Just as Regan, the possessed tweenager in the horror movie classic, The Exorcist, vomited streams of green sludge at Father Merrin in the final hours of her extremis, so, in the final weeks of election 2020, the possessed US news media will be boofing “bombshells” against its loathed and detested adversary, the president who attempted to exorcize the demons of the Deep State out of the federal government.
Thus, Democratic Party legal imp, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., or someone on his staff, leaked (illegally) years of Mr. Trump’s tax information to The New York Times as a counterweight to last week’s Senate report on the international grifting exploits of Joe Biden & Family. The difference is that Mr. Trump’s doings represent compliance with the US tax codes while the Biden activities represent payoffs from shady figures in foreign lands for services rendered. The Times and its DNC patrons are calculating that the public will not understand the difference.
It’s whispered that The Times was hoping to unload the tax story much later in the campaign but needed desperately to provide some ammunition for Mr. Biden’s turn in the debating ring with the president on Tuesday night, when both these matters are sure to come up for review. That is, if Mr. Biden dares to show up. Those of you with a taste for history may recall the final hours of another Democratic eminence of yore, William Jennings Bryan, when he was vivisected on the witness stand by Clarence Darrow at the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, 1925. Five days later, Bryan dropped dead, and his reputation as a humiliated old fool is much better remembered than his moment of glory in 1893 as a 36-year-old nominee for president (youngest ever).
If Joe Biden does show up at Tuesday’s debate, it will be under at least one severe disadvantage: the contest happens at night. Through the preceding weeks, Mr. Biden’s handlers have “put a lid” on his campaign activities at ten o’clock in the morning more days than not, and sometimes at eight-thirty a.m., before the press pool has even digested its oat-milk honey lattes. “A lid” means the candidate makes no appearances nor is available to the media that day. You have to wonder whether Ol’ White Joe can even function after sundown. Senile dementia typically presents more vividly in the evening. The Biden team may seek to counter that with doses of Adderall, an amphetamine. The side-effects are interesting: “mental / mood changes (such as agitation, aggression, mood swings, abnormal thoughts) uncontrolled movements, continuous chewing / teeth grinding, outbursts of words / sounds, prolonged erections (in males).” Watch for these.
Also watch to see whether Mr. Biden steps onstage wearing his trademark black mask. (Mr. Trump, of course, will not mask himself.) The optic will be two-fold: 1) Mr. Biden has something to hide, and 2) Mr. Biden is a weakling for playing up Covid hysteria. Then wait to see if he pulls the mask down under his chin as though he was acting the role of Abe Lincoln in a middle school history pageant. That will be a visual-to-remember! Also, wait for Mr. Biden to deliver a self-knockout punch to himself when he attacks the President’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, for being a Catholic.
There was an uproar of consternation across the red regions of the land on Sunday when Maria Bartiroma announced that US Attorney John Durham is unlikely to report any actions (i.e., indictments) before election day. There is a very good analysis at the news site RedState.com. It boils down to this: Mr. Durham and his fellow US Attorney on the case, Jeff Jensen, received testimony only ten days ago from an FBI agent named William Barnett which alleges in detail how DOJ rogue attorney Andrew Weissmann ran Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation as a “checking function” on the President. (Mr. Weissmann states this explicitly in his forthcoming book.) There is no constitutional basis for this so-called checking function. Rather, it suggests gross illegality. Days after William Barr was sworn in as Attorney General, the Mueller office was shut down. Mr. Barr, apparently, became aware of his old colleague, Robert Mueller’s, pronounced cognitive decline, and was indignant over the hijacking of his Special Counsel mission by Democratic Party activists on-staff. Now, with Mr. Barnett’s testimony, additional witnesses must be interviewed before any cases can be made. So, these matters will have to wait until after the election.
As a tactical election consideration, it is probably for the best, at this point, that there is no appearance of using the Durham investigation as a campaign weapon. It’s unfortunate that it took Mr. Durham so long to unravel the seditious intrigues of RussiaGate, but that only suggests how complex and far-ranging the scheme was, overlapping several agencies, the two houses of congress, and a host of sketchy characters outside of government. Mr. Trump will have to make his case for reelection by other means. Mr. Biden, or rather, his handlers and stand-ins, will make his case by any means.
