I didn’t watch the last Democratic presidential primary debates because I figured that without Tulsi Gabbard in there shaking things up it would be a boring, vapid parade of insubstantial verbal foam, and I love myself too much to go through such a horrible ordeal. By all accounts my prediction was correct, but I did miss one thing that’s been making the rounds in video clips for the last couple of days which I find absolutely bizarre.
Most of you have probably heard about Biden’s infamous “record player” comment by now, but for those of you who missed it, Biden was asked by debate moderator Linsey Davis to defend some comments he made about America’s problems with racism in the 1970s, and he responded by essentially saying that Black people don’t know how to raise their kids so they need to be taught how by social workers. Biden has been receiving mainstream criticism for his racist and paternalistic position, along with plenty of mockery for saying that parents need to be told to “make sure you have the record player on at night” so that kids hear enough words in early childhood.
It is pretty clear that Biden was trying to communicate an idea that is premised on a deeply racist and condescending worldview, so it’s to be expected that people would want to talk about that. It’s also to be expected that people would be making jokes about how the cute old man said “record player” like a grandpa. But what isn’t being discussed nearly enough is the fact that what Biden said was also a barely coherent, garbled word salad stumbling out of a brain that is clearly being eaten alive by a very serious neurological disease.
I’ve typed out a transcript of what Biden actually said, verbatim. There are no typos. I’ve also noted where Biden closes his eyes, probably to concentrate, which he does whenever he seems to be struggling especially hard to string words together. Try to read through it slowly, word-for-word, resisting the instinct to mentally re-frame it into something more coherent:
“Well they have to deal with the– Look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved I started dealing with that. Redlining. Banks. Making sure that we’re in a position where– Look, talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title 1 schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to 45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise that equal [closes eyes] raise to getting out– the sixty-thousand dollar level.
“Number two: make sure that we bring into the help the–[closes eyes] the student, the, the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home. We need–We have one school psychologist for every fifteen hundred kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are reca–Now, I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. [Closes eyes briefly] We have make sure that every single child does in fact have three, four, and five year-olds go to school–school, not daycare. School. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t wanna help, they don’t want–they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television, [closes eyes tightly] the– ‘scuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the-the-the-the phone, make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school, [closes eyes] a very poor background, will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”
Notice how it gets more garbled the longer he speaks. The response I transcribed was about eighty seconds in length. That was just one small part of a debate in which the former vice president performed no better and forgot three of his fellow candidates’ names.
Compare this befuddled, incoherent mess with footage of a younger Biden, like his famous quip about how Rudy Giuliani only ever mentions “a noun and a verb and 9/11” in a sentence, or this clip where he said if Israel didn’t exist America would have to invent it to protect its interests in the Middle East. Biden has always been notoriously gaffe-prone, but he was also sharp, alert, and articulate enough to deliver a punchline. As journalist Michael Tracey has been pointing out, what we’re consistently seeing over and over again from the former vice president now are not “gaffes”, but clear signs of cognitive decline. Contrast the difference between Biden’s younger footage and what was seen at the last debate with footage of Bernie Sanders throughout the decades, who has remained virtually identical save for appearance and hoarseness. Age does not account for this difference. Biden’s brain is dying.
It is certainly understandable that people are concerned about the presidential frontrunner having a racist worldview. But what’s really weird and creepy is how few people are discussing the obvious fact that the presidential forerunner is also clearly suffering from the early stages of some kind of dementia. The brain that spouted the gibberish transcribed above would probably score poorly on a basic test for the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, yet discussion of his inability to complete a coherent sentence is relegated to the margins of political discourse. This is someone who is campaigning to have access to the nuclear codes, yet we’re only talking about how he’s kind of racist and not about the fact that his brain is turning into Swiss cheese right before our eyes. It’s freaky.
It’s freaky, but it kind of makes sense. One common difficulty in getting early treatment for people with Alzheimer’s disease is that those suffering from it often go to great lengths to hide their impairments, and another difficulty is that their families are often deeply in denial about their loved one’s mental decline. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Some people hide their symptoms, or family members cover for them. That’s easy to understand, because Alzheimer’s dementia is associated with loss, such as loss of independence, loss of a driving privileges and loss of self.”
I think we’re seeing precisely this happening, both with Biden, and with his supporters. Biden himself is clearly doing everything he can to feign mental competency, and as a powerful politician aiming to accomplish a lifelong ambition to become the US president he’d certainly have a lot egoically invested in doing so. His supporters seem to be doing all kinds of denial mental gymnastics around his cognitive decline as well; just check out the responses to this Washington Post tweet for its article about Biden’s “record player” response.
Biden: "Make sure the record player is on at night" so kids hear more words https://t.co/szcq0vjVPP
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 13, 2019
Here are a few examples:
“Don’t pretend you didn’t understand what he was saying.”
“Actually, I recently saw a turntable for sale at Best Buys & vinyl records are back on the market. Try to keep up, WaPo.”
“My 22 year old son and all his friends play records on record players these days. If you’re insinuating that Joe is out of touch, you’re out of touch.”
“Actually currently, there are some people playing record players because they find the vinyl record has better sound quality. I think you are just picking and choosing who to go after.”
“He was saying they not hearing enough words. We did. We were read to. We listened to children’s albums. We had conversations. He was trying to get at the importance of those things. He didn’t do a great job on communicating it but he was right.”
“Twitter snark aside, there are studies to back up that claim.”
“He got 80% of the way through the debate without an embarrassing gaffe that highlights his age. Of course, Trump couldn’t get halfway through a debate without threatening his opponent with imprisonment.”
“Honestly…so what. I got the sentiment.”
“Not sure why people are being so condescending. Vinyl outsold CD last year, so, you know, record players are everywhere these days. You could say he’s stuck in the past or you could say he’s trending. Be kind.”
We saw this same impulse to protect and compensate for Biden’s mental decline from audience members during the debate, who gasped out loud when Julian Castro suggested that Biden had forgotten what he’d said two minutes ago. Many rank-and-file Democrats are so desperate for an end to an administration that is making them increasingly anxious and neurotic that they find it cognitively easier to compartmentalize away from the obvious fact that Biden is in a state of mental decline than to turn and face that reality. So they make excuses and pretend that his demented word salads are perfectly rational, hip references to the resurging popularity of vinyl records.
The only people who are absolutely acutely aware of Biden’s cognitive decline and yet still want him to become president are his handlers. There is no way his consistent pattern of verbal unintelligibility has gone unnoticed by those who are responsible for facilitating his election, and indeed The Hill reports that his “allies” have been floating the idea of scaling back his campaign appearances and scheduling them for earlier in the day when he’s not tired to help minimize his “verbal flubs”. These people are aware that Biden is losing his mind, but they are pushing him toward the White House anyway.
If Biden supporters were really intellectually honest with themselves about what’s going on, they’d see that they don’t actually want Joe Biden to be president, they want his unelected, unaccountable handlers to be president. From a position of intellectual honesty they’d be taking the position of arch neocon Bill Kristol, who once said he’d “prefer the deep state to the Trump state.”
And of course that wouldn’t be a first among US presidents even in recent history. Ronald Reagan had early signs of Alzheimer’s disease during his presidency according to his own son, and George W Bush was infamously just a puppet of his handlers like Dick Cheney. Indeed it would be possible to have an actual, literal Jim Henson puppet as president of the United States without America’s unelected power establishment skipping a single beat.
But that’s exactly the point: having a real human being in there with even a semi-functional mind can put some inertia on the most sociopathic impulses of America’s unelected permanent government. Both Trump and Obama are of course horrible presidents who have continued and expanded the Bush administration’s most evil agendas, but Obama slowed down the push to arm Ukraine against Russia and slammed the brakes on a full-scale bombing campaign on Syria, while Trump was unable to get along with John Bolton and is losing interest in Venezuela while resisting the push to start new wars. Despite all their flaws, they’ve resisted the permanent government’s worst impulses in some key ways. If it’s just Biden’s handlers and the unelected power establishment, there’s no humanity anywhere near the brake pedal.
https://twitter.com/BetaODork/status/1164553547960246272
So this makes sense to talk about no matter how you look at it. But we’re not. In mainstream discourse we’re speaking as though this is just a charmingly gaffe-prone old man who makes a few controversial statements from time to time but would still make a fine president, when really he shouldn’t even be allowed a driver’s license.
And I just find that really creepy and uncomfortable. As someone who’s never been able to leave elephants in rooms alone, the fact that the leading presidential contender is neurologically incapable of speaking coherently for eighty seconds sticks out like dog’s balls and it’s absolutely freakish that this isn’t front and center of our political discourse right now. Biden’s dementia should be the very first thing we discuss whenever his name comes up, not the last.
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81 responses to “Biden’s Brain Is Swiss Cheese And It’s Creepy That We’re Not Talking About It”
Jill Biden is a teacher not a physician as someone commented, she has a doctorate in education. As for Joe’s first wife who tragically died, she wasn’t a teacher as well so it appears he was also confusing his two wives in this debate
I sincerely hope that the brains of all the .001% are dying, the faster the better, so they can implode and stop killing the planet.
As if smelling little girls hair isn’t creepy enough. He is just another puppet for the elite. Our whole system is in an upside down world. We have allowed it to become so convuluded that it is hard to discern the truth from fact. But when it is spewed from there own mouth hard to deny. The politians do not have to be at the top of their game anymore to inpress us and that is very sad. Most of us already know that this shit is smoke and mirrors and we don’t really elect out representatives. It plays like a really bad movie. Say no to creepy swiss cheese brain Joe.
the stupider and more compromised the president, the more maliable to wall street masters.
All U.S. presidents of the last fifty years have been puppets doing what they were told to do by their shadowy handlers / bosses. Will it be different after the 2020 elections? Nope.
Bernie will not be serving the corporations, he is serving we the people.
One sure way to lose your appetite for food or anything else is to be made aware of what the United States ” deep state government ” has done or is doing in the name of ” National Security “. Thank You Chris Hedges:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/our-invisible-government/
Any possibility however remote that I might vote for him was destroyed when he recommended if you hear a noise in the kitchen late at night to fire a 12 gauge shotgun into the kitchen door without looking to see who it was to scare the burglar away. Well Joe, what if it wasn’t a burglar? What if it was your son or daughter getting a late night snack from the fridge? Or your wife when she remembers that she hadn’t taken her medicine at suppertime? You would be guilty of second degree murder. The NRA always stresses that you make sure of the target before you open fire. Such a lack of simple common sense tell me that your not fit to fire any gun let alone be in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal.
I am always surprised people still speaking seriously about politicians since those politicians have, all of them, seen wreckage of airplanes into the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11 (for sure this is the answer they will give you if you ask).
Obviously, if they are lying and of bad faith on the subject of 9/11, they will lie and be of bad faith as politicians on every subject.
Elections in the western world are a sham which purpose is to maintain the political, social and economical statu quo, which statu quo fit the billionaires and the elites perfectly.
Since all of this is based on lies, we can conclude that we are in the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His glorious return because I am completely fed up and have seen more than enough bullshit.
I think the fix is in for fake-progressive, pro-capitalist, pro-war, Ivy-League élitist Elizabeth Warren. The only one of her “progressive” plans she’ll actually try to keep is making Wall Street a little more honest and stable, and Wall Street will take the short-term hit as the cost of ensuring longer-term viability. The little people can kiss most of the rest of her promises goodbye, or at most expect window dressing in lieu of substance.
Biden is only in there as a primary and convention spoiler, to ensure that the Party’s super-delegates get to throw the nomination in the second round. And if by some fluke Senile Grandpa Joe happens to win, the plutocratic oligarchy will be fine with that. Or with a second Trump term, for that matter, provided he stops this unsanctioned, maverick interference with outsourcing to low-wage sweatshops in China.
I despise Bernie for capitulating and turning Judas goat in 2016, but he’s still the viable lesser of evils — I said viable — and the primary mission of the plutocracy’s blue team and red team alike is to keep him out of the White House, same as in 2016. With the help of their propaganda machine (aka American mainstream media), I think the plutocracy has a very decent chance of re-electing President Not-Bernie-Sanders in 2020.
Bernie was physically assaulted & Jane was threatened @the 2016 convention.
HRC & the DNC cheated in many ways.
He did not capitulate , he was forced. And cares so very much for the people of this country that he held his nose and campaign for Hillary hoping to keep Trump out of power.
Between Reagan and Trump, Biden is almost in Fee Fall territory; if this seems like comparing apples and oranges, wherever he falls, he’s still a lemon. He’s closer to Reagan than to George W, and that’s very bad. George was a fibber, Reagan had his moments; but fact is, Biden’s at the wrong-wrong end of the sanity spectrum.
Caitlin, I agree with you about Biden’s mental acuity. I am 71 years old and I would want somebody to let me know if they spotted any mental decline on my part. Why are not the Democratic Party (hell, anybody who knows him) recommending intervention of some kind if he is suffering mental problems. Many older people do. I am opposed to ageism, but seriously, if he is this disconnected all the time, something is wrong.
That said, I cannot agree with your support of Bernie Sanders, who as far as I am concerned is a pseudo-left, fake socialist, a charlatan who betrayed his supporters in 2016, and in general an unworthy candidate. Then again, I do not support the candidates of either capitalist political party and have not done so for decades.
The capitalists are destroying civilization and the Earth upon which we all live under their terror and war. They must go.
Meanwhile, get Biden to a hospital. It would be a humane thing to do.
You are correct about Bernie of course, but his mind does still seem sharp (at least until a subject like, say, Venezuela comes up).
I’ve worked with dementia patients for decades and recognize Joe as have early signs of alzheimers. I’m mortified that the democrat party is even allowing him to go forth with this. His wife is a physician, how can she not know? I’ve always liked Joe. Alzheimers is merciless, he will self destruct. He already has. That said, I was a loyal democrat 42 years, but the party has morphed into radical socialism. I’m not supportive of Marxism, so I’m voting for Trump, he’s smart, tough, and I like what he’s done for the country. With the wind in his face and the devil at his back, he still gets things done. Trump may have an abrasive personality, but he’s what America needs to move forward. Prayers for Joe, he needs them.
Yo idiot, how do you not see the same signs of early dementia in Trump? Lmao. Those two geriatric fucks would Probably get along great in an old folks home babbling about how windmills cause cancer and how record players play words.
Fucking retarded boomers, I can’t wait until they’re replaced.
“Dementia in Trump”, he’s outsmarted all of you, Congress, the media, FBI, DOJ, republican traitors, and all the democrats. Through it all, Trump is still standing tall. So, who’s the real “idiot”? Yo, loser. Lol.
It is not a problem at all.
Anybody could be president. The president is deciding absolutely nothing.
The billionaire elites are deciding of everything.
It is the same all over the western nations.
It was the same pattern in the days of Noah and we are back in those days as predicted it would be by Jesus just before His Second Coming, which Coming is very near according to prophecies.
And I pray the Rosary to hasten His return because I have really really seen enough bullshit.
The last thing we need is an appeal to religious irrationalism.
It seems you do not understand that anybody could be president because the power of decision is not in his hands but in the hands of billionaire elites.
I will pray the Rosary for you that you will understand this.
where’s the non-religious rationalism working anywhere???? religion is not the enemy. you’re distracted by the real evil to look all the wrong places for your enemies.
I do not like _ad hominem_ attacks on individuals, and possibly Caitlin’s article verges on that. But I think the stakes for the future of the US are too high to simply ignore what his remarks suggest, that Biden does have a mental acuity issue.
Well, you know, (close eyes), I believe the elderly can and do make a place in our country a better place, you know what I mean. Joe Biden is good enough to, (rub face), you know, keep America Great Again. He is a patriotic, you know, patriot who just wants to help us.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/09/global-resource-war.html
Ilargi at The Automatic Earth, It’s a “New World Order”, Alright:
Those winds just keep on shifting, no matter that the western press either doesn’t see them shift, doesn’t recognize them for what they are, or chooses to ignore them. But these winds bring tidings of a tectonic plate-shaking shift in the global political climate.
The fires in Saudi oil installations, whether they were caused by drones or missiles, and whoever fired those, are a major story, and rightly so, because they could shake up economies in drastic ways. But they may still, not be the biggest story after all.
Last Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to annex the Jordan Valley (already occupied territory, 65,000 Palestinians and 11,000 Israeli settlers live there). He did that to steal votes from the far right in next Tuesday’s (Sep. 17) Knesset election. “Bibi” also called Donald Trump his “friend” every second word for that same purpose. Trump responded in kind. He may come to regret that. Choose your friends wisely.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/09/its-a-new-world-order-alright/
Charles Hugh Smith says “The Black Swan is a Drone”:
What was “possible” yesterday is now a low-cost proven capability, and the consequences are far from predictable.
Predictably, the mainstream media is serving up heaping portions of reassurances that the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities are no big deal and full production will resume shortly. The obvious goal is to placate global markets fearful of an energy disruption that could tip a precarious global economy into recession.
The real impact isn’t on short-term oil prices, it’s on asymmetric warfare: the coordinated drone attack on Saudi oil facilities is a Black Swan event that is reverberating around the world, awakening copycats and exposing the impossibility of defending against low-cost drones of the sort anyone can buy.
(Some published estimates place the total cost of the 10 drones deployed in the strike at $15,000. Highly capable commercially available drones cost around $1,200 each.)
The attack’s success should be a wake-up call to everyone tasked with defending highly flammable critical infrastructure: there really isn’t any reliable defense against a coordinated drone attack, nor is there any reliable way to distinguish between an Amazon drone delivering a package and a drone delivering a bomb.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-black-swan-is-drone.html
Eleni sent thi “End of Israel” article by Gilad Atzmon a few days ago. It is staggering how much deep mistrust and fear of other Israeli Jews exists among Jewish political factions. Bibi can lose tomorrow, too. Then what?
https://www.sott.net/article/420301-Gilad-Atzmon-The-End-of-Israel
You barely mentioned the frenzy to attack Julian Castro for reminding everyone that Biden had said people would “buy into” Medicare or whatever program. Even so-called “fact checkers” scored that as false, denying the evidence of our own ears, those of us who listened, who heard Biden say “buy in.” It seems the fact checkers do not care for facts when it goes against the narrative that Castro was being mean to crazy Uncle Joe.
In a mature culture that was honest with itself, the head of the DNC would step in and make sure he was seen by competent doctors, with the results made known to everyone. Then we would hold a celebration for him, and present a lifetime achievement award for his public service. A big deal, with Hollywood present. Lots of love and tears. A farewell to public life.
I believe Biden is a stalking horse or placeholder for the Democratic Party leadership; when the time comes they will remove Biden and insert someone else. Meanwhile he will keep the more conservative, traditional, tribal Democrats from wandering off the plantation. If this is true both the party leadership and their opponents will allow Biden to gaffe his way for the next several months, until things start to get serious in midwinter. His capacities will not matter because he’s going to be removed. I do like your idea of a Hollywood sendoff, however. I can think of a lot of other politicians who could use the same treatment.
Bernie Sanders was the stalking horse in 2016. Same game, different candidate.
Capitalist politicians do not need a Hollywood sendoff. They need a Guantanano sendoff.
The DNC has been in the Mariana Trench of denial since at least 2016.
They cannot admit to themselves that they are to blame for Trump’s election.
(Hell, they can’t even accept the fact that he was elected).
They cannot admit that they squandered the massive, fervent enthusiasm that was lifting Bernie to a certain victory. Kicked all that to the curb. “Grow up!”
They cannot admit that they lied, cheated, and corrupted the entire process.
They cannot admit that they have poisoned the well.
And now, they certainly cannot admit that their anointed one is unfit to serve.
Or, that their “plan B” candidates are un-electable and unqualified to one degree or another.
It will be interesting to watch the whole sorry mess implode.
Sad, but interesting.
Tulsi is of course their only hope.
Any sane person can see that.
No one in the DNC can see that.
I cannot believe that you still support them. Any of them.
While I do not fully understand your reply, I will say that I support Tulsi, openly and proudly. She is exactly what this country, and the world, needs right now, I truly believe.
What will happen is anybody’s guess.
But I do know that the DNC did not shoot itself in the foot in 2016.
The DNC did not shoot itself in the ass in2016.
The DNC shot itself in the head in 2016.
That’s a tough one to overcome.
what has Tulsi ever done risking anything?????
To Ed Billeaud: AMEN! You absolutely NAILED IT with that post! Thank you…. and carry on.
(Your original longer post, specifically.)
“They cannot admit that they squandered the massive, fervent enthusiasm that was lifting Bernie to a certain victory”
How much more deluded can anyone get? Sanders announced that he was campaigning to keep the disgruntled and the disillusioned voting Democrat instead, and to destroy the 3rd-party vote, and that he would throw it all to the DNC pick. He said it in so many words at the very start of his campaign.
And he did exactly that. Didn’t even react when the scandal of the DNC fix was exposed thanks to Wikileaks but helped, again, turn things around to benefit the Clinton harpy.
My take on the chain of events is a different one.
Sanders did eventually make the “huuuuge” mistake of surrendering and endorsing Clinton, but in my view that was certainly not his intention when he started his campaign.
In the end of course, anything he may have done to benefit her mattered not.
What did matter, in my view, was that the DNC drove voters away in droves by their malfeasance, elitism, and corruption. Not to mention running a candidate who was massively distrusted and disliked by the electorate. And enough of those votes went to Trump to secure his election.
My take on the chain of events is a different one.
Sanders did eventually make the “huuuuge” mistake of surrendering and endorsing Clinton, but in my view that was certainly not his intention when he started his campaign.
In the end of course, anything he may have done to benefit her mattered not.
What did matter, in my view, was that the DNC drove voters away in droves by their malfeasance, elitism, and corruption. Not to mention running a candidate who was massively distrusted and disliked by the electorate. Enough of those votes went to Trump to secure his election. That’s not on Bernie – it’s 100% on the DNC.
It’s fine that Biden’s brain is going south pretty fast. I laugh that the MSM is ignoring it.
The oligarchs like weird-uncle-Joe, and they can’t abide supporting a Democratic candidate who might beat Trump,like (still lesser evil) Bernie Sanders, or warrior princess Tulsi Gabbard, because that would be BAD for their blood supply from their human herd.
I think they are letting Molester-Joe be a placeholder while things sort out a bit with the economy, and public sentiment. They have Elizabeth Warren as a back-up candidate. She’s energetic, has made a lot of populist moves and statements, presents well, and is absolutely a capitalist, absolutely works within the system, as she did trying to gently influence Hillary Clinton in 2016, and is willing to take nothing that she asks for, if treated with respect.
She has never taken any stand against imperial wars or Israeli apartheid.
She’ll do fine. “You win. You get Elizabeth Warren!” 🙂
http://www.johndayblog.com
This is so funny. Another example of why it’s impossible to write satire these days since “reality” constantly outstrips it.
The Democrats are so deranged, they want to run a literally senile retard as their candidate, since he’s the most suitably pro-corporate, pro-war and openly contemptuous of humanity. That’s really hows vile the Democrat leadership and its vermin Dembot followers are.
Can you imagine Biden vs Trump in a debate and both of them spouting word salad? I don’t know if the citizens of US would die laughing or die of embarrassment that we have this kind of sorry men as our leaders.
Oh Lord, I have got to see that. THAT’S entertainment.
No, it is not entertainment. It is death. None of this is remotely funny. People only laugh occasionally because it is gallows humor. Fascism is on the rise all over the world and the U.S. government is the most dangerous to life on earth. Rampant terminal capitalism is like a forest fire in the dry season in California. It sweeps up all before it and turns it to ashes, resulting in the deaths of millions and the destruction of the planet. To be amused by the political corpses of either capitalist party without thinking of what the end of this joke will be is irresponsible in the extreme.
No. It’s not entertaining.
“I don’t know if the citizens of US would die laughing or die of embarrassment that we have this kind of sorry men as our leaders.”
In the main, sadly neither. The bulk of the TV addicted citizens of the US would lap up the pablum served by the talking heads who have effectively been their leaders since birth.
Since whose birth? Millennials? I was 50 when they were born.
Well, as I said “The bulk of the TV addicted citizens of the US …” Seems like a pretty clear statement.
Television broadcasts began in the 1920’s.
It has been a long downward spiral since then.
Ah, the poor Millennials. “Test tube babies” in a sense. They will live with the results of the terrible experiments wrought by previous generations of manipulators, charlatans, and yes, soul-less capitalists.
People of our age will too of course. But probably for not as long, mercifully.
What difference does it make? Trump is proof that the only power the president has anymore is which road to take to the same destination determined by people you never heard of.
Great insights Caitlin.
If the Algerian deep state could do it with Abdelaziz Bouteflika, so could ours!
What’s fascinating is that the one thing the Democrats want to do is to defeat Trump. That’s supposed to be the reason why people support Biden. Because Biden can beat Trump. So says the machine, and thus so say they. And yet, it is obvious that the one candidate right now who is certain to lose to Trump is Biden. Can you picture what Trump would do to Biden in a debate. The other Democrats are largely playing nice and respectful. Trump won’t. Trump is a bully who likes to attack weakness. He’ll plan to get Biden going one way in the debate, then confuse Biden and attack from the other way. All the while talking about how weak Biden is. Biden will be left drooling and stuttering and giving this awful look at the camera that says he knows at that instant that he will never be President. That would be in late Sept, and far, far too late for the Democrats to do anything about it except try to figure out if they are going to blame Russia again or switch to China for the next four years.
Is it really so ‘freakish’ that Biden’s mental incapacity isn’t front and centre of the political discourse? This fits the scenario of the deep state needing to govern with the aid of a suitable puppet.
Fortunately, in today’s political environment a competent puppet who campaigns for the foreign policy blob on an explicit program of ceaseless wars and regime changes doesn’t stand a chance of being elected. And a competent puppet who genuinely opposes the deep state’s agenda isn’t a puppet at all. To the blob they’re a threat and a dangerous loose cannon.
If you can contain the loose cannon, for example, because they’re dumb and vain like Trump, then good. If you can’t, you murder them (JFK). As everyone knows, JFK wanted to ‘shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces’ after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, was making faint moves to withdraw from Viet Nam, and wanted to have some dialogue with the devil himself, Castro.
Except for the loose cannon Trump, all the presidents since JFK have either been docile and compliant with the foreign policy blob’s unchanging program and for the most part a dominant fear campaign of the time (Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2); or actively deceptive and compliant (Nixon, Clinton, Obama) when there was no really effective fear campaign.
Today some candidates are canny enough to fit into the second category, but they’re not electorally popular despite being favoured by prominent sectors of the ruling class (eg, Warren). No-one in the foreign policy blob wants an ostensible loose cannon like Gabbard of course, but a faction of them might be willing to endure Sanders because of his frequently compliant foreign policy stances. In contrast, Biden fits the bill perfectly for the first category — a docile, compliant puppet.
Except the blob has had real grief in whipping up a suitable fear campaign, which would be ideal. Their Russiagate efforts have tanked, Sinophobia is now promoted in its stead, and despite their best efforts at provocation, Iran, Syria and the ‘Troika of Tyranny’ aren’t biting. Consequently, no-one’s bought any of the deep state’s fear campaigning efforts, no candidate is harping on any of their tripwires either, and for the deep state to govern with impunity, they would just that fear campaign with the docile puppet.
In spite or because of all that, Biden still remains their ideal, docile puppet. A really docile puppet.
Good comment. I was 15 when they murdered Kennedy and it awoke me to politics in a way that has not changed. Trump is a perfect example of a puppet. But Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were also puppets. They just performed better. Trump has exposed the strings. And at this point, the military-industrial-intelligence complex no longer give a damn. That is why the entire capitalist system, a rotting corpse, needs to be removed. Otherwise, it will take all the rest of the world down with it.
I think the point I was trying to make, not so well, was that two kinds of puppets are desired: docile ones around which a major crisis can be manufactured easily (because there’s raw material for it), to serve as the excuse for all kinds of imperial nefariousness; and the slick, wily puppets who can be effective when there’s no real external crisis that’s going to ‘automatically’ give a license for imperial depredations. The loose cannons challenge them. A dumb loose cannon without a crisis can be managed. A smart loose cannon with crisis needs to be clipped ASAP.
Pathetic Biden -DNC upgrade- to HRC corrupt warmonger -handler malleable- mannequin is desperately resisting dementia. The insertion of establishment hack BS master Tom Perez as chairman along w this expired -name recognition- candidate, lacking any intelligible message, further cements the total corruption of DNC. I have thought he is a sacrificial lamb candidate but that may be giving DNC’s handlers too much credit.
Ms Johnstone, what is very ” creepy ” to me is the whole ” whiz-bang charade ” presented to the people of these United States to elect a ” hood ornament ” as the face of our evil government. All that counts is ” the image ” portrayed and to be admired by a fawning public. The actual human being is not supposed to be any of our concern. If you look at all of our planets political leaders; how many of them represent the best of the human species? Sure Joe Biden’s mind has left him; you see that and so do a lot of other people; but what does it matter to the real ” masters and owners ” running this country or the ignorant voting public. Any zombie will do as our ” human hood ornament”.
A dog eat dog system, where people fight and claw and sometimes kill their way to the top, could never be mistaken for a system where the goal is to pick the best of the human species as the leader. I don’t know what system that would be, because I don’ t think human beings have invented that as of yet. But a system that involves competition for the position is always going to find the worst of human beings because they will always be the ones willing to leave the most bodies on the ground along their path to power.
Tulsi Gabbard is excluded because she makes the party power brokers extremely uncomfortable. Yet those same party power brokers still see fit to try stuff a drooling, senile dotard down the voting public’s throat. A logical way to guarantee the current white house dotard another 4 years. insanity is becoming the new sane.
My father is also in the middle of cognitive decline, but his recently deceased wife and all of his friends were/are in complete denial. His financial adviser frantically urged us to complete powers of attorney because my father had made some really idiotic financial decisions. When his neurologists told him he could not drive and instructed us to remove both his keys and his guns, a cabal of his friends found him a lawyer who nullified the powers of attorney and instructed us not to contact him for at least one year. His friends got him an osteopath who said he was fine to drive and got him another car. His attorney informed us if the guns were not returned (hah, turns out they were worthless and incapable of firing), legal proceedings would ensue. His cognitive scores have ranged from 8/30 to 18/30 on the MMSE. His friends are the same age (seventies white males with all the privelege that entails) and my father, along with Biden and his handlers, are why we can’t have nice things.
From an episode of Startrack; even scarier, Patrice de Bergeracpas article, ‘FBI Terror “Watch List” is Unconstitutional’, was censored Sunday and never saw the light of day.
The link I got from GP does indeed lead to a 404 Error. However, I knew I’d seen that title in the last few days. The Black Agenda Report used it on a podcast they did, and it is up on their site. There would be lots of possible reasons why an author might later pull something they wrote. Anyone who’s ever wished they could delete a comment they soon regret would understand that, and that’s just one reason. But, if you know more about what happened, please feel free to share.
Actually, Biden sounds a lot like Trump – word salad, and cognitive slippage. I think they both have dementia….
What’s the mental health of other septuagenarians and octogenarians serving in Congress and in the courts?
Me thinks it’s time … time to take some keys away … by 2020.
Next Constitution must include a retirement age.
It was already way past time for Diane Feinstein to retire last year, but Cali Dem voters obediently swallowed their men’s as usual.
I’m a national single-payer advocate and I remember researching Feinstein’s personal finances a year or two ago. (Feinstein, a wealthy surgeon’s daughter, is a diehard opponent of Medicare For All and routinely parrots the standard, moronic, bald-faced lies about it.) US disclosure and reporting requirements for politicians are laughably loose — a prime example of “self-regulation” at work — but I did manage to ferret out that over the course of five days in December of … I want to say 2012? … Feinstein made personal pharmaceutical stock trades totaling somewhere between $25 million and $125 million. (Yes, that’s a ridiculously wide range. See my previous remark about US disclosure and reporting requirements. Of course, if most Americans were suddenly given only the low end of $25 million in personal wealth, they’d be lighting Montecristos with $100 bills and sipping Courvoisier from Baccarat crystal snifters. I kid, I kid! They’d get adequate medical and dental care for the first time in years.)
Anyway, I don’t know whether Feinstein is cognitively impaired, but I know to a certainty that she is too conflicted to have any say on national healthcare policy and too unethical to hold public office in any government purporting to be “democratic.” I’d like to think that if American mainstream news (heavily funded by prescription-drug advertising, incidentally) actually investigated and reported on politicians’ personal conflicts of interest, Californians wouldn’t elect a Big-Pharma profiteer to be their voice on healthcare in the US Senate — compos mentis or not.
Swallow their men’s what?
With so many people using smartphones and predictive text, it’s become damn hard to figure out what they really meant to type nowadays. Given that it’s Diane Feinstein we’re talking about, I’m going to guess Prairie Bear meant “meds.” 😉
Yes, I agree that Biden is showing signs of getting old and forgetful, but as anyone who’s been up there on the podium in front of cameras and people knows, it’s not the easiest gig. Sometimes you just get overwhelmed.
I can’t see him as POTUS, or even Kamala Harris. Her record is already muddy.
Tulsi Gabbard reads well, until you check her voting record, then confusion steps in.
As said above, I see Obomba riding to the “rescue”, but his horse is a nag. He was fake and everyone now knows it. Or anyone who steps away from MSM or the WaPo and NY Times …
the Deep State that serves Wall Street has many scenarios and contingency plans for all seasons, including Biden (swiss cheese or not) in the White House. the 3 presidents who occupied the White House and tried to be his own man all got destroyed, physically or politically: JFK, Nixon, and Carter. the entire ground is covered. and that’s why Trump has been trying to appear crazy, unpredictable, and incomprehensible. he’s in a fight for his own life, literally and figuratively. at least he hasn’t surrender to the Deep State completely, yet.
the Deep State hasn’t figured out how exactly to handle Trump. and i predict Trump will win the second term. what next is anybody’s guess.
Biden and his gaffes seem like another distraction from real world events, like the ones about if Andrew Yang was insulted by an SNL comedian? Who cares?? Oh btw, Trumpians think Iran droned Saudi oil fields cuz of the side they were hit. Huh? Can’t drones fly around and hit either side? WTF. It can be so weird and confusing living in opposite world. Thanks for your truth telling.
Except it was the Houthis from Yemen, who have every right to blow the Saudis off the map. But the US and its parasite WANT IT SO BADLY to have been Iran … that way they won’t appear to be the aggressive criminals they are when they bomb Iran, as they’re so desperate to do.
Caitlin- I enjoy your articles immensely. Thank you for taking the time to write them. I appreciate that you strive for objectivity even in your opinion pieces and try to look at things from other perspectives. I have antithetical political beliefs on paper (I’m a libertarian) but agree with you more often than not.
The fact that in spite of mental issues, #metoo and racism scandals/flubs Biden still leads tells me that name recognition is basically everything to voters. How high would he be polling without these issues?
You brought up Biden’s unelected bureaucrat “handlers.” Whether driven by denial, power lust or something else, I don’t think they’re doing Biden’s health any favors.
The runningmate choice (should he progress) will telling — both who and how/why the decision is made. Kamala is my prediction. I expect an “establishment” pick.
Thanks again for sharing your voice.
Regards,
Jeremy Caplan
Early polls mean very little. They are indeed all about name recognition. So, they don’t really predict how candidates will draw votes. And while some people are paying attention now, most of the people who will vote in primaries next year are not. The old rule of thumb was that they started paying attention about 3 weeks before the election day.
It is really sad to see the beginnings of Biden’s mental decline. What’s truly frightening is the mainstream media tries to compensate because….. Why?
If this is the best the DNC and corporate elites can do, get ready for 4 more years of Trump.
What makes you think that “the DNC an corporate elites” do not have four more years of Trump as a desired outcome?
Not outside the realm of possibility. He certainly has garnered them and/or their surrogates a tremendous amount of “air time”.
Every “resistance” needs a “bogeyman”.
Whatever else he is or isn’t, Trump is the ideal of that.
Are we sure that Biden isn’t the REAL Globalist’s wet dream? I mean with him in place the system could do anything and everything it likes and Mr. Joe would be there as the figurehead to take the blame – never realizing what it is he’s taking the blame for. In retrospect I suspect this was their original plan for Hillary assuming she’d never have to actually walk up the steps of the White House or anywhere else for that matter unless there was a body double handy.
Perhaps Madame Secretary has already done enough of the “I do not recall” thing while testifying as to various alleged scandals over the past 40 years or so. If we think back, however, wasn’t it Ronald Reagan who pioneered this “getting forgetful” mode of operation, I also wouldn’t rule out his having been drugged.
All true—except for the decisive fact that BIDEN IS NOT A REAL CANDIDATE. He’s been put up there by the DNC kleptocracy purely as a placeholder to take flak until the “SURPRISE” entry of Michelle Obama, their real frontlady.
I’m with you, but I think it will be Obomba again. It’s consecutive terms that are banned. He’s conspicuously absent at the moment … oddly so. Biden’s a place-marker.
Obama doesn’t want to be president. He couldn’t wait to get out.
Being a retired POTUS/FLOTUS has to be one of the best gigs in the world. My opinion (and it is just that) is the Obama’s have gotten “comfortable” living the “high life”, and would never ever consider “public service” for themselves again.
Possibly the two quotes I will remember the longest from them:
He: “Donald Trump will never be president!”.
Her: “Don’t turn off your television!”