Complicity or Complacency?

With the spate of White House ‘tell-alls” decrying the deteriorated health of former President Joe Biden, the more compelling question is why wasn’t much of this detected and disclosed by the WHPress Corps when it was happening.

Sure.. we all saw the President’s awkward gait; and his tumble up the steps of AF1 and down on the stage at the Air Force Academy; we all were witness to the debate debacle.

But – as a former member of the press corps in the days of CBS’ Dan Rather and ABC’s Sam Donaldson, I don’t think those correspondents would have been so forgiving to ignore the patently evident signs of physical and mental deterioration.

Mark Barbaks column (reposted here) makes the case that hiding presidential illnesses is not a new phenomenon. What seems disingenuous now are the reporters who covered the WH expressing surprise at just how bad things really were.

In a business which is based on ardent competition, where currying sources is the #1 priority, and in an era where there are more platforms and media companies dueling for scoops, was the ignorance of this president’s poor health due to the complicity of WH reporters choosing silence in order not to rock the boat, or not to jeopardize their standing in the WH Press Office, or due to laziness and complacency?

Reporters, anchors, hosts and pundits who postulate today but who said nothing while the story was actually happening are disappointing and doing a dishonor to their profession.

Health Lies at the White House – A long and rich history of misleading the nation

Another masterful column from Mark Barakak (LA Times) about the history of medical lies and coverups at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Marks’s words absolutely deserve to be shared.

It’s not just Biden. There’s a history of presidential health cover-ups

By Mark Z. Barabak ColumnistFollow May 21, 2025 3 AM PT

Far from transparent, the White House allows a president to hide in plain sight.
Biden is just the latest to be protected by family and his political inner circle.
Suddenly, it’s 2024 all over again.
Once more we’re litigating Joe Biden’s catatonic debate performance, his lumbering gait, his moth-eaten memory and his selfish delusion he deserved a second term in the White House while shuffling through his ninth decade on earth.
Biden’s abrupt announcement he faces an advanced form of prostate cancer has only served to increase speculation over what the president’s inner circle knew, and when they knew it.
“Original Sin,” a book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, published this week, is chock-full of anecdotes illustrating the lengths to which Biden’s family and palace guard worked to shield his mental and physical lapses from voters.
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John Robert Greene is not at all surprised.
“It’s old news, hiding presidential illness,” said Greene, who’s written a shelf full of books on presidents and the presidency. “I can’t think of too many … who’ve been the picture of health.”
Before we go further, let’s state for the record this in no way condones the actions of Biden and his political enablers. To be clear, let’s repeat it in capital letters: WHAT BIDEN AND HIS HANDLERS DID WAS WRONG.
But, as Greene states, it was not unprecedented or terribly unusual. History abounds with examples of presidential maladies being minimized, or kept secret.
Grover Cleveland underwent surgery for oral cancer on a yacht in New York Harbor to keep his condition from being widely known. Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke, a fact covered up by his wife and confidants, who exercised extraordinary power in his stead.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy both suffered serious, chronic ailments that were kept well away from the public eye.
Those surrounding Ronald Reagan downplayed his injuries after a 1981 assassination attempt, and the Trump administration misled the public about the seriousness of the president’s condition after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 a month before the 2020 election.
The capacity to misdirect, in Biden’s case, or mislead, as happened under Trump, illustrates one of the magical features of the White House: the ability of a president to conceal himself in plain sight.
“When you’re in the presidency, there is nothing that you can’t hide for awhile,” Greene, an emeritus history professor at Cazenovia College, said from his home in upstate New York. “You’ve got everything at your disposal to live a completely hidden double life, if you want. Everything from the Secret Service to the bubble of the White House.”
Greene likened the Neoclassical mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to a giant fish bowl — one that is painted from the inside. It’s highly visible, but you can’t really see what’s happening in the interior.
That deflates the notion there was some grand media conspiracy to prop Biden up. (Sorry, haters.)
Yes, detractors will say it was plain as the dawning day that Biden was demented, diminished and obviously not up to the job of the presidency. Today, Trump’s critics say the same sort of thing about him; from their armchairs, they even deliver quite specific diagnoses: He suffers dementia, or Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
That doesn’t make it so.
“It’s a very politicized process. People see what they want to see,” said Jacob Appel, a professor of psychiatry and medical education at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, who’s writing a book on presidential health.
“You can watch videotapes of Ronald Reagan in 1987,” Appel said, “and, depending on your view of him. you can see him as sharp and funny as ever, or being on the cusp of dementia.” (Five years after leaving the White House, Reagan — then 83 — announced he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.)
To an uncomfortable degree, those covering the White House — and, by extension, the public they serve — are forced to rely on whatever the White House chooses to reveal.
“I don’t have subpoena power,” Tapper told The Times’ Stephen Battaglio, saying he would have eagerly published the details contained in his new book had sources been willing to come forth while Biden was still in power. “We were just lied to over and over again.”
It hasn’t always been that way.
In September 1955, during his first term, President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while on a golf vacation in Denver. “”It was sudden,” said Jim Newton, an Eisenhower biographer. “One minute he’s fine and the next minute he was flat on his back, quite literally.”
The details surrounding Eisenhower’s immediate treatment remain a mystery, though Newton suggests that may have had more do with protecting his personal physician, who misdiagnosed the heart attack as a bout of indigestion, than a purposeful attempt to mislead the public.
From then on, the White House was forthcoming — offering daily reports on what Eisenhower ate, his blood pressure, the results of various tests — to a point that it embarrassed the president. (Among the information released was an accounting of Ike’s bowel movements.)
“They were self-consciously transparent,” Newton said. “The White House looked to the Wilson example as something not to emulate.”
Less than 14 months later, Eisenhower had sufficiently recovered — and voters had enough faith in his well-being — that he won his second term in a landslide.
But that 70-year-old example is a notable exception.
As long as there are White House staffers, campaign advisers, political strategists and family members, presidents will be surrounded by people with an incentive to downplay, minimize or obfuscate any physical or mental maladies they face while in office. (Italics, mine, PS)
All we can do is wait — years, decades — for the truth to come out. And, in the meantime, hope for the best.

A Birthday that Celebrates One President Who Could Not Tell a Lie and Another Who Would Not Tell the Truth

How appropriate?

Marking President’s Day, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) has proposed legislation to make June 14 a national holiday in honor of President Trump’s birthday.

Her bill will forever link Trump & George Washington in the same pantheon of American heroes. “Just as George Washington’s Birthday is codified as a federal holiday, this bill will add Trump’s Birthday to this list, recognizing him as the founder of America’s Golden Age.”

One President famously remembered for telling the truth contrasted with one who could not recognize it.

It would put the USA in the same league as North Korea, which named holidays for its former leaders even while they, too, were still alive.

Does she not see the irregularity of her proposal, or has the Congressperson lost sight of history?

From the China Global South Project

The Long Game: China’s Strategy for Cobalt and Critical Resources

“Why ramp up {Cobalt & Critical Resources} production when prices are at rock bottom? The answer, it turns out, may have nothing to do with short-term profits and everything to do with the future.

Analysts, including us, initially viewed this as an attempt to squeeze out competition. If China dominates the cobalt supply chain, private companies in the United States, Australia, and Europe may find competing unprofitable, leaving China with an unchallenged grip on a critical resource. However, after recently speaking with a group of Chinese mining executives, a different picture emerged—one that underscores China’s distinctive ability to think in decades rather than financial quarters.”

An excerpt from today’s China Global South Project… well worth a read to appreciate Chinese strategy in the global southern hemisphere.

Hedging Bets?

If plans don’t work out to make Canada the 51st state, does Trump have his eyes on Gaza?

Might Bibi say “yes,” where Justin has murmured, “non, merci”?

And what’s happened to the Danes in Greenland? Have they plummeted off the President’s priority list? And the Panamanians? Talk about being abandoned at the altar.

Is Success for An Audience of One Enough?

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt most likely impressed her most important audience, President Donald Trump, with her maiden appearance at the White House podium yesterday.

She was feisty, combative, unflappable, and stayed on point to the party line.
She bridged reporter’s questions to her talking points, regardless of whether those answers were either responses to the questions asked or satisfactory to the reporters at all. She pivoted when she deemed it necessary. She structured her responses using the boasts and bravado of her boss.

But was she as effective beyond the West Wing?

Her tonality was sharp. Her posture & body language are tight; some might say combative. Like it or not, those physical characteristics can set a negative tone for the relationship between the President and the press corps.

My question: is that the best way to begin? Is setting a tough tone even necessary? Certainly, the job of press secretary is akin to being a circus ringmaster where the lions, and tigers and bears have been let loose simultaneously. But are a whip and a chair the best tools to wield from arguably the most potent soap box in the world?

For Trump fans who dislike and distrust the ‘fake media,’ she undoubtedly scored high grades for putting and keeping the media hoard in its place. For Trump critics, she prompted recollections of other spokesperson failures, including Sean Spicer.

The press sectary’s job has never been ‘easy’ with a sophisticated press corps that has age, maturity, and usually decades-long experience in covering the nuances of DC politics. Ms. Leavitt is young and a relative newcomer, so it would be natural to expect a learning curve requiring a period of time. I’d suggest that the honeymoon window is open only a sliver and closing quickly.

While she has experience from the campaign, the open question will be how does that translate to prime time and for an audience beyond the President? Or, is she simply cannon fodder for Mr. Trump to carry his water until she has been rung out by a critical, disbelieving, and maybe even hostile audience?

Your thoughts?

Out with the Damn French! When We Take Over Canada, the First Thing to Do is Trade Québec for Greenland

Absorbing Canada as the 51st State Poses Problems

Should the USA prevail in carving out Canada as our 51st state, an as-yet- unasked-and-unanswered question remains: what do we do with Québec?

What can we do with the 9.1 million Francopholic Francophiles whose allegiance to l’État Québécois is unshakable? Whose affection for the Tricolor (drapeau national de la France) and the Fleurdelisé (drapeau du Québec) surely exceeds their devotion to the Maple Leaf? Not to even mention the Stars and Stripes.

Remember too their overwhelming preference for Canadian maple syrup far trumps their liking of what’s considered sub-par versions from New England.

What do we do with a second front of migrants from Canada, just as we’re trying to stem the tide of Spanish-speaking invaders from the south?

The answer is embarrassingly simple, and although I have yet to hear this solution proffered by authorities in Washington, DC, it seems that we trade… we’re big on trade anyway… we trade Québec for Greenland.

The Danes get 9 million former Canadians to fit into 836,330 square miles easily. No overcrowding! Plenty of room to grow.

In turn, the 56,583 Greenlanders will fit far more comfortably into the old Québec confines of 595,391 square miles. Again, good for all parties… room to spread out and prosper.

The French emigres will be closer to Le Belle France transported to the edge of Europe, far closer to le mère France than than when they were abandoned to au milieu de null part au Canada (the middle of nowhere).

At first, it might not be easy. On the streets of Nuuk, one might hear the transplants saying, Je ne parle que français only to be responded to with Parlez danous si’l vous plaît… with the former Canadians responding Jeg taler ikke dansk.
But with a few weeks of Google translate, this will all sort itself out.

And since most Danes already speak English, their assimilation will be a piece of cake, what we all know to be et stykke kage.

This is all going to work out splendidly.

Problem Solved.

Crisis Averted.

Washington? You’re welcome.

Is the media pimping the confirmation hearings for the Mar-a-lago casting couch?

It is not much of a stretch to consider the Senate confirmation hearings for President-elect Trump’s cabinet as much more than a show-and-tell, superficial and unsatisfying peek-a-boo into the nominees’ character.

While it’s not a new phenomenon, the same vomit of words is heard at so many confirmation hearings as, in this case, GOP Senators spread their lips and gush platitudes of praise. At the same time, their Democratic counterparts swallow hard as they choke back words of doubt with so much regret for their losses last November.

It’s equally tough to envision the nominees as anything more than pawns in this current, Republican drama featuring a live, on-camera ritualistic dance aimed at an audience of one. The Senators are prostituting themselves in, what seems to me to be, a dance of fielty to the high prince of Palm Beach.

To quote the American comedian and satirist Will Rogers, “Senators are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement, and discouragement.”

Are the networks live broadcasts anything more than pimping for the President? One could and should argue, “No. The public should see for itself and note the character and tenor of the nominees.” But the fact that so many hours are offered free of charge and without obligation or an equal amount of time without balance is a concern.

Whether you support the nominations or have doubts is a private matter.

But what is public is this Senatorial progression of posturing themselves with obsequious, scripted mission statements and softball questions, aimed more at impressing or currying favor with Mr. Trump than eliciting real knowledge or a response from the witness.

Is it a question of what’s best for the American people? (The Senator’s job). Or is it a question of what can they say to be quoted on Fox to be noticed, appreciated, thanked, and soon rewarded?

Have we learned much of anything that wasn’t already prepared, shared, and promoted before the gavel fell opening the first session?

Aren’t we being treated to a regurgitation of message points crafted by speech writers? What a pitiful diet they are asking us to ingest.
And can’t you imagine these sycophants congratulating their bosses as they come off the dais — “What a good job you did.” And, “You sure looked great performing on camera at the microphone.” And, “We’ll be sure to send the clips from C-Span to the local stations in your state for rebroadcast on tonight’s evening news. The folks at home will love seeing you.”

I’ve noticed several Senators who have promoted their pleasure that the new secretary of defense will restore the military to its bygone glory. Forgive me, but is the military in tatters? There seem to be plenty of ships, and soldiers, and tanks, and even a new Space Force — isn’t that enough? This message may play well with old geezers down at the VFW hall, but what about the rest of us? Do these same Senators think any future war will really be fought primarily with boots on the ground? 
The hearings are not offering much more than an echo chamber.

The hearings are a reminder of P.T. Barnum’s assessment of the public, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

One would hope.

There is not much to see and learn here… there was an opportunity for better, but it seems that in the current politicized and fragmented world, any such hope has been dashed on the jagged shoals of reality.

The Senate hearings remind me of another Will Roger’s recommendation.
“After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring.
He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you’re full of bull, keep your mouth shut.”

Titillating in San Francisco

Update… 2.20.25… San Francisco has canceled its plans for its Nude Woman Statue explaining her weight would crush the roof of the garage where she was to pose.

San Francisco’s business boosters hope you will come to see artist Marco Cochrane’s “R-Evolution,” a colossal, 45’ Foot Nude Woman slated to be unveiled in the city’s iconic Union Square.

https://sfist.com/2025/01/08/like-it-or-not-45-foot-statue-of-nude-woman-coming-to-union-square-next-month/

I hope this quote was tongue in cheek: “This work of art will be a huge draw for the region,” Union Square Alliance CEO Marisa Rodriguez told the Chronicle. “The people who come to see the sculpture will need a cup of coffee and they’ll need dinner and a place to stay. They may want to go shopping or catch a show. This will be a huge boost and economic driver.”

Wait! Wait!
What about a cigarette too, after such an encounter?

Economic driver? Is that another way of acknowledging that “sex sells”?

I won’t even dare to speculate about the questionably offensive gender issues raised by erecting a nude woman as an endorsement of burning man.

But for sure, one can feel reaffirmed by our geographic, left-coast orientation, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

What’s missing on this larger-than-life representation of femininity is a quote from President-elect Trump. Should he comment on this post, I’ll be sure to update you.

Why we need long-form, investigative journalism

A mole infiltrated the highest ranks of American militias. Here’s what he found.

ProPublica

It’s so ‘easy’ to hate some one or some group, to have an almost visceral distaste and hate, but it is so much more difficult to understand them… to really, really understand beyond that intuitive or instinctive disagreement.

What makes them tick? How did they form their ideology? What fuels and fosters their suspicions. For those who we disagree with, we shake our heads in amazement that they can be “so wrong.”

This ProPublica required time and guts to research, check, double check and write. For the mole, it required a whole lot of chutzpah.

The resulting work is well worth our attention.