About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (June 2, 2025)
Page 12, June 2, 2025, The Islander Let's chat... shall we? I’m gonna start this week with some quotes from CNN... On October 18, 2020 Lara Trump, wife of presidential son Eric Trump, was being interviewed on CNN by newsman Jake Tapper. In response to a question, Ms. Trump said this, “Joe Biden, Jake, from what we’ve seen on stage with our eyes, is a, very clearly, cognitive decline, that’s what I’m referring to. It makes me uncomfortable.” Tapper quickly interrupted, “You have no idea. It’s amazing, you were mocking his stutter. I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose someone’s cognitive decline.” Let’s fast forward to now... and we find the esteemed Mr. Tapper has co-authored a book - ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again’ - with journalist Alex Thompson. I’d quote a brief synopsis, but it seems as if the book’s title is all you need to know and answers all the im portant questions: Was the former President in cognitive decline? Yes. And, was it covered up? Again, yes. Publisher The Islander EDITORIAL Well, I personally have one other question: Who was running the coun try at the time? I’ve asked it but no one wants to even hazard a guess, and we know a guess is all it would be. Again fast forwarding... Tuesday of last week Ms. Trump appeared on ‘The Ingraham Angle’ with Laura Ingraham and made this comment, “Jake Tapper called me about two months ago actually, and said, ‘I have this book coming out and I know ev eryone is saying I should apologize to you. I plan, whenever the book comes out, to go on TV and I will say you were right and I was wrong’.” Well, the cat is out of the bag, the beans have been spilled, the lid has been blown off and the jig is up. Yet, no one seems to be very con cerned about a cover-up that makes Watergate look like a picnic in the park with Memaw and Pepaw. And there are more questions in connection to my previous one asking who was running the country during Biden’s decline. For example... you remember the number of pardons and clemencies Biden signed. Logging in at 4,245 how could you forget? Only Andrew Johnson, President from 1865 to 1869 granted more at 7,654, a number that includes thou sands of pardons for ex-Confederates. Actually Jimmy Carter clocks in at the top counting ‘Proclamation 4483’ that pardoned over 200,000 for Viet nam draft evasion. You may ask ‘how big of deal is it’ since almost every American presi dent has granted pardons and clem ency... except for William Henry Har rison, but that’s understandable as he only served from March 4 to April 4, 1841 before dying in office. James A. Garfield also did not sign any, but again, he was assassinated a few months after being sworn-in. All the rest did pardon and grant, including George Washington - 16. However, I question Biden’s deci sion to grant clemency for a man con victed of killing of an 8-year-old boy and his mother in Bridgeport, Con necticut, and the last minute com mutation of a man convicted of kill ing an FBI agent. He also commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates, including a Phila delphia drug lord and two men who killed a police officer. And perhaps the worst... he grant ed clemency to Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan who was convicted of accepting $2.8 million for jailing more than 2,300 children, some as young as eight, in the so-called kids- for-cash scandal. All this, especially the kids-for- cash, raises the question of, ‘was Biden, in his decline, aware of who he pardoning and giving clemency? It’s been claimed, and disputed, that Biden used an ‘autopen’ to sign the documents. But if he was as men tally challenged as he often appeared to be on TV, does it matter if he signed them by hand? All 4,245 of them? Considering Trump was “con victed” in a heavily biased trial of some kind of business “fraud,” in a state with questionable jurisdiction, on the testimony of a porn “actress,” it seems with the latest evidence of Biden’s mental decline, this should, at the very least, be investigated. I’ve brought this issue up several times with Democrat friends and ac quaintances and the responses have varied and been, well, odd. I suggested that if Biden was not in control of his cognitive facilities and someone else was making the day to day decisions, someone the American citizens did NOT elect, then that might constitute an actual Constitutional crisis. An accusation often leveled at Trump. One person said they simply “didn’t care” whether Biden was of sound mind. Another suggested that I “let it go” because Biden is not president any more. Yeah, that’s going to be kind of hard for me. GOLDEN ISLES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE COLLEGEo/ coastal AMERIS BANK GEORGIA 'V&r D DYNAMIC Landscape PROPE RTIES a Oakbridgc Geo^Hmst I t Cl IM > I*®™®"*™"™ REALTY ^LIAHDFR Synovus Newspaper naaiid »*imii Mlltmini y ^ GLYNN COUNTY SCHOOLS com Sales, Vacation Rentals & Long Term Rentals We offer Vacation Rentals on Jekyll and St. Simons Island & Long Term Rentals in Brunswick. We also offer homes for sale on Jekyll and St. Simons Islands and Brunswick. P mess Jay Kaufman - Broker, Owner • jay.kaufman@parker-l 506 Monck St. • Brunswick, Ga. 912-265-771
