The news is that Goldsmiths College, a subsidiary of the University of London, has cut its Queer Studies Program. The college is facing what is now a common enough crisis, running in the red because enrollments are down, with no end in sight to the decline. Who is to blame? Not Goldsmiths College, according to students, professors, and friends of Goldsmiths College. The world about them is to blame. It is full of Philistines who have no eye for how beautiful and important a program in Queer Studies is. Meanwhile, I have had occasion to look at the lineup of courses being offered in the English Department at the University of Florida, and though there are scores of them, only two or three have anything to do with English literature written before 1900. Many of the courses are on film, comic books, and so forth. Most of the descriptions fall into two forms: In English X, we will study how the literature (or film, et cetera) of Y helped to establish and perpetuate the injustices of patriarchy (or racism, misogyny, environmental depredation, classism, ableism, and whatnot). In English XX, we will study how the literature (or film, et cetera) of YY helped to problematize and resist the injustices of patriarchy (or et cetera, and whatnot). But the really clever descriptions will combine elements of both forms, not just to have one author (or filmmaker, or cartoonist) in opposition to another, but to have the same author in opposition to himself. That way, we can see the good Charles Dickens, who approves all that we approve, in combat with the bad Charles Dickens, who does not approve all that we approve. (READ MORE: Teaching the Constitution in a World Without Books) For this, in the United States, you put your house in hock over the gables? The Professors Have Become the Philistines The Philistine, in the old use of the insult, would not value a thing unless it could be put to use; if he did have a sense of beauty, it was as merely decorative, and often, if the Philistine was a moneybag, as decoration to highlight his Most Important Self. To the Philistine, it made little sense to study the humanities. How can you make hay out of it? Does Pope help you turn petroleum into plastics? Is Perugino a plus for your portfolio? Will Plato pump your products to the people? But here we see that the professors themselves have given the game away and joined the other side. It is they who conceive of all they do in terms of political gain. There is no sense in their course descriptions, none, that you might study the poetry of Wordsworth because it is full of serene and subtle human wisdom, often expressed with an understated beauty that brings him into the company of Homer in literature, and, to cross the seas, to such keen-sighted and amiable artists of the natural world as Hokusai. (READ MORE: Oklahoma School Districts Must Teach Scripture. Is That a Good Thing?) There is no sense of self-criticism, none, to suggest to the professors that the desire to turn art to partisan profit makes you more like the huckster P. T. Barnum, who sponsored a grand tour of the United States for the famous soprano Jenny Lind, than like that kindly nightingale from Sweden who won the hearts of Americans. Once, at an inn in Rochester, New York, Lind sang Swedish folk songs to several Onondaga chiefs, who had come to the inn to hear her, and who listened in respectful and most appreciative silence. They were not Philistines. They were not politicians. They did not speak professorial patois. And yet it may be unfair to Barnum, that inventor of the American circus, to suggest that professors who turn literature or any of the humanities into politics by other means are like him. In many ways, Barnum was their superior. He actually did entertain people, and he knew talent when he saw it. And though he was full of himself, the shows he put on were not about P. T. Barnum. He did not hector his audiences about the history of huckstering.  He did not teach Mountebank 101 at Michigan State. But that is the sort of thing you get, almost by definition, from something like Queer Studies, or most of the other “Studies” studies in our colleges and universities. You study yourself to flatter yourself, to promote yourself, to justify yourself, or to soothe uneasy feelings about yourself.  Your college education is about “self-discovery,” which means, in effect, that you never do discover yourself, because the only way to do that is to leave yourself behind and look at something else for a change. He who would find himself must forget himself. He who would save his life must lose it. It is a fundamental law of being and of love. The Edgiest of Them All The art that the Philistinism of political (and personal) activism produces is of a singularly garish and offensive kind. It cannot help but be so, as its object is not to delight others but to parade oneself and one’s political demands. Even when the object of study is ostensibly someone like Shakespeare, it really is oneself. Shakespeare is the vehicle or hostage, or a pseudo-Shakespeare decked out as the Bard but really a stooge who will speak our minds in an Elizabethan accent. (READ MORE: Trump v. Big Government: The Department of Education Won’t Die Easy) What does Shakespeare have to teach us that we have forgotten or never known in the first place? Nothing, apparently. Such was the English production several years ago of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which a female Bottom the Weaver, when “translated” to somebody with the head of an ass, was provided with a big furry masculine tool to boot — and we are to nod our own ass’s heads and remark about how subversive it is, how transgressive, how what’s-it and so forth, while the magical ambiance of the play is destroyed, just as if Nazis were to go goose-stepping across Mendelssohn’s wedding march. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the edgiest of them all?” “You are, O Queen.” There are two kinds of people who look askance at this new sort of Philistinism. The first are the old Philistines. I suppose we will always have in our midst people who do not see the value of art, poetry, and music since they see only what they can use, and not what they should submit themselves to learn from or to accept with grateful hearts. They are like the Veneerings in Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, who overspend themselves in advertising themselves, with “bran-new” furniture and “bran-new” bests of friends and everything “bran-new,” shiny, bulky, and expensively ugly. The second are people whom the new Philistines accuse of being Philistines, but who are not so because, in fact, they do love art, poetry, and music, they do love the humanities, and they do not see why they should be shamed for not wanting to shell out money to buy politically accoutered garbage. I love the poetry of Wordsworth, and I do not see how you can call yourself a student of English literature if you know nothing about him. I love the poetry of Milton, who believed that my Church was a sinkhole of falsehood and wickedness. I love it for its considerable virtues, for what it has taught me about good and evil, for its courage and honesty even when its object was partly mistaken; and I think that Paradise Lost is the greatest poem in our language. Such art has the power to induce people to leave their political disagreements behind because something greater than the Electoral College is here; anyone who loves the art of John Constable is, if for that alone, a fellow traveler and a friend of mine. It is not, then, that green-eyeshade financiers and political enemies have killed the humanities. The enemies within the humanities did that long ago.  What we are noticing now is not that the victim is dead, but that the corpse has begun to stink. If the humanities are still alive, it is not at such charnel houses. I will have more to say about where they do indeed live and thrive. The post Philistines <i>a la Mode</i> appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Summer does not exist without a boat. Those who go to the mountains think they are on summer vacation, but they are actually just extending a very long Christmas vacation. Summer requires sun, sea, beach, and boat. Ideally, you would have a friend with a boat, to avoid having to take care of it yourself, but if you have already fallen into the trap of being “the boat guy,” I am going to give you some tips on how to prepare the boat for the summer. The best advice, however, is to stock it with coolers full of ice and beer. This may not help to oil the engine or clean the filters, but I assure you that no boat will run badly in summer if it carries enough bottles of cold beer and bikini-clad girls on board. Replace the Anodes To start the summer off right, I guess you should replace the anodes, for which you need to know what the hell anodes are and where they live. Also called sacrificial anodes, it is a small metal thing that you’ve never heard of attached to the hull. Its function is to corrode, through some electrical phenomenon that I am unable to explain, to avoid the corrosion of the rest of the metals on the boat. In a way, an anode is like a president’s advisor: Its function is to corrode so that the president does not. Check Rod Oil This is done by attaching the extraction pump tube coming out of the bottom of the crankcase to a variable-length hose. Since you don’t know what the extraction pump is or where the bottom, or top, of the crankcase is, and you don’t have a variable-length hose (obscenities aside), forget about checking the oil. It’s a boat, not a damn salad. Take a Look at the Valves Like all motorized machines, boats have valves. It’s very important that you take a close look at them when tuning up for your first day of summer boating. You don’t need to touch anything. If you keep an eye on the valves, they won’t fail, if you don’t, they will. Don’t try to figure it out. The Propeller Condition The propeller is a set of fins that rotate around an axis, pretty much like the journalists of the synchronized opinion team rotate around Biden. The idea is that, as it turns, unlike Biden, the ship should move forward, if possible, towards a safe harbor. For optimal navigation, the propeller must be in one piece, submerged underwater, and free of any entangled human corpses. The Sails Theory Sails make sailing possible when the propeller is not working, or when you have forgotten it at home. The problem is that sailing with a propeller is leisurely and restful while sailing with a sail is sporty and tiring. I hate sailboats, it’s a kind of nostalgia for the old piracy. If cars run on motors and not sails, why the hell do we use sails to sail in 2024? Boat Cleaning The best way to keep the boat always clean is to sell the boat and buy a submarine. Safety Kit Finally, check carefully that you carry life jackets, fire extinguishers, a first aid kit, a last aid devotional book, fireworks, a Titanic-sized horn, and whiskey. Life jackets, fire extinguishers, first aid kit, devotional book, fireworks, and the horn are optional. READ MORE: Five Quick Things: They’ll Literally Say Anything, and They Just Proved It Want to Be a Rebel? Be a Conservative. Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump — and JD Vance The post Get Your Boat Ready for a Perfect Summer Vacation appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Donald Trump nearly died and one onlooker was killed due to a failure in tactics by the Secret Service. This does not detract from the bravery of the immediate members of the protective detail, but it does point to a major weakness in both our military and national security establishments. That is a lack of effective red teaming. Red teaming, when properly done, challenges the basic assumptions of any plan. The Trump assassination attempt is a case in point. The Secret Service planners assumed that the outer perimeter of the rally site would be secured by local law enforcement. This would have meant putting a local cop or state trooper on the roof of the highest adjacent building so the officer could survey the other structures for potential threats. No one apparently asked the question, “Who is going to do it and how?” (READ MORE: An Armed 20-Year-Old Got Within Range of Trump. How Did That Happen?) Nobody likes to be red-teamed. When an editor asks me some hard questions about a statement that I have made in a draft article, I bristle. But the editing, which is a form of red teaming, usually results in a better piece and has sometimes saved me from embarrassment. The Secret Service Isn’t the Only One Lacking Good Red Teaming The Secret Service is not the only government agency that could benefit from red-teaming. The Marine Corps stands accused of holding flawed war games to justify its Force Design concept, which saw it divest itself of critical combat capabilities to buy anti-ship missiles that are redundant with capabilities possessed by other services and quite possibly easily countered by the Chinese who are the concept’s principal target. A recent Marine Corps Times investigative report indicates that the games were either poorly designed or deliberately skewed to come up with the “right” results. Because the games were conducted under a cloak of secrecy, it is impossible to tell if the red teams were hobbled or merely incompetent. However, experienced red teamers — including this one — who have closely examined the concept have found some fairly huge inconsistencies in the assumptions; these have yet to be adequately addressed or even acknowledged. As a result, the Marine Corps will go through the humiliation of having its concept reevaluated by a congressionally mandated study by an independent think tank. (READ MORE: Toning Down the Dangerous Rhetoric Didn’t Last Long) Although the Army has a school for red teaming, I tell my students that each red team should be designed specifically to test the concept or plan being examined. The red team should be familiar with the culture of the planners as well as that of the potential adversary and his doctrine and tactics. The is no such thing as a universal one-size-fits-all red team. The Simple Fix The Secret Service would be well advised to provide each protective detail with an independent red teamer. That individual should not be in the chain of command of the agent in charge of the detail. He or she should be familiar with  Secret Service doctrine and procedures and also an expert on past assassinations and attempts. The red team member should also be trained to appreciate terrain and to recognize choke points along planned routes. That individual should provide a written report of any weaknesses in the plan to the agent in charge who -in turn- should be required to state in writing if he or she disagrees with the recommendations of the red team findings. (READ MORE: Trump Is Now Our National Hero) This would help reduce the kind of finger-pointing that occurred after the Trump incident, I cannot stress strongly enough that the red teamer should not be part of the protection team that will implement the plan because it is hard to grade your own work objectively. The red teamer should be constantly thinking like a potential assassin. No plan is foolproof, but a good red teaming effort ensures that all assumptions have been cross-checked. Gary Anderson was one of the senior directors of the DoD Defense Adaptive Red Team (DART) and lectures on Alternative Analysis (Red Teaming) at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The post The Secret Service Needs a Red Team appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Over the past two years, reports of generative AI (GenAI) abuse have become commonplace. It’s rather less common for these reports to come from Google, whose GenAI Gemini has repeatedly earned notoriety. To its credit, though, the software giant has done just that, releasing an analysis of common patterns of AI misuse. The report describes an array of potential harms that range from creating false identities (“sockpuppeting”), to portraying real people in invented actions or circumstances, to AI translations of existing scam content. (READ MORE: Now We’ve Got Proof that Wikipedia is Biased) Unsurprisingly, the most common categories of abuse involve images or videos of real persons. Many of these are deepfaked pornography, as with the Spanish students who were recently convicted of generating sexual images of female classmates. Others have political objectives; during Russia’s war on Ukraine, both Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin have been digitally impersonated giving false orders. AI Hasn’t Introduced New Harms to the Internet. It’s Just Made Them Easier. Other cases appear, so far, to be of more academic interest. A fundamental issue in large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT is that user input can be indistinguishable from the system’s underlying instructions. Manufacturer attempts to limit the LLM can thus be easily circumvented, in some cases by the user simply typing, “ignore previous instructions.” Early versions of most LLMs could be “jailbroken” to give all manner of illegal or vulgar advice; in one infamous case, a user was given a recipe for napalm after asking for it as a lullaby. In practice, however, such issues seem rarely to occur outside the efforts of dedicated researchers (or users tweaking the system’s nose). Most internet users, after all, don’t need AI to find material of questionable legal or moral fiber. I GOT CLYDE TO TEACH ME HOW TO MAKE NAPALM BY GRANDMA MODING IT LOL pic.twitter.com/XguaKW6w0L — annie (@_annieversary) April 17, 2023 Indeed, GenAI has introduced very few entirely new categories of harm. Impersonation and image editing are old tricks, and they claimed victims long before AI came on the scene. Yet as the report rightly notes, the work of OpenAI and similar companies has made these techniques cheaper, faster, and of higher quality than ever before. In doing so, they have “altered the costs and incentives” of scams and other abuses. It’s one thing to spend weeks slaving over a good-enough fake, hoping to lure a few unwary souls; it’s quite another to generate a photorealistic image with the press of a button. With the American election only a few months away, one shudders to think of the likely deluge of deepfaked video ahead. (WATCH: The Weekend Spectator Ep. 2: AI Is Progressing Faster Than You Think) In some ways, the GenAI abuses call to mind the early days of public internet usage. Printed media chain letters and junk mail made a similar leap in ease and scale; instead of laboriously and expensively hand-mailing physical letters, a bad actor could send malicious e-mails at no marginal cost. (It’s hard to remember now the days before “spam” acquired its current meaning.) Users in the late 1990s despaired that all legitimate information exchange might be buried in a tide of nonsense. Technology Sometimes Solves Its Own Problems But technology sometimes provides the answers to its own problems. Solutions came slowly, but come they did — whether from users more carefully guarding their “good” e-mail addresses, or from improved filtering technologies. It is not unreasonable to hope that AI may see a similar adjustment. Current detectors are unreliable, but that is not an immutable law. In a decade, omnipresent AI fakes may seem as quaint as Nigerian princes asking for your bank account. Other problems, like students using “undressing” pornography engines, may remain, but giving unsupervised smartphones to children is a mistake for many reasons and is facing growing backlash. The Google report does raise two final concerns. In describing threats to GenAI systems, it describes “data poisoning” as follows: For example… [one tool] allows artists to add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before uploading online, to break any models that use it for training. Such attacks exploit the fact that most GenAI models are trained on publicly available datasets… scraped from the web, which malicious actors can easily compromise. The artists utilizing these tools — who are, after all, modifying their own art — might balk at being described as “malicious users.” Similar concerns were raised in June when Microsoft’s CEO of AI said that virtually all web content was “fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate with it,” and that even materials explicitly denying this permission were “a gray area.” To the extent that guarding intellectual property is viewed as hostile behavior, AI creators invite justifiable backlash. (READ MORE: The Developing World (Still) Needs Golden Rice) A second concern, post-ChatGPT, is that we may assume even real data is digital fakery. Several news agencies claimed video clips of President Biden’s infirmity were digital “cheapfakes”; academics attempting to punish AI plagiarism struggle with false-positive accusations of innocent students. Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre offers a more vital example, with several apparently real images initially dismissed as fakes. With GenAI, many are rightly on guard against believing lies; it is perhaps less obvious, but no less vital, to be careful of denying the truth. The post Google’s Report on AI Abuse Isn’t Comforting appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The recent news that the U.S. Air Force may suspend its sixth generation Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program fighter aircraft system due to “intensifying budget pressures” is concerning at a time when America is facing building challenges from the People’s Republic of China. From implementing everything from drones to stealth aircraft, America has remained at the forefront of the military technological revolution. However, it no longer holds a monopoly on many of these key technologies. (READ MORE: Former Trump Defense Official Makes the Case for Prioritizing Asia Over Europe) China is progressing rapidly in electronic warfare, cyber, and counter-space systems, and countless other warfighting domains. It is quickly matching and, in some cases, surpassing the United States’ defense capabilities, one reason being its 70 percent jump in research and development spending from 2018 to 2023, according to the World Economic Forum. China’s Rapid Tech Rise Threatens American Dominance China is currently building a sixth-generation fighter system with all the new features you’d expect of 21st-century military technology. The system will have greater range, faster acceleration, and more power than any combat aircraft in the U.S. inventory. This is why the U.S. was working on its own sixth-generation “Next Generation Air Dominance” (NGAD) system. It understandably wants to prevent China from getting this vital leg-up in the sky. Unfortunately, in June the U.S. Air Force said intensifying budget pressures might force it to delay or even abandon the program. This shortsighted move can’t happen. The consequences of letting China win the technology race are too great. If NGAD is left by the wayside, the U.S. would have to rely on its fleet of F-35 fighter jets, which have a Full Mission-Capable rate of just 30 percent despite the program being just 23 years old – a lousy return on investment. The Air Force has fielded only 183 of the stealthy but aging F-22 Raptors that recently suffered from fatigued turbine engine blades that caused seven Class A mishaps (though no loss of life). (READ MORE: Arkansas AG Claims Temu Is Chinese Spyware) Years, ago, the late Sen. John McCain decried the F-35’s development as a “scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost, schedule and performance.” After 23 years, the plane will still only come through for America three out of every 10 times — and that’s if there’s enough of them to go around. Reliability concerns prevented the plane from receiving full-rate production approval until March of this year, so F-35 supply and capacity are, without question, concerns too. We’re Losing Our Technological Edge Does anyone really believe this broken, patchy approach to policing the skies presents a viable recipe for beating Xi Jinping and his innovative agenda and goals for global preeminence? As Michael Brown, the former director of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit put it, “We’re losing that [technological] edge, and we’re losing it at a rapid rate…. If we don’t invest, if we don’t have the right talent, if we’re not focused on the fact that this is a tech race, we’re not going to be happy with the outcome.” The U.S. hasn’t lost the technology race with China quite yet, but a sobering Pentagon report surmises we may find ourselves in second place soon, and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute assesses that China is the world leader in 37 of 44 key technologies. The last thing the U.S. should do in the face of that challenge is turn its back on a new fighter aircraft system. Even before the news of a potential NGAD suspension or cancelation broke, Chinese military analyst Rick Joe predicted that China would launch its next-generation fighter before America. Some already believe that the country is testing its system. These realities speak to the need for the Air Force to accelerate the program, not slow or stop it. (READ MORE: China Attempts to Intimidate Philippines with ‘Monster’ Coast Guard Ship) But the Air Force doesn’t have many good options. Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-35 Lightning II used by the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and 15 foreign countries, can ride that $2 trillion program for several decades longer if NGAD is abandoned, so it has no incentive to do any more than crank out a pro forma proposal just to keep the Pentagon happy. The NGAD Program Should Keep Our Military Competitive In the words of Whit Peters, who served as U.S. Air Force secretary in the Trump administration, “The U.S. government (and to a very limited extent, even the Air Force) can trim many budgetary items in a crunch, but the NGAD – one of the most important measures to protect America’s competitiveness with the Chinese military – should not be one of them.” NGAD will incorporate five key technologies: Stealth, propulsion, advanced weaponry, thermal management, and digital design. And it won’t fight alone, but alongside at least 1,000 unmanned Collaborative Combat Aircraft — drones — that will use artificial intelligence and operate autonomously on missions such as surveillance and electronic warfare. Also worrying is the fate of the advanced “adaptive cycle” engines being developed for NGAD by GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney. If the Air Force opts for smaller and cheaper engines, as Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall hinted, the resulting aircraft would lose many of the performance advantages of the original NGAD design, and America’s aircraft engine industrial base would start to slip if the Pentagon sacrificed the adaptive cycle engine after almost two decades of research and development. After the worrying early reports about NGAD, in July, Kendall assured the defense community earlier these stories do not accurately reflect Air Force plans. Instead, he stated that, because of the spending caps Congress imposed on the U.S. military last year, the Air Force may need to conduct a slight NGAD redesign. This report from the secretary, while still concerning, is also relieving. Even with the pressure Congress has imposed across the military, it’s imperative that the Air Force specifically protect this new system. Like Mark Twain, the reports of the death of NGAD may be an exaggeration. But the Air Force must reassess now how it can contribute to America’s 21st-century defense needs, bite the bullet, and ensure NGAD gets the support it needs. James Durso (@james_durso) is a regular commentator on foreign policy and national security matters. Mr. Durso served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and has worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The post To the US Military: Don’t Surrender the Skies to China appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Talk Digital Network:  TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Alan Barton, All News Pipeline: As new as this whole sordid Trump assassination mess is, there are so many things that can be said and have been said, that just about any position you want to take has all of the credentialed opinion and thoroughly studied guesswork to fit whatever supposition you may wish […]

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined the list of congressional Democrats publicly calling for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential election. Brown, considered among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for reelection, is the fourth senator to urge Biden to step aside. “Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban. These are the issues Ohioans care about and it is my job to keep fighting for them,” Brown said in a statement. “I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me. At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President should end his campaign,” he added. I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me. At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President should end his campaign. pic.twitter.com/dwKMZJzMfu — Sherrod Brown (@SherrodBrown) July 19, 2024 Brown’s call for Biden to end his campaign follow the statement made by Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who’s considered another vulnerable Senate Democrat. Another Democrat Senator Calls On Joe Biden To Withdraw From Presidential Election Per NBC News: Brown’s call follows one Thursday from Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who, like Brown, faces a tough re-election campaign this fall, and another Friday from Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., urged Biden to withdraw from the race last week. More than 30 congressional Democrats now want someone other than Biden to be their party’s presidential nominee. The push for Biden to exit comes after a debate performance with Trump last month that raised alarms about the president’s age and health — and about his ability to lead the Democratic ticket this fall. The push has intensified in recent days, with speculation increasing about Vice President Kamala Harris and others stepping in for Biden. Brown, according to his campaign, will not weigh in on the process to choose a new Democratic nominee and believes Biden should serve the rest of his term. The three-term Ohio senator had previously said that voters in his state, which former President Donald Trump twice won by 8 percentage points, had “legitimate questions about whether the president should continue his campaign” and that he intended to listen to their concerns. But he had stopped short of calling for Biden to end his re-election bid. "Make no mistake, @SherrodBrown has known for a long time that Joe Biden is unfit to serve, but Brown lied and hid the ball on his cognitive decline. Sherrod must answer if @JoeBiden should step down as President, or if Democrats will continue to put our country at risk," Ohio Republicans wrote. Make no mistake, @SherrodBrown has known for a long time that Joe Biden is unfit to serve, but Brown lied and hid the ball on his cognitive decline. Sherrod must answer if @JoeBiden should step down as President, or if Democrats will continue to put our country at risk. — Ohio Republicans (@ohiogop) July 19, 2024 "If Joe Biden is unfit to run, he is unfit to serve. I am formally calling on Joe Biden to resign the Presidency because his continued presence in the situation room is a national security threat," Republican nominee for Senate in Ohio Bernie Moreno reportedly said. Bernie Moreno on Sherrod Brown suddenly deciding Biden needs to step aside: "If Joe Biden is unfit to run, he is unfit to serve… Brown was fully aware of Joe Biden's mental decline, covered it up, and used Biden as a vessel to pass the most liberal agenda in American history." pic.twitter.com/LuaADfUoKi — Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) July 19, 2024 Fox News reports: Brown is the fourth Democrat senator to press Biden to step aside and the 34th Congressional Democrat to do so. The Ohio Democrat is in a particularly competitive race in November, where he will face Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is endorsed by former President Trump. Non-partisan political handicapper the Cook Political Report rated the Ohio Senate race as a "Toss Up," placing it alongside races in Montana, Nevada, and Michigan.