The Smithsonian Institution -- sort of a national museum for America -- keeps (or at least kept) a beehive in one of its buildings. At one point the worker bees of the hive beheaded the queen (accidentally -- ?) while tending to her.

The beekeepers said it didn't really matter; her body could keep laying eggs for weeks or months without the head, and that was her only purpose in the hive at that point.

And Ronald Reagan had dementia in his final years..

One year too late.

I personally thought Biden was perfectly capable of doing the job as president, but that is essentially irrelevant to the extent that he is incapable of being reelected.

I personally thought Biden was perfectly capable of doing the job as president, but that is essentially irrelevant to the extent that he is incapable of being reelected.

For a Biden failure du jour, he appointed Kimberly Cheatle as Director of the Secret Service, who will likely resign or be fired by day end. If you thought Biden was bad at the debate, she managed to be 10x worse than that at her hearing today. A good fraction of the bi-partisan committee started asking her to resign to her face after about 30 minutes of obfuscation. She provided essentially zero information, even refusing to answer simple questions where she admitted she knew the answer.  For example, she was asked, "How many shell casings were found on the roof where the shooter was?". She admitted the FBI had told her the answer but refused to tell the oversight committee. Ditto for a whole range of straight-forward stuff. If she still has her job by day-end tomorrow, I will be astounded.

Here's an excerpt -- admittedly Mace is a little over the top, but Cheatle didn't do much better under any of the questioners:

For example, she was asked, "How many shell casings were found on the roof where the shooter was?". She admitted the FBI had told her the answer but refused to tell the oversight committee.

That bit might be standard procedure: there is an active investigation, and details like that might be things the FBI doesn't want to have made public in case the knowledge of the information might be something they can use.

Now, very, very unlikely that the number of shell casings found will end up being information that is more useful for the investigation if it isn't public knowledge, but if I'm the investigator, I want a blanket embargo on all such information unless it is very specifically cleared for release.

All that said, I don't think if I'd been in charge of security for the event there'd have been someone not in the security detail with a rifle on the roof of a nearby building.

Also, I think if I'd been advising the shooter, he'd have positioned himself just a bit further to his left so that trees obstructed line of sight to both of the security sniper positions but still left him, as far as I can tell, with a clear shot at the podium. He could have just kept firing, probably until he ran out of ammunition.

One would have to think that it would be good self preservation to appoint a capable head of the SS. If said head were to choose the junior varsity team to protect his sworn enemy from being eliminated, that may contribute in the same direction, but be could awkward to explain ex post.

And -- it is done -- Cheatle resigned. They need some smart badass military type to replace her.

Your timing forecast was off by several hours!

Tricky to account for time zones.

To me, the entire hearing is part of the same looney tunes circus that led to the Secret Service’s failure. The political frenzy - claims that Trump will be a dictator or comparisons of Harris to Stalin (which are both ridiculous if you know what fascism and communism really are) - creates mass hysteria, chaos and dysfunction. I'm curious if this madness is primarily driven by media coverage, as most Americans I know continue to focus on their daily lives, work and families, much like always.

To me, the entire hearing is part of the same looney tunes circus that led to the Secret Service’s failure. The political frenzy - claims that Trump will be a dictator or comparisons of Harris to Stalin (which are both ridiculous if you know what fascism and communism really are) - creates mass hysteria, chaos and dysfunction. I'm curious if this madness is primarily driven by media coverage, as most Americans I know continue to focus on their daily lives, work and families, much like always.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Trump wins and carries both houses of Congress, there will be an enabling law on the books in short order. And we do not have a judiciary to interfere, since the GOP has already co-opted them. That doesn’t mean that I won’t go about my daily routine tomorrow, though, since what else am I supposed to do? Since I don’t watch Fox News or read the NYP/WSJ I don’t actually know about the Harris as Stalin rumor, but whatever. It will be a (former) prosecutor against a (current) criminal. But maybe I’m just the AV of reasonable Americans…

I'm just trying to understand the mechanisms that have led to the situation. It might seem naive, but I'm wondernig how much of the perceived threat was real in the first place, and how much has materialized under the hysterical rhetoric (mostly in the media). The extreme views and opinions - or were they merely statements? - likely wouldn't have gained so much traction without the (selective) media attention. And it is a well-known effect that when groups with opposing opinions isolate themselves from each other, it only increases their polarization. Not to mention how often the media coverage and social dynamics amplify or distort public perceptions of situations and ideologies. Putting it all together, the more everyone writes that Trump will be a dictator, the higher risk of that.