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This is an area where I don't really know enough to comment, so I am grateful for your observations.

I hope we are all edified and enlightened by this perfunctory non-analysis of the PRODIGY brand that tells us nothing beyond where it supposedly ended up, offers no insight as to how it got there, and is given by someone who has never had anything but derisive disdain for PRODIGY sight unseen.

This person has nothing to say about PRODIGY beyond presumptions, assumptions, and a pathological need to voice their barely-veiled scorn for PRODIGY (which they have never even watched) at every opportunity. They need to reiterate that their scorn is shared by the people who funded it. They haven't watched PRODIGY, but any time it comes up, they really need to remind us that they didn't watch it and have total contempt for it in order to act out their incredibly obvious narcissistic personality disorder.

In reality, a lot happens before a show or a movie is viewed as something on which a streamer or a studio should take a writeoff, and to present PRODIGY's undermarketing as a tax avoidance measure is simplistic, trite, and to repeat this claim demonstrates a painful ignorance of co-production, demographic targeting, brand management, marketing, and distribution -- all of which contributed to PRODIGY's narrow reach, all of which happened before Paramount+ detached themselves from the series.

BATGIRL was written off for a lot of reasons beyond the tax dodge, which included WB realizing that whether or not James Gunn accepted the job of running DC, their original post-FLASH movie plans were not going to happen and BATGIRL was the premiere of a run of films that wouldn't go past BATGIRL.

And the PRODIGY writeoff was the result of circumstances that took place well-before Paramount+ washed their hands of PRODIGY. To claim all explanations are in the writeoff itself is simplistic and myopic. The writeoff itself does not explain what went wrong, it was merely one incident along the way to a Netflix burnoff.

I've been looking into this further and from what I can tell, part of the issue is the partnership between Nickelodeon Animation Studios and CBS boxed in how the show could be marketed. The expectation was that PRODIGY was going to be a niche-within-a-niche show; a show for STAR TREK fans who were extremely young STAR TREK fans.

But the show that ended up being recorded and animated ended up having significantly more mainstream appeal to all ages than was expected of a children's TV series.

The creators had underpromised but overdelivered, producing a show that, due to the quality of their work and the cleverness of their simplification/distillation of STAR TREK, could have as much appeal to a general audience as opposed to only children and STAR TREK fans.

Unfortunately, the show had already been assigned a marketing strategy that was treating PRODIGY like the animated JAMES BOND JR. of the franchise, failing to realize that this supposedly niche-within-a-niche series was actually good enough to sell as the flagship show. This unfortunate positioning made it an easy target for a tax writeoff.

There is more to explore on this and I'm eager to delve into it further, if only to reinforce what Slider_Quinn21 saw: PRODIGY is something special and turned out to be far more than what its investors expected it to be.

I am not qualified to review how the new economic developments are going to impact the election and am waiting on more news.

This was something Simon Rosenberg said, speculatively, on Twitter. I can't find his tweet now, but his view was that Trump has gained much of what he sought from re-winning: immunity and funding for his legal battles.

It wouldn't be up to President Kamala Harris to prosecute Trump; it's entirely on an independent Department of Justice. That said, I would expect that if Harris is elected, she'll fire Merrick Garland for incompetence and seek to appoint someone more driven.

Yes, we should all value a certain someone's valuation of PRODIGY after their incisive, analytical opinions on it so far.

And we should all trust an assessment of PRODIGY's brand and marketing potential when it comes from someone who has a laughably obvious prejudice and bias towards it without ever bothering to watch it.

Also, do you have an explanation for your bizarre response on August 13, 2023?

You wrote about the SNW musical:

I responded:

You responded with a truly peculiar remark:

Except the season finale... didn't change Chapel and Spock's breakup and merely had a tender moment of rescue for them before Chapel left for her new job with Dr. Roger Korby to whom she is engaged to be married by the time of THE ORIGINAL SERIES (and Korby has been cast for Season 3 of SNW). And Spock was still publicly humiliated before his shipmates. Which means the missive on Chapel/Spock was not rendered moot at all.

So what exactly were you trying to say a year ago? Was there any information or reasoning behind your response? Or was it just derision and scorn for the sake of it?

(I would like to wager $5 USD that any response will include at least one all caps passage, enraged ranting, and something or other about Wil Wheaton. Although to whom I'd pay the $5, I'm not sure... )

PRODIGY is really good. I don't understand how Paramount + could undervalue this show.

**

THE ORVILLE is indeed going to start production -- but not filming -- of Season 4 in January 2025:
https://bleedingcool.com/tv/the-orville … l-podcast/

But who will actually be in it? Who will write, direct and produce it?

At this point, the January start is merely to assemble crew, start on writing, finalize cast contracts, devise shooting schedules -- and given that Seth MacFarlane is working on another show, it's impossible to say when scripts will be ready and filming will begin. However, there will be a fourth season and Seth MacFarlane will be in at least a few episodes while overseeing all of them.

I promised RussianCabbie that I would read the new X-Files novel and review it. Well:

The X-Files: Perihelion is a novel by Claudia Gray set after the events of Season 11. Overall: it's an effective season premiere story doing what every season premiere should do: it re-establishes the characters, concept, formula and setting; it addresses the gap of time between the last installment and this one; it sets up the arcs for the stories to come; it identifies which previous story arcs are in play for this season; it lays the concerns of the previous season to rest.

Opening Act

However, it's the first installment of a larger story ending with Mulder and Scully preparing to take on the new threat for the rest of this run of books -- except Perihelion is the only X-Files novel that's been announced. There is no certainty that this novel is going to be anything more than an opening act for a larger storyline that may or may not be completed. It's like filming season opener of The X-Files and broadcasting it with no announced plans to film the rest of the season, or in this case, commission and write the rest of the books.

From TV to Print

All in all, Gray does a good job of picking up the pieces and handling the transition of The X-Files from live action television to prose. Her grasp of Mulder and Scully is more verbose than a TV performance... but less verbose than, say, one of Chris Carter's florid voiceover monologues. Gray establishes that while it has been three to four months since the 2018 Season 11 finale (as a pregnant Scully is starting to show slightly), the book is still set in 2023 - 2024 (as established by continuity and cultural references).

Picking up the Pieces

Gray follows up on Walter Skinner's situation after he was run over by a car in Season 11. Gray provides an amusing rationale for why the FBI urgently reinstates Mulder and Scully: since "My Struggle IV", the bureau has been overrun with terrifying and disturbing cases that absolutely no FBI agent wants to deal with.

Gray establishes that despite Mulder and Scully having been circling each other for 30 years and now having moved back in together, their relationship remains as challenging and difficult as ever, with Mulder having never settled into his new bedroom due to thinking he'd eventually share Scully's room with her and then realizing he's been overoptimistic.

Gray's humour is subtle, low-key and guarded with many jokes not being played as comedy, maintaining the aloof, low-key tone of the show. Gray also recontextualizes Scully declaring at the end of "My Struggle IV" that she no longer considers William to be her son on the grounds that he was an experiment and some form of artificial insemination and not Mulder's offspring, presenting it as a coping reaction of grief and loss rather than a genuine sentiment.

Breaking Tradition

Where Gray creates a massive break with the tone of the TV show, however, is the myth-arc. Perihelion features the most overt manifestation of science fiction superpowers that I have personally seen in this franchise. Perihelion establishes that the mythology going forward is about dark forces marshalling supersoldiers whose abilities are overtly those of what you would see onscreen in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, with some being threats to Mulder and Scully and some being allies.

The prominent display of superpowers is a far cry from how the TV show generally kept the paranormal and supernatural and science fiction at a guardedly distant distance (for budgetary reasons and to maintain the visual look of a police procedural).

Admittedly, Mulder and Scully have been at the periphery of sci-fi aliens and superhumans for 30 years; Gray may be well within reason to stop playing coy. Even so, this is a very distinct shift away from the usual content restrictions of The X-Files and makes Perihelion less like the original TV show and more like Fringe or a 2000s-era X-Men film from FOX.

Specificity Over Obscurity

Gray also breaks with the established narrative style of the mythology. Where the mythology on the TV show was presented as mysterious and obscure (and often frustratingly contradictory and vague), Gray is overt and specific. Gray lays out very clearly: what the new conspiracy group wants, what their plans are, the main players in this organization, and the overall motivations of most of the key figures.

This clarity may feel mismatched and completely at odds with what The X-Files was as a TV show. Alternatively, it may feel welcome and appreciated after the confusion of Colonization and the Spartan Virus and Project Crossroads and William, each item there retconning a previous story element. I am somewhere in the middle.

Turning the Page

In addition, Gray makes no attempt to reconcile Colonization with the Spartan Virus or the Spartan Virus with Project Crossroads or to address any of the continuity confusion from Season 10 retconning Seasons 1-  9 or Season 11 retconning Season 10. Gray instead declares unambiguously and several times: the Syndicate is defeated. Whatever their plans were (Colonization, Spartan Virus, something or other with William) -- those plans are over and done with.

I considered this to be a relief and a release from the shackles of the past. Not every reader will feel the same way.

Gray also definitively and firmly establishes that the Cigarette Smoking Man is no longer on this mortal coil, and that the page has turned on whatever it was he was or wasn't doing. The old myth-arc is over. The new and specific and unambiguous myth-arc will be the mythology going forward.

However, it's very clear that Gray's interest in The X-Files mythology is more an obligation to be addressed diligently rather than anything resembling a lifelong passion. Instead, Gray's ardent devotion and loyalty is to Mulder and Scully.

Professional MSR

Gray explores every layer of their relationship with loving warmth and a subtly comedic criticism, observing their perpetual patterns: friendship and avoidance, passion and denial, cohabitation and distance, trust and secrecy. Gray's portrayal of Mulder and Scully's relationship is far more in-depth and nuanced than simply seeing them as the believer and the skeptic.

Gray delves into how every aspect of how their relationship affects their professional lives, their personal diets, their approaches to health care, their attitudes to home decor. Gray explores layer upon layer of the joyful nightmare that is Mulder and Scully's association. The Mulder/Scully dynamic is so central to Gray's vision of The X-Files that the mythology, well-handled or not, is merely one of many beachheads in the Mulder and Scully relationship.

Unpromised and Uncertain

The conclusion of Perihelion is, frustratingly but somewhat understandably, not a conclusion to overall arc. Instead, it is a lead-in to an ongoing series of X-Files novels, none of which have at this writing been announced, none of which are guaranteed to ever exist.

At $28 USD, Perihelion is a steep investment when a Disney+ subscription or a movie ticket costs less; it's hard to say how well the book needs to sell in order to justify a sequel. Disney's recent attempt at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Audible series, Slayers, didn't generate sufficient return for a follow-up.

The X-Files comic books from IDW actually sold worse when the show was airing its revival seasons to the point where the show's brief return ended up ending the comic book tie-in line. And after Season 10 of The X-Files rendered the supposedly canon IDW publishing line out of continuity, there is no way to seriously claim that Perihelion is canon. A revival with showrunner Ryan Coogler is in development and has not, despite speculation, established whether it's a sequel to the TV series or a reboot.

There is the risk that Perihelion will be a beginning with no middle or end... which makes it hard for me to say that any X-Files fan should pay $28 for what's effectively Chapter 1 with no promise of Chapters 2 - 6 to come.

Professional and Enjoyable

But, setting that aside, Claudia Gray was assigned to write an X-Files novel that picked up the pieces after Season 11 and set a stage for subsequent stories, and she has produced a professional, enjoyable product that achieves her assignment. If there is no sequel, I will, of course, expect that Disney issue every reader a full refund and a letter of apology from Mickey Mouse.

That's an opinion. The actual reality: any concept is sellable.

It's all a matter of how a creator uses the concept, how the creator infuses it with relevance, topicality, imagination, emotion, characterization, and meaning. There is no such thing as a bad idea or an outdated idea or a dumb idea, just an idea that is misused, misapplied or unfulfilled.

For a practical example: the average person may think the steam engine is "outdated" and "dumb" in the twenty-first century. While that use case is dated, the ideas within steam energy remain essential: steam transfers heat to spin turbine blades in any modern power plant; it's essential for food processing; it creates vacuum conditions to test orbital components for satellites. Steam maintains uniform temperature in pipelines, dries concrete and stores thermal energy.

If we enjoyed any canned food recently, it was batch-sanitized in a pressure cooker using steam. If we are using electricity, we are depending on a modern power plant which, whether nuclear or oil or coal, turns water into steam for turbine rotation and electrical generation.

I concede: this discussion isn't about steam. It's about the Fantastic Four and responding to the remark: "... a completely unsellable franchise, The Fantastic Four. Their powers are so outdated and dumb."

Well, the Fantastic Four's concept is that they are a family of superheroes. This concept of the superhero family has in fact proven to be current, clever and extremely profitable: THE INCREDIBLES (2004) is a movie about a superhero family: it is one of the greatest movies ever made both in terms of writing, performance and visual realization. THE INCREDIBLES (2018) grossed $1.2 billion worldwide. The family of superheroes concept is extremely sellable.

The Fantastic Four's powers are only outdated if they are used in an outdated way, and they don't have to be. Reed Richards' power of stretching any part of his physiology means that he can stretch his brain, rework his organs and adapt to any physical threat or intellectual challenge.

Sue Storm's power is to bend energy: she casts energy fields that can manipulate seemingly any form of energy whether to deflect or refract or convert: that energy includes light, gravity, force, and potentially more. The invisibility is merely the most immediate application of her ability.

Johnny Storm's power is to manipulate combustion: the capacity to control thermodynamics means control of any chemical reaction. It means the ability to control cell biology, equilibrium and momentum, and any aspect of internal or external chemistry.

Ben Grimm's superstrength is less scientifically complex, but his appearance has made him an icon of body dysmorphia, an extremely present and relevant concern as society becomes more aware of transgender identity and rights.

The Fantastic Four's powers are not outdated or dumb. However, a person's creative application of their powers might be narrow, unimaginative, limited, myopic, small and closed-minded.

An unimaginative person might reduce Reed to stretching instead of contemplating his tensile biology and intellect and the applications of tractable physiology (like adjusting his lungs to breathe oxygen in water or to convert himself to a fluid form). They might see Sue only as an invisible girl instead of exploring her ability to bend and refract light and other forms of energy (such as turning light into force and blades or sound into momentum and gravitational lift).

They might see Johnny as a fire-defined superhero instead of considering the power of remote control of chemical reactions (where someone with this power could make someone suffocate by reversing cellular respiration or electrocute them by converting the body's chemical energy into electrical power).

They might see Ben as an aggressive rock monster instead of a symbol of feeling at odds with your own body.

Tim Story's FANTASTIC FOUR movies were adequate but lacking in imagination. Josh Trank's FANTASTIC FOUR movie failed critically and financially, but it was not an example of the concept being "outdated", "dumb" or "unsellable"; it was an example of how it was foolish for a studio to film a movie with a script that was not only unfinished but written for a budget that the studio reduced mere days before production began.

That's an opinion based on speculation; until there is an actual movie to watch, it is a presumptive assumption.

Here's an objective truth: Robert Downey Jr. is widely regarded as the greatest living actor of his generation. He is beloved. Now he wants to take on the challenge of being hated in the role of Dr. Doom. A doubtful person may feel the audience won't see him as anyone Stark. I say that the master thespian is eager for the challenge.

Could he fail? Of course. But Robert Downey Jr. has failed at many things and most things in his life, and his success in recent decades has been an interesting fourth act after many disasters. If he fails... I'd still be interested to see him do that.

Here's another objective truth: the Marvel FANTASTIC FOUR could certainly turn out "outdated" or "dumb" or "unsellable". Projects can fall short. But if the film turns out to be "outdated", "dumb" or "unsellable", it won't be due to the underlying concept of a superhero family.

No character or concept is 'unsellable'; it's merely that creators may sometimes fail to sell it because their approach did not fully explore the inherent possibilities in a compelling way, or because their approach was out of step with the viewing climate of the era, or because their storytelling craft was impaired, or because the marketing department sold it to an unreceptive audience.

I encourage people to never think of ideas as too old or stupid or useless, especially your own. What's "outdated", "dumb" or "unsellable" is more likely the attitude of the person rather than the idea itself.

Ideas are not good or bad in themselves; it is how they are applied and executed that should be evaluated. Even the idea of fascism is valuable; if we read MEIN KAMPF with the right mindset, we can learn to identify and battle authoritarianism and hatred.

I will end by noting that anyone on this board is quite keen on a certain quantum quartet, a makeshift family of science heroes, and the Fantastic Four are genre-defining science heroes. Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo look on in respectful envy at Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben.

I have never seen THE BOYs. Sorry. On the subject of another show I've never seen:

How does Slider_Quinn21 feel that there will be another new DEXTER show set after NEW BLOOD that resurrects Dexter and features Michael C. Hall?

https://nerdist.com/article/michael-c-h … n-prequel/

I have never seen the show. But I have always been absurdly interested in what Slider_Quinn21 thinks of it. Having skimmed an article, the consensus is that DEXTER lost its way in later seasons when the concept (serial killer fights crime, tries not to get caught) had exhausted nearly every variation. The original showrunner, Clyde Phillips, left. In his absence, the show became stale while the writers were unwilling to cross the line into Dexter from being caught and facing consequences. As a result, the show had explored Dexter as much as it could, wasn't willing to move to the next chapter (exposure), and just stalled and stopped until cancellation. Slider_Quinn21 didn't hate it to the degree that a lot of DEXTER's fans seemed to, but acknowledges that the quality slipped, possibly for entirely different reasons. The DEXTER finale was loathed by everyone except Slider_Quinn21.

Then came a mini-series, NEW BLOOD. Original showrunner Clyde Phillips returned and was finally willing to cross the line, expose Dexter's 'morality' as a self-serving sham, have Dexter kill an innocent person -- and then Phillips killed Dexter off. This was the end. Except that now, it's not.

However, there is one thing that might be reassuring: Clyde Phillips made the announcement that Dexter would return in RESURRECTION. He would not make the announcement if he weren't working on it, and his absence is where the original show slipped and the mini-series rebounded. So that's something.

I have never and will probably never watch the show, and I only care about DEXTER as far as knowing what Slider_Quinn21 thinks about it. But I strangely care a lot.

The timeline of the FOX X-Men universe is one of the most muddled in existence: in certain movies, characters are too young or shouldn't have been born yet; some characters are duplicated; and backstories don't seem to line up. I think I can offer an explanation: time travel and altering history in X-Men doesn't result in linear branching, but instead, intersecting timelines.

But let's go through the biggest timeline problems first.

The Originals

The first four X-Men films (X-MEN, X2, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and the prequel X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) offer a reasonably cohesive sequence of events for the X-Men from 1979 to 2006 (with flashbacks for Wolverine going back to 1832).

However, beginning with FIRST CLASS (2011), set in the 1960s, some mild gaffes emerge: Xavier and Mystique didn't acknowledge each other in first three films but are now adoptive siblings in this prequel. FIRST CLASS also features Moira MacTaggert and Emma Frost as adult women in the 1960s... but an adult Moira was seen in the 2006 THE LAST STAND and a teen Emma was in the 1979-set X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE film.

The first meeting of Magneto and Xavier as adults does not match Xavier saying he met Magneto as a teenager and saying Magneto helped Xavier build Cerebro. And when Xavier uses Cerebro to find mutants, he sees children who look like Cyclops, Storm and Jean Grey -- who, being in their 20s and 30s in the first three X-MEN films set in the 2000s, should not even have been born yet in the 1960s (although the presence of an 18 year old Cyclops in the 1979 ORIGINS movie confuses this).

THE WOLVERINE (2013) doesn't seem to have any continuity issues with previous films, being focused on Wolverine, although Professor Xavier is shown to be alive and in his own body when THE LAST STAND implied that he had been put into someone else's body.

First Class: Reboot or Prequel?

The intention was for FIRST CLASS to be a reboot with Easter eggs cameos from the previous film series, but the sequel DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2014) rescinds this. DAYS OF FUTURE PAST features the original cast of the first three films and the FIRST CLASS cast, making FIRST CLASS a prequel, timeline be damned. DAYS OF FUTURE PAST also shows Professor Xavier alive as he was in THE WOLVERINE with no explanation, THE LAST STAND be damned.

The end of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST shows a bright future for mutantkind in the year 2024. The original film actors are used to play the 2024 selves of the prequel actors: James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Xavier and Magneto in 1973 will indeed become Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen by the 2000s, and the presence of James Marsden and Famke Janssen as Scott and Jean establishes that the child versions glimpsed in FIRST CLASS will become the adult versions of the original films.

Too Young or Not Yet Born

However, with the next X-Men film, APOCALYPSE (2016), we hit a strange situation: it's set in 1983 and features Cyclops, Storm, Jean and Nightcrawler as teenagers, but 1983 is about a decade too early; they would have been a decade older in the original films if they were teens in the 1980s. This might be dismissed as the original cast not playing their actual ages.

But even more peculiar: the winged mutant Angel is a teenager in 1983 -- but the character was already in the 2003-set THE LAST STAND, and he was a teenager there too. At this point, APOCALYPSE is showing characters in 1983 who should either be much younger or shouldn't even exist yet, and there's no reason why the time travel adventure of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST would make people exist earlier and still synchronize with the 2024 happy ending of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.

That said, X-MEN (2000) claims to be set in "the near future", not 2000, but claiming it takes place after 2000 would mean that the APOCALYPSE characters should be even younger.

Then we come to the 2016 DEADPOOL movie which features a version of Deadpool that is separate from the version seen in X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE. In addition, Colossus, who previously appeared as a teenager in X-2 (2003), is shown as an adult in this 2016 film, but Colossus now has a heavy Russian accent. Presumably, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST meant that Deadpool and Colossus had different lives, and these contradictions are justified.

The Logan Outlier

The next continuity peculiarity is LOGAN, a 2017 film set in 2029 which tells the story of Wolverine's death. The movie confusingly claims that no new mutants have been born since 2004 thanks to X-gene suppressants in the food supply, and that all the X-Men aside from Xavier and Logan are dead due to Xavier losing control of his powers. This simply does not track with the DAYS OF FUTURE PAST 2024 ending showing mutant children as young as 10 at the X-Mansion, and Wolverine and Xavier are made up to look much older than five years.

There doesn't seem to be any explanation for how Wolverine's mutant powers and healing factor, as strong as ever in even in the dark future of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST's 2023, is suddenly failing in 2029 when Logan has been alive since 1845 and healed from all injuries. (We'll come back to this later.)

Director James Mangold insisted that LOGAN was set after DAYS OF FUTURE PAST while actor Hugh Jackman said that LOGAN was set in a parallel timeline.

Then we come to DARK PHOENIX (2019), set in 1992... where Xavier and Magneto still look like the youthful James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender even though we're only eight years away from the 2000-set X-MEN movie where they looked like Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. Xavier and Magneto are far too young and Scott and Jean are a little too young. McAvoy and Fassbender were playing the 60s versions of Xavier and Magneto in FIRST CLASS (2011), and have only aged eight years by DARK PHOENIX (2019) while the 2019 film is set three decades after FIRST CLASS.

Too Early or Too Soon?

DEADPOOL II further confuses things: set in 2018, we see Deadpool exploring the X-Mansion wondering where the X-Men are. One shot of the X-Men team shows that they're avoiding him -- and the shot shows the young X-Men of APOCALYPSE and DARK PHOENIX when the 2018 film should in fact show the adult cast of the original three movies. Also strangely, despite DEADPOOL II being set in 2018, Deadpool refers to the death of Wolverine in LOGAN which was established as 2029.

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (2024) further confuses things: set in 2024, it declares that the events of LOGAN and Wolverine's death have already happened, even though this third Deadpool film is set five years too early for Logan to be dead.

Furthermore, referring to the events of LOGAN as being in the past, the second and third Deadpool movies both feature Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Colossus, Yukio, all X-Men at Professor Xavier's school. This is despite LOGAN declaring that all of Xavier's students were dead, that no X-Men aside from Wolverine and the Professor were still alive, and the X-Mansion was no longer in operation. This simply doesn't track with all three Deadpool films presenting the X-Men as being at their 1970s - 1990s ages (somehow) and with the X-Men being very much an active superhero team and school.

What the hell is going on here?

Why do the prequels fail to line up with the originals? Why are characters born too early in the prequels? Why are characters duplicated? How can mutant births have been suppressed since 2004 when the X-Mansion is filled with young teen mutants in 2024? How can the X-Men be dead and their team shut down in LOGAN only for the second and third Deadpool films to refer to Logan's death as a past event while featuring an active X-Mansion and three young X-students?

Time Travel

The answer seems to be in two parts. First: there's time travel in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST to change the future. And in DEADPOOL II (2018), Deadpool gets his hands on a time machine which sends him to alternate timelines as well as back and forth on his timeline. He saves his girlfriend Vanessa and his friend Peter from death. He then crosses into a parallel universe and shoots actor Ryan Reynolds dead before Reynolds can perform in the GREEN LANTERN movie. He crosses into the X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE film and kills his alternate counterpart.

In the extended cut, Deadpool then goes back to 1889 and attempts to kill an infant Adolf Hitler in a maternity ward. Deadpool has clearly been engaged in extensive changes to the timeline (whatever the hell that timeline even is).

There's a lot of time travel here, and non linear thinking offers a theory.

Batman Displays His Knowledge

And in a separate universe, those of us who watched THE FLASH (2023) were treated to an interesting scene where Batman (Michael Keaton) explains time travel to Barry Allen.

BATMAN: "You're from an alternate timeline?"

BARRY: "Yes."

BATMAN: "In which you and I are friends?"

BARRY: "Yeah, you're -- you're, like, probably my best friend."

BATMAN: "Yeah?"

BARRY: "Well, but you're a bit -- You're, uh... Chronologically different. Older. And that-- that's what I can't understand; I traveled back in time from here to here, and yet somehow, everything's all changed... back here. Like, when you were born, so --"

BATMAN: "Well, time isn't linear, right?"

BARRY: "Right."

BATMAN: "At some point, you probably saw a movie that told you that if you went back and changed the past, you'd create a kind of a branched timeline."

(Batman holds up two strands of uncooked spaghetti. He places them on the table, side by side in parallel.)

BATMAN: "New present. (lightly bending the second strand to curve away from the first, creating a Y shape) And new future."

BARRY: "Yeah."

BATMAN: "Well, time doesn't work like that. That's not how time works. When you go back and change the past, you create a fulcrum."

(Batman re-positions the spaghetti so that instead of forming a Y-shape, they now intersect on the table and form an X-shape.)

BATMAN: "You put yourself on a whole 'nother strand of spaghetti. New future. New past. It's retrocausal. Echo goes both ways. Actually, echoes many ways. What you did was: you changed the future. And you changed the past. If a person is stupid enough to mess with time, what you eventually end up with is the multiverse. Some strands runs almost parallel. There will be inevitable intersections. And others that are just wildly divergent. What it is --"

(Batman pours a pot of cooked spaghetti into a bowl, the strands now curved and intertwined with each other in layers throughout the bowl.)

BATMAN: "Is a hot mess."

(Batman pours spaghetti sauce on the pasta.)

I suspect Batman's explanation of why changing the past changes time in both directions applies to the FOX X-Men 'universe' which, as Batman would point out, has become a multiverse. Batman offers a theory of time travel where branches do not form a Y shape, but instead form an X and then see multiple Xes -- intersections -- resulting from time travel.

Batman's implication is that when Barry changed the past by saving his mother, he 'rotated' his original timeline, causing it to intersect with the universe of the 1989 BATMAN movie, leading to Ben Affleck being replaced by Michael Keaton. When Barry changes the past again at the end of THE FLASH, he rotated the timeline once more and it now intersected with the timeline of BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997) and Keaton was replaced with George Clooney.

Parallel Lines

My guess is that the X-Men 'timeline' is actually five different timelines, and every odd shift in the film is due to Wolverine and Deadpool's changes causing temporal rotation.

The first X-MEN timeline is the first three films (X-MEN, X2, THE LAST STAND and the first two Wolverine films (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE and THE WOLVERINE). This first timeline also includes the dark future scenes of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST in which the X-Men are on the losing side of the human-mutant war as the Sentinels are exterminating all mutants.

The second timeline is FIRST CLASS, and this timeline is a parallel reality from the first timeline. This second timeline has a different version of Xavier's childhood (Mystique) and Xavier and Magneto's friendship. This second timeline has Cyclops, Storm and Jean already young children in the 1960s.

Temporal Rotation and Temporal Intersection

When Wolverine travels from the dark future of DAYS OF FUTURE PAST to 1973 to prevent the Sentinel program, Wolverine finds himself in a past that is now a combination of the first and second timelines, the result of temporal rotation. Merely occupying his past self's body has led to a temporal intersection between the first and second timeline. Xavier and Magneto's lives, pre-1973, have had the first timeline's version replaced with the version in the second timeline.

When Wolverine changes the past so that the Sentinel program is prevented, there is a second instance of temporal rotation. In addition to creating the happy 2024 ending where mutantkind thrives, the timeline has now intersected with a different X-Men timeline in which Scott, Storm, Jean, Angel, and Nightcrawler were now born in the 70s and teenagers in the 80s, creating a third timeline.

Children of the Atom

Then we have the time travel events of DEADPOOL II. Each instance of time travel and each instance of Deadpool changing history has rotated the timeline and created a new intersection each time. As a result, DARK PHOENIX sees the third timeline intersect with an alternate timeline. An alternate timeline in which, I theorize, the radiation that empowers mutants was released at greater magnitudes in the 1960s.

In FIRST CLASS, the mutant Sebastian Shaw declares: "We are the children of the atom. Radiation gave birth to mutants. What will kill the humans will only make us stronger." I would suggest that increased radiation exposure in this timeline means that mutants in this version of reality age at a slower rate than in previous timelines.

I would further suggest that LOGAN is set in a timeline where the radiation that created mutants was significantly lower than in other timelines, meaning Logan's healing factor in this timeline never reached the higher peaks of alternate Logans.

Final Timeline

Because DEADPOOL II has Deadpool travel and alter history so many times, the events of LOGAN, which are set in a parallel universe, begin to intersect with the current version of the X-Men universe.

As a result, we now have a fifth timeline which includes a slightly different version of the events of LOGAN, one where Wolverine gave his life to save Laura Kinney -- but in a universe where X-Men team are very much an active superhero team and school with Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio and Colossus, and mutants are still being born.

Presumably, the Logan of this timeline was exposed to some X-gene suppressant that prevented him from healing after saving Laura.

As a result, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE is set after Logan died to save Laura, but the X-Men and Professor Xavier are still around, and they're aging very slowly (as indicated by James McAvoy playing Xavier in DEADPOOL II).

Anyway. Batman's theory of temporal rotation and intersection is what I'm going with.

If you read all of this, I owe you a Coke.

Yes, and now his campaign manager is refusing to commit to that.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p … 235068484/

He's in, he's out, he's in, he's out -- until he actually shows up, his claims are meaningless, as are claims based on assumptions and personal biases over facts.

The current tactic from Republicans: they want to sue the Democratic Party to force Joe Biden onto the ballot. They're sinking millions into this maneuver. I don't know why. It isn't going to work. They can't sue a political party to nominate a candidate who has stepped down.
https://www.salon.com/2024/07/23/illegi … out-obama/

This description could apply to any newspaper, website, think tank, magazine or cereal box. I hardly think any one person is responsible for Republicans becoming the party of Trump, but the people who left the party in disgust are not failures.

Anyone with the intellectual capacity to interrogate their previous beliefs and communities and turn away from a cult of fascism is truly exceptional. They demonstrate a clear cognitive edge over, say, people who operate on clickbait, assumptions, personal prejudices, brags, boasts, and self-important predictions over events with a 50-50 outcome. Whatever their faults, they at least have the sense not to get triggered into screeching, "The election is over!" at every headline that troubles them. That's better than a lot of people.

Regardless of provenance, the editorials presented in The Bulwark offer extremely interesting ideas and at times contradictory views for how to (re)build and maintain a healthy democracy of representational government.

Interesting ideas for enriching the American Dream of truth, justice and a better tomorrow can come from lots of different places. Even David Peckinpah had great new ideas for SLIDERS. If anything, it was his laziness preventing him from up with more great ideas and his preference for old movie ripoffs over new ideas that tripped him up creatively.

**

Simon Rosenberg says a VP pick matters before reviewing polls. I'm not sure he's right. But since he is an expert analyst who knows his stuff (as opposed to a clickbait skimmer or some random typing up his thoughts on a message board for a TV show from 1995), I am going to defer to him.

**

Will Trump debate VP Harris? I have no idea; he might keep far away or he may get desperate for attention or a polling boost and show up. Anyone who makes a definitive claim about Trump debating or declining is making an assertion based on assumption. If they're not wrong, it's not because they were prescient; it's because they had a 50-50 chance of being right.

Trump is not a planner, and even his insecurity will steer him towards confrontation to bolster his ego as often as it will send him cowering at a safe distance.

**

I don't know that the popular vote/electoral vote is really anything more than an interesting data point. It's a fact, but it's also a fact that has had no effect on who actually becomes president.

That boast will age poorly if she loses in November.

If she wins, it'll be a factual statement of capability and competence.

I am hoping for the latter.

Biden saved our asses in 2020, and I would hazard a guess that he just saved us all again for 2024.

He also saved my friend Kate from crushing student debt.

In 2016, Trump visited the White House after his victory and President Obama said he and Trump had had an "excellent conversation" and further declared, "We now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed because if you succeed, then the country succeeds." That has, in retrospect, been BS, the outgoing president attempting to maintain some civil line of communication with the person who has the upper hand. Behind closed doors, friends of Obama anonymously shared that Obama called Trump "a bullshitter".

President Zelenskyy is naturally attempting to do the same with someone who may be in a position of power over Zelenskyy next year.

**

Polls are a mess this year, as they were in 2022 and 2020. I think hard to say if Newsom or Whitmer would defeat Trump because, in my view, they aren't very well-known to America on the scale of a presidential campaign (and I say that as someone who devoured Whitmer's fun autobiography TRUE GRETCH yesterday).

Financially and in terms of visibility, Harris is in the best situation, but I have to note that Harris' human resource and management skills are extremely suspect. I'm reading a lot of concerning things about her ability to hire and retain staff. Still, at this point, anyone against Project 2025 whom donors won't abandon is probably the best/only option.

**

No one is happy about ousting Biden from leading their party or keeping Biden at the top of their party. There are no good decisions in this situation, just choices of varying levels of grief and with different and difficult challenges in any direction. No one is happy about turning against Joe as a cold calculation; no one is happy about the challenges of sticking with Joe and the ensuing lack of party and donor support for Joe.

I personally think Joe Biden could, with sufficient donor support, win in November and win big and serve a strong second term. Even if Biden's ability to speak extemporaneously on camera has diminished, his grasp of administration and his team are what produced such a strong and capable presidency despite weak majorities in the House and Senate followed by losing the House. The issue, unfortunately, is that Biden's debate performance was so bad that high dollar donors are no longer willing to commit money towards a Democratic presidential campaign without a different nominee. Without those high dollars, Biden cannot campaign effectively against the Republican campaign.

It makes me feel sad. But being able to speak coherently and off the cuff is a pretty essential capability for an effective campaigner. And this is America we're talking about. People have the right to say they don't want to put their money towards a candidate who has lost their confidence.

If Biden's debate performance had been as passable as his first 2020 debate, we would not be having this conversation. The polls, given how overweighted they are towards conservatism, strike me (and Simon Rosenberg) as showing a close and competitive race that Biden could win if his party and his donors were behind him... and they aren't behind him anymore.

I've learned so much from Joe Biden in four years, watching his campaign, his performance as president, reading his biographies and speeches, and he has so much to offer which is why it's so sad for me to think of him stepping down.

Looking at how Biden's speaking skills have diminished over the last four years, how the rambling but convincing senior of 2020 became the struggling whisperer of 2024 -- my theory -- and it is just a theory:

I think his health has taken a downturn in a subtle but cumulative way since 2022 when Biden at age 79 was infected with COVID-19, followed by a rebound infection. Since then, Biden has had a nagging cough that has never gone away, that clearly gets worse when under strain, that seems to intermittently but frequently affect the volume of his voice and his ability to speak clearly.

There also seem to be frequent moments of fatigue that cause him to lose track when on camera, unscripted, and under pressure. I would posit that the fatigue comes and goes, which is why Biden went into 2023 with the anticipation that he would recover fully in time and leap into a 2024 re-election campaign.

I don't think he ever recovered fully and around March to June 2024, the fatigue began to catch up with him. I think the long-term effects of COVID on an aging body in the most high pressure job in America has had a slow but draining on President Biden's energy and stamina.

In offices, in meetings, in strategy sessions, in all the day to day functions of the presidency, Biden is sharp and capable, sitting in a chair, notes in front of him, advisors informing him. On camera as a performer, however, is where Biden's fatigue siphons energy from his brain and body. He crashed at the debate.

Biden was capable at the NATO press conference. He was moderately capable in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, forceful with Lester Holt, struggling again when responding to Donald Trump getting shot. On camera, with his illness, Biden cannot reliably access the skills that make him a strong diplomat, administrator and leader off camera. It comes and goes and more and more often, it goes.

That's just my theory, of course.

I have hoped that Biden could weather the storm, and maybe he still can, but if he can't -- well, it's the Democratic Party, not the Biden Party. I think the world still needs Joe Biden, but the Biden the world needs might not be President Biden. It might be Ambassador Biden or Advisor to the Secretary of State Biden or Professor Biden or Democratic Campaign Strategist Biden.

I personally can't take issue with anyone questioning whether or not Biden can campaign effectively given his severely diminished speech and verbal stumbles and serious difficulty communicating his platform and plans, whether it's mangling a rent cap of 5 percent to "fifty five dollars" or turning "ballot box" into "battle box". Communication is vital in a campaign. And if Kamala weren't capable of serving and campaigning for the job of president, she wouldn't be VP.

I personally can't take issue with anyone insisting that Biden's their guy and they're sticking with Joe. He's a good president and (in old age) a good man and a good politician who has lost high dollar donor support and party support. It may no longer be within his control to change those two factors. But again, if Biden can get his fundraising back and get his party together and campaign on what he'll do to shore up and stand by the middle class, he can win. And he can win big.

Lindsay Graham is loathesome. I like Joe Biden as a person. I'm just worried about the future.

I have to be honest here, Slider_Quinn21: My main concern regarding the election is you. If America becomes a messed up dystopia ruled by Donald Trump as a dictator for life, it will be very difficult to get your opinion on the DEXTER prequel or the new DAREDEVIL series.

As for moving to Canada: I live in Toronto which I consider a wonderful city. I cannot in good conscience encourage you to move here as it's far too expensive.

The world sees President Joe Biden for what he is: a good man. A man of conviction and commitment. A young man who was a loudmouth bully in his youth, who was reshaped and remade by tragedy and horror into an old man with wisdom, patience, compassion and a burning sense of duty and responsibility to the American Dream.

A president whose administration saw a dedicated pandemic response, a rescued economy, child poverty alleviated, student debt forgiven, an expansion of health and supports for veterans, protections for the LGBTQ+ community, and more people medically insured than ever before.

The world knows that Biden's dedication is only undermined by Biden's health. He burned away his vitality to make America a little warmer, kinder and fairer over the course of five decades of public service.

Biden rescued my friend Kate from exhausting student debt. He saved her. He'll always be in my heart for that.

Biden's vision, in my view, is unfortunately defeated not by a lack of will or belief or commitment, but by a tired body in need of rest and care. By the reality that Joe Biden has accomplished almost everything anyone could ever hope to achieve in politics. And by the overall feeling of his party that if they have Biden for four more months on the campaign trail, Democrats may find it very difficult to convey to their constituents how their platform will serve and support the working people of the country.

Captain America probably gets tired looking at Joe Biden's resumé.

I think the world will see that Biden is a good leader who knows that good leaders have vision, determination, practical strategy and a succession plan. I think the world will see Biden pass the torch with honour.

(Or I'm wrong and he stays in the race and gets his donors to come through. I don't know the future. If I did, I would probably have a platform other than typing my views on a message board for a TV show from the 90s of which its fans only like about 15 of its 88 episodes.)

My friend Kate has been struggling with student loans for awhile and occasionally voices grief that she has paid so much into them and yet the bill has not gone away and has cost her far more than the original tuition fees. She was looking at another five years of payments.

She got a letter this morning saying her student debt has been entirely forgiven. Joe Biden changed her life.

He is a good president.

There is a lot of talk that Biden is ready to step down. The main issue, as I see it: high dollar donors are refusing to donate any more money to Biden which effectively shutters his ability to campaign. They will, however, donate to a campaign where Kamala Harris is at the top of the ticket.
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/18/presid … -democrats

I would be sad if Joe Biden stepped down and see a lot of challenges if the Democratic Party goes in that direction. I would be heartened if Kamala Harris stepped up and see just as many challenges (albeit different ones) if she becomes the Democratic nominee. There is no smooth sailing for either course.

However... Joe Biden has lost the ability to say "ballot box" without mangling it into "battle box".

I take no pleasure in saying this, but if a candidate can't pronounce a basic and essential term like "ballot", that candidate will have serious issues conveying the Democratic Party's platform, goals, values and the good they will accomplish for the working class of America.

Joe Biden is good at politics. He's very good at being president. I do think Joe Biden could win in November and win big, as Bernie Sanders said. But to win, Biden needs the party unified behind him and his donors funding him and he has neither. If he has a solution to that and stays in the race, that would be splendid. That support doesn't seem to be there, and the funding doesn't seem to be there either. He may not have the financial and logistical resources needed to win.

It's painful to say that.

The Bulwark, a website of editorials from former Republicans who turned against the GOP when it became the party of Trump, has offered a strong plan for how Kamala Harris could build on what Joe Biden has established.

Kamala Harris: The Future Is Now
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/kamala-har … ure-is-now

President Kamala Harris: Should she run as Biden’s vice president, or as the incumbent president?
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/president-kamala-harris

QuinnSlidr is a fervent and ardent Biden supporter. I would hazard a guess that QuinnSlidr's fealty is not actually to Joe Biden, but to truth, justice, and the better tomorrow that democracy promises. I would offer the suggestion that QuinnSlidr's inherent conviction is that America should be led by an elected president and not a dictator for life. I would posit that QuinnSlidr's true loyalty is to the American Dream.

I would hypothesize that QuinnSlidr's vote is not to a person, but to the belief that all people are created equal and imbued with certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, happiness, and that James Brown is the godfather of soul -- and that QuinnSlidr will support the candidate who is best-positioned or least-opposing to that Dream -- whether that person is Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or somebody else.

Anyway.

This seems to apply and conveys my opinion, and spares me the trouble of typing more:

On Senate and House Maneuvers:

Senator Elizabeth Warren has explained how, if Democrats can regain even a narrow majority of the House and keep the Senate and White House, they can restore Roe v. Wade by filibuster suspension.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/477 … on-rights/

Why Polling is Off:

Individual swing state polls show Trump in the lead by 1 - 5 points.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 … ng-states/

Polls self-advertise as being within 3 - 5 points of error in either direction to begin with. But when was the last time anyone here answered a phone call from an unknown caller? Or reviewed a text from an unknown contact? What demographic even answers these polls?

Generally, it's older and more conservative respondents with a grudge to express and an axe to grind. 3 - 5 points, as a margin of error in 2024, seems far too low as a self-reported margin. The range of error is likely much higher and now weighted towards conservatism.

There's also the fact that after an event that diminishes enthusiasm for a party (like Biden's ghastly debate or Trump getting convicted), voters on one side or the other will respond less to polling queries. Then pollsters engage in some labyrinth mathematical gimcrackery to try to balance these slanted figures.

In the end, polls were repeatedly and increasingly wrong in 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. Hilary Clinton's lead in 2016 was within the realm of a 3 - 5 point polling error. Biden's lead in 2020 was overcounted by 1 percent while Trump's support was undercounted by about 3.3 percent. Why? Because in the severely anti-Trump environment of 2020, Trump voters were under-responding.

In 2022, the midterm elections anticipated, from polling, a massive red wave to wipe Democrats out. It didn't happen. Why?

Rosenberg's view in April was:

Today, Rosenberg concedes that Trump has an advantage at present, but hardly an insurmountable one:

On Biden:

Bernie Sanders is a cantankerous old crank. As a cantankerous old crank myself, Bernie is my standard bearer. Bernie is standing by Biden.

Choose Your Opponent:

As a Canadian, my opinion doesn't mean much in terms of an actual vote. I am not all in on Biden. But I am all in on democracy.

Voting is not about choosing our standard bearer. More often, voting is about choosing your preferred opponent. Let's say all the leaks about Biden's diminishment are true and not weighted against him.

Who do you think is more likely to pressure into meaningful values and action when it comes to international war, manage foreign relations, respond to future pandemics, battle for a fairer tax code, advocate for women's health, relieve medical debt and resist corporate gouging in farming, pharmaceuticals, guns and technology?

What has Donald Trump ever really done for anyone in or out of office that made anyone else's life better?

I remember how in 2020, Twitter was filled with accounts of Trump settling random strangers' health and housing bills, none shared by the supposed recipients of his generosity because these stories were obviously all lies, many perpetuated by a former member of this community who clearly went insane.

President Joe Biden is good at his job. He ended the war in Afghanistan, disastrously, but it ended. He signed the American Rescue Plan that kept progress on jobs and wages. He brought child poverty to a record low by expanding the child tax credit (it's expired and he hopes to renew it permanently).

He signed $370 billion towards fighting climate change and $280 billion into US semiconductor manufacturing and an inclusive science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce. He released intelligence of Russia's invasion plans for Ukraine to prevent Russia from claiming the war was provoked and united the G7 nations in sanctions while defending Ukraine.

He mobilized the mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 and shots became available at any pharmacy within months. The Canadian prime minister was unable to do the same with Biden's speed and drive.

Biden rebuilt America as the leader of the free world after Donald Trump turned away. He secured marriage protections for same-sex and interracial couples and ensured transgender Americans could access supports and services. He confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, decriminalized soft drugs, and four out of five people can find medical insurance now for $10 a month or less.

He spun the mangled, "Let's Go Brandon" attack into the hilarious and absurd "Dark Brandon" meme.

But Joe Biden is a problematic person and I am not in favour of hagiography. He has a lengthy and troubling history of inappropriately touching women and smelling their hair because he is from a generation that was taught to see women as commodities instead of human beings. He's confronted it. He's changed it.

As president, he supplied weapons to Israel in a war that has targeted civilians, justifying it by hoping that complicity in war will enable contributing to the peace. He permitted the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to go unchallenged and maintained friendship with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, to maintain the oil-dependent US economy. So, he is a politician.

He was, in his youth and adulthood, a loudmouth and a bully and a plagiarist. He was a coward who refused to pursue justice for Anita Hill because he feared the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas. Two of his children are drug addicts which speaks to a serious failure of parenting.

These are all dark and glaring flaws in a glowing career of public service. But the Joe Biden of 2020 to 2024 is an older and more measured man who has a lot to offer this world.

He may mumble and he may shuffle and he may struggle to elucidate. But he has fought for unions, for working class people, for diabetics, for seniors, for veterans, for students, for the environment and he is clearly open and eager for new ideas and willing to change to face new challenges.

He has done terrible things and accepted the political and personal cost in the hopes that America would be better positioned to survive and lead the peace. He has adopted new ideas and updated his values to meet a the challenges of a changing world.

Ultimately, if you believe in democracy and that voters should choose their leaders and that the middle class is vital to America, then Joe is at the very least, the barely-tolerable option over the disastrous option.

A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to have no more voting.

That said -- I respect that Temporal Flux has the right to believe in term limits, and he has the right to write his father's name on the ballot. Some might write in Jill Stein or Andrew Yang. I would consider that a neutral act.

Joe Biden is not my standard bearer. His record is too troubled for that. I don't much care for who he used to be. But I do mostly like the Joe Biden I've seen since 2019. And if I were choosing my opponent, I would choose Joe Biden.

Well, I've given you my theory:
https://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php … 945#p15945

Biden's own answers:

And this is true. Biden is the only one who's ever defeated Trump. And Biden's proficiency at foreign relations is simply unmatched because of his decades of experience, relationships, service. Biden is good at politics. Really, really good. But when it comes to unscripted, live television performances, Biden has lost several steps.

Look at him here addressing NAACP today. With his teleprompter and with the energy of a crowd, Biden is on fire as he speaks to the vitality and importance of black people in America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrQZYb9q_Yk

But unscripted, Biden can't seem to summon his booming voice. Ronald Reagan's favourite speechwriter has a theory on that:

He also says the presidency is hard to let go.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/ … n-00168456

Is Biden the only one who can beat Trump? Given campaign finance law, it's either Biden or it's Kamala.

Biden called the family of the man murdered at Trump's rally. The widow refused to take the call.

Trump hasn't called the family at all.

I am less than shocked.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-j … ly-1925577

What a sociopath.

**

Biden's live interview with Lester Holt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUSmk1SqEu8

Biden is pretty fired up. And when asked what effect the shooting would have on the election:

I am grateful for an honest, humble claim of "I have no idea" from the man who saw through the false illusion of the 2022 red wave and a note that current polls are based on pre-assassination attempt data.

I would rather have an admission of not having answers yet over boorish "The election is over" rants from manic loudmouths who think clickbait headlines grant comprehensive understanding. Who offer not insight or knowledge, but egotistical boasts that the world will always unfold to their personal prejudices and offhand assumptions.

I have the humility to say I am not sure how things will unfold. The world doesn't always go the way I think it will. Things could get worse. I'm scared.

But getting shot is not a presidential duty, Trump is deranged and there are so many crazies and tribalists who'll vote for that nutjob, and the election is over after November 5, 2024 and not before.

I bet if we had a dollar for every time a certain someone has yelled, "The election is over," to anyone in earshot in his life based on whichever way the wind was blowing that week, we could buy NBCUniversal, reboot SLIDERS and uncancel QUANTUM LEAP.

**

Christopher Bouzy is very interesting. I'd never heard of him until today. He is a computer scientist, statistician and analyst. He is of the Simon Rosenberg school that poll aggregates and averages have been totally thrown off by unreliable Republican polls throwing off the polling.

Bouzy also observes: Trump's voter support has a ceiling. There are only so many voters who wholeheartedly support this looney tune, there are only so many voters who will grit their teeth and vote for said looney tune out of tribalistic party loyalty, and Trump's 2016 victory was an extremely close and narrow win who got lucky from being something of an unknown quantity whose unknown future impact on America was considered more appealing than Clinton's empty, soulless campaign that made too many Democrats stay home or vote for Jill Stein or Joe the Tiger Guy.

This time, Trump is an extremely known quantity. That ceiling on Trump's support, Bouzy points out, has only gotten lower since 2016, with Republicans repeatedly underperforming and failing in 2017, 2020 and 2022. Bouzy says that anyone who claims "the election is over" based on Trump getting shot is just skimming headlines and ignorantly blind to the reality of American politics.

**

Even without that, I would note that anyone foretelling the outcome of a situation with only two possible outcomes based on self-proclaimed prescience regarding one event is engaged in sensationalization, not analysis or observation.