Joe Biden's crumbling support has reached his campaign's pocketbook.

Meta, formerly Facebook, announced on Friday that the platform would be taking away restrictions from former President Donald Trump’s Meta and Instagram accounts in the next few weeks. 

What’s the worst-case scenario for Democrats right now? The worst-case scenario is not Joe Biden dropping out. If Joe Biden dropped out, they’d get Kamala Harris or somebody else, and then they’d have a fresh race against Donald Trump. And the worst-case scenario is not Joe Biden staying in because, if he stays in and everyone in his party consolidates behind him, he probably loses, but it doesn’t have a massive down-ballot effect. The worst-case scenario for Democrats is: not being sure. It is the worst case scenario because more than half the party wants Biden out while he and his family want him in. It’s tearing the party apart. It’s creating massive chaos inside the Democratic Party. It is sinking Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party’s poll numbers. And over the course of the last couple of weeks, what he’s done is just make that situation much worse. The polling data right now is very consistent. Trump has a consistent 3-5 point lead in the national polling data, according to Real Clear Politics. Their polling average shows Trump leading in the following battleground states: Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. He is within spitting distance in Virginia, New Hampshire, and even Minnesota. All of this is a disaster area for Biden because the map is exceptionally broad for Trump and it is extraordinarily narrow for Biden. But the Democratic Party can’t force the old man out. Despite the fact that, according to a Pew Research poll, he currently has a 32% approval rating — including a 27% approval rating among people aged 18-to-29, which is supposed to be his radical, magical base — every so often, some sort of outlier poll shows a dead heat between Trump and Biden. That’s enough for Biden to believe that perhaps he can pull the election out after all. Yesterday, a brand new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was released finding Trump and Biden in a dead heat for the nation’s popular vote. Those results almost mirrored those of an ABC News/Ipsos poll from April in which registered voters favored Trump 46% to 44%, with 8% going someplace else. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show The big problem for congressional Democrats is that they want to oust Joe Biden. But they’re going to need better data than polls like that one. What they really need to do is somehow convince Jill Biden, who is the driving force behind Joe Biden’s logic, that there’s no way he can win. But there’s no way to convince him of that because he keeps thinking that the poll shortcomings he is having right now are due to the fact his own base is not supporting him properly, according to Politico, which reported: The first family remains committed to the campaign, with first lady Jill Biden and the president’s son, Hunter, both telling confidants that they still believe that the president is the only candidate who can beat Trump, according to the two people familiar. The first lady has also expressed fear that bowing out would make the Atlanta debate a defining image of her husband’s presidency, an outcome she finds unacceptable, the people said. Biden’s sister, Valerie, also remains committed to the campaign but has not ruled out advocating changes if the race becomes damaging to her brother’s health and legacy. In essence, Biden’s immediate family is telling him to stay in. And Jill Biden — who has a bizarre image in her head that Joe Biden stepping down would be much worse for him than if he runs and loses — is the person in his ear. Meanwhile, aides are bracing for a new wave of defections following Biden’s Thursday press conference. But the point is: It wasn’t as big of a disaster area as many of the Biden critics had hoped. Contrastingly, it was a best-case scenario for Trump because, if he and the Republican Party want chaos to remain inside the Democratic Party, Biden performing barely well enough so he sticks around is ideal. That is precisely what is happening. A series of reports indicate a growing movement inside the Democratic Party to replace Biden. His aides themselves are leaking like fury everywhere that Biden needs to leave the race. All of this has been building since the presidential debate. Yesterday, Biden spoke at a press conference. This was the moment when Biden was supposed to turn into “Smokin’ Joe,” come out gunning, be strong and powerful. First, Biden mentioned it would not be like a normal press conference in which he just called on people randomly. He had a list of reporters he would call on, presumably prescreened by his team. None of the reporters asked about Biden not having cabinet meetings for nine months. None of them asked about the fact that Joe Biden’s White House called to edit radio interviews this week. None asked about a possible Parkinson’s diagnosis. No questions were asked about why Hunter Biden, a convicted felon and longtime crack addict, is now in the inner circle and attending cabinet meetings. Biden referred to “Vice President Trump,” saying, “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president.” He also said no one has suggested he take a neurological test. Except for half of America. He continued, saying, “I’m following the advice of my commander-in-chief.” Jill Biden has a new nickname, apparently. And this was his best press conference. But it may have been good enough so he stays in the race. And the chaos resulting from it is great news for Trump.

'Amid the chaos'

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'We all wish Jonny a speedy recovery'

Leonid Brezhnev led the former Soviet Union as general secretary of the Communist Party until 1982. But like most Russian apparatchiks who excessively smoked, drank, and gained weight, Brezhnev aged prematurely. Also like them, his disabilities never led to his abdication. By Brezhnev’s late 60s and early 70s, he was too ill to travel abroad or make public appearances. Indeed, his debility left the Soviet Union without a real leader for the final six or seven years of his tenure. Brezhnev got away with it because the Soviet state-controlled media doctored photos and videos to attest to his supposedly vigorous health and constant hands-on involvement. “Journalists” sent out false communiques. They spun narratives that Brezhnev was robust, hale, and working long hours on behalf of the Russian people. Any dissenting journalists who sought to report the true, sad state of affairs were in danger of losing their jobs, freedom—or even their lives. Instead, the “reporters” of Pravda (which means “Truth”), the official print megaphone of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, wrote lies about Brezhnev’s busy workdays. Pravda’s handlers spun fables about the respect (and fear) the rest of the world held for such a dynamic leader—even as Brezhnev became ill and a virtual recluse. The cynical Russian people shrugged because they had long been accustomed to their lying media and the falsehoods they peddled. And besides, Brezhnev was a doctrinaire Stalinist communist. So his job was not to rock the boat or upset the Russian communist hierarchy. Instead, he reigned over the penultimate Soviet “era of stagnation,” while an ossified communism increasingly destroyed all incentives and hope, leaving the Russian people poor, cynical, and helpless. Something similar has happened to a calcified America under President Joe Biden. Like the late-stage Brezhnev, Biden is now a president in name only. He has outsourced his administration to a vestigial, hard-left apparat from the Obama years. Now, Biden can no longer even perform his assigned ceremonial tasks of putting a moderate veneer on radical, nihilist agendas that are stagnating the country. Yet our Pravda journalists have sworn to the American people that, in private, the reclusive, three-day-a-week Biden outpaces the energy and drive of those half his age. Obsequious staffers plant stories in the Soviet-like ears of reporters about Biden’s singular dynamism. Any dissenters are publicly demonized as peddlers of “cheap fakes.” When Biden’s reclusiveness prompts too much gossip that he is near senile, he is wheeled out for a staged interview that must be edited before release. Or he answers questions secretly shown to him in advance. On sporadic occasions where the state media and the Biden nomenklatura cannot control events—such as rare presidential debates or international summits—our Pravda media go into overdrive to convince the public that what they see and hear is not real. In the end, Brezhnev could not even hobble to the May Day dais to celebrate communism’s national holiday. Brezhnev soon reached the point that his debilities were so manifest that even his hirelings and the media could not hide them. He then vanished from public view, leaving the Russian people with no idea as to who was running their communist nation. Then one day, Soviet propagandists announced suddenly but matter-of-factly that the dynamic Brezhnev had died and that his successor, Yuri Andropov, was now brilliantly running the Soviet Union. Biden, too, is at that point of stasis. He cannot do press conferences, town halls, debates, or real interviews. To do so would confirm to the public the truth: that Biden is too cognitively challenged to continue his presidency. And yet the cloistered Biden can no longer hide during a campaign season with his accustomed three-day workweek. The media has done its best to continue its Orwellian ruse. They claim that Trump interrupted Biden (he did not) in the recent debate and that he lied (if so, not as much as did Biden). Sometimes, the press corps just blurts out that an inert, left-wing Biden is still preferable to a dynamic, conservative Trump. What is next for our increasingly Soviet state? We will continue to be lectured on the vigor of Biden—until one day we aren’t, when Biden either steps down or worse. Then, our Pravda will likely present the new official narrative. They will convince us that his successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, is an underappreciated genius whose past portfolios led to solving the border crisis and renewing American dominance in space. One day, the same reporters who swore Biden was a virtual Socrates behind closed doors and then suddenly confessed he was not when their lies were no longer operative will sing the praises of our new comrade leader—the brilliant, accomplished, eloquent, and articulate Harris. (C) 2024 Tribune Content Agency LLC We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Our Brezhnev, Our Pravda, Our Soviet Union appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Years ago, a dear friend who worked for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld invited me to join the two of them at a photography exhibit. The secretary needed some assistance, having had shoulder surgery. He was loathe to have a lady carry his briefcase. It became my job. We walked through the exhibit of photographs, and he had stories about many of the people whose portraits had been taken. As we passed the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren’s portrait on the wall, Rumsfeld commented to me that his friendship with Gerald Ford, who served on the Warren Commission, and his subsequent tenure as Ford’s chief of staff is what convinced him that government conspiracies were impossible. He said no one in government can keep a secret. They either spill the beans or get exposed. All these years later, Democrats are learning the lesson Rumsfeld told me. Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame now admits Democrats have told him for 18 months that Joe Biden is not fit to serve a second term. Former “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd now reveals that two years ago, a Biden Cabinet secretary told him Biden was not fit to serve a second term. George Clooney, in The New York Times, admits that even at the fundraiser for Biden that Clooney hosted a month ago, Biden’s decline was obvious. What is obvious, too, is how much deceit the American press corps and Democrats have engaged in. A month ago, at the Clooney fundraiser, a video from a Hollywood entertainment reporter went viral. It shows Biden being led offstage by Barack Obama in an awkward manner. Conservatives highlighted the video. Democrats insisted it was not true. The media largely sided with Democrats. Now, Clooney admits the Biden at that fundraiser was not the Joe Biden of 2010 or even 2020. Jon Favreau, the Obama staffer, now says on CNN he was at the fundraiser and that Biden’s physical decline was obvious. A month ago, the American press corps insisted that was not so. Also a month ago, video came out showing Biden apparently freezing at a Juneteenth celebration. Republicans highlighted the video. New York Times reporters insisted it was taken out of context. Just last week, New York Times reporters used that very same video as proof of the president’s decline. Olivia Nuzzi is a political reporter who wrote a devastating story in New York magazine about Biden last week. She reported close Biden friends were telling her back in January that Biden could not remember them. When I questioned why it took so long for her to report this fact, she replied that these people were speaking off the record and refused to allow her to run with what they said until after Biden took the debate stage in Atlanta with Donald Trump. In fact, that seems to be a recurring story. Whether the Cabinet secretary with Todd or the friends of Biden with Nuzzi, no one wanted to say anything publicly. But it is remarkable that Democrats attended a Biden fundraiser a month ago with Clooney and doubled down on denying Biden had a problem. The Democrats, and many members of the press, were engaged in the very gaslighting they claim Donald Trump has done. Competent reporters like Alex Thompson at Axios, Nuzzi at New York Magazine, and numerous reporters at The Wall Street Journal have reported on the president’s cognitive decline only to be attacked by fellow journalists, not just Democrats. Now, they have proved to be correct, and the press corps has turned on Biden. The situation is not sustainable for the Democrats. But what is most troubling is that Biden and his advisers still think he can not just fight the fight, but win the election. Regardless of his frailty, he and his team have lied to Americans about his condition for quite a while. Biden has been exposed. Now he is in the worst position possible for an American politician: He is both pitied for his condition and resented for lying about it. That is not something from which one can recover. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post It’s Worst of Both World for Biden’s Enablers appeared first on The Daily Signal.