People from all over have lined up to talk about their high esteem for Joe Biden and to credit him for the decision to quit the race. For those of us on the outside, the decision may have been obvious and perhaps long overdue but we should not forget the seductive allure of power, especially for someone who spent a lifetime in politics and sought the job he now has and finally won it.

All of us older people tend to believe that we can still do what we have done before and that there is no need to step away. One can easily persuade oneself that there is more to be done and that you are the best person to do it. Furthermore, in the US, being a one-term president is a sign of being a loser. So the desire to run again must have been immensely strong and Biden must be credited with accepting the realization that the time has come to leave the stage for the good of the party and the country and hand the reins over to someone else.

It is not hard to imagine what might have happened on the GOP side. Even if serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) were to speak and behave in an even more deranged fashion than he currently does, so that it would be obvious to anyone outside his cult following that he should be under constant care, he would never leave the stage of his own accord and none of those around him in the party leadership would have the guts to be the first to state that the emperor had no clothes, even if he literally took off all his clothes in public, an image that I apologize for foisting on you.

Stephen Colbert was one of those who saluted Biden for his decision.

If you want a detailed fact check of the actual nonsense that the speech consisted of, see here.

He gives a farewell to the outgoing Conservatives.

It was left ambiguous as to whether comedian Tom Walker was retiring his character as well.

And in this segment aimed at Americans, he summarizes the years of Tory rule and tells us what to expect in the coming years from the incoming Labour government and its leader Keir Starmer.

Serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) has made all manner of statements about what he wants to do if he should be re-elected in November. But while he was erratic and chaotic during his first term, there is a well-organized group that is working to create a detailed agenda that will provide a blueprint that they want him to implement. It is called Project 2025 and it calls for the steady dismantling of many of the checks and balances that prevent ideologues from using the government as if it were a private company run by a CEO who can make unilateral decisions that will affect the entire population.

On his show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looks at who is behind Project 2025 and what they seek to achieve. It is not good.

That the Conservative party under the leadership of Rishi Sunak is in deep trouble leading up to the elections on July 4th is well known. But this week brought even more bad news for them with a new poll that suggested that the upstart Reform party under the leadership of political gadfly and provocateur Nigel Farage, has just barely edged ahead of them. This article looks at history of this party and what this swing towards them might mean.

Needless to say Farage, who has targeted to Conservative party since both appeal roughly to the same sections of the electorate, has seized on this latest poll to declare that his party now forms the opposition, not the Conservatives. His goal seems to be to attract disgruntled Conservative voters to vote for Reform. However, that risks splitting the right wing vote and giving an opening for Labour and Liberal candidates to squeak past them to win marginal seats.

In the third of his commentaries on the election, Jonathan Pie looks at the Reform party and its leader.

In the second of his commentaries leading up to the UK elections on July 4th, he focuses on the immigration issue. Much of what he says applies to US immigration policies too.