The first words out of her mouth were, "He looks so old!" And that's really all you need to know about the first (and possibly last) presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — the initial impressions of a fourth-grade girl in Brooklyn who has never watched a debate in her life. This was not an example of the unacknowledged truth slipping from the mouth of babes; it was, rather, a universal response, a shattering moment that has upended the race and led to a swell of calls for Biden to step aside. And there is a part of me that regrets that she had to experience it.

There is, too, a part of me that's glad she did. I vaguely remember the first debate I ever watched, between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, way back in the mists of time, during a visit to relatives in Washington, D.C. I naturally asked who we were supposed to be rooting for. "We're Democrats," my father said, in a tone that was tinged with disapproval, as if to even consider voting for the Republican was tantamount to betrayal of our values and ideals — of who we were. That is about all I remember from that night, pretty typical fare for a family of Irish American liberals on the East Coast. (For a taste of my family's politics, I recently attended a gathering where one of my uncles was wearing an actual "Free on Wednesdays" campaign T-shirt, which I had never before seen in the wild.) Yet it was also formative, for this is in fact how political and tribal identities are formed, around the sepia glow of a television set, all of us nervously praying this guy named Dukakis trounces this other guy named Bush.

In addition to indoctrinating my daughter into a lifetime of frustration and disappointment — after last night, I was reminded of the banners hanging at The Simpsons version of the DNC: "We Hate Life and Ourselves" and "We Can't Govern" — I also wanted to introduce her to the strange glories of American democracy at work, to see for herself the lurid spectacle that has long fascinated me and that somewhat unexpectedly has become the focus of my career. The debate is a civics lesson, the democratic process boiled down to the fundamentals of two opponents arguing a point before an audience of voters, except it is laced with the sort of gladiatorial showmanship that makes politics absurd and stupid and riveting — that makes it entertainment. I wanted to show her that an interest in politics could be fun.

Except this was the opposite of fun. From the very moment Biden opened his mouth, emitting a vaporous whisper from the ancient cave of his throat, I started to groan on the couch. "What's the matter?" she asked. She would ask this question again and again, as I writhed and clutched my head in response to Biden balking for what seemed like small eternities between words, his sentences petering out into dribbles of mangled thought. "It's not supposed to be like this" is what I kept saying by way of explanation, though she had no way of understanding how it was supposed to be. Even worse, in my estimation, were the moments when Biden wasn't speaking, when Trump would with great verve and conviction utter every insane and hateful thing in his head, and the split screen showed Biden staring unblinking into the distance, as if he were caught in a net of his own dreams, which is another way of saying the net of his old age.

My daughter went to bed before the debate was over, and the next morning, the first thing she said was: "Who won?" Well, Trump did, I told her, and his victory was so decisive that now we'll have to figure out whether Biden can continue at the top of the ticket. She dropped her own Simpsons reference, saying Biden could be like Mr. Burns in the episode where he gets injections that let him live forever but force him to say "I bring you love" in a high-pitched voice. In fact, I said, a colleague of mine said she would rather have Undead Biden than Alive-and-Breathing Trump in the White House, and naturally I feel the same, but that it didn't seem responsible to vote for someone who has so manifestly deteriorated in the last four years and would no doubt deteriorate even further in the next four. And so the morning went, which would seem like evidence that letting her watch the debate was, overall, a net positive, both in terms of real-world knowledge won and father-and-daughter bonding.

But there was a moment where she was watching these two men onscreen that simply felt wrong, for lack of a better word. There was the unmediated exposure to Trump, of course, which always feels like playing with some radioactive substance. But it was also dismaying to see a young person witness Biden falter in such humiliating fashion, as if she were unwittingly watching a form of abuse. How could these two senile creatures squabbling about golf be our only options? How could the Democrats have let this happen? I kept telling her, "It's not supposed to be like this," but this is how it is. And worse — for people like us, anyway, who have been led to believe we are connected in some deep and important way to the Democrats — this is who we are.

!chuds

I can't believe nobody has made this yet.

It would be like a typical "404 NOT FOUND" error screen...

...except with a frowning Marsey and the message saying "404 DRAMA NOT FOUND".

One of you, get on this.

closed

!football

!eurochads

@ObamaBinLaden

/h/Love4FatPeople2 please post to this sub and join

I know, I know. The BBC is not a reliable source, cope.

I have no idea why they are doing this but former commie leader and American hater Evo Morales has denounced it so it must be a good thing. Hopefully it leads to a lot of helicopter rides for leftist scum.

Cute twinks of reddit clutch pearls

https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1dp8h9v/bolivia_presidential_palace_stormed_in_apparent/

Most stable South American shithole

/r/Bolivia for those who speak lettuce picker

https://old.reddit.com/r/BOLIVIA/comments/1dp75m6/que_esta_pasando/

People are, of course, 100% on board with this and not being dramatic at all

Not sure exactly what's going on, but a bunch of the early power users are insane creeps I think? The baddies include people called anonsee and kairi as well as pedos and zoophiles if anyone wants to try find the goss.

examples of spicy stuff:

• https://aegis.blue/Notice+of+Labeler+Termination

• https://bsky.app/profile/bitdizzy.bsky.social/post/3kvmg42btrs27

• https://bsky.app/profile/himboblacksmith.bsky.social/post/3kvmbq2eedc2i

• 

P.S. I object to bard-posting on principle, but penny remains an active user

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/06/26/21/86613891-13503507-image-m-21_1719432446080.jpg

Tatjana Strobel, 53, a published author, revealed she took ayahuasca every other day over three months. She described the experience as like a 'Netflix series' of her previous lives

"Chevron has proved to be fundamentally misguided."

"Experience has also shown that Chevron is unworkable." pic.twitter.com/ubc297hivO

— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) June 28, 2024

The Chevron doctrine stems from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984). It established a legal test for determining when courts should defer to a federal agency's interpretation of a statute that it administers. The doctrine involves a two-step process:

Step One: The court asks whether the statute's language is clear and unambiguous regarding the issue at hand. If it is, the court must follow the statute's plain meaning.

Step Two: If the statute is ambiguous, the court then considers whether the agency's interpretation is "reasonable" or "permissible." If the agency's interpretation meets this standard, the court defers to the agency's expertise.

This doctrine recognizes the expertise and policy-making prerogatives of administrative agencies and allows them to fill in the details of broad legislative frameworks.

TLDR: fed agencies can't make up rules

https://old.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1do62wt/all_the_denver_basic_income_project_is_a_failure/

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/64f507a995b636019ef8853a/t/6671a15eec7a812dee108e7c/1718722914185/FINAL_DBIP+Year+One+Quantitative+Research+Report.pdf

They organized the recipients in the following groups, "Eligible applicants were randomly assigned to one of three payment groups: A) $1,000 a month for 12 months, for a total of $12,000 in a year; B) $6,500 upon enrollment and $500 a month for the subsequent 11 months, for a total of $12,000 in a year, C) $50 a month for 12 months, for a total of $600 in a year."

This is odd, why don't they have a control group that received $0 per month? Could it be that they knew most of these people would find housing of their own volition regardless of the payment provided, and that by excluding an actual control group, they don't have to compare against the null results???

Maybe by providing $50/month to people that would find housing anyway, they could claim that participants showed these incredible improvements (ignoring the fact that the payments are not the reason why)?!?!? No, that would be disingenuous! Leftists wouldn't do such a thing!!!

Actually, that's exactly what's going on here. If you look at Figure 16 on page 27, it turns out that the $1000/mo payment is statistically no more likely to reduce the probability of a participant being unhoused as compared to the $50/mo payment. Does anyone actually believe that $50/mo is enough to solve homelessness? No, that's silly.

Leftists want to believe that UBI will work SO BADLY that they take taxpayer money, funnel it to a group of homeless people they know do not need it (they deliberately chose participants without disabilities and illness), construct a purposely deceptive "study" based on this scientifically unsound process, and then plaster the "promising results" all over the internet, using leftist propaganda accounts on X to trick people.

!peakpoors