DL Open Thread: Sunday, March 3, 2024
What’s With The NYTimes? Basically megaphoned the Biden Is Too Old Meme, polled on it, won’t focus on Trump’s dementia:
Widespread concerns about President Biden’s age pose a deepening threat to his re-election bid, with a majority of voters who supported him in 2020 now saying he is too old to lead the country effectively, according to a new poll by The New York Times and Siena College.
The survey pointed to a fundamental shift in how voters who backed Mr. Biden four years ago have come to see him. A striking 61 percent said they thought he was “just too old” to be an effective president.
A sizable share was even more worried: Nineteen percent of those who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, and 13 percent of those who said they would back him in November, said the 81-year-old president’s age was such a problem that he was no longer capable of handling the job.
The misgivings about Mr. Biden’s age cut across generations, gender, race and education, underscoring the president’s failure to dispel both concerns within his own party and Republican attacks painting him as senile. Seventy-three percent of all registered voters said he was too old to be effective, and 45 percent expressed a belief that he could not do the job.
Yes, Biden is old, too old. Yes, Trump is suffering from dementia. Yet only one of these stories is being rammed down our throats every single day. By the NYTimes.
What did they used to say about newspapers reporting the news and not making the news? Regardless, the State Of The Union speech wouldn’t be a bad time to announce you’re not running again.
Welcome To Comcast/Spectacor Town. This seems like a good idea, actually:
For far too long, Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Center, and the other team owners have been content to operate their arenas as self-contained islands surrounded by a lifeless sea of parking. As a business model, this approach was extremely lucrative, since it kept the fans’ spending bottled up inside their arenas.
But the absence of mixed-use activity didn’t just make the stadium district a place you wanted to flee after the game; it also stymied housing and job growth in South Philadelphia, leaving a huge void between nearby neighborhoods and the rapidly expanding Navy Yard. Over the years, the sports complex, which was built on the eastern half of FDR Park, metastasized into a 200-acre expanse of asphalt, an area twice as large as the Fitler Square neighborhood.
The plan that Comcast Spectacor released to The Inquirer last week won’t turn those parking lots into a living neighborhood overnight — or even over the next decade — but it does demonstrate a dawning recognition that the status quo is unacceptable. The real value of the plan, which was overseen by Nelson, the firm that helped the Atlanta Braves create the mixed-use Battery complex, is that it starts a discussion about how to use that wasted real estate for the kinds of activities that make cities, well, cities.
Florida Descends Into Swamp Of Plagues, Led By Anti-Vaxxers In High Places:
From The Orlando Sentinel: “Come For The Sunshine, Leave With The Measles”.
From The Tampa Bay Times: “Measles? So On-Brand For Florida’s Descent Into The 1950’s”.
But now, with an entirely preventable outbreak of measles spreading across Florida, medical experts are questioning if quackery really has become official health policy in the nation’s third most-populous state.
As the highly contagious disease raged in a Broward county elementary school, Ladapo, a politically appointed acolyte of Florida’s far-right governor Ron DeSantis, wrote to parents telling them it was perfectly fine for parents to continue to send in their unvaccinated children.
Ladapo’s advice deferring to parents or guardians a decision about school attendance directly contradicts the official recommendation of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which calls for a 21-day period of quarantine for anybody without a history of prior infection or immunization.
It is also in keeping with Ladapo’s previous maverick proclamations about vaccines that health professionals say pose an unacceptable danger to the health of Florida residents. They include official guidance to shun mRNA Covid-19 boosters based on easily disprovable conspiracy theories that the shots alter human DNA and can potentially cause cancer – “scientific nonsense” in the view of Dr Ashish Jha, a former White House Covid response coordinator.
Welp, gotta cut it short today. So much stuff coming up as the General Assembly reconvenes that I’m probably gonna do a Very Special Pre Pre-Game Show tomorrow. Or, I just might watch golf all day…retirement is so tough. Too many choices.
What do you want to talk about?
So you think it would be a good idea for a Democrat with no money or campaign staff to start running for the nomination now? I knew legalizing weed would have downsides, but don’t be ridiculous.
What is/was ridiculous is/was the Biden meme that he was running b/c he was the only one who could keep the country from Trump Part 2.
Turns out he is/was the only one who might enable Trump Part 2.
We’re probably stuck with him and the lack of enthusiasm and energy he brings. In other words, Trump has a great chance of turning us into a fascist state. Because he’s running against Biden.
Nope. You’re making the mainstream mistake of thinking positive enthusiasm for our candidate is what drives turnout. It’s not. It’s negative energy towards the opponent.
Stop reading the NYT if you’re going to take it as anything but comedy.
Positive enthusiasm was key to getting Obama elected.
That was a long, long time ago. And the enthusiasm turned out to be misplaced. Not Obama’s fault, entirely, but there it is.
BTW, every other Democrat mentioned polls lower than Biden in a head-to-head with Trump. You could look it up.
Biden’s ceiling is low. Of COURSE prospective challengers, who are less well-known, would have lower numbers. Until they run. Which ideally would have happened at least a year ago. I know it’s not going to happen, but I’m now more concerned that the result will be a Trump victory. Of course, I never expected that the Supreme Court would effectively make Trump’s criminal trials go away. My bad.
As to enthusiasm, I’m not making a mistake. The kind of lack of enthusiasm currently facing Biden translates into voters not showing up at the polls.
Sorry, you’re just wrong about that. I’m with Rachel Bitecofer – negative energy determines elections in the modern USA.
I don’t vote for candidates, I vote against their opponents. Of course, only about six states actually matter in a presidential election, so who you, I and most readers of this blog vote for doesn’t make an iota of difference.
Ultimately, though, I don’t like people enough to save them from themselves. They have all the information they need to make an informed decision. If they want another Trump presidency, they’ll have to live with the effects far longer than I will, and I hope they suffer accordingly.
Not everybody decides how to vote based on how we decide to vote.
The Democrats’ advantage rests in the fact that there are more of us than there are of them. If we don’t vote in sufficient numbers in those swing states, we lose.
And EVERYBODY will have to live with the effects of that.
I’d say ask around, but you hang out with people who have made paying attention to politics a hobby. Most people – the overwhelming majority – don’t give a fuck, and I’ma go with Rachel, not you, on this.
Have fun changing your pants.
Dementia will be our partial savior. Suspect both candidates have it, but Trump is in the lead and “staging” on to the next level of the disease. We are headed for a Walter Cronkite moment like for the Viet Nam war, at some point some one will admit the truth and the damn will break, at which point it will become undeniable. Hoping we emerge and put new limits on all governmental and judicial offices. Yes, we can dream.
NYT is unfit for a respectable dog to crap on. Has been and continues to sink lower.
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