I mean, the only real neurologic or cognitive test I needed was when asked to take one, and he said "No".  Probably because, deep down, he already knows.

Dude's bullshitting.  And he clearly isn't willing to take us seriously enough to recognize our concerns as anything more sincere than manufactured by "media" or "elites".

I'm sick of the gaslighting myself.





 

Rampop II wrote:

I do see why he would say no to a cognitive test, though, since cognitive tests appear to be wanting in terms of standards, formality and accuracy. It's too risky. Even if his handlers weren't worried about him choking, the inaccuracy rates are too high, the validity is too questionable, and it seems clear that a cognitive test is inferior to a neurologic exam, which we're told he had in February. It includes the same components we'd expect of a cognitive test plus the brain imaging, blood tests, DNA tests, etc. So I can see how acquiescing to demands that he take this or that additional test of the public's choosing would be opening the door to all kinds of unnecessary risks. It starts to reminds me of someone appearing suspicious to the public for refusing to take a polygraph test. Even though polygraph tests are complete bullshit, the belief is still out there among the general public that they work and are a valid form of assessment, even in determining a defendant's innocence or guilt. Biden's team isn't going to risk the presidency over an informal assessment of questionable validity. Plus let's face it, it draws more attention to a memory they'd rather we forget.

This is all bullshit.

There very well is a scientific capability to assess one's neurological health, and Biden damn well knows he'll fail it..  Excuses are just assholes at this point.  Rationales for what smells bad.

I got an idea for ya, if you want to have something to do.  Check out that transcript of the Lester Holt interview I posted earlier, and count how many complete sentences you can find.  Thnx.

Rampop II wrote:

if this is the moment where someone replies "that's mere semantics,"

No, the point is we're past the moment where the test matters at all.  This is no longer a "bad night", it's been a bad month.  Biden had a fairly simple goal after that disaster of a debate, which ultimately was to put his voters at ease about any potential issues he may have.  That necessarily requires transparency.  After all, whether you or the Biden team wants to acknowledge it, the political fact is that there's a whole lot of people who are now questioning the extent to which Biden's team may have been hiding his decline, so it is absolutely necessary to come as clean as possible.  But instead....

Rampop II wrote:

What his doctors are doing to monitor his condition, we have no idea.

These last couple of TV interviews have been for damage control.  That damage is real, it is not some conspiracy by the media or the elites, and it's insulting for Biden and his team to pretend otherwise.  So as part of this damage control, Biden had some options: 1) Agree to take an independent test (if for no other reason than to placate the demand for one); 2) Release the results of whatever test he last took (after the WH took a week to confirm he ever had one); 3) Or double down on obfuscation, "Trust me!" and blame the media.

Biden chose poorly.

And it should have been a lay-up.  It isn't hard to say, "Of course I'll take neurological exam, whatever I can do so my supporters can rest easy that the command of their nation is in safe and capable hands."  That's what a talented politician would say.  There's no downside to it.  He doesn't even have to take it anytime soon, just say he's willing, and buy yourself some time.  The worst thing to say is "I don't need one, because it's hard enough getting out of bed everyday."  In tandem with the poor performance at the debate, this continuing poor performance at damage control is only providing more evidence of mental decline.  As I said, to any objective observer, he looks like a man in deep denial.  And ensconsing himself in carefully scripted appearances in front of wholly sympathetic audiences is not going to be enough to assuage the damage.  This Mandelbaum bullshit is not reassuring, and taking the Trump route of lying about the polls probably won't help matters either.




I'm willing to give it about another week.  If Biden's ego proves more tenacious than his sense of public duty, then I suppose I will, along with hopefully as many pragmatic citizens out there, have little other choice than to take the only rational option left on the table, and vote for whoever isn't Trump in November.  God have mercy on us all.

Longlegs will fortify your soul.

Well, there goes Joe Biden.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/text-biden-letter-which-he-announced-stepping-aside-candidate-2024-07-21/

It is now Trump's election to lose. Harris may be qualified and capable to handle the presidency (how the hell should I know), but she can't defeat Trump. Not a snowball's chance in Hell, and I'll be thrilled to eat those words. But if she is his opponent, I'm calling it now. This will be Dukakis redux.

Jinnistan wrote:

Rampop II wrote:

This will be Dukakis redux.

Heh.  I have no doubt that we will be seeing a whole lot of barely-disguised racism that will make 'Willie Horton' look like Wayne Brady. 
 

Oh, the Willie Horton ad hadn't even crossed my mind. I wasn't talking about racism, I was referring to  the epic and foreseeable trouncing Dukakis got at the ballot box. I guess the word pundits like to use is "electability." If any image from 1988 comes to mind it's the one of Dukakis in a tank.

Rampop II wrote:

Oh, the Willie Horton ad hadn't even crossed my mind. I wasn't talking about racism, I was referring to the epic and foreseeable trouncing Dukakis got at the ballot box. I guess the word pundits like to use is "electability." If any image from 1988 comes to mind it's the one of Dukakis in a tank.

Are these the same pundits who called Trump "unelectable" in 2016?  Or 2021?  Times have changed.  Unlike 1988, Harris will have the benefit of the incumbancy, and this MAGA Republican party is not the same party as the at-the-time popular Reagan establishment riding on a peak economy.  Sure, keep Kamala out of the tank.  But Harris' loss, if it comes to that, would still be far less "forseeable" than the drubbing awaiting Biden.

This Politico piece is a good look at the moment of truth:

In addition to presenting new concerns from lawmakers and updates on a fundraising operation that had slowed considerably, they carried the campaign’s own polls, which came back this week and showed his path to victory in November was gone, according to five people familiar with the matter, who, like others interviewed for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations...

When the campaign commissioned new battleground polling over the last week, it was the first time they had done surveys in some key states in more than two months, according to two people familiar with the surveys. And the numbers were grim, showing Biden not just trailing in all six critical swing states but collapsing in places like Virginia and New Mexico where Democrats had not planned on needing to spend massive resources to win.

crumbsroom wrote:

It's that suddenly all of the Republican complaints about Democrats trotting out a borderline corpse for re-election had merit because of the debate. Not neccessarily fair, but it became increasingly harder to argue against.

I also want to point out that I think, echoing Jon Stewart, that Biden's entire management team still needs to be fired, for how they've publicly handled this past year (approx) of Biden's decline, for deliberately keeping Biden in the dark over any negative public feedback and especially for the piss-poor attempt to salvage their jobs post-debate.  As long as these people are kept far away from Harris' campaign she'll automatically have an advantage.  And for that one motherfucker, that anonymous staffer who leaked to NBC the rumor that Obama himself was attempting a coup, that bitch needs a one-way ticket to Canton, Ohio and a job referral for the nearest Waffle House's busboy.

It might seem entirely empty to old gits like us, but the kids are memeing the shit out of this Harris run. There is a groundswell of youthful enthusiasm. This is not irrelevant if it continues.

OK, I've spent some time this afternoon/evening trying to familiarize myself with Kamala Harris as best I can. Watching interviews and speeches new and old and perusing her track record. There's actually so much information out there about her I feel embarrassed for waiting around on my ass for the campaign or the media to tell me who she is. Her Wikipedia page alone contains a pretty vast wealth of information about her. Her resumé is as long as your life. The stands she has taken are many and tend to be sharply focused on issues from a humanitarian perspective. If you look at her track record, she is all about the kids, man, every time. When people asked "what are we gonna do about the border," she was saying, "You ARE gonna do something about all these pregnant women being detained and chained and having miscarriages in custody at the border!" Yeah, I think she's more–than qualified for the job. In interviews she is sharp as a razor, which makes me think the giddy version of her we've been seeing onstage lately has something to do with the teacup ride of finding one's self abruptly immersed into adoring crowds chanting your name for the most powerful office in the land. She's no stranger to addressing huge crowds, but even if the Biden team had been planning for the possibility of her having to take over the duties of the office, nothing can prepare someone for that spotlight.

And if that hint of slurred consonants she's recently taken on really is from maintaining a heavy drug regimen to keep her mind limber, then keep 'em comin' because whatever it is, it's working. Like any bender–in–chief, she would certainly be in good company. 

Of the many things that stood out for me came when I finally used my brain and filled myself in on Harris' role as VP in the immigration situation. Her opponents are unfairly attacking her for failing to quell the flow of migrants and mismanaging the border situation, because managing the border situation wasn't her assignment. Her assignment was to study the root causes of migration, not oversee the handling of the border situation in any sense. But the rightwing media has been calling her the "border czar" like she owns the mess. 
Incidentally, she does have some record of supporting ICE and border security during her time in Congress. 

Anyway, I'm sure of it. I like Kamala. Maybe it's time she had her own thread? And I mean no disrespect in using her first name, it's just that "I like Harris" sounds nowhere as awesome and we all know it. 

I do so hope to eat my words of pessimism about her ability to beat Trump in a country that was dumb enough to elect his ass in the first place. Maybe I'm out–of touch with The Kids whose votes will usher her in. I do think she's got the winning strokes Joe couldn't land on Trump. She understand's Trump's psychology. That's where I've been saying Joe should've hit him all along, but failed to do so. She gets that. She's the Clarice Starling to this disciple of the "late, great" Hannibal Lecter. 

..."I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type."

Jinnistan wrote:

One quick test she can do to help me out would be to come out publicly in support of Lina Khan at the FTC, because Dem donors are already gunning for her.  That would be an elementary standard for loyalty to principles over money.

One potential indicator of her intentions might be that she and Elizabeth Warren introduced their version of the Price Gouging Prevention Act in 2020, “a bill that would empower the Federal Trade Commission to enforce a ban on excessive price increases of consumer goods amid national emergencies and specifically consider any price increase above 10% to be price gouging during such a declaration.”  A 2024 version of the bill was introduced in February. For what it's worth.

.

Jinnistan wrote:

Piers Morgan - who has never completely recovered from the addition of a biracial woman into his beloved royal family - hysterically characterized Kamala Harris: "she is literally probably the most far-left senator in modern American history".  Let's just set aside that "literally probably" grammatical conundrum, and consider whether or not Morgan is truly dumb enough to honestly consider Harris as more far-left than, say, Bernie Sanders, a registered Democratic socialist?  Maybe he is that dumb, to place Harris to the left of Elizabeth Warren, or maybe even some deep benchers like Ed Markey or Ron Wyden.  All I can see for certain is that none of those people are black, even if that shade of darkness happens to be a cruel reminder of former Crown Glory like Jamaican/Madras Indian.  Better lock up your Queen!

I remember the right–wing noise machine using that same rhetoric to characterize Biden, no sooner had he taken office, as a woke extremist Left–Wing radical of historic proportions:
Biden Is the most radical left–wing president in U.S. history, period.
—New York Post's Rich Lowry, February 1st, 2021
Biden’s Radical Agenda Ensures a Weaker, Poorer, More Divided America
—The Heritage Foundation's Mike Howell, Jan 20, 2021 (interesting timing)
President Biden has governed from the radical left
—Bobby Jindal, February 2nd, 2022
Biden leads the most radical left–wing movement in US history,
—The Hoover Institute's Victor Davis Hanson, February 6th, 2021
Biden is the most radical president in decades
—Hanson again, April 8th, 2021 

I could include a dozen more such entries. This line of rhetoric about [insert Democrat] being "the most radical–left in U.S. history" seems to have become a part of the Republicans' standard playlist. No matter how centrist the opponent in question may be, the Right–Wing Noise Machine inevitably "informs" its base that the opponent is the "most" radical left–wing pinko anti–family reverse–racist terrorist–loving enemy of God & Country in history... KNOWING full–well that the vast majority of their base will be taking their word for it without doing a scrap of self–directed research.

"Why should I, when I can just let my Talking Heads tell me where I stand? Reading is hard!"