Politics

• We’re shocked — SHOCKED — that POTUS has Parkinson’s: Is anyone surprised that a leading neurologist was summoned to the White House to meet with Joe Biden’s personal “doctor” earlier this year? Or that Team Dementia tried to keep it under wraps? Or that the media is only now asking questions about the president’s cognitive state? We certainly aren’t. As the New York Post reports, “Dr. Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed Medical Center, met with Dr. Kevin O'Connor, and two others at the White House residence clinic on Jan. 17, according to the records, which emerge as questions continue to swirl about the 81-year-old president’s mental health.” Why did it take so long for all this to surface? Why have the Democrats, and especially their media brethren, misled the American people all this time? Because until now, they thought Joe Biden could still beat Donald Trump. They no longer think so. And that’s why only now the long knives are coming out. Never forget what these people did here. Never forget.

• Briefing erupts after multiple reporters bombard KJP with questions about neurologist visiting White House (Daily Caller)

• Joe’s call to “Morning Joe”: In an effort to “prove” to Democrats that he’s still the man for the job, a defiant Joe Biden called into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday, declaring, “I am not going anywhere.” Speaking to hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, Biden said, “I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024.” Biden characterized the growing number of Democrats calling for him to step down as “the elites in the party.” CNN’s Jake Tapper, who was one of the debate moderators, responded to Biden’s “elites” framing by pointing out CNN poll results showing that “72% of voters say that they believe President Biden is too old.” Tapper also highlighted a number of Biden’s recent statements, including from the “Morning Joe” interview, calling them “not coherent.” It would appear that the effort to get Biden to bow out gracefully is going nowhere.

• Presidential propping, inside and out: Democrats are undergoing a bit of empathy training right now, as they’re getting a taste of the sort of adversarial journalism that’s usually reserved for Republicans. For example, left-leaning Axios reports that Joe Biden’s staffers routinely propped him up by preparing short documents with large print and photos that even included “his precise path to a podium.” News of these cheat cards is nothing new to consumers of conservative media, but many Biden supporters and low-level staffers were clueless about this. And yet some in the media are sticking by Biden, continuing to prop him up as the only thing standing between them and four more years of Le Bête Orange. Case in point: ABC News edited its official transcript of Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos because his handlers complained that their boss was misquoted. Don’t believe it. Biden said, “As I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do.” We’ve got the goods right here.

• Kamala the DEI hire: With Joe Biden’s obviously seriously diminished state, Democrats are looking for his successor, but they clearly aren’t excited about the prospect of it being Kamala Harris. However, since Harris is the vice president, she is perfectly positioned to take up the mantle. The problem is that Biden’s choice of Harris was one of the most blatant examples of identity politics in recent memory, a begrudging move to fulfill his pledge of choosing a “woman of color” to be his running mate. Given the Democrats’ current dilemma, the New York Post ran an article over the weekend titled, “America may soon be subjected to the country’s first DEI president: Kamala Harris.” Predictably, observing the truth garnered a litany of objections from leftists who labeled the Post “racist” and “misogynist.” So, it’s not racist or misogynist for Biden to use race and sex as his primary requirements for a veep, but it is racist and misogynist to point this out.

• Whitmer’s book drops today: Michigan Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s book True Gretch hits the shelves today. While Whitmer’s name has been repeatedly floated along with California Governor Gavin Newsom as a possible last-minute replacement for the ailing Joe Biden, she has sought to downplay those rumors. “It’s a distraction more than anything,” Whitmer claimed in a pre-book launch interview. “I don’t like seeing my name in articles like that because I’m totally focused on governing and campaigning for the ticket.” It’s perfectly clear that Whitmer does have eyes for the White House, but she sees that now is not a great moment given the circumstances. Come 2028, however, Whitmer will be a full go.

• Biden formally opposes bill requiring voters prove citizenship (Daily Wire)

• Humor: People who would never cheat in elections horrified by Stop Cheating in Elections Bill (Babylon Bee)

Anti-Semitism

• The rot at Columbia is everywhere: The Jew-hatred at Ivy League schools and elsewhere across the nation has been shoved off the front page by the drama surrounding Joe Biden, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer there. Indeed, as the New York Post reports, “Three Columbia University deans have been ‘permanently removed’ from their posts for sharing ‘very troubling’ texts that ‘disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,’ school officials said Monday. The three administrators — Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick and Cristen Kromm — have been on leave since last month since it emerged they’d been involved in the disparaging text exchange that unfolded during a panel discussion about antisemitism on campus.” Never fear, though: In a statement issued by Columbia President Minouche Shafik, the once-proud university claimed that “these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our university’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.” Uh-huh.

Economy

• Asking THE question: Are you better off? How far has our nation fallen under the abysmal leadership of Joe Biden? This far: The BBC is now doing personal profile pieces about how bad it is over here in the colonies. “Stacey Ellis,” reports the Beeb, “a lifelong Democrat from Pennsylvania, should be the kind of voter that US President Joe Biden can count on. But after four years of rising prices, her support has worn thin — and every time she shops at the supermarket, she is reminded how things have changed for the worse.” Ellis is a black woman from Philadelphia, and the article then moves on to profile a Hispanic man, Dylan Garcia, from Brooklyn, to drive home the point, wittingly or not, that Bidenomics isn’t working. “The White House maintains Mr Biden has been engaged on issues of food affordability, fighting to increase food stamp benefits and other government aid, initiatives opposed by Republicans. … But despite strong job creation and low unemployment, opinion polls show voters continue to trust Mr Biden’s opponent, former President Donald Trump, more on economic issues.” Ronald Reagan asked the essential question of the American people back in 1980, and it bears repeating today.

• U.S. home prices just hit another all-time high (Fox Business)

• Anti-oil policies increase oil consumption: It has been dubbed the “Green Paradox,” a theory first espoused by economist Hans-Werner Sinn in his 2012 book by the same name. According to Sinn, when politicians push forward anti-oil policies with the stated goal of curbing oil use, the opposite occurs — oil consumption increases. The reason for this phenomenon is that oil companies respond to the threat of decreased demand by increasing output to offset a coming financial decline. This, in turn, results in the price of oil declining, which then increases the rate of consumption. The irony is that if politicians had not pushed anti-oil policies, then the overall rate of oil consumption would be less. Sinn’s Green Paradox theory appears to have been confirmed by a recent study on the 2009 cap-and-trade Wasman-Markey Bill, conducted by Maya A. Norman and Wolfram Schlenker from the National Bureau of Economic Research. They found that had the bill passed, it “would have increased global oil consumption 2–4% and (ii) Waxman-Markey deliberations increased oil consumption by 8-27 million metric tons equivalent to 1-3 days of global oil consumption.”

World

• A revived NATO marks 75 years, but political uncertainty clouds its future (Washington Post)

• Macron refuses French prime minister’s resignation after chaotic election results (AP)

• Children’s hospital hit as Russian strikes kill dozens in Ukraine (BBC)

• Masoud Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon who rose to power in parliament, now Iran’s president-elect (AP)

Misc.

• NYC pols fume as migrants keep getting dumped on one borough (NY Post)

• Trump set to announce VP candidate by next week (NY Post)

• Sixteen attorneys general ask Supreme Court to hear parental rights case (Washington Examiner)

• Former Republican Senator James Inhofe dead at 89 (Reuters)

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