The Race For 2024

[Shadowy Man]

Well, if you believe, as many people including legal and Constitutional scholars do, that Trump’s an insurrectionist then he is not qualified to hold the office even if he wins.

One can only hope that the Supreme Court, which did not seem to address the fact that the Colorado made a fact determination of his engaging in insurrection, gives us an option for handling that prior to January 6th, 2025 or it’s going to be a mess in Congress that day trying to certify the electoral college vote.

SCOTUS seemed to want to avoid actually determining how to apply the Constitution in this case and if they don’t it is going to be bad for the country.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Is there a plan in place to prevent him from holding office if his electoral vote is equal to or greater than 270? Or one to prevent it from coming to that?

 

[Swammerdami]

Let's look at the claim itself. The timeline is vague, she isn't even sure what year the alleged attack took place. Then her story parallels an episode of Law and Order SVU (the one with Kevin Pollack). Lastly, he made the allegation when she was trying to sell her book in which she claimed that she was sexually assaulted over a dozen times. She is an obvious fabulist.

Poppycock. Poppycock and Phooey. You're a grown man but simple fact-checking is beyond your ken?
Did you even know that trials often introduce TESTIMONY?

Lisa Birnbach​

A writer and longtime friend of Carroll

What she said​

She testified that Carroll called her in the early evening one spring night in 1996 and told her that she had just left Bergdorf, where she had encountered Trump, who assaulted her in a dressing room, pulling down her tights and penetrating her with his penis. Birnbach said she told Carroll that Trump had raped her and advised her to report the incident to the police.

Carol Martin​

A retired journalist and a longtime friend and former co-worker of Carroll

What she said​

According to Martin, Carroll came to her a day or two after the alleged incident and told her about it. “She said, ‘Trump attacked me,’” Martin said, recalling that Carroll was visibly upset. “I was completely floored,” Martin said. She said she cautioned Carroll against taking any steps in response to the incident “because it was Donald Trump and he had a lot of attorneys and he would bury her.”

Or, since they aren't allied with Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin and the rest of your Ilk, do you just dismiss what these women swear to under oath?

 

[Elixir]

Or, since they aren't allied with Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin and the rest of your Ilk, do you just dismiss what these women swear to under oath?

I think the answer was contained in the question.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

SCOTUS seemed to want to avoid actually determining how to apply the Constitution in this case and if they don’t it is going to be bad for the country.

SCOTUS is going to act selfishly with a healthy helping of fear. Lots of catholics on the bench there. Anyone raised in a catholic environment knows how that works.

 

[Elixir]

SCOTUS seemed to want to avoid actually determining how to apply the Constitution in this case and if they don’t it is going to be bad for the country.

SCOTUS is going to act selfishly with a healthy helping of fear. Lots of catholics on the bench there. Anyone raised in a catholic environment knows how that works.

The House belongs to Trump. The Courts belong to Trump. Just enough of the Senate belongs to Trump to keep it from functioning.
If we give him the WH it’s all over; this Country is officially an unredeemable shithole at that point.

 

[Swammerdami]

I see that D,J. Trump won 99.1% of the vote in one of the two Nevada primaries. (Voters were allowed to vote in BOTH primaries.)

I know Haley and Trump were not on the same ballot, but Google doesn't show me the ballot with Trump's name. Was there a "None of the above" option? There WAS another name on the ballot; at worst he could have been viewed as a stand-in for None-of-the-Above. Was the 99.1% figure a percent of all ballots cast -- as it should have been -- or a percent of only non-blank ballots?

Nevada made a mockery of the Republican primary process this year, but I still have a question.

How on Earth did the orange-flavored psychopath get 99% of the vote??? I read about at least a few Republicans regaining their sanity and rejecting Trump. But this didn't seem to affect Gopsters voting in that Nevada Primary. 99.1% !!! What gives?

 

[Politesse]

I see that D,J. Trump won 99.1% of the vote in one of the two Nevada primaries. (Voters were allowed to vote in BOTH primaries.)

I know Haley and Trump were not on the same ballot, but Google doesn't show me the ballot with Trump's name. Was there a "None of the above" option? There WAS another name on the ballot; at worst he could have been viewed as a stand-in for None-of-the-Above. Was the 99.1% figure a percent of all ballots cast -- as it should have been -- or a percent of only non-blank ballots?

Nevada made a mockery of the Republican primary process this year, but I still have a question.

How on Earth did the orange-flavored psychopath get 99% of the vote??? I read about at least a few Republicans regaining their sanity and rejecting Trump. But this didn't seem to affect Gopsters voting in that Nevada Primary. 99.1% !!! What gives?

There were only two candidates on the ballot, and Ryan Binkley, the other, is not much of a candidate. Took less than 1% of the vote in Iowa, and is likely to drop out by the end if the month. So I can see where he wouldn't attract many votes, especially since somone who is on the fence would be more likely to skip the caucus vote altogether. Republicans don't like "losers".

And if you don't like Trump, you probably wouldn't like Binkley. A Trumper himself, and a conservative Christian pastor to boot. He does claim to value bipartisanship though, which would be a nice change of pace if true.

 

[Swammerdami]

There were only two candidates on the ballot, and Ryan Binkley, the other, is not much of a candidate. Took less than 1% of the vote in Iowa, and is likely to drop out by the end if the month. So I can see where he wouldn't attract many votes, especially since somone who is on the fence would be more likely to skip the caucus vote altogether. Republicans don't like "losers".

And if you don't like Trump, you probably wouldn't like Binkley. A Trumper himself, and a conservative Christian pastor to boot. He does claim to value bipartisanship though, which would be a nice change of pace if true.

I'm not sure I made my question clear.

In a counterfactual where I was voting in that Republican Primary I would NOT have voted for Trump. I might have voted for Binkley -- while making no attempt whatsoever to learn the slightest thing about him -- OR I might have left the ballot blank OR spoiled the ballot. (Was checking "None of the above" an option? I dunno.)

But 99.1% of voters apparently did none of these things. Part of the explanation is that the election may have been self-selecting: Only supporters of Trump or Binkley bothered to show up. (OTOH, many are lackadaisical and wouldn't have known who was on the ballot until inside the polling both.)

But if the ballots counted were even a VERY crude proxy for Nevada's GOP voters, the 99% number is SCARY: Dissatisfaction with this criminal is not as prevalent as some stories and opinions have led us to believe.

 

[Politesse]

The problem isn't that people are satisified with Trump. At least 60% of the Trump voters you meet out in the world insist that they dislike him and aren't "really" Trumpers. The problem is that disatisfaction doesn't change voting behavior, especially not for conservatives, who live in a constructed environment of constant fear and paranoia. It's either Trump or Biden, and Biden is an existential threat to "real" Americans, so they're going to back Trump in the ballot box no matter how firmly they have to hold their nose to do it.

 

[Elixir]

There were only two candidates on the ballot, and Ryan Binkley, the other, is not much of a candidate. Took less than 1% of the vote in Iowa, and is likely to drop out by the end if the month. So I can see where he wouldn't attract many votes, especially since somone who is on the fence would be more likely to skip the caucus vote altogether. Republicans don't like "losers".

And if you don't like Trump, you probably wouldn't like Binkley. A Trumper himself, and a conservative Christian pastor to boot. He does claim to value bipartisanship though, which would be a nice change of pace if true.

I'm not sure I made my question clear.

In a counterfactual where I was voting in that Republican Primary I would NOT have voted for Trump. I might have voted for Binkley -- while making no attempt whatsoever to learn the slightest thing about him -- OR I might have left the ballot blank OR spoiled the ballot. (Was checking "None of the above" an option? I dunno.)

But 99.1% of voters apparently did none of these things. Part of the explanation is that the election may have been self-selecting: Only supporters of Trump or Binkley bothered to show up. (OTOH, many are lackadaisical and wouldn't have known who was on the ballot until inside the polling both.)

But if the ballots counted were even a VERY crude proxy for Nevada's GOP voters, the 99% number is SCARY: Dissatisfaction with this criminal is not as prevalent as some stories and opinions have led us to believe.

I read 98 out of 99 COUNTIES went for Trump, not 98 out of every 99 voters.

 

[southernhybrid]

I found a fairly good article that discusses memory and forgetfulness at all ages. I personally think that a few of Biden's recent gaffes are due to the extreme stress he's been under along with the unsubstantiated claims made against him. Any of us, regardless of age, are likely to make similar errors.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/02/10/memory-lapses-brain-biden-trump/

Have you ever mixed up the names of your children? Struggled to remember key dates or the year a loved one died? Recent news of mental lapses by President Biden and Donald Trump have sparked a national conversation and social media posts about what memory mistakes really mean about aging and brain health.


Matt Griffin, 54, who works in communications for a school district in Vancouver, Wash., said he thinks about his father, Grady Griffin, every day, and he remembers what he was doing the night his father died. But he can’t remember the exact date of his death from terminal brain and lung cancer. (He looked it up, and it was 19 years ago this month.) “I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect everybody to recall everything,” he said. “The thing I know that is ever present is my dad is gone, and I miss him.”
Experts agree. Memory, no matter what your age, is fallible and malleable. Our brain processes incalculable amounts of information at a given time, and there’s simply not room for all of it to be stored. And surprisingly, the act of forgetting is an important aspect of memory.

Mental acuity has been a flash point affecting both presidential candidates, but it has taken on new urgency following a special counsel report into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report noted that Biden, 81, had trouble recalling the years he served as vice president and didn’t remember the exact date his son Beau had died, among other issues. Trump, 77, has struggled with his own memory lapses, most recently confusing former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, his last-remaining rival for the Republican presidential nomination, with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The Washington Post interviewed several memory experts. They noted that the cognitive abilities of Biden and Trump can’t be evaluated based on anecdotal memory lapses. Formal evaluations are needed to truly assess someone’s brain health. But they noted that memory lapses at any age are surprisingly normal and, for most people, aren’t a signal of mental decline.
“Most of us have memory slips all the time,” said Earl K. Miller, professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “We can’t remember where we put our car keys. We can’t remember dates or names. But we don’t really notice the mistakes when we’re young. It’s when people get older that mistakes in memory seem to have more significance. Memory lapse really is normal at every stage of life.”

How our memories work​

Our brain can process and hold vast amounts of information, but it has limits. Facts, dates and events can be stored and recalled for days and weeks — or even across a lifetime. As new memories are created, the brain must prioritize important memories, making it more difficult to recall less important details or events.

I'm sharing this article. It's not behind a pay wall, so some of you might learn a few things by reading the entire thing. Yes. We all forget things all the time, and it's true that as we age, we often have more trouble remembering names, but that has nothing to do with dementia. Plus, plenty of people, not just Paul Krugman, have had private conversations with Biden and they claim that he's sharp and able to remember important things and concepts. The claim that Biden is losing it, is simply ageist and without evidence.

Biden has had a lifelong speech disability, much of which he has overcome. It doesn't mean he has dementia or is losing it. It simply means that it takes longer for him to pull up the correct words or names at times. Like most older adults, he often forgets names, again that isn't a sign of dementia. A book I read on aging discussed how the older we get, the more data we hold in our brains, often leading us to take more time to pull up the data we need.

Finally, to be honest, I would vote for a mildly impaired Biden if he actually was impaired, over a totally deranged, mad man like Trump any day. Trump is a threat to our country, while Biden can help improve it. Sadly, the Trump cult is alive and well, so we may be facing the biggest challenge our country has faced since the Civil War. I'll finish with one more quote from the linked article.

Aging also “magnifies any vulnerabilities that already exist,” he said. “If someone had difficulties speaking as a young adult, for instance, then getting older is likely to worsen the problem.”
At the same time, older brains can be especially susceptible to stress, distraction and fatigue, he said, all of which worsen memory recall.

Still, older brains can often compensate for their growing weakness, he and other researchers point out. “There’s evidence that older adults can strategically focus memory” on the most important information, Schacter said.
Older brains often become more adept than younger brains at filtering irrelevant information or at making connections between experiences, the researchers agreed, because they’ve had more of them.
“An older brain is a wiser brain. It has experience to draw on,” Miller said.

Say it again.....

An older brain is a wiser brain......

Well, not always, but in a healthy person who walks, rides a bike and exercises instead of ranting and raving and riding a gulf cart almost everywhere he goes, I'd say it's usually true.

 

[Politesse]

There were only two candidates on the ballot, and Ryan Binkley, the other, is not much of a candidate. Took less than 1% of the vote in Iowa, and is likely to drop out by the end if the month. So I can see where he wouldn't attract many votes, especially since somone who is on the fence would be more likely to skip the caucus vote altogether. Republicans don't like "losers".

And if you don't like Trump, you probably wouldn't like Binkley. A Trumper himself, and a conservative Christian pastor to boot. He does claim to value bipartisanship though, which would be a nice change of pace if true.

I'm not sure I made my question clear.

In a counterfactual where I was voting in that Republican Primary I would NOT have voted for Trump. I might have voted for Binkley -- while making no attempt whatsoever to learn the slightest thing about him -- OR I might have left the ballot blank OR spoiled the ballot. (Was checking "None of the above" an option? I dunno.)

But 99.1% of voters apparently did none of these things. Part of the explanation is that the election may have been self-selecting: Only supporters of Trump or Binkley bothered to show up. (OTOH, many are lackadaisical and wouldn't have known who was on the ballot until inside the polling both.)

But if the ballots counted were even a VERY crude proxy for Nevada's GOP voters, the 99% number is SCARY: Dissatisfaction with this criminal is not as prevalent as some stories and opinions have led us to believe.

I read 98 out of 99 COUNTIES went for Trump, not 98 out of every 99 voters.

Well, in fact, Nevada's only got 17 counties and they all went to Trump.

Nevada Republican Caucus Results

Get full election results and maps from the 2024 Nevada Republican caucus.

www.nytimes.com

Only Esmeralda County - a polity so tiny its county seat is an unincorporated mostly-ghost town - gave more than 1% of their vote toward Pastor Binkley. This means, in practice, that of
Esmeralda County's 77 recorded voters in this election, two of them voted for Binkley.

 

[Swammerdami]

I read 98 out of 99 COUNTIES went for Trump, not 98 out of every 99 voters.

The Guardian shows 59,984 to 540. Must be individual humans.

Nevada Republican caucuses
Thu 8 Feb 2024
Count in progress: 98.15% counted
Donald Trump 99.1%
59,984 votes (26 delegates)
Ryan Binkley 0.9%
540 votes

 

[Elixir]

I read 98 out of 99 COUNTIES went for Trump, not 98 out of every 99 voters.

The Guardian shows 59,984 to 540. Must be individual humans.

Nevada Republican caucuses
Thu 8 Feb 2024
Count in progress: 98.15% counted
Donald Trump 99.1%
59,984 votes (26 delegates)
Ryan Binkley 0.9%
540 votes

That IS a little shocking.
Probably no other option besides the Blinky guy.

 

[Shadowy Man]

That roughly 60,000 number is less than 2% of the state’s population.

 

[Swammerdami]

At least you agree Brandon's mental faculties are indeed shot.

The Atlantic has a good article on gaffes.. Everybody makes them.

What Biden's Critics Get Wrong About His Gaffes
The president's Mexico mistake is a warning sign, but not the one his critics think.

By Yair Rosenberg

On Sunday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went on television and mixed up Iran and Israel. "We passed the support for Iran many months ago," he told Meet the Press, erroneously referring to an aid package for the Jewish state. Last night, the Fox News prime-time host Jesse Watters introduced South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as hailing from South Carolina. I once joined a cable-news panel where one of the participants kept confusing then Attorney General Jeff Sessions with Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. I don't hold these errors against anyone, as they are some of the most common miscues made by people who talk for a living and I'm sure my time will come.

Yesterday, President Joe Biden added another example to this list. In response to a question about Gaza, he referred to the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the president of Mexico. The substance of Biden's answer was perfectly cogent. The off-the-cuff response included geographic and policy details not just about Egypt, but about multiple Middle Eastern players that most Americans probably couldn't even name. The president clearly knew whom and what he was talking about; he just slipped up the same way Johnson and so many others have....

But the truth is, mistakes like these are nothing new for Biden, who has been mixing up names and places for his entire political career. Back in 2008, he infamously introduced his running mate as "the next president of the United States, Barack America." At the time, Biden's well-known propensity for bizarre tangents, ahistorical riffs, and malapropisms compelled Slate to publish an entire column explaining "why Joe Biden's gaffes don't hurt him much."

.... In 2024, Biden will have an assist from another source: Donald Trump. Among other recent lapses, the former president has called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb�n "the leader of Turkey," confused Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley, and repeatedly expressed the strange belief that he won the 2020 election. With an opponent prone to vastly worse feats of viscous verbosity, Biden can't help but look better by comparison, especially if he starts playing offense instead of defense.

BUT, the Hannity-Putin Bullshit machine is making Biden's gaffes an issue. (I dunno. Maybe the gaffes are deliberate ploys to conceal Hunter Biden's involvement with the murder of Vince Foster? The gaffes prove Biden wasn't born n the USA?)

But none of this will happen by itself. If the president and his campaign want the headlines to be something other than "Yes, Biden Knows Who the President of Egypt Is," they'll have to start making news, not reacting to it.

 

[bilby]

I read 98 out of 99 COUNTIES went for Trump, not 98 out of every 99 voters.

The Guardian shows 59,984 to 540. Must be individual humans.

Nevada Republican caucuses
Thu 8 Feb 2024
Count in progress: 98.15% counted
Donald Trump 99.1%
59,984 votes (26 delegates)
Ryan Binkley 0.9%
540 votes

There are 1,320,070 voters in Nevada (2011 figure); 59,984 votes would be 4.5% of these people voting for Trump. The other 95.5% didn't vote, or voted for Binkley.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Also, Biden got over 112 thousand votes in his primary. So perhaps more enthusiasm for Joe than for Trump?

And it looks like Nikki Haley got about half as many votes as Trump did in her primary. Much of the “none of the above” were just Trump voters voting in both the caucus and the primary.

 

[TSwizzle]

I found a fairly good article that discusses memory and forgetfulness at all ages. I personally think that a few of Biden's recent gaffes are due to the extreme stress he's been under along with the unsubstantiated claims made against him. Any of us, regardless of age, are likely to make similar errors.

Rearrange the following words into a familiar phrase;

Straws Clutching At

It’s laughable that some on here just can’t come to terms with what is plain to see. Brandon is is a feeble minded old man. He was never the brightest but holy shit, he’s way worse now and it’s getting worser