Umm, my ex had to have a stent put in in his late 50's...too many Ding D9ngs....and he is just fine & sending my alimony every week. A stent is in No Way at big deal!

@AnneWimsey
Your husband was 50 and Bernie had the stents put in at 78. Not a good comparison.

@St-Sinner sure it is, a blockage is a blockage, Roto-Rooter comes & makes it all better.

@AnneWimsey
The veins at 50 and the veins at 78 are not same. The heart at 50 and the heart at 78 are not the same Ask any doctor. Doing a whirlwind of multiple public rallies in multiple states at 50 and doing them at 78 is not the same. You know that.

So just propping up Bernie in this condition is a disservice to the candidate by his supporters. You should ask him to take rest and stay alive.

@twshield
The candidates and their campaigns will will do everything to convince you that the candidate is very healthy, very perfect, ideal, strong, vigorous and there is no problem. It is by design to fool you. Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas did the same in 1992 but he dropped dead in 4.5 years.

I'm not sure you are right in that assumption. Would you care to qualify your opinion?

@kensmile4u watch the clip....it has been on every news outlet!

@AnneWimsey I looked at the short clip you are referring to. I don't think a 5 second gaffe stands as a disqualifier. He had his back turned to them when he was talking. He could have forgotten which side they were on. Anyone could for that matter. Have you taken the time to watch every candidate during a town hall meeting? I did because I think a town hall meeting presents an opportunity to scrutinize a candidate in a different social setting which gives me a wider perspective on how a person functions. I don't think Biden is a good debater which is likely due to his stutter. But he was as good as any of the candidates in the town halls I watched.

@kensmile4u It's not just a stutter. There are many instances and they're not hard to find. I've been around cognitive decline in my life quite a few times. I'm no expert. BUT I'm also not gonna gloss over the clear empirical evidence. There's slurring, inability to complete thoughts, disorientation and a marked difference/decline from even a few years ago. No one who wants him to win wants to believe his decline. I get it....but there's also reality. To be clear, Trump is an unmitigated joke.

@JustChris I would argue that anyone who lives in Florida for any length of time gets familiar with dementia behaviors. I'm not sure if you've read all the comments but I answered this already. I agree that all three candidates demonstrate slight age related cognitive decline. The manifestation I see is different in each candidate. Trump is vacillating and repeating more. Bernie talks slower. Joe is slower on the uptake. But those are our choices. I think you're implying I have confirmation bias. That's kind of the point of this post. I'm just letting people know in Biden's case there is a chronic speech pathology that should not be conflated with age related behaviors.

I agree with you about a slight age related decline in all of the elder politicians running for president. Just compare them to the acute clarity demonstrated by Pete Buttigieg. But I see a marked difference in Biden's communication skills during town hall speaking events compared to debates. I raised a son who stuttered and I know that when he was under time pressure to speak he struggled to select the correct words as well as the annunciation of particular words. As a result, some people became dismissive of him. I think the same dynamic is happening with Biden. Combine that with a political predisposition and we get negative comments that aren't totally qualified. I expect to see a different performance from him now that there are only two debaters which will allow more time to speak. He will also be helped by the slow pace of Bernie's speaking style which is also slightly age related.

@kensmile4u there's a fine line to walk in the age/experiance side of things. Pete needs more experience imo. Hopefully he'll get it and run again as a dem against a repubs and a liberal.

I'm dyslexic so am used to being dismissed because I don't speak or write the way others expect. Doesn't change the fact that they still do, and will, dismiss me because of thier notions.

@1of5 Humans are so infected with Tribalism and the unfair judgements that come with it. I've been on the wrong side of that social issue on many occasions. I sympathize with you.

@kensmile4u nothing to sympathize about. My brain can, in some areas, run circles around a "normal" brain.

It's a lot of fun.

@1of5 I'm sympathetic that you have to put up with unfair and unnecessary judgements from narrowminded people. I've been in the same situation for different reasons many times in my life. I could tell from your comments that your brain is on point.

Trump appreciates you.

@Lorajay
Trump appreciates you.

I respect your right to vote for anyone you like.

Exactly. His problem is mental processing, not getting the words out of his mouth properly. He is genuinely confused about facts and his orientation to time, place, etc..

"I know what a stutterer sounds like". You speak about this with authority. Are you a speach pathologist?

@kensmile4u

No but I have a stutter myself. I hear it all the time. I know what it sounds like.

@RoboGraham I respect the fact that your personal experience gives you some authority in this matter. I also have personal experience with one of my children who had to work with a speech pathologist to correct problems with using the wrong words as well the annunciation of certain words that phonetically challenged him. As a result, I'm confident in Biden's cognitve ablity.

@kensmile4u

When he says things like "poor kids can be as smart as white kids", it leads me to believe that he isn't so sharp anymore.

@RoboGraham I'm not familiar with the blooper that you are referring to.

@kensmile4u

[nytimes.com]

@RoboGraham I can't read the NYT page unless I buy a subscription. I do get the times daily emails. But I already read two other papers daily.

@kensmile4u

Yeah I don't pay for their subscription either.

You can hear it from joe himself here.

@RoboGraham Definitely a gaffe there. The commentator mentioned he was speaking to an audience of Asians and Hispanics. The sign behind him confirms it. So within that context, I understand why his comment drew applause. But looking from our end of the lens without that context he looks like an idiot. He obviously realized it a moment later and tried to verbalize a broader context. Thanks for the video clip.

@kensmile4u

Appearence is everything when running for president. It doesn't really matter what he meant in the context, he came off looking dumb and a little bit racist which is particularly damaging considering his past of standing with segregationists.

We need a candidate who doesn't stumble when speaking. It makes it too easy for the right wing to take his words out of context and create negative news cycles.

So our choices will be a mean lying demented thieving trump or a senile corporate Democrat. I will definitely vote for the Democrat and a small hope for a Supreme court not run by the mobsters that run it now.

@Lorajay

I'll vote for someone else to help the democratic establishment realize that if they want people to vote for their candidate, they need to nominate a lucid candidate who actually represents the people.

@RoboGraham I sympathize, but, trust me, the Dem establishment will not notice or care about Bernie supporters voting third party. The only thing that would get their attention and teach them anything would be if Bernie ran as an independent or third party this fall and took 20 or 30% of the vote. That would teach them a lesson, but Bernie will never do that. Too loyal to the party that shits on him.

@TomMcGiverin

True. And yeah, he won't. So the only thing I can do with the tiny little bit of influence I have with my vote is to give it to someone who deserves it.

I also have several personal experiences with dementia in friends and family. I respect your right to vote for whoever you like but please don't make an unqualified medical diagnosis to ruin someone based on political motives. If you had medical credentials then you know you should have cited them along with your statement.

@kensmile4u

Yes we are speculating about something that is outside of our expertise.

However, regardless of his mental state, there are other issues with Joe which make it very difficult to vote for him. His support of the Iraq disaster, his connection to big oil companies, his having sided with segregationists, the fact that he is funded by 60 billionaires, his willingness to cut social security, he wrote the crime bill, his not supporting a single payer healthcare system...

A vote for Joe is a vote for status quo.

@RoboGraham Your talking points are misleading. Has anyone told you that your tactics are very similar to the Trump wing of the Republican party? They use data taken out of context against their perceived opponents too.

@kensmile4u

There have been a few moderates who have accused me behaving like a republican for pointing out valid criticisms of democratic candidates. But the purpose of the primary season is to scrutinize each contender and point out all the flaws so we can ascertain which will be most likely to win and which will be the best leader. How do we do that if we don't point out the problems with candidate's records, funding, policy, and the things that they have said publicly?

I'm not sure what the tactics are that you are referring to. I'm criticizing him on his terrible record, his cognitive decline, and his willingness to take bribes from big donors. When republicans criticism him, they probably say similar things because these are very valid concerns. Don't you think it would be better for people like me to bring this stuff up now so that we are able to make informed decisions about who we nominate so we don't nominate a problematic candidate like Joe who the republicans will be able to easily defeat because of these flaws that he has?

Is there anything incorrect in what I said? I notice that your tactic isn't to argue the substance of the criticisms that I made but rather to simply say that going after Joe on his poor record and other flaws makes me similar to republicans. That is not an effective strategy. If your goal is to get me and others like me to accept and vote for Biden, saying that we are similar to the Trump wing of the republican party is going to have the opposite effect.

@RoboGraham I prefer to engage in evidence based conversations. Your talking points are not based on evidence. They are designed to sensationalize data by taking them out of context. They beg an evidence based response which I could easily deliver. But based on my past experience dealing with Trump supporters, evidence based truth is not the objective. If truth were the objective then you would have screened this information before posting it. So I'm left to conclude that you don't care about objective truth. You only care about furthering your cause at the expense of truth which is exactly how Trump and his supporters behave. For example you imply that Biden supported the Iraq disaster. That is not true. Like everyone else he was misled by George Bush's claims that there were WMD's in Iraq. So the vast majority of Congress and the Senate voted to Invade Iraq to locate and destroy the WMD's. This does not mean he voted for all of the events that transpired in Iraq which you describe as the Iraq disaster. Do you see how exhausting it gets for someone to respond to all of these partial truths? Do you also see how demeaning it is to your cause when you engage in such behaviors?

@kensmile4u Give it a rest pal. You are clearly a die hard Biden supporter, while RoboGraham and I are Bernie supporters. We got your point. You need to get a clue and drop it. Enjoy your loss, not ours, this Nov..We will say what we want and if you want to cry about it, contact the admin. Good luck with that too......

@kensmile4u

I suppose you could label anything you don't want to hear as a"talking point" but that won't change the reality behind it. It will only disengage you from what has happened.

I agree, Trump supporters tend not to think critically and come to logical conclusions based on valid evidence. Fortunately, I'm the opposite of a Trump supporter.

When a leader votes to allow a war of aggression, the liability for what transpires lyes on his shoulders. You know who wansnt fooled by those false claims? Bernie Sanders. Perhaps Joe didn't condone all the evil that we caused in Iraq, but he sure as hell voted to let the cat out of the bag. At the very least, that shows poor judgement.

I find it exhausting conversing with moderates who don't understand that a candidate like Biden will be crushed by Trump. Trump will hammer him on his vote for Iraq, his willingness to cut social security, his inability to speak clearly, his support of trade policies that hurt workers, his acceptance of bribes from large corporations. Biden is a very similar candidate to Hillary. Hillary lost. Why in the world would we try that same failed strategy again? Trump is now an incumbent and is stronger than ever thanks to the impeachment farce. And thanks to his cognitive decline, Biden won't be able to hold his own on the debate stage with Trump.

To beat a faux populist, we need to run a real populist who has been fighting for the working class for decades. Sanders is our only chance and the establishment is throwing everything they have at us to prevent a Sanders win. They prefer to lose with Joe than to win with Bernie because they know that Trump will protect their bottom line while Bernie will actually try to make real change happen.

I think it is so much more damaging to the cause to allow a terrible candidate with a lot of issues to get the nomination then lose. The corporate media refuses to report on Bidens record fully. Which is probably why you are so uninformed about it. So we have to expose these issues because, if we don't, Trump will.

@RoboGraham You said it all bro.. thank you..

@TomMcGiverin I'm a moderate. I would be supporting any one of the other moderate candidates if they were running. I will also continue arguing against any false information from anywhere in the political spectrum including falshoods posted by a moderate. I wrote this post to correct a misperception and you guys seem to be trafficking in misperception. So no I will not give it a rest. I will always advocate for truth; even in a political group such as this.

@kensmile4u Get bent...Nobody died and appointed you the judge of truth and lies.

@TomMcGiverin

@kensmile4u

You've tried to correct a misconception but you haven't made anything like a compelling case. You are attempting to persuade us that his mental stumbles are due to a stutter. You haven't been successful because it isn't a stutter. Have some empathy for the old man. Don't bring up his past struggles with stuttering at a time when he is clearly suffering from serious cognitive decline.

You talk a big game about evidence based reasoning. The article you posted provides no evidence that Biden's issue is a stutter, it just lists famous people who have dealt with that problem. You said that your son has "problems with using the wrong words as well the annunciation of certain words that phonetically challenged him." Does that make you a stutter expert? How does your son having difficulties with his speech make you " confident in Biden's cognitve ablity. "?

There is a reason that Biden's campaign is keeping him out of the spot light. There is a reason why his speaking events are short. There is a reason that the DNC changed the debate rules. All of it is to have Biden speak in public as little as possible because the more he speaks, the more obvious it becomes.