79 Comments

Which is why I say that when they go low ... we go for castration. And thank goodness for Rick Wilson and company, because it's republicans who know how to make a campaign work.

Expand full comment

I can't assume that this is the product of a good faith evaluation. I think it's utter BS. Garland should resign.

S. Jay Olshansky, a leading gerontologist in the US, thinks Biden may be a "super ager," that is, someone who maintains faculties into a very advanced age.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/cultureclinic/108213?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2024-01-10&eun=g1964106d0r

Expand full comment

Warren Buffet still goes to work every day at Berkshire Hathaway. He's 93, and people hang on his words.

We should consider the source: Hur is a Republican, who acted exactly like a Republican.

It's time for Merrick Garland to go. His slow walking of investigating Trump, while prosecuting the little people is an egregious mistake. His dithering has brought the country to a dangerous place.

Expand full comment

Thanks, David ! Another Super Ager ⬇️

‘“ I, Edith Ceccarelli, also known as ‘Edie’ by her family and a multitude of friends, would like to keep on dancing,” she wrote in 2012. “Dancing keeps your limbs strong. What is nicer than holding a lovely lady in your arms and dancing a beautiful waltz or two-step together?” “Try it, you will like it,” she added, along with her phone number. She was 104 at the time. “💃

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/07/us/edith-ceccarelli-116-years-willits-california.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UE0.n8cn.-1-l464h6RS7&smid=url-share

Expand full comment

Kathy, that's a wonderful story. Thanks!!!

A cousin of my mother's had one 49 year marriage, then two more shorter marriages, all of which ended with the deaths of the husbands. She passed the driving test at 96 "with flying colors," or some such, according to the instructor, and made it to 104. And she was a big woman in Buffalo, having moved there from Denver to take her first job. The obit is wonderful but it's behind a paywall. And a cousin of my father's is 96, living on her own, recently moved from NYC to Brattleboro VT, and I shall be visiting her regularly.

Expand full comment

If I were an elected official right now I might consider subpoenaing Robert Hur to testify about this report. Every time he ever says “I do not recall” I would ask him if it is safe to say he is a well meaning but elderly old man with a poor memory.

-- Bradley P. Moss on Twitter (X) @BradMossEsq

Expand full comment

Ask him if he can remember his anniversary. It's the classic stumper.

Expand full comment

WaPo just came out with this:

Biden pushes back angrily at special counsel report on classified documents that questioned his memory, mental acuity

President Biden lashed out angrily Thursday night after a special counsel found he carelessly handled classified materials at his home and seemed to be a forgetful, elderly man, even though the prosecutor also concluded the evidence was not strong enough to justify charging him with crimes.

Expand full comment

Good. He did the right thing.

Expand full comment

Yup, that's what you wanted. He sounded quite offended, as he should be.

Expand full comment

Did you see it? Not sure his performance helped or hurt his cause. But in his defense, he’s been a gaffe machine his whole public life.

Expand full comment

Have you ever watched a Trump performance?

Expand full comment

Oh yeah. Drives me nuts. You?

He's one of these people common in sales (and politics) who will never miss an opportunity to say in a 1000 words what they can easily say in 100. I guess it worked for him in commercial development, but its not for me. (I spent my career running an tech sales org)

Watch his pressers. Usually all the dumb shit is in the 2nd half after he's ad libbed too long. Still Biden's on a different level of hubris, faux "hail fell well met" B.S., and incoherence. But he always has been, so you cant chalk it up completely to senility.

Expand full comment

That's an interesting example of how differently different people will interpret something. I am far less bothered by Trump's wordiness, but note that his tendency to toss out sentence fragments, often not even terribly closely topically related, is more annoying than his gaffs. He produces gaffs at a rate far beyond Biden, but the context makes them stand out less. I don't find Biden to be at fault for hubris and in fact feel like he errs too often on the side of modesty and almost British understatement especially when modern ears have become used to Trump's extreme self aggrandizement and hubris. Where you hear a false joviality I hear genuineness. I don't chalk anything up to senility but acknowledge that Biden, like I myself and probably you also, misspeaks. I have watched both men give speeches and I definitely find Biden to be far more intellectually engaging whereas I find Trump to be operating on a far lower intellectual level although I would be willing to entertain the idea that perhaps he is to some extent meeting his audience where they are. As I say, it's interesting how very differently we see and evaluate these two men.

Expand full comment

One difference is Trump will fill the void with another ad lib, while Biden will just blank out. You and I obviously disagree on who has more cogent thoughts, and who is more genuine when they speak. I’m good with that. I’m generally a 51-49 voter anyway, and have been for many years.

The thing perhaps we can and should agree on is the office occupied by either of these people has grown far too powerful in the last several decades for anyone’s good. I don’t subscribe to the “Great Man” theory, and I don’t vote for a messiah nor another parent. Given that in our political duopoly the choices always seem limited to Twiddle Dum and Twiddle Dummer, maybe our motto should be “Make Presidents trivial again”. We’d all be a lot better for it.

Expand full comment

I saw it. He was great. He read excerpts from the teleprompter of pages 12 and 215 of the report. Everything else was in his own words. He took questions afterward, mostly gotchas. From Steve Doocy, “How bad is your memory?” Biden: “It is so bad I let you speak.” Which got a laugh. He was about to leave, but he returned to the podium for more questions on the Middle East.

The dimmer members of the public would have preferred a president who was louder and accused the special counsel Hur of conducting a witch hunt. “How dare he!” was his response to Hur’s question about the date of his son’s death. Maybe we will find out how that question had anything to do with the documents found in his garage.

Expand full comment

And the NYT:

In fiery remarks, President Biden hit back against a special counsel’s claims that he mishandled classified files and has memory problems.

Thursday, February 8, 2024 8:23 PM ET

Mr. Biden said the special counsel's claim that he “willfully” retained classified files was “plain wrong” and dismissed concerns about his mental acuity. "My memory is fine," he said.

Expand full comment

OUTRAGEOUS!!! Who is paying Hur?! And how much? FIGHT, JOE, FIGHT!!!

Expand full comment

From the article:

I“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he declared from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House.

He grew emotional recounting a line from the report that suggested he did not recall the year in which his son Beau died.

“There’s even reference that I don’t remember when my son died,” he said. “How in the hell he dare raise that.” Beau Biden died in 2015, when his father was vice president.

Expand full comment

Totally agree - all of us need to go on the offensive - this just totally stinks.

Expand full comment

Some social media have split screen posts of rotund Trump in his golf cart and a fit Biden on his bike. I like the juxtaposition.

Expand full comment

What the fuck is this?!!! I don't know the background. Why was this guy investigating Biden? It sure does sound like bullshit. Jay Olshansky, a leading expert on aging, said that Biden is likely a "super ager," someone who ages extremely well.

Expand full comment

Of course he is, and he works at it too. He has always worked to stay fit and without knowing a thing about his diet I bet he eats a healthy variety also. One need only look at his physique and Trump's, listen to him speaking for ten minutes extempore and listen to a similar sample of Trump's dialog to know Trump's supporters must be willfully deluded.

Sheesh. When this next election is all over, we need to overhaul our educational system, get some better system to provide challenges to disinformation, and clamor for Biden to appoint a new AG.

Expand full comment

What we need to do is get Republican politicians out of statehouses, where like in NC, they are trashing the public education system as hard as they can.

Expand full comment

Special Counsel investigating

those 20 secret and top secret files found when Biden's attorneys were clearing out an office safe

and then a few found mixed

in with Biden's papers at his

home in DE by FBI. Same thing happened with Pence.

Of course, he was squeaky

clean and very little was said

and no special counsel - I don't think - was assigned to

the Elf on a Shelf.

Expand full comment

I don't know who the fuck this Hur character is, but here's the thing where Olshansky was quoted

https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/cultureclinic/108213?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2024-01-10&eun=g1964106d0r

It's no secret that at 81, President Biden is the oldest sitting president in U.S. history. And whether the current frontrunners for either party win the election later this year, Biden or Donald Trump would be the oldest president on record. Many people have raised concerns about the candidates' ages and whether they are too old to run for president.

However, a recent op-ed published in The Hillopens in a new tab or window weighed in on whether President Biden is actually a super-ager -- someone generally older than 80 who has cognitive and physical function higher than their peers, more akin to people decades younger -- and argued that framing Biden in particular as "too old" is both ageist and politically motivated.

Two of the op-ed authors, S. Jay Olshansky, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Bradley Willcox, MD, MSc, of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, were among the panel of gerontologists who assessed the health of Biden and Trumpopens in a new tab or window leading up to the 2020 election. That report noted that "Biden is expected to outlive Trump, even though he is 3 years older" because of Biden's "exceptional health profile for a man his age."

Olshansky, Willcox, and the third co-author, former Texas politician Ben Barnes, wrote that Biden "exhibits characteristics consistent with super-ager status," and all evidence "evaluated by experts in medicine and aging science" points to Biden being in good health for his age. In response, several media outlets have reported on how Biden may be a super-ager, and some claimed he's "aging backwards."

To gain insight on whether Biden is indeed a super-ager, MedPage Today spoke with Nir Barzilai, MD, director of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Institute for Aging Research in New York City and scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR), who also was on the team that analyzed the candidates' health in 2020. While there isn't a universal definition for "super-ager," he explained that the unifying factors are older age with relatively higher cognitive and physical function.

"There is a chronological age and a biological age, and I think all of us intuitively know that those are not the same," Barzilai said. He noted that while genes play a role in aging, so do exercise, diet, sleep, and social connectivity. These four "are much more important things than a specific test," he added, and Biden scores well on those traits, except for potentially sleep.

Having a parent with exceptional age is also a major clue that someone could be a super-ager, he said. Both of Biden's parents lived well into their 80s, as did Trump's.

But, ultimately, Barzilai said he can't definitively affirm that Biden is aging backwards -- or that Trump is, for that matter -- because he doesn't know their full medical histories. Specifically, he would be interested to know their HbA1c and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels.

As president, a lot (but not all) of Biden's health data are transparent and released by the government. Meanwhile, Barzilai said he's dubious about much of the information on Trump's health. Thus, critiquing the wealth of data on Biden while having little available on Trump could easily be weaponized for political means.

"I don't want to say [Biden's] younger or older ... and I urge everybody to say that age is a number, not a quality," he said.

Much of Barzilai's past research has focused on biomarkers of aging, including through the Longevity Genes Projectopens in a new tab or window, which analyzed the genetics of healthy people older than 95 and their families. One of his studies from 2016 found that super-agers had a compression of morbidity, meaning that many died without diseases and those who were sick at the end were sick for shorter periods of time than most people. In other words, "health span and lifespan went together," he noted.

Currently, AFAR is working on a study of super-agers, and actively recruiting people 95 and older and their families to look into longevity genes. Other studies from the past year have found that super-agers had significantly larger entorhinal cortex neurons than their peers, as well as sharper memories -- and researchers still have much to explore.

"As scientists, we're trying to figure out what is this biology and can we extend health span and lifespan for everyone else," Barzilai said.

Expand full comment

Last year, biden discovered he had some classified papers from his time as VP at his home in Delaware. He immediately contacted the DOJ and had all the papers returned. Because Republicans tried to raise a stink that he was getting away with something Trump was being indicted for, Garland assigned this GOP Trump-appointee US Attorney to investigate and issue a report.

Expand full comment

Garland is over possessed attempting to fein impartiality to the point of never making a decision that leans on the GOP. “See how unbiased I can be?”

Expand full comment

Sure. He just kinda forgot all those boxes. Of documents he never should have taken in the first place.

Expand full comment

You're getting close to receiving a refund on your subscription. A difference of opinion is expected. Deliberately misreading things a=is another matter altogether.

Expand full comment

You’re free to do what you want, but what did I misread? There were boxes in his possession that he had no right to in the first place. So because he says he suddenly thought to look around “just in case” , and his lawyers found some, no problem, right?

Expand full comment

So, Mr. EZTajas, what are you saying? That your boy Hur is in the tank for the Democrats? Get the fuck out of here. Moron.

Expand full comment
Comment removed
Feb 9
Comment removed
Expand full comment

You’re an ass.

Expand full comment

I'm not seeing anyone pointing out Norma Anderson, the 91-year-old Colorado Republican who was lead plaintiff in the Article 3 suit heard today by the Supreme Court. She was interviewed on camera following(?) the hearing; it was clear that she's healthy and possesses strong cognitive abilities. Age 91.

Expand full comment

Dan Rather is 90 and still going strong over on Steady. https://steady.substack.com/

Expand full comment

lot of people in their 90s are still cognitively solid, and some, like a friend's uncle, who just died at 99, are very active physically. This guy bicycled 20-30 miles a day until the day before he died.

Expand full comment

And here's The Atlantic's David Graham, happy to pass

along this report, which includes, supposedly, remarks from some autobiographer in 2017 on

Biden's mental health.

Remember last years SOTU?

I didn't see an 80 year old feeble minded President sucker in the entire Republican f*#ks to leave

M/Care & Social Security alone.

Garland should be ashamed of himself! But then, he's a

contributor to the Federalist Society, so I've had my reservations about him. Agree he needs to be replaced on 1/2025.

Expand full comment

He was amazing on the SOTU. And he was amazing when he went to China and a handful of other countries, and he was doing a superb job holding it all together despite the different time zones.

Expand full comment

GARLAND CONTRIBUTES TO THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY???!!!!!

Expand full comment

Yes, you can go to Wikipedia and Federalist Society and scroll through the pictures of

contributors.

Expand full comment

I just checked Wikipedia and they're showing Ashcroft as the USAG. If you go to the

Federalist Society home page

and load "Contributors" click

clickon the G, the 2 and scroll

scrolldown, you'll find Merrick

Merrick Gardland's photo with Attorney General title.

Expand full comment

I am truly shocked. (And horrified.)

Expand full comment

Garland needs to go. Federalist Society--no wonder he dithered for a couple of years. Well, I suppose I don't know that. But he certainly hasn't done a good job.

Expand full comment

Bad optics.

Expand full comment

Well, Garland obviously didn’t learn anything.

Expand full comment

Thank you for this. As someone who lost a child, I cannot imagine the inhumanity of an interviewer asking President Biden to recollect the date his child died after Hamas inflicted targeted death, rape, and maiming to so many other people’s children. That is barbaric and unwarranted. So cruel I cannot wrap my mind around it. But that is in keeping with the Republican brand these days so, while it gags me, it doesn’t come as a surprise.

Expand full comment

😔

Expand full comment

Dear Lord, I have for years had trouble remembering when my mother died. A lot was going on during the years around her death--I'd been diagnosed with a fatal illness (luckily and obviously a misdiagnosis but I spent months not knowing that); I was going through a divorce; selling my house, buying a new one, starting a new job. I have to think: No, mom never saw the new house, yes she knew I was selling the old one etc etc. The one thing I remember clearly was the DAY, because it was my brother's birthday.

And Hur concludes that what documents were kept didn't rise to an indictable offense because of Biden's absentmindedness, he attributes the mind of an 80 year old to someone much younger--certainly younger than "youngster" trump is now. But the big difference of course is that Biden returned them immediately.

And I didn't know that all this is based on an interview on October 8. "Here, Mr President, ignore the crisis in front of you right now so we can concentrate on what you can remember about 2015 or earlier. " Geeze

Expand full comment

This whole development gives me the gut whirlies. It's another James Comey moment, another Hillary's emails moment. God help us.

Expand full comment

Never bring a Democrat-appointed investigator to a gun fight.

Expand full comment

I like JoJo's approach. It's not a reply to Garland/Hur, it's just statements of fact:

https://substack.com/@jojofromjerz/note/c-49154240?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1pjrv1

Expand full comment

I've only read reports about the report, but I didn't realize that Hur's insinuations came from "a five hour discussion the day after the October 7th attacks on Israel." I thought they were based on what Biden actually did. My bad. And yeah, I've long since had it with Merrick Garland. I'd be happy he didn't make it into SCOTUS if only Gorsuch hadn't got there instead.

Expand full comment