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Too bad Robert Hur didn't do a prostate exam during his interview with Joe Biden too.
Yesterday, former president Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. said he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones. The overall five-year survival rate for such cancers is under 40 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.
In normal times, the only decent response would be sympathy for Biden and his family.
These are not normal times.
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(Whatever the circumstances, the truth matters. For under 20 cents a day.)
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Both the timing of Biden’s cancer announcement and the news itself raise more questions than they answer. Biden, his family, and his handlers cannot dodge them.
For Biden is not an ordinary 82-year-old man whose comfort after a devastating diagnosis is paramount. Less than a year ago, he was the president of the United States - and seeking another term. Had he won, the reins of the American nuclear arsenal would be in the hands of a sick and likely dying man.
The timing first. Yesterday’s statement came as Biden and the people around him face the sharpest scrutiny yet over their efforts to hide his mental decline as president.
On Friday, tapes leaked from Biden’s October 2023 interview with Robert Hur, the prosecutor who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents, revealing Biden was nearly incoherent. Tomorrow, a new book about the coverup comes out. The excepts that have already been published show it is a massive exercise in score-settling from Democrats who stayed quiet before Biden’s disastrous debate performance last June exposed his incapacity to the world.
Biden and his wife recently tried to deflect the criticism with interviews claiming he remains mentally fit. Those did not go well. New Yorker editor David Remnick — the capo di tutti capi of the liberal media elite — said that Biden’s stumbling appearance on The View on May 8 had only reinforced the belief that “it would’ve been a bad idea for Joe Biden to risk being President into his mid-eighties.”
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(Joe and the Juicers!1)
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So yesterday’s announcement can fairly be seen as a desperate effort to change the subject, to not-so-subtly argue that the truth about Biden’s decline no longer matters. Let the aged king take one final bow and shuffle offstage as the curtain comes down.
Except Biden didn’t act alone.
And whatever happens to him, the people who aided — if not outright drove — the cover-up of his mental incapacity cannot be allowed to use his illness to avoid the fullest examination of the efforts to hide the truth from the American people.
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Then there is the news itself.
Prostate cancer is easy to diagnose, thanks to a simple blood test that measures levels of a hormone called prostate-specific antigen, or PSA. Any man2 with unusually high levels of PSA can then be examined for malignancies.
Prostate cancer is also usually very slow-growing. In fact, it is so easy to diagnose and slow-growing that doctors now counsel most men against getting a PSA. The Centers for Disease Control now recommends men over 70 not routinely get the test.
The reason is that the diagnosis can lead to a “medical cascade” of tests and treatments, some with serious side effects, for prostate cancers that men would otherwise never know they had. Only in the rare instances when prostate cancer metastasizes does its lethality explode.
But Joe Biden was not most men over 70. He had the world’s most important job, president of the United States. And he had a family history of aggressive cancers. Did his doctor really not give him PSAs before or during his presidency? If not, why not? If so, what did the tests show?
As Dr. Greg Murphy, a urologist and Republican member of Congress, wrote on X yesterday:
Prostate cancer is diagnosed by a blood test called prostate specific antigen, or PSA as well as rectal examination. Makes me wonder why someone running for President of the United States, especially someone who is elderly, did not have these examinations. Screening is critical.
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(Help me screen for the truth. For less than 20 cents a day.)
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Of course, Joe Biden might be telling the truth.
It is possible he happens to have a very rare and aggressive form of prostate cancer that developed quickly. It is also possible that for whatever reason his doctor decided not to give him either PSA tests or rectal examinations and a slow-growing and treatable cancer turned into a likely lethal malignancy.
The first would be terrible luck. The second would be medical malpractice. But though either is possible, neither seems at all likely.
What is likely is that the legacy media — which circled the wagons around Biden even after Robert Hur tried to tell the world the truth — will accuse anyone who asks questions about what really happened of being cruel to a sick old man.
As with Covid, the propaganda is not so much Orwellian in its ferocity and effort to intimidae as late-Soviet in its contempt for the intelligence of its audience. We have gone from kids will be fine without in-person schooling and mRNA is a miracle cure to a man with unlimited access to the world’s best medical care wound up with cancer in his bones before anyone noticed.
The good news is that if the rebellion on X is any guide, this effort at narrative control is already failing. People learned during Covid that if they let the media and public health establishment cow them into silence, they and their children would suffer.
They aren’t going to let the lies metastasize this time.
A reference to “Joe and the Juice,” an overpriced coffee-and-fruit-drinks chain headquartered in Copenhagen and coming soon to a hipster neighborhood near you.
Or transgender woman, since transgender women have prostates too!
As announced at The Android Show: I/O Edition last week, Google is more widely rolling out the “Find Hub” update that rebrands “Find My Device.”
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As previewed earlier this month, Google today released the NotebookLM app for Android ahead of I/O 2025.
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Andalusia
Spain’s southernmost region seems to produce artists of various kinds. The most famous would be Pablo Picasso, born in Málaga in 1881, but there’s also a couple of honourable mentions: the iconic poet and playwright Federico García Lorca (Granada 1989) who was assassinated during the Spanish Civil War, Paco de Lucia, probably the famous flamenco guitarist and artist of all time (Algeciras 1947), and then of course the queen of flamenco - singer, dancer and actress Lola Flores (Jerez 1923). Oh, did we mention Antonio Banderas is from Málaga (1960)?
Galicia
The northwest region the other hand, produces politicians. Obviously, the most prominent and controversial of these is dictator Francisco Franco (Ferrol 1892) but former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (Santiago de Compostela 1955) and Spain’s current Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz (Fene 1971) are also Galicians, as well as Manuel Fraga (Vilalba 1922) whose long career saw him serve as both as minister in the dictatorship, where he pushed the Spain is different! tourism campaign, but also founded the Partido Popular during the transition to democracy and served as President of Galicia between 1990 and 2005.
Asturias
Asturianos seem to be sportsmen, whether it be Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso (Oviedo 1981) or footballer and former Barca coach Luis Enrique (Gijón 1970), or historical religious figures like Don Pelayo, a nobleman who founded the Kingdom of Asturias in 718 and is widely believed to have kickstarted the Reconquista of Islamic Spain.
Cantabria
Similarly, legendary golfer Seve Ballesteros was born in the tiny Cantabrian town of Pedreña in 1957. He is regarded as one of the greatest golf players in history. There's also the president of Banco de Santander, Ana Botín (1960), who was born in the Cantrabian capital that the huge global banks gets its name from.
Basque Country
Famous Basques include Miguel de Unamuno (Bilbao 1864) who was one of the most famous writers of the influential ‘Generation of ‘98’. Honourable mention must go to Ignacio de Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who was born in Azpeitia in 1491. There's also Juan Sebastían El Cano (Getaria 1526), the first person to go around or circumnavigate the globe.
Navarre
In neighbouring Navarre, another top Spanish sportsman, Miguel Induráin (Villava 1964) dominated the world of cycling in the 1990s, winning five Tour de Frances and the only man to win five consecutively.
La Rioja
Goya award winning actor Javier Cámara (Albelda de Iregua 1967) is probably the most famous riojano in recent years. Less known is Gonzalo de Berceo (La Rioja 1190), considered to be the first known poet in the Spanish language.
Castilla y León
Isabel la Católica (Madrigal de las Altas Torres 1451) stands out as arguably the most consequential Spanish queen ever. Honourable mention goes to Spanish TV legend Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente (Poza de la Sal 1928) known for the highly successful series El Hombre y la Tierra, the Spanish David Attemborough if you will.
Catalonia
The northern region also seems to produce iconic artists, whether it be Antonio Gaudí (Reus 1852) or Salvador Dalí, originally from Figueres (born 1904). Current pop megastar Rosalía is also Catalan (Sant Cugat del Vallès 1992).
Aragón
Another of the most important Spanish painters of all time, Francisco de Goya (1746, Fuendetodos) was from Zaragoza, influential filmmaker Luis Buñuel, part of the surrealist movement of the 1920s, was born in the Aragonese town of Calanda in 1900, and Ferdidand I, the Catholic king that united Spain, was born in the region in 1452.
Valencia
Pope Alexander VI, who was born in Xàtiva in 1431, and, more recently, the famous but controversial architect Santiago Calatrava (the man behind Valencia capital’s futuristic Arts & Sciences complex) was born in the city in 1951.
Balearic Islands
Arguably the greatest tennis player of all time, Rafa Nadal, was born in Manacor in Mallorca in 1986.
Murcia
Keeping on tennis, the new face of Spanish and world tennis, Carlos Alcaraz, was born in El Palmar in 2003. Honourable mentions include Bárbara Rey (Totana 1950), the famous actress who had an affair with the then King Juan Carlos, as well as legendary Real Madrid player Chendo (Totana 1961).
Castilla-La Mancha
World renowned film director Pedro Almodóvar (Calzada de Calatrava 1949) put his home community of Castilla-La Mancha on the map, while a notable mention should probably got to Queen Juana I of Castile - known as Juana La Loca- from Toledo (1479).
Madrid
There’s an argument for any number of of Madrileños chosen here, but it has to be Miguel de Cervantes, born (allegedly, it must be said) in Alcalá de Henares in 1547 who has had the most influence around the world for writing Don Quixote, widely considered the first modern novel.
Other worthwhile mentions are Spanish singers Julio and Enquire Iglesias and Hollywood actress Penélope Cruz.
Extremadura
The most famous Extremeños tend to be conquistadores such as Francisco Pizarro (Trujillo, 1478) and Hernán Cortés (Medellín, Badajoz 1485), both of whom played a key role in the Conquest of America, more specifically causing the fall of the Inca Empire (Pizarro) and the Aztec Empire (Cortés).
Canary Islands
The most famous Canario is probably artist and sculptor César Manrique (1919 Arrecife). There's also novelist Benito Pérez Galdós (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1843) and iconic luxury shoe designer Manolo Blahnik (Santa Cruz de la Palma 1942), made famous by hit series Sex and the City.
Ahead of the final, RTVE displayed the following text in white on a black background: "When it comes to human rights, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine."
The European Broadcasters Union (EBU) had explicitly asked the Spanish broadcaster not to refer to the Gaza war due to the non-political nature of the competition. If RTVE chose to ignore this, "penalties" would be incurred, it said in a letter, which RTVE published.
"Political statements that could jeopardize the neutrality of the competition are prohibited," the letter stated.
According to Spanish media reports, the letter was triggered by a complaint from the Israeli public broadcaster KAN. KAN complained that in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Thursday evening, Spanish presenters had referred to the deaths caused by Israel's actions in Gaza during the performance of Israeli candidate Yuval Raphael.
The EBU confirmed that it had been made clear to RTVE that the commentators must maintain neutrality.
In Basel, which hosted the contest, pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed briefly with riot police. Blows were exchanged and officers deployed tear gas.
Spain, along with Ireland and Norway, recognised the State of Palestine in May 2024, followed by Slovenia in June.
The Spanish government is one of the most critical voices in the EU against Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government.
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