WHO ARE YOU CALLING OLD?: Vice President Kamala Harris and White House aides are condemning the special counsel report on Joe Biden “politically motivated.”

  “The way the president’s demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated,” Harris told reporters at the White House.

  The report on Robert Hur’s exhaustive investigation into Biden’s possession of classified documents after he left the vice presidency found no criminal wrongdoing but went out of its way to describe Biden as old and forgetful. Hur is a former Republican operative appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to handle the case described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who couldn’t remember when his own son died.

  Ironically, the Democrats, much like Donald Trump, claim Biden is the victim of a political hit. New York Democratic Rep. Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor, denounced “the special counsel’s unnecessary and gratuitous swipe at the president,” calling it “a very partisan stunt.”

  Trump jumped in yesterday at the National Rifle Association expo saying that if Biden is not charged for holding onto secret documents then his case should be dismissed. Of course the difference is that Trump was given multiple chances to return the documents he held and didn’t.

THE WAR ROOM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel ordered his military to make plans for evacuating civilians in the southern city of Rafah in advance of sending ground troops into the crowded area. Israel says Rafah is the last holdout for Hamas militants.

  This announcement came a day after President Biden condemned Israel’s military campaign as “over the top.” As many as 27,000 Palestinians have been killed.

 An estimated 1.4 million people are in Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza strip that houses not just its own population, but thousands of people who fled northern areas being destroyed by Israeli bombing and shelling. “Any forceful action in Rafah would require the evacuation of the civilian population from combat zones,” Netanyahu’s office said. 

  Where the Palestinians would go is unknown. Egypt has closed the southern border and the northern part of Gaza has been largely destroyed. If and when the war ends, about a third of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million will have no home to return to. The destruction inspired the expression “domicide,” making war on homes.

MEDICARE FRAUD:  Medicare appears to have been hit by a massive scam in which medical suppliers have billed for billions of dollars’ worth of urinary catheters that were never delivered and not needed by the insured people.

  As many as 450,000 Medicare beneficiaries were billed for urinary catheters in 2023, up from about 50,000 in previous years, according to a report by the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations.

  Medicare will not confirm whether they are investigating, but they know what’s been happening.

  For instance, roughly $267 million for catheters was billed during a 14 month period in the name of Pretty in Pink Boutique.  The real Pretty in Pink is a business in Franklin Tennessee, a supplier of wigs, mastectomy bras, and other items for cancer patients. They say on their website that they are not the business that has done the catheter billing and they tell how to report Medicare fraud. They note that they are not even set up to supply catheters.

CRASH ON THE HIGHWAY: Two people were killed when a small jet crash landed on Florida Interstate Highway 75 near Naples and burst into flames yesterday afternoon. Five people were on board the Bombardier Challenger 600 and three escaped, the FAA said.

  In his distress call before putting the plane down on the highway, the pilot said both engines had shut down and he couldn’t make it to an airport three miles away. 

THE OBIT PAGE: Si Spiegel, a Jewish man who piloted a B-17 bomber in an enormous raid of 1,500 planes over Berlin in World War II and went on to become known as the father of the artificial Christmas Tree, died in Manhattan at age 99.

  A few years after the war while working at a brush making factory, Spiegel developed an improved artificial tree and by the mid 1980s was cranking out trees and raking in $54 million in sales.

  Spiegel’s plane was badly damaged over Berlin and rather than bail out into Germany as a Jew, he limped on to Russian-occupied Poland and belly landing in a potato field. Spiegel was trained as an engineer and within a few weeks he and his crew rehabilitated a damaged B-17 that had also landed nearby and flew it on to Italy.

  Soon after the war he applied to be a commercial pilot, but the airlines would not hire a Jewish man to fly.

THE SPIN RACK: A witness is reported to be cooperating with the House Ethics Committee investigation into whether Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz had sex with an underage girl while he was a member of Congress. Prosecutors chose not to bring charges against Gaetz last year.  

BELOW THE FOLD:  The Kansas City Chiefs meet the San Francisco 49ers for the Super Bowl in Las Vegas tomorrow.

  Possibly more important than who wins the game might be whether the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce grand political conspiracy seen by right wingers unfolds live in front of the television audience of millions. The conspiracy mongers say the game will be rigged for Kansas City to win giving the triumphant lovers Swift and Kelce a platform to endorse Joe Biden and secure is re-election. 

  There’s also something about billionaire George Soros being involved because he’s part of every political conspiracy.

  Right wing podcaster Mike Crispi posted on Twitter/X, “Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield. It’s all been an op since day one.”

  He doesn’t seem to know that musician Usher is the halftime show.

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