awful lot riding on this picture’s success. The beleaguered Paramount Pictures desperately needs a hit, and for the film to make serious money, it needs to bank Oppenheimer-level amounts. And there is something of a question mark over the now-eighty-six-year-old Scott, too, who appears in recent years to have gone for broke in emphasizing the comic aspects of everything from Napoleon’s conquest of Europe to the murder of Maurizio Gucci by his wife Patrizia.

I’m looking forward to reading reviews when the film is ready for distribution. But at least for me, Scott’s botched attempt at Napoleon last year casts a bit of a pall on the above trailer, which shares a fair amount of that same plastic-CGI look for its epic battle scenes with the previous Scott film, and the strange reaction shots and dialog readings from Denzel Washington don’t help matters.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: The Biden Administration Has Been Involved in Massive Child Trafficking.

I HOPE THIS PANS OUT: 1G Space Propulsion Would Revolutionize Transportation and Energy. However: “The energy aspect is one of the reasons that physicists do not believe this is possible. It would violate fundamental laws of physics.”

“Exodus Technologies wants to perform tests in orbit. Moving a satellite with the drive would eliminate claims of bad experiments and measurement error and fraud. The key next step will be an orbital cubesat and other space missions with the devices.”

If it works in practice, the theory will have to catch up.

DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH ON INTER-STELLAR TRAVEL: Assume a modest-sized spacecraft carrying three crew members and everything they would need for a journey that would consume on their watches 5 years enroute to a nearby planet thought to be sufficiently like Earth to support life. How much energy would be required to make the journey?

Writing in Evolution News and Science Today, Retired Physics Professor Eric Hedin did the calculation and concluded that 140 quadrillion kWh would be required:

“Believe it or not, it’s equivalent to 4,800 times the total energy consumption of the United States in the year 2022. This means all the electricity, petroleum, natural gas, and any other form of energy used to power everything in the U.S. for one year would be 4,800 times too small to get our modest-sized spaceship to a relatively nearby star in a reasonable amount of time. I think it’s fair to say that interstellar space travel isn’t even remotely possible with our current understanding of physics and technology.”

I hope either Hedin is wrong or such a vast amount of energy becomes feasible at some point in the future, as I’d like very much to be part of a astronomical Lewis & Clark expedition.

WHEN YOU’VE LOST NANCY PELOSI…: Nancy Pelosi suggests Joe Biden should reconsider staying in US presidential race.

Nancy Pelosi ignored Joe Biden’s claims that he was staying in the race to be the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2024 and said time was “running short” for him to make that decision.

The former Speaker of the House has not endorsed the US President as the party’s best option for beyond his current term. Ms Pelosi told Mr Biden’s favourite morning news show, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, that “it’s up to the President to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”

Apparently Nancy no long believes you have to reelect the president to find out what’s inside his skull.

In any case, as Bonchie writes at RedState: Nancy Pelosi’s Latest Comments on Biden’s Future Are Raising All Sorts of Eyebrows.

Regardless of the reason, everything seems to hinge on the president’s “big boy” press conference on Thursday. As RedState reported, Democrats have set Friday as the deadline to have Biden out of the race. If he flubs that presser despite how low the bar is already set, the rush to get him out of the race will be overwhelming. Pelosi seems to be hedging her bets, waiting to see how he performs.

The fact that a major Democrat leader (who has been given the fake title “Speaker Emerita”) won’t just commit to Biden being the nominee at this stage is pretty incredible. The longer this festers, the lower the president’s chances of winning re-election become. That Pelosi and others know the stakes and are still not willing to speak with confidence about Biden’s future is telling. Something is up.

Put on your “big boy” trousers and stay tuned.

UPDATE: “Am I speaking English to you?”, Pelosi hisses at ABC’s Rachel Scott, in a rare attempt from the MSM of a hallway interview with a fellow Democrat. This clip would be played on a loop on CNN and MSNBC and would kick off nightly network news shows if a Republican said this to a black DNC-MSM journalist:

Pelosi may not appreciate the question, but to allude that a black female journalist for a major news organization is somehow unable to comprehend English is pretty beyond the pale. https://t.co/LWvcSEPXGC

— Garrison Douglas (@GDouglasiii) July 10, 2024

CHRISTIAN TOTO: The Left Eats Its Own: Hollywood Edition.

SOUNDS LIKE CANADIAN MEDICINE: Hospital program helps ER patients get needed hospice care.

BIDEN CAMPAIGN COLLAPSE TRACKER (DAY SIX): When You’ve Lost Stephanopoulos… “What happens when some random New Yorker sees ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos and starts up the video camera on his phone before asking Stephanopoulos if he thinks Biden should step down?”

UPDATE (From Ed): “George Stephanopoulos Accidentally Tells the Truth — That’s a big no-no,” Jim Treacher writes: “It took TMZ to get the truth out of a lifelong liar like Stephanopoulos. Just like it took the National Enquirer to get to the truth about John Edwards and the secret daughter he had with his nutty campaign aide back in 2008. Sometimes you gotta dig around in the gutter to find a gem. Now the libs are furious at this tiny little man for expressing his genuine opinion. How can the Democrats stop the Big Orange Liar, if one of their soldiers can ruin the whole thing in a regrettable moment of unintentional honesty?”

FASCISM, STRAIGHT UP: Democrats Are Still Trying to Put Trump in Jail.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: You could easily be tolyamorous without realising it. Note: Not Polyamorous, but Tolyamorous, which seems to me to be a new name for something very old.

MAKE THEM PAY: Rachel Maddow and Her Co-Stars Made ‘Verifiably False’ Statements About a Doctor They Called the ‘Uterus Collector.’ Now His $30 Million Lawsuit Is Headed For Trial.

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: George Clooney calls on Biden to drop out of presidential race weeks after co-hosting fundraiser: ‘He cannot win.’

UPDATE:

FYI if Clooney is saying it, then Obama is actively working behind the scenes on it.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 10, 2024

George Clooney is speaking for Barack Obama in telling Joe Biden to step aside.

Period.

The call is now coming from inside the house.

This is the first time I've thought there was a chance Biden might not be the nominee.

This is a major, major development.

Clooney and…

— John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte (@NolteNC) July 10, 2024

Ed Morrissey adds, “The time for Clooney to speak up was in 2023, or 2022, when public evidence made Biden’s decline obvious to everyone. For that matter, why didn’t Clooney himself speak up after the fundraiser, or immediately after the debate? He’s part of the gaslighting brigade; he’s only speaking out now because it’s clear that the con has stopped working.”