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Not if Trump gets his way - his aim will be emperor for life.

Trump's campaign has got a big boost from this assassination attempt and his wounded hero photo, so where does that leave Joe and the Democrats? Now they can't even criticise Trump as a threat to Democracy and would-be dictator as they did before without being accused of inciting violence, especially if Trump changes his tune and starts preaching about the need for unity as he seems to be planning for his Convention speech. Joe's job suddenly got a lot harder, and whether or not he steps aside for Kamala Harris or someone else probably won't make much difference at this point. Still, with four months to go, a lot could happen.

His luck seems never ending. The judge in the Documents case who was supposed to put him on trial decided to put the special prosecutor, Jack Smith on trial instead and found him guilty of being unqualified to bring any charges against Trump.

Image means everything to Trump. It's all he's ever had to try and cover up his deeply flawed character.

Ironic that the would-be assassin was a registered Republican. That’s a bit inconvenient.

The wounded, patriotic but ever-defiant hero! Never misses an opportunity for a bit of self-promotion. No doubt he'll give away signed copies to everyone who donates $1,000 towards his bandages now.

His head will be buzzing, not from his sore ear, but by what a great marketing opportunity this is and how he can capitalise on it. Nevertheless, it’s a sad event that should not have happened and in addition to Trump’s near miss has resulted in innocent bystanders being killed and injured.

To have the best chance of beating Trump they have to get Joe’s age and competency off the table and make it an issue for Trump instead. That means Joe stepping aside for a younger person. To do that they really need to convince Jill that it’s time for Joe to call time. Hopefully some senior Dems are working on that behind the scenes, but unfortunately she’s as pig headed as he is.

No winners then.

Apart from a couple of cringeworthy gaffes, Joe's post-NATO press conference seems to have gone well enough to keep the wolves at bay, at least until his next public performance. If he can keep up the pace he may even get across the line at the election, but it will be touch and go.

Cousin It?

So do I. Just wish I could remember them.

Noisy too.

Not to mention scrambling around for two months trying to find new people to replace an entire administration. At least with our system of shadow ministers, the incoming team can take over pretty easily.

He personally doesn’t have much of a platform beyond closing the border, drilling for oil snd gas, cutting taxes for the rich, slapping tariffs on the rest of the world and going after his enemies. He claims he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025 but then contradicts himself by saying he doesn’t agree with a lot of it. The bigger long term threat is from those pushing Project 2025, many of whom used to work for him in the previous administration and are a lot smarter and more disciplined than he is. The Supreme Court’s decision to cut the President loose from accountability is part of the same Republican philosophy of centralising power in a single authority.

I like his Plan B better. A large majority of Democrats across the country are concerned about Biden's age and ability to carry on for another four years. If he were to step side for Harris, suddenly Trump would be the old guy with cognitive issues. Fox and other republicans are already bashing Biden, so any new candidate will just get the same treatment. Biden is a very decent guy and is generally seen as a good president, but after the debate debacle he is now having to defend himself and try to salvage his credibility as a candidate, rather than being able to put all the focus on Trump's faults. The only way he can win now is if enough voters turn out to support the Democrats simply because they want to keep Trump out of the White House. If Joe could manage a smooth transition, it would inject new life into the election, particularly if Harris can get the support of the big donors and Democrat heavyweights, and picked a good VP. If he can't or won't step aside and it turns into a bun fight, I agree they will lose.

Only

Last? Not too sure though.

He will have run 10km bur not back and forth between them because he runs past both of them at the start so he never turns back.

As I understand it. Cohen made the payment initially and they all conspired to cook the books. That was just a misdemeanour. The crime was doing so to influence the election and/or avoid tax which is what they got him on. However the only real evidence they had that he was directly involved were the cheques he signed as president to reimburse Cohen (and cover Cohen’s tax bill), falsely recorded as legal expenses. If they can now block the cheques from being used as evidence he may get off.

I think what they are trying to argue is that Trump signed the cheques to repay Cohen after he became president (official business), so that incriminating fact couldn't be admitted in evidence in the trial and therefore the case should be thrown out. I don't think the judge will buy that.

It now seems Nixon was wrong to resign over Watergate and Ford had no business giving him a pardon. Despite two lower courts ruling that Presidents aren’t Kings, apparently they are. Very ironic given that America fought a War of Independence to break away from despotic rule.

Nothing stopping him from doing it now.

When our engineering office bought its first desktop computer in the early 80's (a state-of-the-art Tandy TRS80 that cost about $3,000 at the time), we had to do all our own programming as there was virtually no software available in those days. I thought I could put it to much better use than just writing technical applications so my main focus for the next year or so was analysing past and current Lotto results and developing arcane prediction theories that would improve my odds of picking the right numbers. Sadly despite considerable effort, I ultimately had to stick with engineering to earn a living.

Unfortunately, Joe’s biggest achievement was being so bad he made Trump look good on the night.