Joseph Henney’s emotional support animal WallyGator goes with him almost everywhere, from the grocery store to walks in the park. They hug each other and sleep in the same bed. WallyGator is an alligator.

“When he turns his nose toward you, that means he expects a kiss,” said Henney, 69, who goes by Joie (pronounced “Joe”) and lives in Jonestown, Pa., about two hours from Philadelphia. “He’s super sweet-natured.”

The two watch television together on the couch, and when Henney takes him to the farmers market, WallyGator gives hugs to shoppers — as long as they are okay with being that close to a 70-pound reptile with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.....

Alligators are legal to own in Pennsylvania, and Henney has helped relocate unwanted alligators, snakes and iguanas to wildlife sanctuaries as a hobby for about 30 years. He keeps his rescue reptiles in his home in separate indoor enclosures that he purchased for this purpose. He then finds sanctuaries or zoos that will take them, he said.

Nonetheless, Biden and his team seem to have gotten word that Democrats dig his digs, because on Thursday they went on the offensive. After Republican lawmakers took to Twitter to criticize the debt cancellation plan for being too generous to borrowers, the official White House account retweeted them with info about hefty Covid-era PPP loans they each received from the federal government — and had forgiven.

That just about “broke the internet” on Thursday afternoon. And the brutal honesty continued into the evening. Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Maryland, Biden offered his strongest condemnation yet for the movement supporting Donald Trump.

“What we’re seeing now is the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy," Biden said. "It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism."

We don’t often hear him use the word “fascism,” much less in reference to Americans. But he’s absolutely right. Republicans are a semi-fascist party — if not worse. We see this in their reverence for authoritarian regimes like those in Russia and Hungary. We see it in their efforts to suppress votes. And we see it in their allegiance to figures who spread fascist conspiracy theories.

Despite Biden's occasionally maddening desire to make nice with a Republican Party that despises him, the past week has seemingly brought Biden into closer alignment with the base of the Democratic Party, the majority of whom think Republicans are immoral, according to recent polling.

Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Donald Trump would be a “puppet” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, if the Republican presidential nominee were elected to the White House.

After Trump attacked Clinton during the third and final presidential debate, saying Putin had “no respect” for her or President Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee shot back, “Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”