"Biggest Risk is Biden's Cognitive Decline~This isn't going away": Jill Stein, Harvard MD, Plus Washington Post

President Trump has decided to build his campaign on the accusation that Joe Biden is suffering a mental decline that makes him unfit for the presidency. Unlike many of the claims Trump makes, this one is not completely without evidence. So we all have to decide what we think of it and how it should factor into the election.

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The first thing to understand is that this isn't a matter of a joke or jab here or there. Trump and his allies are mounting a comprehensive and coordinated effort to paint Biden as senile. A sampling of recent examples:

• Trump has begun attacking Biden's mental fitness at every opportunity. "They're going to put him into a home, and other people are going to be running the country," he said at a recent rally. "Sleepy Joe doesn't know where he is, or what he's doing. Honestly, I don't think he even knows what office he's running for!" he said on Twitter.
• On Tuesday night, Sean Hannity ranted for almost 10 minutes about Biden's mental state. This has been a regular topic of discussion for Hannity; he recently said Biden "seems to be in a rapid state of decline and not up to the rigors needed, even on a campaign."
• Tucker Carlson says Biden has "clearly lost it" and has a "fading intellect."
• Fox personality Brit Hume said Tuesday that Biden, "like so many people his age, is losing his memory and is getting senile."
• Rudy Giuliani said Biden is showing "obvious signs of dementia."

To be clear, I'm not saying that discussion of Biden's mental acuity should be off-limits (and we shouldn't forget that some on the left, including advocates for Bernie Sanders, have aggressively promoted the idea that Biden is experiencing cognitive decline). While Biden has always had a propensity for rambling stories and cringe-worthy statements, in this campaign they have become more frequent. It's undeniable. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Washington Post Opinion, 3/12/20: Marc A. Thiessen

Sanders took a subtle dig at Biden during the town hall, pointing out that while he speaks for 45 minutes to an hour at his campaign events, Biden recently spoke for seven minutes. The two men will have their first mano-a-mano debate on Sunday. How will Biden perform over the course of a two-hour discussion? Perhaps he will put concerns about his mental fitness to rest. This much is certain: Democrats are about to pick a man they hope will be the first octogenarian president in American history. It is fair to ask whether voters are choosing a candidate who's not up to the job.

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• 'This isn't going away': Jill Stein warns Biden's 'biggest risk is his obvious cognitive decline' Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said that Democrats are in for an "agonizing 8 months" if they nominate former Vice President Joe Biden as their candidate for the White House.
• "Biden's team won't let him do interviews. He made 2 short teleprompter speeches in Missouri this weekend & both generated massive gaffes that went viral," Stein, Harvard Medical School graduate, tweeted. "You can't beat Trump by trying to hide to avoid the issue of #BidensCognitiveDecline. How is this not a massive red flag?"

"Biden's lies & record are bad enough, but the biggest risk is his obvious cognitive decline. He said he's running for Senate, confused wife & sister, forgot Obama's name etc. This isn't going away. If Dems close their eyes & keep pushing Joe, it'll be an agonizing 8 months ahead."

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Be prepared for a never ending onslaught from Trump, brought to you by your ever-prepared-to-smear Bernie DNC! For example from Yahoo News:

Biden - who did say those things - has a track record of gaffes, and has turned in bumbling debate performances, but Trump's line of attack raised the unedifying spectacle of an election focused on two men in their 70s attacking each other's perceived cognitive decline.

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Please also see this excellent article which had to start at Reader Supported News and is then now on OpEdNews, 4 days ago, by Marc Ash, Founder and former editor of Truthdig:

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from Stephen Fox:

This will inevitably get worse and worse, but the last you will hear speak up about this is the DNC, who will try to find ways to hide their ignorance, their perfidy and their marching orders from the billionaires and from Wall Street.

They have continuously colluded to sweep all of this under the rug, and when Biden has to step down (before the primaries conclude, I would bet), they are all going to look like idiots: Senator Kamala Harris, "The King Maker," Representative James Clyburn, Michael Bloomberg, Beto O'Rourke, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, some Governors and some Senators, and all of the other folks lined up for Joe, whose only defense will be that they were "misled," that they "just didn't know."

This is all going to culminate to an irreparable loss of face for the DNC and the power elite who have gone all out to besmirch and smear Bernie Sanders, a loss of confidence on our collective judgement as a nation, and a severe stain on the perception of the United States in the rest of the world.

It is nauseating.

I hope he hangs in there; maybe they will end up ASKING him to be the nominee. What do YOU think?

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How does all of this look to the rest of the world? This just in from the Japan Times by Ted Rall:

Biden obviously has dementia and should withdraw from the race The Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves. They spent the last four years criticizing Donald Trump in no small part for his mental state, and rightly so. The founding fathers included an impeachment provision in the Constitution in large part as a contingency to remove a president exactly like him, whose temperament and personality and mental state are incompatible with the requirements of the highest elected office in the land. Trump is not merely a jerk.

Psychologists have been so alarmed that they have violated a core ethical principle of their profession by attempting to diagnose him from afar. Narcissistic personality disorder is their universal conclusion and it fits like a glove. Among the characteristics of NPD is a lack of empathy - not something one wants or needs in a leader. Now Democrats are conspiring to gaslight the American people by engineering the presidential election of a man clearly suffering from dementia, Joe Biden. This is no time to be "polite." We are talking about the presidency. As always, we need a frank, intelligent discussion and debate about the issues and the candidates. It is perfectly fair to talk about Bernie Sanders' heart attack as well as Biden's and Trump's mental acuity. Contrary to current ridiculous Democratic talking points, it is not ageist to point this out.

One out of seven Americans over the age of 70 suffers from dementia. (Biden is 77.) If it's ageist to talk about dementia among the elderly, it's ageist to talk about immaturity among the young. It is neither necessary nor possible to scientifically determine whether the former vice president has dementia. On the other hand, you don't need an astronomer to know that the sun rises in the east. If you have encountered dementia, you know Biden has it. There is so much blame to go around for this BS that I can't figure out what order to put it in.

I'll go chronologically. There are the Democratic Party bosses who, terrified at the prospect that Sanders might win the nomination, recruited former Vice President Joe Biden out of a comfortable retirement to run yet again.

There is Biden himself. His family should have known better than to allow a campaign by the guy who inspired the headline "Biden allies float scaling back events to limit gaffes." Not that gaffes are the issue. Or stuttering. Or being old.

Many Americans are as old or older than Biden, they stutter, and they're mentally competent. Biden is not. Of course you also have to cast the stinkeye at Biden's former rivals Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Mike Bloomberg. Just because the DNC probably urged them to endorse Biden doesn't mean that they had to. No Cabinet position or even a position as vice president should be enough inducement to set aside common sense. Elizabeth Warren earns an honorary mention for her failure to speak out against Biden and to endorse Sanders.

None of the media seem interested in the truth about Biden. Democratic media allies like CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post are running interference for the Democratic establishment and Biden by failing to ask any questions about the candidate's mental fitness. Right-wing outlets like Fox News are gleefully trumpeting Biden's mental decline, but they would say that even if it wasn't true. The fourth estate has abdicated its duty to follow the truth wherever it leads. And finally there are the voters. As a citizen, you have no business casting a vote thoughtlessly or less than fully informed.

Deliberately casting a vote for someone clearly suffering from dementia, or turning a blind eye to it, or being simply unaware of Biden's mental state are inexcusable. I spent the last few years watching my mother's decline due to dementia caused by Alzheimer's. She had been brilliant. Years before her death, however, she was having a tough time keeping it together. I would have voted for her as president in 2012 but not 2016. It would have been wrong. No one who has been close to someone deteriorating from that disease could fail to see the same signs in Biden. In online discussions Biden apologists sometimes say that a senile Biden is better than an evil Trump. Is this really where we are? Consider the 20 or so contenders for the Democratic nomination as of late last year. All of them except for one - Biden - were mentally competent.

Marianne Williamson came off as loopy and Tom Steyer was painfully awkward, but both were in full command of their faculties.

The Democrats literally picked the worst of the bunch. This is not about politics. No doubt, Biden's voting record is monstrous. He opposed school busing, sold out Anita Hill, voted to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, supported NAFTA and bragged about the extrajudicial assassination of Osama bin Laden. And yes, Hunter Biden's job in Ukraine is classic corruption.

But that's not the point here. Even if Biden's politics were closer to mine - quadrupling the minimum wage, nationalizing major industries, banning all wars of aggression, free health care and college - I would be writing this same column. It doesn't matter how crappy Trump is. It's anti-American and unpatriotic to vote for someone suffering from dementia for a position with exclusive control over nuclear launch codes.

What about Trump? If Biden is the nominee, and people don't vote for him - which I think will be the case anyway - Trump will win a second term. Isn't it imperative to stop that by any means necessary?

As I wrote recently, odds are that Trump, like most previous presidents, won't get much done during his second term anyway. Anyway, there is always a moral alternative to picking between two terrible options. Vote for another party, write someone in, don't vote.

But it's not too late for the Democrats. Biden doesn't have to be the nominee. He can and should withdraw.

[Frederick Theodore Rall III (born August 26, 1963) is an American columnist, "syndicated" editorial cartoonist, and author. His political cartoons often appear in a multi-panel comic-strip format and frequently blend comic-strip and editorial-cartoon conventions.]

(Article changed on March 13, 2020 at 00:18)

(Article changed on March 13, 2020 at 01:04)