This week, my column discussed the Democratic Party's unenticing and, well, frankly, terrible presidential options for 2024. Incumbent President Joe Biden, who both the corporate press and the Deep State increasingly seem to want to force out, is palpably weak, in the throes of both physical and mental decline, and has presided over galling crises ranging from 40-year-high inflation to an unprecedented illegal alien/humanitarian crisis at the southern border to the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, rolling the dice with Biden is probably their best—or, at minimum, least terrible—path forward when one considers the chief alternatives are Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and California Governor Gavin Newsom. Harris is patently unpopular and has endured a leaky staff with unusually high turnover; Buttigieg has overseen a series of humiliating infrastructure/transportation-related crises, from headline-grabbing supply chain woes to the first FAA national grounding of all flights since 9/11 to the recent viscerally shocking and high-profile train derailments; Newsom has presided over skyrocketing costs of living, rampant crime and homelessness, and California's first decennial population decline since its 19th-century admittance to the Union.

On this week's podcast, I used the formal 2024 presidential run announcement of former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley as a launching point to discuss the GOP presidential primary that is finally beginning to shape up in earnest. I spent the first part of the episode teeing off on Haley, who by all accounts is a very fine person, but who embodies the pre-Trump "dead consensus" that the GOP simply must move past if it is to remain substantively cogent and electorally relevant. I then looked at some of the way-too-early polling for 2024, criticized some of the other lesser candidates who may enter the race, and began to wade into the massive elephant in the room: former President Donald Trump's already attacking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the prospects of a possible Trump v. DeSantis GOP presidential primary showdown. Go ahead and listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

In terms of media appearances over the past week, I joined Addison Smith on One America News Network to discuss my column on the Democrats' lackluster 2024 presidential candidates, joined Sean Spicer on Newsmax to discuss the same topic, joined "National Report" on Newsmax to discuss anti-conservative censorship in media (see also Alan Dershowitz's most recent Newsweek piece, highlighted below), joined John Bachman on Newsmax to discuss the Left's insatiable obsession with identity politics, joined my friend Steve Deace of BlazeTV for his show's week-in-review Friday roundtable, and (as usual) co-hosted the Edmund Burke Foundation's most recent episode of the "NatCon Squad" podcast.

Regarding upcoming speaking appearances, I will be debating Alan Dershowitz in Miami Beach this coming Tuesday, February 28, on the topic of Israeli judicial reform. (In case you missed it, here was my recent column on the topic.) If you are a South Florida local, you can register for that event here; the event will also be live-streamed on the website of the hosting synagogue. I will also be speaking at CPAC in Washington, D.C., next Friday, March 3, on the same topic of Israeli judicial reform, as well as the fight against antisemitism here and abroad.

I will also have multiple other speaking events in Texas later in March (in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin), which I will plug closer to that time. My recent debate on "common good originalism" at my alma mater, the University of Chicago Law School, was also recently covered by the school's right-leaning undergraduate newspaper, the Chicago Thinker.

Our highlighted right-leaning Newsweek op-eds this week include selections from Alan Dershowitz, Theo Wold, Gavin Wax and Nathan Berger, Jared Sichel, and Sergiu Klainerman.

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