The All Things Political Topic - SNAFU edition

[Bartimaeus]

I confess that I didn't put much stock in Trump taking the test again: it's at least the third time he's taken it and bragged about it after the fact for reasons only understandable to the uniquely stupid person known as Donald J. Trump. Every time it's been administered, there's been the same sort of "the fact that a doctor forced(?) him to take it implies bad things about his mental state" media reaction to it, but like most "surely he's doomed now" headlines concerning Trump*, that unfortunately really just doesn't matter to anyone who didn't already care the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth times they read it. The amusement I got out of it was the irony of Trump conflating a cognition test with an IQ test, but it's not like we didn't already know the guy was dumb.

*Everyone should know all too well by now that the only headline that will convince anyone of Trump's certain doom is the one that announces his actual literal death. Until then or maybe until the economy really explodes and we've got tens of millions of people demonstrating in the streets weekly, I'm afraid that he will unfortunately continue to get away with just about everything. Not that we should ignore everything in the interim, but we've clearly decided as a nation where we're going with this until we reach a real boiling point that actually gets through to the average news-disconnected moron in our great country of proud ignorance and inequality.

Edited Wednesday at 08:48 AM by Bartimaeus

[Gromnir]

53 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

it's at least the third time he's taken it and bragged about it after the fact for reasons only understandable to the uniquely stupid person known as Donald J. Trump.

trump's improbable ignorance is tedious for multiple reasons, but not least 'cause it compels normal people to fill in the logic and reason holes he leaves behind when he provides an explanation for getting a dementia test, imposing tariffs on brazil, or suggesting merrick garland should be investigated for the 2020 election fraud scheme.  'cause trump explanations don't make sense if you take him literal, even the folks at msnbc will reflexive fill in the gaps or massage trump explanations/excuses with something plausible. otherwise most any discussion o' trump would devolve into concluding that the President is an idiot, which while accurate is not particular constructive. 

that said, trump has a few patterns, and doubling down is one o' his most predictable. after trump were questioned and mocked about his 2018 dementia test braggadocio, am thinking most o' us thought it weren't gonna be the last we heard o' how fantabulous he were for acing the test. maybe not as funny as his ongoing and evolving war on windmills,

but the pattern is similar. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:26 AM by Gromnir

[Bartimaeus]

4 hours ago, Gromnir said:

trump's improbable ignorance is tedious for multiple reasons, but not least 'cause it compels normal people to fill in the logic and reason holes he leaves behind when he provides an explanation for getting a dementia test, imposing tariffs on brazil, or suggesting merrick garland should be investigated for the 2020 election fraud scheme.  'cause trump explanations don't make sense if you take him literal, even the folks at msnbc will reflexive fill in the gaps or massage trump explanations/excuses with something plausible. otherwise most any discussion o' trump would devolve into concluding that the President is an idiot, which while accurate is not particular constructive. 

Lies, stupidity, and ignorance are the central axes by which Trump and his administration function, and this web of chaos infects virtually every function of government, including even these health exams. Trump is absolutely dumb enough to think that taking and passing the MoCA is a great feat - if he's the one doing it, anyways. But do we even know for sure if he actually took it, much less passed it, or are we just relying on his word? Under Biden, the full Walter Reed health reports were published on the White House .gov site, but as far as I can tell, Trump makes the whole damned staff there sign NDAs and diddly squat is ever officially published. The other times he's apparently taken the MoCA were not even at the behest of Walter Reed, but rather just the White House Physician, and we all know how 'respectable' that position has been under Trump, so that could be a bunch of crap too. Frankly, I'm surprised something like MoCA would even be a part of any serious testing of the president - isn't it a whole team of a dozen doctors and physicians? You'd think they'd be a little more involved than using just your standard single page assessment, and Walter Reed hasn't apparently ever administered or asked to administer the test to any president before. I really don't know: it's possible he's the one insisting on taking them because he's done them before and he's a giant manbaby showing off his kindergarten art drawings, it's possible the medical team think he's mad as a hatter and wanted him to, and it's possible that it literally wasn't even a part of the health exam at all. He could even just be getting confused because he apparently took one back in April with the White House Physician again (if that's even true). It's 1984 with this administration and he's a lying nutjob, so how do you not question literally every last thing that came out of his mouth? Until at least a single respectable and trustworthy source attests to Trump actually taking the test and passing it, you might as well just assume the whole thing is a big bag of lies and throw it all out, because right now all I'm seeing are liars flying off the handle as per usual and the actual decent people with their mouths firmly gagged.

Edited Wednesday at 01:30 PM by Bartimaeus

[rjshae]

I keep coming back to a quote by MacArthur about Roosevelt:

"...a man who would never tell the truth when a lie would serve him just as well."

I don't think DJT is an idiot; nor is he a genius. He's crafty, manipulative, and, at his age, still intelligent enough to retain a glib tongue. Given that his mental grasp of reality is highly questionable, I'd say we've never had a more dangerous President. Let him take all the cognitive tests he wants. That still doesn't mean he's a rational thinker.

[rjshae]

DJT wants to append a massive dance hall to the White House for $300 million. Well, okay. Washington D.C. was designed to impress foreign powers, so if a dance hall serves that purpose then it's in line with the founders intent. What I don't see a need for is a surface hallway connecting the two structures. It looks tacky. A more suitable approach would be to connect them with an underground tunnel.

Rather than a dance hall, I think the structure will evolve into a multi-purpose events hall for things like concerts and other happenings.

[Malcador]

Now he wants the US to start testing nuclear bombs. 

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Now he wants the US to start testing nuclear bombs. 

Yes in response to  Russia testing of its nuclear capable missiles, its being done on an equal basis 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-30/trump-says-us-to-begin-testing-nuclear-weapons-on-equal-basis

 

" President Donald Trump said the US would match its rivals in testing nuclear weapons after Russia in recent days announced trials of a nuclear-powered underwater drone and nuclear-capable cruise missile.

Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump said in a social media post shortly before meeting China’s leader in South Korea on Thursday. “That process will begin immediately.”

 

[Malcador]

Would be in style for him to confuse weapons with the delivery. Although, the US tests the missiles anyway, they did so in May. 

[majestic]

Ah, the big mistakes of the very late 90ies and early 2000s. I feel like I need to apologize to George Lucas and George W. Bush, even though I obviously know neither personally. In hindsight, Bush wasn't that dumb, and the prequel trilogy wasn't that bad. Yeah, Bush wasn't the brightest bulb, and the prequels weren't good movies, but boy, did it get worse.

Edited Thursday at 08:27 AM by majestic

[Malcador]

Forget the promise of progress and understanding

[Zoraptor]

On 10/30/2025 at 12:37 AM, Bartimaeus said:

But do we even know for sure if he actually took it, much less passed it, or are we just relying on his word? 

Well, his and his doctor's. It's probably the most detailed section of the report, for whatever that's worth, since it mentions no less than three specific tests. It is perhaps relevant that you don't tend to get people saying Trump's doctors think he has anxiety or depression, which were the other two tests he took along with the MoCA.

It's pretty clearly so a damned if you do, damned if you don't for Trump. Whatever he does people are going to think it's evidence he has dementia. If he takes a test it's because his doctors think he's got dementia. But if he doesn't take one then that's because he's trying to hide his dementia instead and he'd probably end up taking one anyway.

He certainly has signs of mental decline, but that is what inevitably happens to old people.

Quote

Frankly, I'm surprised something like MoCA would even be a part of any serious testing of the president - isn't it a whole team of a dozen doctors and physicians?

14 for Trump, 20 for Biden. Number and even quality doesn't necessarily correlate to effectiveness though, given those 20 medical professionals missed Biden's cancer. In terms of a neurologist specifically, Biden's campaign claimed he'd seen one three times during his presidency, by way of comparison. 

Don't really want to write a thesis level analysis but quick and dirty: cognitive tests like the MoCA are useful because they're quick- and if you're seeing 14 or 20 specialists in a day that is important, same as it is if you're seeing a dozen patients a day- and a litmus test for a specific symptom. Dementia can be hard to diagnose from 'physical' tests, in part because it isn't actually a disease per se but a symptom of (a) disease(s) (or other cause) such as Alzheimer's/ Parkinson's/ ischaemia/ TBI etc. eg my dad had no direct physical symptoms at all when he was diagnosed despite two MRIs.

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Well, his and his doctor's. It's probably the most detailed section of the report, for whatever that's worth, since it mentions no less than three specific tests. It is perhaps relevant that you don't tend to get people saying Trump's doctors think he has anxiety or depression, which were the other two tests he took along with the MoCA.

It's pretty clearly so a damned if you do, damned if you don't for Trump. Whatever he does people are going to think it's evidence he has dementia. If he takes a test it's because his doctors think he's got dementia. But if he doesn't take one then that's because he's trying to hide his dementia instead and he'd probably end up taking one anyway.

He certainly has signs of mental decline, but that is what inevitably happens to old people.

14 for Trump, 20 for Biden. Number and even quality doesn't necessarily correlate to effectiveness though, given those 20 medical professionals missed Biden's cancer. In terms of a neurologist specifically, Biden's campaign claimed he'd seen one three times during his presidency, by way of comparison. 

Don't really want to write a thesis level analysis but quick and dirty: cognitive tests like the MoCA are useful because they're quick- and if you're seeing 14 or 20 specialists in a day that is important, same as it is if you're seeing a dozen patients a day- and a litmus test for a specific symptom. Dementia can be hard to diagnose from 'physical' tests, in part because it isn't actually a disease per se but a symptom of (a) disease(s) (or other cause) such as Alzheimer's/ Parkinson's/ ischaemia/ TBI etc. eg my dad had no direct physical symptoms at all when he was diagnosed despite two MRIs.

Im not following this debate closely but Trump doesnt have anything like the dementia that Biden had or what my father has and your  dad

He forgets things and makes some mistakes but thats more common  for his age as you mentioned 

Trump can hold  a conversation and he has many interviews where he is coherent outside of  his normal rants and narcissistic personality. He can answer questions 

It was an utter disgrace and betrayal of the entire Democrat base the way the Dem strategists lied about Bidens mental decline

Can you imagine if Biden had become president with his condition 

[majestic]

Indeed, it is way better to have a vindictive, narcissitic asshat with the intelligence of a seven year old as POTUS. Or worse, imagine if Biden had become president and stepped aside after his cancer diagnosis, it'd be a mixed race femoid with a weird laugh running the country. Unthinkable. 

[Malcador]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy40jj71243o

Might have space for you, Bruce

[BruceVC]

20 minutes ago, majestic said:

Indeed, it is way better to have a vindictive, narcissitic asshat with the intelligence of a seven year old as POTUS. Or worse, imagine if Biden had become president and stepped aside after his cancer diagnosis, it'd be a mixed race femoid with a weird laugh running the country. Unthinkable. 

Do  you have no issue with being lied to for several years about Bidens mental state and how he was the official presidential  candidate of the worlds most powerful and influential country   until a few months before the election?

No issue with that?

[BruceVC]

9 minutes ago, Malcador said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy40jj71243o

Might have space for you, Bruce

Im not Afrikaans so it doesnt apply to me 

 

What is funny is the stories we hear about the people who migrated to the US and how hard they say it is to live there compared to South Africa. No domestic workers or the number of farm workers compared to South Africa

But the reality is its such a tiny number of people who have left for the US, its become much more of a sensationalized story than a real one 

All the main Afrikaans groups in South Africa say that SA is there home and they not leaving 

[Gromnir]

Trump Says He ‘Aced’ a Cognitive Test. What Does That Really Mean?Experts say one popular test that the president might have taken is by no means definitive, or even diagnostic.

"Do medical societies recommend cognitive screenings?
"No. Such exams are not like mammograms for breast cancer and colonoscopies for colon cancer. With those tests, doctors can get a diagnosis and begin treatment.

"But they are only part of an assessment of the mental functioning of an older adult. It can be more valuable to ask family members or others who know the patient well whether the person has been inefficient at tasks they once did well, like negotiating a new route when driving or following a recipe."

"Screening tests like the MOCA cannot rule out declines in reasoning or memory, or difficulties with planning or judgment. The test is just too blunt an instrument, and for many high-functioning people, too easy.

"For that reason, dementia specialists say they would not make a diagnosis based on a screening exam like the MOCA."

btw, the test were original administered to trump in january 2018 shortly after an episode wherein the President were showing signs o' difficulty in speaking.

"Asked about a much-discussed episode in which the president seemed to slur his words during a televised speech in December (2017) about the Middle East, Dr. Jackson said that he and his team of a dozen specialists conducted several tests, including an ultrasound of his carotid arteries, to determine whether there might be a clinical explanation.

"Dr. Jackson said that the tests all were normal, leading him to believe that the slurred words might have been caused by Sudafed, a medicine for nasal congestion, that he prescribed for the president. He said Mr. Trump does not wear dentures “of any kind,” a popular theory on Twitter for the slurred words."

so, if the number o' specialists reviewing a case is significant...

again, biden is a red herring. irrelevant. trump had the test relative contemporaneous with a december 2017 speech which garnered much concern at the time. that said, am admitting having reviewed the video it seems positive pedestrian by donald's 2025 baseline standard. regardless, there were an obvious not-biden motivation for a doctor to administer the test.

and speaking o' his 2020 MoCA test, trump observed, "I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors,” Mr. Trump said. “And they were very surprised. They said, that’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did..."

...

a dementia test. but hey, the statement came straight from the horse's mouth, right?

trump has managed a kinda mass hypnosis in that most people has voluntarily disconnected any ordinary standards o' decency, intelligence and morality when reflecting 'pon trump behaviors and statements. how would any o' us ordinarily treat the self serving claims o' a pathological liar with literal thousands o' documented falsehoods to his name ranging from trivial golf score fabrication to pr0n star payoffs and even the most ridiculous and easily dismissed boasts such as the number o' floors in trump tower?  

have mentioned previous how post January 6, any accusation of tds sans irony is comical bold and deserving o’ brutal mockery, but zor using the derisive maga label in the context o’ the reliability of trump public utterances is exhibiting implausible credulousness which somehow managed to surprise us. 

when reflecting ‘pon trump’s improbable pride in his MoCA score, am faced with deciding whether it is more likely the President of the United States is so ignorant and divorced from reality that he genuine believes that acing a dementia test is praise worthy, or we must consider that trump is lying to the American people in an effort to explain why a doctor felt a dementia test was warranted for the most powerful man on the planet. curiously,  zor’s defense o' trump’s explanation forces us to consider almost the same choice o’ unfortunates. 

but again, insofar as mr. trump, how the hell has he managed to so complete and utter change standards and expectations? we observed already that, "am having no idea what were the real reason why trump got the test," but we sure as heck wouldn't give any weight to trump's claims recognizing his tortured relation with truth. imagine not trump and instead your annoying neighbor who were the pathological liar, and they were bragging about their sexual, athletic, intellectual prowess. would you believe 'em w/o real proof?

but let's say you somehow convince your self that corporal bone spurs and dr. feelgood are reliable sources regarding the motivations for the 2018 trump dementia test. the obvious alternative is that trump genuine believes that passing a dementia test (identify the elephant) is "very difficult" and praise worthy.

...

as grotesque as it might be, am gonna suggest americans is much better off with a President who reflexive lies than one who is honest taking pride in his dementia test results.

is not even one full year of trump's second term and we are in such a weird f'ing place, but somehow people have normalized it.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Lexx]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Do  you have no issue with being lied to for several years about Bidens mental state and how he was the official presidential  candidate of the worlds most powerful and influential country   until a few months before the election?

No issue with that?

Tbh, no. With Trump we get openly lied to every day. Sure you could argue they are more honest with their lies, since only idiots believe anything they say, but still... I'd rather have Biden with a competent team behind him than rambling sexist grandpa with his incompetent and rampant nepotism, looting the country at any chance he gets. 

Edited yesterday at 08:15 AM by Lexx

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Tbh, no. With Trump we get openly lied to every day. Sure you could argue they are more honest with their lies, since only idiots believe anything they say, but still... I'd rather have Biden with a competent team behind him than rambling sexist grandpa with his incompetent and rampant nepotism, looting the country at any chance he gets. 

Honestly, you would rather have  someone with full blown dementia as the US president than Trump?

You really dont like Trump 

But isnt it sad the low bar we have for world leaders, a choice between Trump or Biden in the US 

I blame the US voters, its there fault 

 

[BruceVC]

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/29/americas/hurricane-melissa-damage-jamaica-cuba-latam-intl

@Malcador

Terrible damage from the hurricane, do you have any family or friends impacted?

[Gromnir]

am so not embracing the biden v. trump cognitive race to the bottom. neither one 'o them shoulda' been running for President in to 2024. we mentioned multiple times how we wouldn't trust either one 'o them behind the wheel o' a car or working a gas stove, so why on earth would we think they were up to handling the office o' President?

am thinking it's possible that most o' the biden team had genuine convinced themselves that he could still handle the duties of President in 2024, 'cause people are capable o' all kinda self-delusion and goal post shifting when confronted with tough choices. what am not able to accept is that the biden folks thought joe could manage another four years, and if that is the case, then multiple people shoulda' stepped forward to insist on a traditional primary. should never have needed get to the debate performance. am not letting the biden folks off the hook. they doomed democrats by not convincing biden to step away and let somebody else be the democrat candidate.

unlike biden, trump is the one who shows legit signs o' dementia as 'posed to just old age, but so what? biden were looking very old, too old to be President. nevertheless, biden weren't a threat to democracy who had already tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. biden were not a convicted felon who had, according to grand jury testimony of his own lawyers, attempted to prevent federal agents from retrieving top secret documents from mar-a-lago where he directed multiple persons to destroy evidence o' his interaction with those documents. biden were never found liable for sexual assault/digital rape. biden weren't talking about the enemy within and a mass deportation o' 20 million people, which is the approximate population of ny state. etc.

elections is usually a lesser of evils choice. the thing is, biden were old and NOT on the ballot at the time of the election. we didn't much like kamala harris either, but compared to trump? even if all the republican fever dreams 'bout harris were born out, the worst case scenario for 2025 is... what exact? with a republican house, senate and this Court, harris wouldn't have been executive ordering her way to through the charred embers of the Constitution even if she had immunity from prosecution. so maybe a few more trans athletes competing in girls/women's sports? economically, what could she have done that were worse than trump's tariffs idiocy?

and again, am a fiscal conservative, so am most certain not embracing many o' the progressive suggestions regarding economic change, but the US did better than virtual the rest o' the world post pandemic and is not as if the biden folks had implemented a communist takeover while nobody were looking. with biden out of the race and none o' those pesky age/capacity concerns at play with harris, it were difficult for us to see why a traditional free market conservative would vote for trump instead o' harris... even if we were able to ignore the rape, felonies, obstruction, mass deportation and "enemy within" crap from trump, which we couldn't. 

but yeah, the biden folks had to know he weren't fit to be President for another four years... and?  

HA! Good Fun!

Edited yesterday at 09:03 AM by Gromnir

[BruceVC]

You guys seem to forget that Trump is not in terrible  physical shape, look how he was dancing in Malaysia. He has got the moves baby 

 

 

[Lexx]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Honestly, you would rather have  someone with full blown dementia as the US president than Trump?

You really dont like Trump 

But isnt it sad the low bar we have for world leaders, a choice between Trump or Biden in the US 

I blame the US voters, its there fault 

 

You make the mistake of thinking that Trump is the only one who is the problem here. It's all the people behind Trump that are the problem. You can't compare this with the Biden side, like, at all. It's pure and unfiltered greed. 

If Trump would die tomorrow, nothing would change. They'll just turn him into this mystical godlike figure and keep on keeping on. You have to get rid of the entire upper echelon of the GOP and I doubt that's ever going to happen.

That said, I really need to stop engaging with you when it comes to Trump. Your incredibly consistent naïveté (I googled how to write that, I think it's a nice word) everything Trump related gives me serious rage. That's master level political trolling.

Edited 22 hours ago by Lexx

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Im not Afrikaans so it doesnt apply to me 

 

What is funny is the stories we hear about the people who migrated to the US and how hard they say it is to live there compared to South Africa. No domestic workers or the number of farm workers compared to South Africa

But the reality is its such a tiny number of people who have left for the US, its become much more of a sensationalized story than a real one 

All the main Afrikaans groups in South Africa say that SA is there home and they not leaving 

You're white. That's the part that counts to Miller, who is running the country in this area.

Funny, people warned about this. But I guess some people will watch someone load a gun in front of them and do nothing until the trigger is pulled.

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Malcador

[Malcador]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article312722642.html

Hegseth probably will record some super lethal masculine speech for this operation.

Probably might go smoothly? Machado to slide in and be a good vassal?