How did they compare to younger Biden moments? One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how his stutter manifests. In the past, when he encountered a word he had trouble with, he’d often try to switch to another word, and you could practically see the gears shifting in his head in specific stages. Stage 1 would be “oh shit, that’s gonna be hard to say.” Stage 2 was an obvious attempt to navigate the word. And Stage 3 would be “Nope, can’t do it, let’s try a different word.” Sometimes the different word would fit. Sometimes it wouldn’t.

How did his performance today compare? Were the pauses like that? Or did they seem materially different?

That’s a fair critique, but I genuinely do think the debate performance was a one-off, a shitty confluence of events, and that he’s otherwise been fine.

I’ll eat crow if the interview is terrible or highly edited, though.

Dude, he’s already been in public multiple times since the debate. He did a rally, he gave some speeches, and he did a medal of honor ceremony. He was fine in each, and you can watch them completely unedited.

Unless he’s caught another cold and is high as balls on cough medicine, he’ll be fine.

Oh look, it’s “small government” types getting government to interfere with private medical decisions.

Nah, she’s the magic crystals lady.

Disclaimer: someone calm me and op down.

Nope. Too busy losing my goddamn shit over this insane, dictator-making, Enabling Act 2.0 garbage.

If he bows out, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief. In a way, it doesn’t matter if he had a cold and jet lag during the debate, and he’s tip-top now. In fact, I’ve watched footage of him since the debate, and it seems to be true. He’s back to his normal self.

But the political damage could be too much, regardless of his actual health.

At the same time, if he doesn’t bow out, I will gladly crawl through broken glass to vote for him.

For all of you urging Biden to abuse these ridiculous new powers… Are you nuts? Part of Biden’s appeal is that he’s the sane one, not the demented orange baboon. If he starts behaving just like that festering asshole, he’s going to lose a lot of that appeal. A lot of people will go, “Well, if my choice is between a shit sandwich and a shit salad, I’m not eating at this restaurant,” and stay home on election day.

He committed those acts before he was president, and he paid out of his personal accounts. I seriously doubt he’s going to be able to wriggle out of this. Of course, his strategy is delay, delay, delay, so this is still, frustratingly, a win for him.

And that, right there, was the goal. This decision, rather than clarifying anything, intentionally muddied the waters - and treads awfully close to turning the presidency into a monarchy - in order to allow Trump to drag things out even more. They really, truly do not want him to face any sort of justice for January 6th before the election, and they hope the election will result in him never having to face justice at all.

I don’t care if you fucking hate Biden, people… Vote for him like democracy depends on it, because it fucking does. This is not a dress rehearsal. There will be no do-overs. If you let Trump become president again, America is done.

The left is larger than the right, here. How does that make it not a center-left country? We’re sure as hell not a right-wing country, and much of our government is an accident of antiquated and stupid systems, not a true reflection of the people.

I do hope that happens. A graceful exit for Biden and a fresh-faced nominee could very well be the thing we need.

Not really trying to “spin-doctor,” because your concerns are legit. It’s not just that he had a cold, after all. He may exercise regularly and be in good shape for an octogenarian, but he’s still an octogenarian. Being sick likely means head and chest congestion, exhaustion, and a temperature - and those combined with the kind of speech impediment that gets worse when its sufferer is under stress… Well, it’s not a good thing. It results in performances like last night. As he ages, perfect storms of bad luck like that will occur more often, and eventually his age will fully catch up to him.

We need to acknowledge things like that.

At the same time, we need to acknowledge that all in all, he’s been a remarkably good president under extremely trying circumstances, and his predecessor - hopefully not his successor - is a felon and a con artist who will open the door for a fascist takeover of this country.

One is too old. The other is a nightmare and the death of this country.

Ah. Yeah, I don’t know of a way to get ACC on Linux.

I’m less concerned about his cognitive faculties, though I definitely understand your concerns. Apparently, he was suffering from a gnarly cold last night, and he looked both tired and unwell (though he did better as the evening progressed).

Apparently he’s feeling much better today, because he just finished up a rally and looked like his usual self again. Honestly, kind of fired up, in fact.

I think going forward with the debate was a mistake. He should have just rescheduled, and admitted he’d caught a cold. Yes, the right-wing would turn that into “he’s on death’s door,” but that would have petered out, while the soundbites from this debate will have legs for a while.

Pay attention, people. This is part of a Friday bad decision SCOTUS dump. Watch what they do, and remember that if you don’t vote for Biden, you can expect more of it.

FOR FORTY YEARS.

If Trump wins, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are likely to retire, comfortable in the knowledge that Trump will appoint very young, very inexperienced, and very fascistic replacements. People who will erode the rule of law as much as they possibly can, destabilizing the country in the name of “small government.”

• Expect rulings that will destroy environmental protections.
• Expect rulings that will destroy unions.
• Expect rulings that will eliminate health and safety regulations.
• Expect rulings that will fatten fat cats and hurt everyone else.

Abortion? Outlawed. Contraception? On the chopping block too. LGBTQ+ rights? Gone. They will do everything they can to turn the clock back as far as possible.

And with young, stupid, easily manipulable conservatives on SCOTUS, you can rest assured that the damage will outlive you.

If you don’t vote for Biden, get used to rulings like these and many, many more for the rest of your life.

I’m also surprised Brown Jackson didn’t dissent.

Regarding Linux, what commercial software are you dependent on? More and more, it’s all online, even Office.

Sysadmin? You haven’t needed to be a sysadmin to run Linux for years.

Fair. Found multiple sources. Well, that’s actually a bit of a relief. If he was genuinely sick last night, that explains the hoarse voice, especially early on.