Dispatches from Vilnius

Not surprising that the next day was given to all the anguish among liberal pundits over the debate, who are demanding Biden step down for the good of the party.  As usual, John Fetterman had the perfect response, " Chill the fuck out! "   As bad as Biden's performance was, it wasn't without precedent.  Obama gave a lackluster performance in his first debate with Mitt Romney back in 2012 that left many Democrats deep in anguish over the Republicans returning to the White House. Romney surged in the polls by as much as 12 percent.  Obama didn't panic.  He pulled up his bootstraps and delivered better performances in the succeeding debates and all was forgiven. Joe was back on the campaign trail the very next day and gave an excellent summation of his debate performance.  Fact is he was never a very good debater.  All you have to do is look back to the 2020 Democratic primary debates, where he was often outflanked by his opponents, with Kamala dropping this zinger

Democrats were hoping for a knockout blow coming into this debate.  After all, it was supposedly structured to favor Biden with no audience to side with candidates.  Just the two of them on stage facing two CNN personalities in Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, whom Trump frequently rails against.  Yet, Biden stumbled repeatedly, couldn't complete his thoughts during the short time segments and failed to land anything more than glancing jabs as Trump danced around him with his many lies.  Biden was unable to effectively counter them and CNN refused to fact check Trump's absurd claims. I wouldn't think twice about a debate like this except there will be a lot of gloating from the Trump camp for the next few weeks, as the audience scorecard gave Trump a resounding victory.  This will be pretty hard for Democrats to swallow and already there are calls for Biden to step aside for a younger candidate like Gavin Newsom.  If he did that would be admitting defeat.  The best thing to do is

Summer always begins with such optimism.  Even the rain didn't bother me as I ran the Vilnius 10K, which serves as an opening salute to the warm weather everyone has been looking forward to all winter.  It was actually quite refreshing as the temperature had peaked at nearly 30 that day, which for Lithuania is a heat wave. The event attracts more and more runners every year.  The numbering was a bit deceiving as I was 21206.  There were actually just over 5000 participants.  I hadn't done enough to get in shape and had to take a break at the 7,5 km mark but got myself going again, with people still gathered at the finish line cheering us stragglers along.   I got my medal, a bottle of water, an energy bar and walked home along the river, where the runners completing the half marathon course were starting to filter back into the Old Town.  Some looked at me perplexedly as I had the medal hanging from my neck, which was the same for whatever distance you ran.  So, they thought I

I almost spit out my coffee when I saw this meme posted by one of my old high school friends on facebook.  Really? I responded.  Another popular meme is " I am 34 times more MAGA than ever. "  It just went on and on and on but I figured it was better not to respond to all of them.  These persons are more hopelessly deluded that I ever imagined. Trump's appeal among religious conservatives appears stronger than ever despite being dragged through the mud in court the past few months.  It is not just religious yahoos that voice their undying support but Republican leaders as well, which led former Republican Rep. Kinzinger to quip that the Republican Party " lost all ability to think for itself ."  It has become a cult answerable only to Trump. This has far-reaching consequences, especially if god forbid he were to win in November.  The most radical of Republicans have devised a mission statement that they call Project 2025 , in which they plan a complete takeover