YES, HE’S OLD: President Biden is out there on the campaign trail confronting the age issue and telling voters to get over it. “Look, I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret,” says a smiling Biden in a new television ad. “But here’s the deal: I understand how to get things done for the American people.”

  The ad is the first in a $30 million commercial blitz coming to your television. 

  The ad goes on the list the accomplishments of the 81-year-old president. This comes off Biden’s Thursday night State of the Union speech in which he was sharp, energetic, and directly teasing the sullen pack of Republicans seated to his left. The television talking classes say he proved he still has the stuff to be president. He has to prove that to voters.

  The Trump people are running an ad that shows Biden in grainy footage fumbling, stumbling, and mumbling, making him look like a candidate for an old-age home.

  Although he never mentioned Trump by name Thursday night, he is doing so out on the campaign trail. “You know who he’s meeting with today, down in Mar-a-Lago?” Biden said yesterday. “Orbán of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works — he’s looking for dictatorship.”

  Biden’s new television spot ends with what looks like an outtake. After the standard announcement that Biden approved this message, an off-camera voice asks him to do one more take.  Biden grins and says, “Look, I’m very young, energetic, and handsome. What the hell am I doing this for?” 

ORANGE ALERT: Completing his takeover of the Republican Party, Donald Trump engineered the election of his daughter in law, Lara Trump, and North Carolina election denier Michael Whatley to co-chair the Republican national Committee. 

  They replace Ronna McDaniel, who was hand-picked by Trump seven years ago and pushed put by him in recent weeks.

  Whatley told RNC members after being elected, “The RNC is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th President of the United States,” 

  Also yesterday Trump posted a $91.63 million bond that will enable him to appeal the $83.3 million judgment against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. The bond is greater than the judgement to allow for accrued interest.

  A federal jury found that Trump had made defamatory statements denying he raped her as found by a previous jury, saying she wasn’t his type, and accusing her of making up the allegation to boost sales of her book. The Insurance company Chubb underwrote the bond for Trump.

  Trump has until March 25th to put up another $454 million in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case.

THE TIK TOK CLOCK :  A bill that would force the Chinese owners of the popular social media app Tik Tok to sell it or allow the government to ban the program in the United States is making its way through Congress.

  Tik Tok is owned by ByteDance Ltd., based in Beijing.  The program is feared to be a platform for gathering intelligence on American citizens and for spreading Chinese government misinformation.

  The bill would give Tik Tok 180 days to sell or be banned. The law would also let the executive branch prohibit access to an app owned by a foreign adversary if it poses a threat to national security.

  Tik Tok has been running television commercials saying it changes the world for the good.

ALONE at SEA: Sailor Cole Brauer at age 29 became the first American woman to circumnavigate the globe when she arrived on Thursday in Coruna, Spain in her 40-foot sailboat. She sailed 30,000 miles across three sometimes in terrifying conditions.

  The all 5-2, 100-pound Brauer was one of dozens of sailors in the Global Solo Challenge, but she was the youngest and the only woman. Her 130-day journey took her around the Cape of Good Hope and also the treacherous Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. 

  She told NBC News, “You need to be able to take care of yourself. You need to be able to get up, even when you’re so exhausted. And you have to be able to fix everything on the boat.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Steve Lawrence, who was half a singing duo with his wife, Eydie Gorme, has died at age 88. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

  Billed as “Steve and Eydie” from the Las Vegas strip to Carnegie Hall, they crooned their way beyond the dawn of rock music and endured with such songs as “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” “Just in Time” and “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road).” 

  They were incredibly square, but good. Eydie Gorme died in 2013.

THE SPIN RACK: The Senate yesterday approved a $460 billion spending bill to fund about half the federal government through the fall. — The disgraced Lng Island liar and fabulist, former Republican Rep. George Santos who was kicked out of Congress, says he’s running for the office again. A Democrat replaced him. — Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark has surpassed Steph Curry in the single season Division 1record for three-pointers in a 96-62 win over Penn State. She’s hit 162 this season. — News reports say that many fans who attended the January 3^rd Kansas City Chiefs wild card win over Miami have required amputations following frostbite. The temperature was minus 4 at the kickoff.

BELOW THE FOLD: A new Pentagon report finds no evidence that the government is covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and or verified UFO sightings proving alien visits to Earth.

  Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman, said the Pentagon found no evidence to back up claims of secret programs, hidden alien technology, or anything else extraterrestrial.

  When he was done speaking, Ryder returned to his base on planet Proxima Centauri B.

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