Every accusation is a confession https://t.co/Wtws0Zw9RC
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 23, 2024
MARIA BARTIROMO: They're probably experimenting with getting doses right, giving Biden medicine ahead of the debate. Is that what you think?
REP. ERIC BURLISON: Yeah … whether they're gonna jack him up on Mountain Dew or whatever it is. pic.twitter.com/qrGTmP5O1Z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 25, 2024
Truly, when it comes to the GOP, Every accusation is a confession. I can personally attest that Mountain Dew Orange Mango Energy can get an aging brain through a burst of tedious late-night covid posting. But if there existed a formulation that could arrest senile decline even for ninety minutes at a time, hundreds of thousands of Boomers and their loved ones would trade anything up to a spare kidney or their least attractive grandchild for a dose of it. This is the saddest outburst of GOP copium since… well, since the last time TFG had to appear in public without a phalanx of party defenders and groupies as a human shield.
Biden guzzling Panera Death Lemonades https://t.co/IT5cqDGalG
— River_Tam (@RiverTamYDN) June 26, 2024
Wait, now it's energy drinks? I thought it was some secret drugs that cure Alzheimer's for an hour or two. Now it's "so unfair because Joe drank a Red Bull!" https://t.co/MuFuRS67sB
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 26, 2024
So (1) it remains very funny to me that people think Biden has a drug that totally fixes cognitive issues but only uses it sometimes, and (2) Miller is slightly smarter than the median fascist creep and clearly realizes that Trump is very likely to faceplant at this debate https://t.co/KpOXJBJ7rD
— vituperativeerb (@vituperativeerb) June 20, 2024
I was told last week that I was overreacting by criticizing this nonsense because clearly Trump was joking. Uh-huh. https://t.co/dbrEMeCqlR
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 25, 2024
Sure, let’s hear from the guy who got busted from the Navy for being a gropy drunk:
A Pentagon report found that, when Ronny Jackson was White House doctor, medical teams were "widely dispensing sedatives and stimulants, failing to maintain records on potent drugs including fentanyl, providing care to potentially hundreds of ineligible White House staff and… https://t.co/Ic8xixapEN
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) June 23, 2024
Democrats: Trump suffers from the kind of dementia that was caused by cocaine.
— Chris Lamb (@16campaignbites) June 25, 2024
Rather than admitting that they've been bullshitting their viewers about Biden having dementia, the right has settled on the notion that Joe Biden has access to a regimen that hides all the signs of his purportedly extreme mental deterioration… but only takes it on special… https://t.co/GUJLDD1ZTS
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) June 20, 2024
The FTFNYTimes, once again doing its best to assist the GOP…
How about "alleges"?
"Concocts claim" ?
"Levels specious charge"?
"Airs right-wing theory"?
(Lots of room to make the headline fit.)
Two guesses where this came from. pic.twitter.com/SjahQLXNm7
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) June 24, 2024
So, if Biden is taking some kind of mystery drug to perform for State of the Unions and debates when he is a senile invalid every other day, then why doesn't the White House just give him that drug all the time? https://t.co/x2lBYa73ij
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 27, 2024
the number of people replying to this with “could the TikToks I watch have been deceptively edited? Impossible, they must have the super drugs from Limitless that they give to him whenever I happen to watch at length.” is really depresssing. https://t.co/nszctyWw7y
— William B. Fuckley (@opinonhaver) June 26, 2024
Martin
Didn’t realize Red Bull or Mountain Dew constituted a controlled substance in the US. To think that coffee I picked up before my morning staff meeting was giving me a competitive advantage. I should probably return those medals.
thruppence
Frist! at stupid o clock in the morning. I’m blessed to be working tonight, so I’ll DVR the debate and some reactions, but I’ll probably fast forward through Trump’s parts, I don’t need more of him in my head, I’ll also donate $50 to Power leadership since I’m up
ETA not first. too slow
raven
These motherfuckers are going to believe whatever they want to.
hueyplong
Seems like (1) Red Bull should cost a whole lot more, but, seeing as how it doesn’t, (2) I should own a shit ton of Red Bull before it goes all Schedule I.
Ruckus
@thruppence:
I believe that positive mental health is not being exposed to complete and utter idiots or senior citizens in mid to late stage dementia unless one is a current medical practitioner or mental health counselor. So really President Joe Biden should not be on a stage with shitforbrains. And I say this as a trained, although past mental health counselor. OTOH, given that some people will vote for shitforbrains, and mainly because he is insane, it is possible that some will take this debate as proof that shitforbrains really, really isn’t in any way fit or able to be in charge of anything. Although I do get the impression that shitforbrains may not show up because it is possible that someone may be able to talk him out of it or his “doctor” may talk him into one of those cosy places where they lock the doors behind someone like him as they arrive, to protect the rest of society.
Nukular Biskits
Not one single media outlet is aggressively pushing back against this bullshit, demanding those making the claims to provide evidence?
As for Hannity, he’s a walking, talking piece of trash.
p.a.
@Ruckus: They will back out, but have a stage set up where tRump will perform opposite a Biden cut-out while thinking it’s the real debate. The only issue will be after, when he claims publicly he “won”. But his 40+/-% won’t care that it’s just another fantasy.
TBone
Some good news hopium. I posted an article about a possible new Silent Majority for 2024 a while back. Heather Cox Richardson noted in today’s letter:
Shazam!
The entire thing is worth a read. The Supremacists Court ruling that happened (not a draft opinion leak) is given proper coverage.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-26-2024
Nukular Biskits
@TBone:
May FSM make it so.
TBone
@Nukular Biskits: yeah, baby! Woo hoo!
Virogenes
My mother “accidentally” played one of those Biden clip videos last time I visited her. This violated our decades long truce on politics. Ironically she said “I’m old and don’t know how to control the videos on my phone.”. She was clearly convinced that if I heard this I’d abandon Biden
Tony Jay
@Nukular Biskits:
Rusty
My 15 year old is convinced Biden is completely senile, but he also said it’ll he was old enough he wouldn’t vote for Trump. When I told him he shouldn’t believe everything he sees on TikTok, he blew up at me, how could I think he was dumb enough to believe some influencer. The joy of teenagers, he’s our 4th, everyone has been different and annoying in their own unique way. He and I are watching the debate together tonight. It will be interesting to see what he thinks. (He is a good kid, he just bungee jumps between responsible and flaky at a pace that is hard to follow. As I said, a teenager.)
Baud
@Rusty:
Call him a young Boomer.
Nukular Biskits
@Tony Jay:
My observation is that there are two groups of people in that camp: one that parrots that bullshit because “IT’LL OWN TEH STEWPIT LIBTARDS! HYUCK!HYUCK!HYUCK!”, one that truly believes or wants to believe it.
It’s the latter that are the most dangerous, IMHO.
Baud
@Rusty:
Seriously, I’d be curious if his seeing the unedited Biden changes his mind.
raven
@Nukular Biskits: Morning Joe is on it like a duck on a June Bug!
raven
I think shithead will walk off the stage!
Soprano2
This whole thing about Biden using some kind of drug cocktail is surreal to me, because those who actually deal with people who have dementia know there’s no such thing. They’d be better off talking about something that’s real, which is called various names – I’ve heard “showboating” or “Hollywooding”. It’s the phenomenon where a person with dementia can seem normal to others like family members who are visiting. They usually crash hard after a performance like that, and can only do it for a few hours at most. I highly doubt a person with more advanced dementia could do that under the circumstances of this debate. If it was still mild dementia, that might be possible, but it would also be easy to hide that the person had dementia in the first place.
Baud
@Soprano2:
It’s not about logic or evidence. It’s about feeding people’s hate.
TBone
They know they have backed themselves into a corner with the whole Joe Has Dementia gambit. The hit dogs have to holler something to explain why, as the entire nation is about to see with their own eyes in real time, our President is sharp as a tack and their nominee is a babbling, continuous shart.
TBone
Does this bother anyone else like it bothers me? Memory Hole City.
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/comedy-central-site-removes-video-clips-archive-1236050056/
TBone
Mood music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hBP15lRprPs
3Sice
3Sice
I have wounds all over my
bodyass.Princess
@Soprano2: High five. My mother with dementia is super good at hiding it, so good her husband stayed in denial for a period of years. She is more advanced now but she still can keep her mouth shut or interject an appropriate question to make it seem like she’s all there. It takes a huge toll on her.
This cuts both ways though. Trump is certainly not as sharp as he once was but I’ve been skeptical about those on our side who have said he’s in full blown dementia and will be unable to function by November. But what has made me pause recently is some of his recent speeches where he’s trying to tell some story about sharks or laser beams or wind farms or something but he tells it in a kind of shorthand, only getting a few words out so if you don’t know the backstory, it’s incoherent. That reminds me of my mother.
The tell tonight is going to be, does Trump repeat the same points multiple times in answer to different questions? There’s not a pill in the world that’s going to stop that if he really has dementia. My Mum is okay, she knows who everyone is, where she is, she takes care of her body still but she’ll say the same thing or ask the same question three times in a row. If Trump doesn’t do that, well, he is certainly experiencing decline but it may not yet be full-blown dementia.
Ken
@TBone: Sadly I interact with few if any RWNJ, because I’d love to be able to do this:
RWNJ: Did you see that debate? Biden was all doped-up on anti-senility drugs!
Me: [beat] Why didn’t Trump use them too?
Tony Jay
@Nukular Biskits:
They’re desperate. They can see with all of their real-world senses that Stench is a leaky bagpipe of criminal mediocrity, dragging down their vinegar-pickled dreams of cultural supremacy into a steaming shit pit of conspiratorial gibbering and campaign-wrecking graft.
But they can’t possibly admit that, because they’re in too deep and have too much of their sense-of-self invested in the Great Unpatriotic War their side has been waging for a generation. So they surrender to the con and sink deeper and deeper, letting the freedom to believe any convenient shit liberate them from honest self-reflection.
In that world of course Biden has access to a secret drug that only cures dementia for a few hours. It’s obviously limited because the drug companies stopped the research as soon as they realised they were getting close to a cure that would close off a rich profit stream. Biden’s Deep State connections pulled it off the same shelf where they keep the hidden cures for all the cancers, and the proof is that Biden is clearly using it! See? Simple!
And this is also a very convenient prep for when it comes out that Stench was doped to the gills at the debate and they have to spin on a dime to justify it. Of course he was! With Biden touching heaven on his cocktail of rocket fuel and arugula juice it wouldn’t be fair for even an intellectual titan like Stench to go into a debate unmedicated, would it? Eh, Lib? You believe in equality, don’t you?
Plus. They’re just wankers. Wankers wank.
TBone
@Ken: denial of cognitive dissonance is their superpower. The cult will never be reachable and Fux will edit, delete context, provide spin and outrage, etc. relentlessly. RWNJ are already too far gone. But a slice of people are not fully indoctrinated cult members – it is those people paying attention that matters. I am hopeful, as ever.
Trying to use logic with RWNJ, no matter how obvious it is, is fruitless. You’re doing the right thing not interacting. They’re merely trolling us with all this shit.
O. Felix Culpa
@raven: Sadly true.
Kay
@raven:
That’s possible. He has a really bad temper and he gets very mad during these debates. He also thinks he’s way ahead so he doesn’t “need” to debate, that a debate can only hurt the front runner.
I think the liars and various lowlifes who work for him have to bring him ony good news, so he thinks he’s crushing the election.
TBone
I’m pretty sure MTG is Dotard’s chief debate prepper. 😆 I am looking forward to his last two minutes speech tonight. That last two minutes is gonna be “some weird shit” as Dubya said.
Short video clip
https://twitter.com/i/status/1806061887940874382
Kay
I’ve asked Trump supporters about the odd rambles he goes on in his speeches – sharks, serial killers, etc. They think he’s being deliberately funny – like a private joke between him and his supporters. I think everyone knows this by now but they’re absolutely unreachable. They believe what they want to believe. There is nothing he can do that they won’t put a positive ” we owned the libs!” spin on. When he said he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and they would still support him he was correct.
cmorenc
Gee thanks, CNN: Right under the banner headline @the CNN website about how tonight’s debate may be the most fateful in American history, they have a story: “Even Wealthy Americans are struggling to make ends meet“, focusing on the demographic of those making from $100k to $150k a year,”due to years of inflation and high borrowing costs”, causing them to cut spending, “including dialing back restaurant visits and entertainment.”
Kay
Someone on social media said Trump would have been happier as mayor of NYC. I agree. It also would have been much better for the country. I propose NYers crown him mayor as penance for foisting him on the rest of the country. He won’t be any more insane and mean than Giuliani, and he was mayor. It’ll be fine.
3Sice
Some quack is gonna jab convicted felon in the ass with amphetamines and hope it all works out…
What are the psychological symptoms of overamping?
• Extreme anxiety
• Panic
• Extreme paranoia
• Hallucinations
• Extreme agitation
• Increased aggressiveness
•Agitation, restlessness, irritability
• Hypervigilance (being super aware of your environment, sounds, people, etc.)
• Enhanced sensory awareness
• Suspiciousness
Just another trump world day ending in Y.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Tony Jay:
Another one for the clip file.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: It’s a cult, and cultists will twist or deny all disconfirming facts to maintain their narrative. Believing six impossible things before breakfast is part of cult discipline and proof of loyalty.
On the other hand, some promising anecdata: my fundy in-laws–in Ohio!–have mentioned that they will not vote in November. The Felon is finally disqualified in their eyes. Of course they can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden, but every non-vote for the Felon helps. I wonder how many other people are out there quietly making the same decision?
zhena gogolia
Just threw out my fishwrap NYT that had Peter Baker on the front page opining about how Biden’s old-school tactics don’t work any more.
Another Scott
@Rusty: I think our brains are pathologically wired to jump to conclusions. I remember early on in 2019 in the Democratic primary battle that there was a clip of Biden getting into/out of a car and he looked like he was 105 years old and was going to shatter into a million pieces if anyone touched him.
So, I get it. I was in the “Joe should retire” camp early. But I again learned…
Of course, it was a doctored video clip.
Remind him that the people who spend their time making and putting up these clips have an agenda and somehow are making a living at it. Normal people have work to do and can’t sit on their computer doing such things all day every day. It’s especially important these days to look at the original item – not someone’s spin on it.
Good luck!!
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@TBone: That is grotesquely hilarious.
My takeaway is she’s scared. But I don’t want to put too much faith in it.
Suzanne
“Jack him up” on Mountain Dew?! Dafuq?
Is it elitist of me to say that these people are low-class trash?!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@O. Felix Culpa:
Does this mean sitting at home or voting for every other (R) on the ballot except Felonious D?
Any under voting is A. Good. Thing. I’m always curious as to how far your bog-standard RWNJ will go in this case.
Kay
@cmorenc:
It’s such junk. There is ONE piece of real information in that article and it says that Americans are spending MORE, not less:
There is real information out there about consumer spending. They could have looked to see whether people are actually eating out less. They chose not to. It’s lazy, innumerate junk and they pump it into the national bloodstream every day.
It doesn’t matter what people say about the economy. What matters is what they do, and what they are doing is spending.
OzarkHillbilly
@cmorenc: Pobrecitos…
O. Felix Culpa
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Exactly the question I asked Ms. O about that conversation. Unfortunately she didn’t know (they hadn’t said). My preference is obvious. :)
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
I think there’s a downtick in Trump enthusiasm locally, but I can’t tell anymore. I don’t think it’s normal politics. As you say, it’s a cult. I’m not accustomed to politics as cult.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: That could be bad news for down-ballot Republican candidates like Bernie Moreno.
3Sice
@cmorenc:
The nugget of truth in the blizzard of “inflation” bullshit is those that fled to traitor states for a lower cost of living are getting hit with the true cost of their lifestyle.
Low taxes, no income tax, blah, blah, blah. Shit ain’t free, those goddamn Yankees want everything for nothing, and the bills are coming due.
Baud
@Kay:
I’ve been saying that ad nauseum. Unfortunately, that’s a human problem not restricted to Trump supporters.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
@Kay:
What will it take to convince more libs about media propaganda?
ETA: you would think after Gore and Hillary, they’d be more aware.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Agree, it’s most definitely not normal politics anymore on the R side. It took leaving Germany as a smoking crater to break the hold of Nazism. I hope that less drastic measures will be effective here. Like writing postcards and door-knocking to win the next several election cycles at least. Plus reforming the fucking Supreme Court.
Kay
We’re seeing an uptick in interest in this at the law office. ADUs. Accessory dwelling units – “granny cottages”. It’s a way to keep an elderly relative out of a nursing home – you just put up a unit on property you already own. They sell prefab units that are designed for older people. It’s also a way to “spend down” the elders assets – ordinarily w/a nursing home the older person has to go thru all their own funds and assets before they qualify for nursing home payments made by Medicaid – with this they’re spending their money on an asset that appreciates. So far it’s people who live out in the country and have some acreage and no zoning, but we have a request to look into putting one up in a “village” w/single family R2 zoning.
I just think it’s an interesting solution to an issue a lot of people will encounter.
p.a.
Click my nym for a preview of post-debate tRumping Points.
Subsole
@raven:
Someone on Twitter made the rather cutting observation that you could absolutely con these people into running a concentration camp, if you used the right emojis.
Though honestly, I don’t think there’d be much conning necessary…
@Baud:
This.
This entire stupid, wasteful dance is basically American society tiptoeing around the fact that these people despise us.
All of the conspiracy theorizing and both-sidesing is basically that demographic giving itself permission to hate us, and the rest of America trying to tell itself that they must have a valid reason to hate us all. Because otherwise they’d just be a bunch of assholes.
This is, of course, absolutely bonkers.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: MTG runs Welcome Wagon for Crazytown.
Subsole
@TBone:
“Joe Biden shit Mr. Trump’s pants.”
TBone
@zhena gogolia: they’re all scared. It’s why they are bullies – every bully is simply a frightened coward on the inside, hiding behind a facade of toughness. They lash out in abject fear.
That’s why you have to make ’em spit their chiclets. It’s the only way to break through the wall of fear that is disguised as rage. Snaps ’em right out of it, even if only temporarily.
Baud
@TBone:
Agree. But bullying works against natural serfs. That’s the problem we face.
TBone
@Subsole: 😆
Baud
@Subsole:
100%. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
TBone
@Baud: yes, very true. We play defense way too much. I much prefer offense, but it causes so much pearl-clutching that I get easily frustrated.
I was a natural born princess in bio dad’s eyes and he treated me thusly. I was not inclined to serfdom.
Another Scott
@cmorenc: $100-$150k/yr is “wealthy”?? Mixing income and wealth is misleading.
Made me look…
IRS – AGI stats for tax year 2021 – XLSX file.
Floors for brackets US as a whole:
Top 1% – $699,008
Top 5% – $257,507
Top 10% – $172,677
Top 25% – $96,633
Top 50% – $48,667
Top 75% – $24,089
Yeah, Ok, being in the Top 20-25% or so is probably objectively “high income” looking at the country as a whole, but the distribution of income is far, far from gaussian. The total AGI of the Top 1% + the Top 5% is about $7T out of the total AGI of $14.9T…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Kay: There’s been a lot of debate all over the country about ADUs, aka granny flats, guest houses, casitas, etc. Many municipalities don’t allow them on single-family lots, but that seems to be shifting in some places.
Lots of concerns about setbacks, traffic and parking, people using them for AirBNBs, partying, metering….. all the same stuff.
The Red Pen
David Pakman was on some Fox radio show with some dingus pushing the drug conspiracy theory. Pakman had a really good position: “If you are going to say that it’s ‘plausible’ that Joe Biden was on drugs at the State of the Union, you at least have to cite a substance known to man that has the effects you claim.”
Basically, nothing they’ve talked about can reverse mental decline. As others have pointed out her, if you’re spouting gibberish, then speed is just going to make you spout more intense gibberish.
Eyeroller
@The Red Pen: But then the FTFNYT will write about how “energetic” you are, which makes you seem so much younger than low-key Biden so we should continue to worry about how old Biden is.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Thanks. I thought about you as I was writing that. You could go out on your own and be a “navigator”, I swear. A LOT of interest. It would be a great small business.
Ours are all in the context of estate planning so late middle aged people putting them on proprety they own (own outright) for their parents and paying cash for the dwelling. It can make a lot of sense. I think that probbaly changes if you’re borrowing. My initial foray into talking to the zoning administrator in the village (which is zoned) went well – he seemed open to the idea although he raised the air bnb issue – laughable here. No one is vacationing in this county. I didn’t say that of course.
We have one where the retired husband is taking CNA training to care for his elderly mother on an ADU on his lot, behind his house. It will work well for them. They’re in township with no zoning though and it’s 3+ acres.
Trivia Man
@3Sice: I like the idea of taking advantage of his hyper vigilance. Loud enough for him to hear, someone backstage whispering “trump is a loser “ over and over or some other very short phrase that will trigger him. “Small hands” or “his dad hated him”.
Maybe a sound – keep opening a bottle of pop so he pavlovs a craving for diet coke. Or handcuffs clicking shut. Any other sounds to trigger him?
Soprano2
@Baud: I know, but it’s also so stupid because they can’t even use a real thing to explain it! They don’t have to make something up, there’s a real thing that could explain it if Biden did indeed have dementia.
Soprano2
@Princess: She must be super good, because a spouse should be able to pick up on things that even you wouldn’t notice. I suspect he knew but didn’t want to know. Being around someone a lot makes it harder to deny what’s happening.
bluefoot
As someone who has worked for a decade trying to find and develop therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease, if there were a drug that could even temporarily slow, arrest or reverse it, 1) every neuroscientist would know about it 2) SOMEBODY would be selling it and rolling in cash 3) even if it were some secret DARPA product for only people with access, you know there’d be a lot more people than the president taking it (most of the Senate, I’m look at you), and we’d know.
BTW, all the epidemiological data says the best things for delaying onset of age-related cognitive decline are regular cardiovascular exercise, healthy diet, and keeping mentally and socially active. Let’s compare Joe Biden and TCFG on these….
I realize all this “Biden getting shot up with super seekrit drugs” is merely a distraction and excuse. I don’t normally address stupid talking points but to quote Biden, come on, man.
kindness
‘A very large percent of the country thinks Joe has dementia’ translates from MSM speak to ‘we really need more eyeball clicks and miss the Trump era down to the bottom of our bank accounts’.
emjayay
@Tony Jay: Nice work. For the millionth time this blog needs a simple thumbs up/down function.
The “sense-of-self” thing hits the nail on the head for the MAGA cultists. Not the whole story, but the core of it. I remember being a teenager too, but like most of us I grew out of it.
For all the Republican politicians and right wing news talkers it’s a bit more cynical. None of the Fox News etc. people could get a job in that field paying a tenth of what they get anywhere else. The politicians making all those idiotic claims are embarrassing themselves but are well aware that their drooling baby voters won’t see it. Their identity is like a Jenga, and they are afraid it would collapse if a single piece was removed.
Paul in KY
@raven: Supposedly his strategery this time is to be ‘nice’ and ‘respectful’.
Citizen Alan
@Kay:
This goes back to Sarah Palin for me. It was the first time I really grokked the fact that, to Republicans and their Amen Chorus in the media, actual verifiable facts are less important that what an ignorant hillbilly knows to be true “in their heart.”