"The truth is that, except on the air and online, the presidential campaign really hasn't started yet. The coronavirus has upended traditional forms of electioneering. It's forced Trump to cancel his tentpole rallies, driven both parties to hold virtual conventions, and blotted out the daily back-and-forth between candidates and campaigns. That has left the race in a form of suspended animation, with Biden enjoying the fruits of leaving Trump to his own often self-destructive devices.

"But the strategy is not all upside. It has left Biden offstage during a multifaceted national emergency. The Democratic nominee has made a series of speeches detailing his 'Build Back Better' agenda, but has anyone really paid attention to them? Nor did Biden take a strong stand against the violence in Seattle and Portland. He's been AWOL. The Trump campaign has turned the minuscule audiences that attend his livestreamed events into the butt of a running Twitter joke. A philosopher might say that Biden has transcended his physical form and become the Platonic ideal of a 'generic Democrat.' He is running more or less in line with the congressional generic ballot. But voters do not vote for generic presidents. They choose between two individuals.

"This lack of definition is a potential danger for Biden as the presidential race enters its final months. 'No other major-party presidential nominee has spent so long in politics,' wrote Edward-Isaac Dovere of the Atlantic in late June. 'Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, before anyone currently serving in Congress. And no other major-party presidential nominee has led the polls despite basically coming off as a fuzzy white space.' Dovere cited 'data from focus groups and polls conducted by Biden allies' that showed voters basically know Biden is old, worked for Barack Obama, and seems to be a genial and well-intentioned, if sometimes weird, elder statesman. That's it."

"Sally Yates, who served as Deputy Attorney General during a critical period as the Russia collusion hoax evolved in 2016-17, trashed fired FBI director James Comey during her testimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"She readily agreed that Comey went 'rogue' in his unauthorized pursuit of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. But that, of course, was stating the obvious. It was too easy. Comey managed to turn himself into a human pinata when he engaged in blatant acts of corruption.

"Like Comey, Yates was a model of prevarication and insincerity on nearly all other matters. She minimized her own negligence and incompetence while blaming everyone else."

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"Trump represents something new, but not in the way his critics imagine and fear. He has not played the role of standard populists, who usually seek to remove constitutional barriers to their reform agendas. Instead, he has become, by the end of his four years, an unexpected constitutional traditionalist who has relied on theories of executive power held by his predecessors -- even (gasp) Barack Obama and George W. Bush -- to defend the rights of his office. He has fought off the efforts of so-described progressives, who have wanted to revolutionize our constitutional order by vesting ever more power in a permanent bureaucracy with virtually limitless authority but without democratic accountability. Whether consciously or by reacting to his own political incentives (which the Constitution itself creates), Trump has become a stouter defender of our original governing document than his critics. ...

"Democrats would do even more damage to the constitutional order if they were to win this November. During the primaries, they launched proposals for a Medicare-for-All health-care system that would abolish private insurance, a Green New Deal that would escalate Washington's control over the economy, federal wealth or sales taxes that violate the income-tax amendment, and the takeover of state and local areas of governance ranging from criminal justice to consumer contracts to property. Trump could protect the Constitution merely by winning the 2020 election (again through the Electoral College), governing with the Senate, and simply stopping progressive efforts to vest even more new powers in a permanent, unaccountable bureaucracy. ...

"A more spartan government, controlled by a Constitution of limited powers, may well prove more nimble and effective in the new 21st-century world than the government of the New Deal. Even while he recalls America to the society of the past, Trump may have shaken up the political system enough to allow it to adapt to the new economy of social media, networks, and AI. Presidential power provides the critical leverage to spark such significant government change, and it may be Trump's most unlikely legacy to have preserved the constitutional authorities of his office that make such reform possible."

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"Get this: Democrats want to scrap this year's presidential debates. It's not hard to guess why.

"'Whatever you do,' CNN's Joe Lockhart, who served as President Bill Clinton's press secretary, advised Joe Biden last week, 'don't debate' President Trump. ...

"Just how dumb do they think Americans are? The real reasons Dems don't want Uncle Joe in a live, unscripted square-off couldn't be clearer: They're absolutely terrified he'll be a disaster. ...

"Look, the 77-year-old Biden is famous for his gaffes, incoherent sentences, contradictions and non-sequiturs. It's why his cognitive state has become an issue.

"Fact is, Dems would never call for scrapping debates if their nominee were a gifted orator. Yet if Biden can't be trusted in front of a TV camera, how on earth can he be trusted to run the country?"

"The Supreme Court handed President Trump another victory on his signature immigration agenda Friday, refusing by a 5-4 vote to temporarily block construction of a wall at the southern border with Mexico.

"Groups like the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union had asked the court for a temporary stoppage of construction while they argue their case that the administration illegally transferred $2.5 billion in funding to the project from the Pentagon. But led by its conservative bloc, the high court refused the request."

"President Trump on Thursday urged recovered coronavirus patients to donate their blood plasma to allow doctors to treat new patients with antibodies.

"The White House said that one unit of plasma could save three people's lives through an antibody transfer 'multiplier effect.'

"Trump announced his administration is partnering with commercial labs, insurers and healthcare providers to encourage those who have recovered from the virus to donate plasma. The president also thanked Labcorp for providing free antibody testing to find more donors. ...

"Trump said the administration would provide up to $270 million to the American Red Cross and America's Blood Centers for the collection of up to 360,000 units of plasma."

"'Mostly peaceful.'

"So goes the characterization of demonstrations that have routinely turned into looting and rioting for months on end, from Portland to Seattle to New York to Los Angeles.

"'Protesters in California set fire to a courthouse, damaged a police station and assaulted officers after a peaceful demonstration intensified,' read one recent ABC News tweet.

"CNN called protests in Portland 'mostly peaceful,' adding that 'they have at times devolved into violence, vandalism, and arson.' ...

"With Democrats and those in the media willing to run cover for violent leftists, the thin veneer of civilization disintegrates. When violence is excused as speech and speech by the opposition labeled violence, democracies die.

"With each passing day of silence by those who should know better -- or worse, those propagandizing on behalf of those who engage in criminal activity -- America draws closer to the brink."

"With a little less than three weeks away from the Democratic National Convention, which is scheduled to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, more than 100 law enforcement agencies have pulled out of their agreement to provide additional security for the event. According to the Associated Press, the agencies backed out of the agreement out of concern over recent events inside the city.

"Just last week the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission ordered Police Chief Alfonso Morales to revise the department's policies, one of which included eliminating the use of pepper spray and tear gas to disperse large crowds and riots. Tear gas was used in May and June after protests broke out following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. ...

"Why would police departments want to knowingly send their officers into harm's way without every tool at their disposal? Why would police departments and other law enforcement agencies want to guard and protect the very individuals that are trying to abolish their profession? 

"If Democrats believe the police should be 'defunded' or abolished, then they should have no problem holding their convention without law enforcement being present."

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"Attorney General Bill Barr is planning a full-throated defense of his work inside the Justice Department and that of police nationwide when appearing before hostile House Democrats on Wednesday, condemning both the 'bogus Russiagate scandal' and the senseless violence rocking U.S. cities.

"In prepared testimony released Tuesday evening on the eve of his House Judiciary Committee testimony, Barr declared that liberal activists' 'demonization of police is not only unfair and inconsistent with the principle that all people should be treated as individuals, but gravely injurious to our inner city communities.'

"'When a community turns on and pillories its own police, officers naturally become more risk averse and crime rates soar,' his prepared testimony states. 'Unfortunately, we are seeing that now in many of our major cities. This is a critical problem that exists apart from disagreements on other issues. The threat to black lives posed by crime on the streets is massively greater than any threat posed by police misconduct.'"

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"The Washington press corps seems engaged in a collective demonstration of the legal concept of willful blindness, or deliberately ignoring the facts, following the release of yet another declassified document which directly refutes prior statements about the investigation into Russia collusion. The document shows that FBI officials used a national security briefing of then candidate Donald Trump and his top aides to gather possible evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, its code name for the Russia investigation.

"It is astonishing that the media refuses to see what is one of the biggest stories in decades. The Obama administration targeted the campaign of the opposing party based on false evidence. The media covered Obama administration officials ridiculing the suggestions of spying on the Trump campaign and of improper conduct with the Russia investigation. When Attorney General William Barr told the Senate last year that he believed spying did occur, he was lambasted in the media, including by James Comey and others involved in that investigation. The mocking 'wow' response of the fired FBI director received extensive coverage. ...

"Obama and Biden were aware of the investigation, as were the administration officials who publicly ridiculed Trump when he said there was spying on his campaign. Others, like House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, declared they had evidence of collusion but never produced it. Countless reporters, columnists, and analysts still continue to deride, as writer Max Boot said it, the spinning of 'absurd conspiracy theories' about how the FBI 'supposedly spied on the Trump campaign.'

"Willful blindness has its advantages. The media covered the original leak and the collusion narrative, despite mounting evidence that it was false. They filled hours of cable news shows and pages of print with a collusion story discredited by the FBI. Virtually none of these journalists or experts have acknowledged that the collusion leaks were proven false, let alone pursue the troubling implications of national security powers being used to target the political opponents of an administration. But in Washington, success often depends not on what you see but what you can unsee."

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