Getting Old is One Thing...
Getting Old is One Thing...
Losing one's mind is quite another.
Recently in The Bulwark:
BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: Biden's Two Cheers for the TikTok Bill
MARC CAPUTO: The 2028 DeSantis Shadow Campaign
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BILL LUEDERS: Biden Is Getting Older. Trump Is Losing His Mind.
LATELY THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF TALK about the “cognitive decline” of the two main contenders for the presidency. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are said to be mentally unfit for the office. They aren’t. Only one of them is.
Let’s start by looking at the recent evidence that has been offered in support of these claims.
Biden, in talking with investigators looking into his relatively innocent (compared to Trump’s) mishandling of classified documents, purportedly couldn’t remember the year his son Beau died. (We now know that’s not quite what happened.) He also mislabeled Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, as the “president of Mexico.” He named the late François Mitterrand instead of Emmanuel Macron as the president of France, and confused the late German leader Helmut Kohl with former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
PHILIP ROTNER: Judge McAfee’s Dismissal of Three Charges Against Trump Changes Nothing.
DON’T PANIC. JUDGE SCOTT MCAFEE’S dismissal on Wednesday of six of the forty-one counts alleged against Donald Trump and eighteen other co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case isn’t cause for alarm among those who long to see Trump held accountable for his alleged crimes in Georgia and elsewhere.
The dismissed counts are incidental in the greater scheme of things. The core of the case against Trump remains intact. It is difficult to imagine that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis—assuming that Judge McAfee denies the pending motions to have her removed from the case—will do anything other than move forward with the remainder of the case. If anything, the absence of the six dismissed counts might streamline the remaining case and make it easier for the prosecution to achieve convictions.
🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧
Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Sasha Issenberg: Politics, Disinformation and 2024 [Ad-Free🔐]
The Next Level: The Trumps Welcome the RNC into the Family [Ad-Free🔐]
Did you know? Bulwark+ members can listen to an ad-free version of these podcasts on the player of their choice.
Learn more at Bulwark+ Podcast FAQ.
MATT JOHNSON: If Biden Doesn’t Run on Democracy, Who Will?
PRESIDENT BIDEN OPENED HIS STATE OF THE UNION address on Thursday with a reference to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech in the same chamber on January 6, 1941: “President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary time.” Biden told the country that he has the same responsibility today. He condemned the January 6th assault on the Capitol, which took place exactly 80 years after Roosevelt’s speech, describing the insurrection and Donald Trump’s “plot to steal the election” as the “gravest threat to democracy since the Civil War.”
DAVID HEAD: The Wilt Chamberlain Conspiracy Theory and the ‘Presentism’ Trap.
AFTER MORE THAN SIXTY YEARS, the late basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain still holds the NBA record for most points in a game: 100, posted in a March 2, 1962 contest between Chamberlain’s Philadelphia Warriors and the New York Knicks. That’s 19 more points than Kobe Bryant, in second place, ever registered in a single night. It’s 31 more than Michael Jordan’s highest single-game score, and 39 more than LeBron James’s or Shaquille O’Neal’s top scores. And Bryant, Jordan, James, and O’Neal all had a three-point line. Chamberlain tallied his points one and two at a time.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Wednesday! Save the date for March 26! That’s when, in Oakland, we’ll find out what sort of crazy is joining the RFK band. Could it be, sigh, Aaron Rodgers?
Also, start thinking about March Madness! I’ll be putting together Overtime Bracket this year, and we have a bunch of fantastic prizes to give away: free subscriptions, t-shirts, stickers, bags, coffee mugs. Even if you hate college basketball, just pick away: your odds aren’t zero unless you don’t play. Sadly, my Billikens are having an off year, so I’m rooting for the Buckeyes.
Four years ago today… We lept into the unknown (Washingtonian). Remember Tim’s timeline? Fun times.
Help a Ukrainian family… Feel welcome. Bulwark+ Navigator Holly Berkeley-Fletcher is doing a fundraiser. If you’re not in a position to donate, do read their story.
Schedule F… The Phantom Menace, by Thomas Firey at Regulation.
FY 2025… What the budget has in store for NASA and the Navy.
Democrats edge ahead… In generic ballot polling (538). Is Congressional Republican dysfunction going to push this even higher?
Show Me… a lack of confidence in government. My alma mater polls Missourians and the results aren’t pretty.
‘America is Very Purple’… Personality and Place Across the American Landscape, by James Fallows.
San Francisco’s $22 burrito… A tale of inflation in the Golden City (NBC).
Tales From an Attic… “Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives." (LongReads)
A periodic check in on our favorite Bonhoeffer scholar / Evil Paul Rudd… Eric Metaxas is increasingly unhinged. Remember, he was still considered normal during the Sucker Punch episode, and that was 4 years ago. Imagine where he’ll be in 2028.
Michael Douglas as Ben Franklin? Sign me up.
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