The Frankish Reich

I have spent a lot of time around 80-somethings in recent years (that has something to do with my own stage in life), and I can tell you that what I see with Biden is consistent with what I've seen with every single other one. But o.k., let's say his decline is unusually rapid. Many people (me included) thought Reagan was losing it at a very fast pace in his run-up to the 1980 presidential election. And then it became clear to many more people that he was losing it by the time of his second term, say in 1987. He was 76 in 1987. And while we don't know for sure (no one can) whether that was the early stages of Alzheimer's, given that he was later diagnosed with it I think it's a fair to assume that. Q. So how long did early-stage Alzheimer's Reagan live after beginning to show signs of that disease (being charitable, from 1987 on)? A. 17 years. My point: even if Biden's doddering behavior means the worst possible diagnosis - Alzheimer's - that's extraordinarily unlikely to kill him in the next few years. So that over/under of 8.5 years based on the actuarial tables? No reason to second guess it here. Now could it be that like Reagan he is (or soon will become) unable to handle the job of President without effectively turning it over to an armada of advisors? Sure. Reagan did that, and the impression of those advisors that he was checked out probably contributed to some really bad ideas like Iran-Contra. Did the Republic survive? Yep. My second point: when dealing with a cognitively challenged president, or one who exhibits extremely poor judgement, the best thing is to have a stable team of level-headed advisors in place. In fact, a stable team of level-headed advisors is often preferable to a high-functioning know-it-all who refuses to take advice from persons with expertise in a particular area.

It is not a talking point for Trump's defense team, or even a talking point for lawyers or those who've reasonably looked into the law as it pertains to this case. It is a talking point for partisan supporters who are looking for any basis to yell UNFAIR! Regardless of the merits of the talking point. Really, do you think this type of person reads beyond tweets from Julie Kelly or articles from right-wing media?

Yes, there is. But other than the medical records the White House releases (which may, of course, be somewhat selective) we have no reason to believe that Biden has any unusual condition that would cause us to deviate from the average. In other words, the over/under is 8.5 more years of life. Now if you know any insider information like "my cousin's wife is a nurse at Walter Reed, and she saw a report showing that Biden is being treated for chronic kidney disease," feel free to bet the under. Anecdotal stuff like "Biden sure seems to be slowing down physically and mentally" wouldn't change my assessment of the odds. It's akin to "Hillary stumbled badly trying to get into that limo, she probably has serious brain damage and won't be able to serve out her term." Or "why does Trump need to hold a water glass with two hands."

And of course people are free to vote based on their assessment of Biden's mental and physical state. My comment here was limited to the actual actuarial odds of Biden surviving until the end of a second term. And on that, it's basically 60/40 (survive/not survive).

And yes, it would need to be charged in New Jersey. Which raises the possibility of another prosecution in the District of New Jersey, I suppose. And yes, this Julie Kelly is the dumb conspiracist's idea of a smart person.

Good summary of the IRS agents (there's two) claim that their investigation was thwarted (it is important to note that the key events happened in the Trump/Barr administration!): https://www.wsj.com/articles/throw-hunters-plea-in-the-trash-irs-justice-sabotage-shapley-4ae9aef0?mod=trending_now_opn_2 I basically agree with this take (so the tired old partisan responses would be, umm, particularly idiotic here), which is from Bush 43's head of DOJ's Tax Division. Paywalled, so here's a key part: By June 2021, Mr. Weiss’s prosecution team had gathered enough evidence to understand that Delaware wasn’t the proper venue in which to prosecute Hunter Biden’s tax crimes. Crimes allegedly committed in 2014 and 2015 would have to be charged in the District of Columbia and those allegedly committed 2016-19 would have to be charged in the Central District of California. According to the whistleblowers’ testimony, the U.S. attorneys in the capital and Central California refused Mr. Weiss’s requests to charge Hunter Biden in their districts. Mr. Shapley testified that Mr. Weiss then asked “Main DOJ” to name him special counsel and was denied—possibly not for the first time. In March testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee the attorney general said that although he hadn’t made Mr. Weiss special counsel, he had given Mr. Weiss all the authority he needed to bring charges in any district he deemed appropriate. But on Oct. 7, 2022, Mr. Shapley claims, Mr. Weiss declared in a meeting of the prosecution team that in fact he wasn’t the final decision maker with respect to charges that might be brought against Hunter Biden. It was this statement that shocked and troubled Mr. Shapley such that he braved the consequences of becoming a whistleblower and sought legal counsel on how to do so.

True. It is the perfect gift to a prosecutor. It is so incredibly stupid of Trump to do this - at the time he had already been notified that the National Archives was demanding return of presidential records, and yet there he is, being recorded (by a journalist who almost certainly asked him "ok if we record this"), saying that he is knowingly retaining classified records. If he weren't running for President, his best defense would be that he's now so mentally compromised that he lacked the ability to understand what he was doing.

Maybe Ukraine is in just a slightly different situation now than the one Russia was in when it "allowed" Putin to stay in charge? Maybe one country is the subject of an active invasion and daily bombings of its population centers while the other is actually conducting the invasion/bombings? But no. To Glenn Greenwald - the absolutely favorite gay expatriate socialist of Carlsonian "Conservative" White Nationalists - sees no difference whatsoever.

The Republicans control the House. They promised investigations. If Hunter plea deal is accepted by the judge, that part is over. Let the congressional investigation begin. Really. I'm not being facetious here. There is enough out there for a serious, well organized hearing (not this Boebert premature impeachment resolution silliness). Hunter clearly benefited materially by at least implying that by retaining him, his father's clout would be part of the deal. And I suspect that Joe Biden DID profit, directly or indirectly, from Hunter's sleazy dealings, but that's all it is: a suspicion.

It is mentioned in the indictment. It is only "not evidence" in the sense that nothing is evidence yet, but that's because there is a charging document, a plea, and no formal offering of evidence yet. That will come at trial. Someone would have to be called as a witness to authenticate the tape, the defense may object to its admission on various grounds, and then the judge will decide whether it will be entered into the record as evidence. There is a lot of confusion out there because a lot of non-lawyer bloggers are trying to analyze legal issues.

You mean our friend opens a new tab to live stream Tucker, keeping those S&M parade videos going in the background?

You mean New Jersey law? This all happened in New Jersey. And it was a recorded interview with some kind of writer working on Mark Meadows' memoirs - otherwise probably the most boring book that would have been released this year. So presumably the reporter asked if he/she could record it, and everyone knew it was being recorded. That's how these things work. But ... try again. Trump is on his 3rd layman's defense now, so maybe he should crowd-source Theory Number 4.

I don't know if this is the influence of non-lawyer Julie Kelly or where it's coming from, but: Of course it's evidence! It is mentioned in the indictment. Trump's half-baked maybe-I-should-just-keep-my-mouth-shut-and-hire-good-lawyers defense was "everything I took out of the White House was declassified by standing order or by operation of law." And now we have him on audio stating something completely different. It shows that he knew the classified documents he took remained classified. In other words, a "knowing" violation of the laws, which is critically important evidence.

It is possible there isn't one I suppose. So ... Trump just made up a specific document, going so far as to describe its contents and identifying its author, and even pulling it out and waving it in front of observers? But again: so what? The statement that matters is this: "I could have declassified it as President; I can't do that anymore; it's secret." In other words, I understand that classified documents remain classified even though they were taken out of the White House by me (or at my direction) while I was still President." Remember: this was in July 2021. The National Archives had already (in May 2021) sent Trump and his lawyers a demand letter asking for the return of presidential documents. Presumably he was aware of that request. And yet he's bragging (lying? that's his defense??) about retaining not just some ordinary presidential record, but an extremely sensitive, still-classified presidential record.

Oh, it's evidence all right. Even if the particular Iran memo is not charged, Trump's idiotic comments (idiotic in the sense of "only an idiot would say that out loud") are evidence because they refute his prior idiotic comment that as President he could declassify anything simply by thinking about it, or that he had some kind of unwritten standing order declassifying everything he'd had boxed up to be sent out of the White House. Since this particular Iran document was ostensibly still classified (Trump said so) and was at Bedminster NJ, if it is charged it probably needs to be venued in the District of New Jersey. Hence Trump's latest idiotic comment that this was just him bloviating/blustering and that he had no such document. We will see what the people who were in the room where it happened have a different take. This is a profoundly stupid man. EDIT: If Biden did something (actually several somethings) this stupid, everyone would say it's evidence of dementia. Well if the shoe fits ...

Well, it wouldn't have happened if Joe had just conceded. So it kind of is, right?

I don't know about you, but I really would feel in the dark about my team's prospects in the 2023 seasons if I didn't have a weekly update about what Colin Cowherd just said and why he's so very wrong. I dunno, maybe stop listening to him? Just a crazy idea ....

That's all correct. And you've basically confirmed my take: we don't know anything specific (for example, recent cancer, heart disease, obesity, etc.) that would lead us to believe that he's less likely to survive to 86 than most men his age. So there's your 58% chance. Which means a 42% chance that Kamala Harris becomes President if Biden is reelected. (Maybe that should be your campaign messaging, Republicans? But it's a messaging that gets easier to pull off if your candidate is in his/her 40s, 50s, or even 60s as opposed to his late 70s ...) Of course, he may be unusually fit, at least physically, for a man his age such that his life expectancy would be greater than the average. But again, we just don't know. So if an insurance company were selling him an annuity, they'd be betting on him living 8.5 more years, on average.

It would be great if people would take this question seriously instead of trying to score silly political points. I'm on record here as being in favor of a constitutional amendment that would set a maximum age for Presidential (and probably VP) candidates. What that age would be (72 at the time of inauguration? Not more than 78 at the time your term in office would end? Younger? Even older?) is a good subject for debate. The original serious question here (ignoring for a moment the unserious poster) was "can you admit that Biden is showing signs of cognitive decline?" My answer is: Yes. He is. As is virtually every person over the age of 75. It is often mixed up with "is [name] showing signs of dementia?" That is a related but very different question since dementia is defined quite differently than normal decline. So here's what I mean by "normal decline": https://www.sciencealert.com/does-iq-decline-as-we-age-one-type-of-intelligence-peaks-in-your-twenties Of course, there are many kinds of intelligence. Classic "g," general intelligence, is just one, but one we often hear about since IQ is an attempt to measure that, and there are even subclasses of intelligence there. Here's what we know: "Global IQ is an amalgam of different kinds of intelligence, the most popularly studied being fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence which together – along with abilities called working memory and processing speed – are combined to yield global or Full Scale IQ," Kaufman says. "Fluid intelligence or fluid reasoning reflects the ability to solve novel problems, the kind that aren't taught in school," he explains, "whereas crystallized intelligence or crystallized knowledge measures learning and problem solving that are related to schooling and acculturation." These different types of intelligence show different patterns as you get older. Crystallized intelligence "averages 98 at ages 20–24, rises to 101 by ages 35–44, before declining to 100 (ages 45–54), then 98 (55–64), then 96 (65–69), then 93 (70–74), and 88 (75+)," says Kaufman. Fluid intelligence drops much more quickly. Kaufman reveals that it "peaks at ages 20–24 (100), drops gradually to 99 (25–34) and 96 (35–44) before starting a rollercoaster plunge to 91 (45–54), 86 (55–64), 83 (65–69), 79 (70–74), and 72 (75+)." It would be fair to say that "fluid intelligence" is the type of thing we value in engineers/inventors/many types of scientists. And it plummets from about one's mid-40s. But even "crystallized intelligence" -- probably the kind most valued in politicians/managers/administrators/Presidents -- also declines. Later and slower, but still declines. There's not so much a cliff as a steady decline that becomes a cause for concern in one's 70s, and certainly by 75. All people are individuals. These are averages. But it is normal and expected to see measurable cognitive decline of the types of intelligence that matter by the time one reaches his/her mid-70s. That's why I think that's a good place to set a cut-off for Presidents. What do I see in Biden? Exactly what is to be expected at his age. It's not good. I wish the Dems would put up someone else, or that he'd step aside. It's not dementia as far as I can tell. It's normal, typical old man decline. Does that mean I should never vote for him? Well, of course we have to keep in mind that voting in the USA is a binary choice, and if his challenger is also in that kind of decline phase, I have to decide based on other things. And I also have to decide based on the composition of the other branches of the government as a whole, and based on the types of people (and their competence) that a President or potential President surrounds him or herself with. But it doesn't do anyone any good to deny that we have a lot - way too many - of our government leaders and backbenchers who are well into their declines. Including but not limited to Biden, McConnell, Pelosi (no longer in leadership thankfully), Trump, some Supreme Court justices, etc., etc.

I checked, and this is correct. Thomas wrote the dissent, which focuses on what's called the mootness doctrine. In other words, the Supreme Court didn't need to resolve this issue at this time because the immediate issue was resolved on other grounds. So it is true that the sweeping independent state legislature theory didn't gain any traction at the Supreme Court. At least not this time around.

Insurance company actuaries do this kind of thing for a living. Life expectancy of a male born on November 20, 1942: 8.5 years. Chance that he will live until at least January 2029 (the end of the next presidential term): about 58 percent.

There's always some weird guy on the periphery of academic discourse who becomes, by default, the public intellectual of rightist nationalism. Back in the days of Early Trumpism, it was that crank Sebastian Gorka, before he descended into selling Magic Pills on Fox. Then it was Jordan Peterson, who descended into some kind of drug-addled irrelevance. Now it is this James Lindsay, apparently a mathematician by training, who is now a self-appointed scholar of Marxism and social theory. I haven't watched him (I guess I will, a bit, to see how he apparently gets it so wrong, unless the errors are the fault of his subscribers?).

I'll admit it. I thought Rob Johnson would be really good here.

I still think EJ needed more time and could have been above average.

From a poster ostensibly in North Carolina, tagging me (amongst others): "Care to weigh in?" How many times has this particular poster performatively "ignored" me while tagging me in his/her posts? I am living in their (gen neut) mind rent free!