As of 8 AM ET, these two items are trending on Twitter: #RampGate and #TrumpIsUnwell. It’s a reaction to some Trump weirdness during the West Point speech yesterday, including his need to use two hands to take a sip of water and the gingerly way he walked down the ramp after the speech, taking tiny baby steps on his tiny baby feet. The Lincoln Project collective was on it right away:
Is the President of the United States physically well? pic.twitter.com/6R4GExT0KL
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 13, 2020
There are valid reasons to question Trump’s physical wellness, starting with the fact that his doctors tell bald-faced lies to the public. There’s the still unexplained rush trip to Walter Reed that was implausibly explained away as “advance work” on tests for a routine physical. There’s the odd swaying, the inability to stand like a normal human and apparent balance issues.
Trump is 74 years old and overweight, so the ramp thing didn’t seem unusual to me. But his campaign team thought the Twitter reaction was enough of an issue to ghostwrite a lie in response:
The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long & steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery. The last thing I was going to do is “fall” for the Fake News to have fun with. Final ten feet I ran down to level ground. Momentum!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2020
As you can see for yourself in the top clip, he didn’t “run” 10 feet or 10 inches, though he did pump his elbows to mimic a faster pace at the bottom of the ramp. It’s a bizarre thing to lie about, but whoever fibbed on Trump’s behalf got one thing right: Trump has “momentum,” and the trajectory is downward.
Every day, Trump and/or his campaign team claim that Biden is mentally and/or physically unfit. They edit clips to portray Biden as confused or incoherent. Biden does have a tendency to ramble, and the media coverage of Biden’s campaign is sparse, which might allow Trump to set the narrative for now.
But to buy that narrative, you’d have to ignore the fact that Trump stumbles over common words frequently (“Ulysses S. Grant” in yesterday’s speech). Trump doesn’t just ramble occasionally; he is invariably a demented word salad shooter when not reading something off a teleprompter.
Ultimately, I think the projection strategy of portraying Biden as frail and confused is going to backfire on the Trumpers. Biden is who he is, and his persona is baked in with the public. He’s no Obama, but he’s infinitely more articulate and knowledgeable now than Trump has ever been. Biden has demonstrated that he actually can propel himself forward at faster than 5 MPH without a golf cart. Plus, unlike Trump, Biden doesn’t present as a self-aggrandizing dick.
It’s true that the GWB campaign managed to portray its elitist prep school cheerleader candidate as a drawling Texas cowpoke and John Kerry as an effete New England windsurfer. But that task was made easier by the lack of contemporaneous footage of GWB windsurfing around Kennebunkport. What the Trump people are trying to pull off here seems like a loser strategy to me.
Anyway, open thread!
satby
The full on hatred that the Lincoln project folks have for Drump is a balm for my fevered soul.
Pigdog
When this is over and the Lincoln Project people go back to the red corner, I hope we find there is someone on Team Blue who has been taking notes. I want that attitude on our side permanently.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The thing is, if Trump were a normal human being doing a reasonably decent job, I’d be ashamed to mock an old man’s balance issues. It would be like making fun of Biden’s stuttering. But (1) he’s horrible and (2) he’s defensive and lies about his problems. He treats them as something shameful. So it’s like he started the mockery of old men with balance issues and I’m free to join in.
dmsilev
Given the weeks of ‘is Hillary dying?’ hysteria the press put us through in the fall of 2016, the least they can do is spend, I dunno, ten or fifteen seconds asking about Trump’s health.
Just Chuck
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Among the diseases I wish T would contract (Covid being #1) Parkinson’s would be among them. He started with mocking that. Actually he probably started earlier, but there’s already enough of a steaming shit pile to dig through, so I’ll just stop there for now.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Seconded. It still feels lousy, but you just know he and his followers would do the exact same thing.
MattF
In fact, at 5 MPH, people would generally break into a trot, it’s not a walking speed. I wouldn’t want to see Trump trotting.
I’m uneasy with the point-and-mock reaction to Trump’s various obvious physical and psychological infirmities. It’s hard to resist, given his bonkers level of dishonesty and projection, but it reminds me of the constant RW lies about Hillary Clinton’s health.
OzarkHillbilly
So much bullshit, it was very long so that it wouldn’t be steep. Just out of curiosity, i figured out the rise/run. Standard stairs are 7″ rise for every 10″ run (rise/run being the ratio of vertical change over horizontal change. Those stairs were about a 2.5/12 or just above flat.
He came down those stairs as one who either has balance issues or can not see clearly. It would not surprise me in the least if he is physically incapable of wearing contacts and too damned vain to be seen wearing glasses.
geg6
My sister and I watched that two fisted drink in real time, turned and looked at each and said at the same time, “He’s had a stroke.” And we both also agreed that it happened when he had his “partial physical.” Missed the ramp walk but it just confirms it to me.
oatler.
Only a short matter of time before that bloated carcass collapses like a sack of rotten hamberder.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
He is also leading with his left foot which confirms the suspicion of a stroke affecting his right side.
Kay
@dmsilev:
Everyone should go back and read the coverage of Hillary Clinton’s health. It’s appalling:
It wasn’t about her health. It was one more issue they jammed into their preexisting narrative about her.
Going back and reading the Clinton coverage is funny, because it’s worse than we say it is. We’ve forgotten how bad it really was.
Gin & Tonic
A better photo from West Point than that bloated sack of shit.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I’d need more evidence than just that (seeing as I generally avoid watching him it is unlikely I’ll ever get any). Sometimes one of my knees (lately hips too) act up and I will lead with one foot or the other going up or down stairs. I wonder about his eyes only because I saw that after he stepped down he was gingerly pushing his foot forward as tho feeling for the edge of the next step.
Who knows what it is, beyond not right.
PsiFighter37
Dude definitely has multiple medical conditions. I hope he gets a chance to see what kind of healthcare is provided in prison in the next couple of years.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF:
After his mocking of Serge Kovaleski? Yeah, fuck him. I hope everybody in America is laughing at him. I’m not uneasy in the slightest.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s a great picture. Those women look awesome.
cmorenc
Trump infects everyone around him, including us, with degradation disease – including us, in which everyone around him (including us) become worse people. Here we are ourselves mocking and rooting for other people to physically suffer, even if Trump is the object of our derision. He truly brings out the worst in people – his supporters and opponents alike.
Brachiator
Trump is intellectually and temperamentally unfit to be president.
And now it appears that he also may be medically unfit as well. He should resign so that he can focus on his health.
The media need to receive regular updates on the state of his health and should speculate furiously if they don’t get answers.
Where is Maggie Haberman? She’s up in Trump’s business all the time and should have been tracking his decline.
The media’s idiotic speculation about Hillary Clinton set the standard for this. They should follow it now.
evodevo
@MattF: Except those were outright lies, and this is reality…
Chief Oshkosh
Fucking CBS Sunday Morning is running a puff piece on Melanoma right now. These fucking fucks are going to try as hard as they can to rehab these horrific people, to pretend that they are normal. Gotta make it a horse race! Need ratings!
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator:
What’s really funny is that I saw a Tweet yesterday from *Clyde* Haberman, who said that Trump’s gait was exactly like that of his (Clyde’s) father after he had a stroke at 73.
ETA: Here’s Clyde not giving up.
OzarkHillbilly
@cmorenc: Not me. I’ve always been a complete asshole.
Quaker in a Basement
Misspelled “anyhoo.”
evodevo
@Chief Oshkosh: I love it…Melanoma….it’s the perfect nickname for her…
dmsilev
@Kay: Emails!
God, I had forgotten just how bad, and just how Clinton obsessed, Amy Chozick was.
germy
It’s not easy walking down a ramp while wearing shoe lifts.
Betty Cracker
I sometimes wonder how much of the media obsession with Hillary Clinton’s health was because she’s a woman and how much was because she’s Hillary Clinton. Maybe someday another woman will become a major party’s nominee or even president, and we’ll get a sense of that.
Kay
@dmsilev:
Not Clinton obsessed. “Clinton obsessed” would have meant actual reporting on what Clinton said and did in 2016. What Chozick is obsessed with is parroting the narrative that was handed to her by political reporters who came before her. Read that “news” story. It isn’t about Hillary Clinton’s health. It’s about how Hillary Clinton is untrustworthy, dishonest, sneaky.
germy
I saw this in the LGM comments:
Kay
@dmsilev:
I object to it because I supported Clinton and I think the coverage was unfair but readers should object to it because it’s lazy. The Clinton Narrative is filler. It’s 4 paragraphs that any of you could have written based just on watching coverage of Clinton for 30 years.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Not to mention, we should not have a person suffering from dementia / drug addiction / whatever his problem might be that his doctors are concealing from us SERVING AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
oldgold
The explanation for Trump’s gingerly descent down the ramp at West Point is this: Bone Spurs.
zhena gogolia
@geg6:
Did you see the moment on Memorial Day when his right arm went up involuntarily and he had to press it down with his left?
Shades of Dr. Strangelove.
Exregis
Trump had to use two hands to drink from a water bottle around 2016-2017. I recall seeing him, but don’t remember the context — campaign debate, cabinet meeting etc. He also has great difficulty going down airplane exit stairs, having to hold onto the railing all the way down if he can’t get to hold Melania’s hand.
In addition to his horrible personality, he has been physically and mentally shaky for some time.
Barbara
Count me among the conflicted. Trump’s decline should be important to voters, but mocking issues that are common to the elderly, like diminished balance, seems counterproductive. However, it might be a good way to innoculate Biden from what are sure to be nasty Trump ads along the same lines. Letting Parscale and company know well in advance that both can play the same game. Like all Lincoln Project ads, they are really directed to Republican organizational stalwarts and donors, not average voters.
Phylllis
@Chief Oshkosh: I put the TV on mute and cleaned the bathrooms while it was on.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara:
He’s the sitting president and they’ve lied to us about his health. The American public deserve to know what the situation is.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Right on. The BJ delicacy on this is ridiculous.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Oh, God, that is so horrible. I’d forgotten how horrible it was.
Gvg
On the “steep” ramp, the general with him had no trouble and appeared to want to pass slowpoke Trump. I seriously doubt the West Point organizers allowed a steep slippery ramp for a speech from the President, not to mention the other senior military men who would not appreciate falling on their dignity for any ceremony, under any President. On the other hand it probably looked steep and felt steep to someone with medical frailties. So in a way Trump was telling a kind of truth but can’t see any view but his own, so he ended up looking foolish.
and he has a reputation now as a liar, so that’s the way everyone takes his excuse. I think Kay has hammers how reputation matters.
which also kind of explains peoples false view of Hillary, and how hard it’s been for a liar to successfully smear Biden.
what frustrated me the most was the young democratically leaning people who had accepted that Hillary was a scheming harpy, and didn’t reallize they had been propagandized from a young age. It started so long ago, that truth didn’t matter. Kapernick irritated me by repeating some of that for instance. I haven’t really trusted his judgement since.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
God no, I try to never see him. I only saw him yesterday because I was at my sister’s place and it was on her tv.
SFAW
@MattF:
Were he not a pathological* liar about the state of his own health**, and had he shown even the tiniest but of humanity toward others who might have disabilities or are just imperfect (relative to the so-called “Greek god” ideal), that would be one thing. But it’s not as if commenters are making that comment about infirm persons in general.
* “Pathological” used here is a literary device; I’m not qualified to make a medical judgment
** “His own health” and everything else, of course
different-church-lady
IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE A SLIPPERY RAMP HOW YOU GONNA HANDLE THE RUSKIES? Oh, wait…
Betty Cracker
@cmorenc: Definitely true in my case, and I wasn’t all that nice to begin with.
Barbara
I think that is what I said, his health is an important consideration, but “health” doesn’t necessarily encompass every issue associated with aging.
I think he wants to get back to big rallies to perpetuate the illusion of his vigor. He seems to think that energetic crowds make him look energetic as well.
different-church-lady
@MattF:
Ain’t that the goddamned point of chickens and where they roost?
Elizabelle
I love that Trump’s forcing West Point to give him his photo op with the graduating seniors has turned into: whoa — there is video evidence that he’s
probablypossibly had a stroke. What’s going on here?What an asshat.
zhena gogolia
I must insist that the rational desire to know what the state of the POTUS’s health is, and the desire for our “free” press to try to find out with at least the same enthusiasm with which they covered a moment of seeming illness displayed by Hillary Clinton, is not “pointing and mocking.”
But pointing and mocking is fair game here as well. It’s just not my primary objective.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: Trump and his aides might be studying how FDR disguised his paralysis, in a break from their usual studying of FDR’s various enemies (among them, Joseph Goebbels and his boss and associates).
debbie
@germy:
He must be terrified. *yawn*.
Sloane Ranger
@debbie: Is this a thing with strokes? I lead with my left foot all the time. Of course I’m also left handed, which I suppose is the difference.
FWIW, my guess is that his eyesight is extremely poor and this explains why he’s so cautious when going down stairs or on uneven surfaces. Also, his difficulty in reading from a teleprompter. I have seen a photograph of him wearing glasses and the lens looked quite thick.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara:
According to people who seem to know what they’re talking about, the signs he is displaying are not “normal aging,” but some kind of dementia complicated by drug abuse. But we don’t know, do we, because the media is not bothering to find out.
Kay
Of course we should attack him on it! He opened the door! 100% fair.
Plus it will drive him crazy and that’s just fun for us and we deserve fun :)
SFAW
@Barbara:
The infirm as a group are not being mocked. A person who frequently claims — whether through his own statements, or via statements he forced others to make on his behalf — that he is in excellent health, perfect health, a “stable genius,” and so forth, and who mocks others (Kovaleski, Biden, Hillary, to name a few) for their (real or imagined/projected) infirmities, deserves every bit of contempt, derision, and mocking that he receives.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
GWB lost his first election by being framed as an elitist prep school cheerleader by his opponent and made it a point in his entire political career never to be out Texained again. There is no pictures of GWB winsurfing because GWB would have never windsurf if there was the possibility of press taking a picture of him doing that. Trump on the other hand would scream about Obama playing golf, while Trump is sitting on golf cart, in a golf course with a golf club in hand.
PsiFighter37
@zhena gogolia: Pointing and mocking is my primary objective, because you know damn well Maggie Habs & Co. don’t want to dig too deep for fear of losing access.
debbie
@Sloane Ranger:
I’ve messed up a knee or ankle a few times, and I lead with the other leg while recovering. I think it contributes, but certainly failing eyesight would also be a factor.
debbie
@Kay:
That’s what is infuriating him more than anything else: He is being treated exactly how he’s treated others for years and years.
germy
WereBear
In this case speculation is really our right to know the health status of our President. Which has been hidden and ignored and outright lied about. We know that much.
For me, the biggest issue is not his mobility. FDR was in a wheelchair: that doesn’t matter, though, because his brain was still working, and that’s what we hire them for.
Trump can’t make coherent sense even when he’s reading a teleprompter. WTF.
MomSense
We actually have a right to an accurate assessment of his health. The asshole has the nuclear codes FFS. It’s like classic soviet bloc bullshit all the time. We get these fucking ridiculous doctor’s reports first from his quack in Manhattan who obviously signed a letter trump wrote himself. Then we get statements from Admiral Ronnie Pill Dispenser Feelgood that are such obvious bullshit. They can’t even tell the truth about his fucking height and weight. Then he had some bizarre bifurcated physical with the first half on a random Sunday in January at a hospital – when the White House is fully equipped with medical exam facilities.
We can watch video of his obvious cognitive decline. He has been having issues with his right side for some time now. His centaur stance is consistent with frontotemporal dementia. That combined with the reporting about his lack of focus, inappropriate and impulsive comments, his super dilated pupils, and all manner of other truly fucking bizarre behavior is cause for more than just concern.
Given how completely we have been failed by people and institutions who are supposed to be serving we the people, we have every right to demand an honest evaluation of trump’s physical and mental health. If the only way we get the press to ask a damned question is to mock trump – so be it. We have no reason to feel troubled or conflicted about mocking him. We are in an existential crisis. The truth has been losing out to a press more concerned with revenue than their role in a democracy and a staggeringly corrupt and evil Republican Party.
Suzanne
I would assume that all of these physical issues are due to his drug addiction? Unsteadiness/balance problems and dizziness are frequent side effects of psychiatric drugs.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
Everything Trump touches turns to shit. I have been in awe since he was elected how he fucks up everything. Absolutely everything. Every time something happens and people rend their garments about how it will give him a bump, I have been confident that he will fuck up that gift somehow – and every time he has.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
Beautifully stated.
SW
That tweet from Ramp Bo was nuts.
SFAW
@MomSense:
Outstanding!
Kay
@MomSense:
We’re never going to get real information though because he’s a liar and the people he hires are all liars.
So let’s speculate. It’s all we have.
RSA
Ditto here. (I have similar feelings about the use of “-tard” as a suffix–a couple of times strangers mocked my wife behind her back, after she got sick. Cruelty doesn’t remain within obvious boundaries.)
Barbara
@SFAW: There is not much that Trump doesn’t deserve in the way of derision and there is no doubt the media is avoiding the issue. The question is how to engage it without alienating voters.
Hoodie
Looked to me like he may have had a mild stroke with some relatively minor lingering effects, but my guess is that it may have happened quite a while ago, given the incidents of slurred speech and other weirdness we’ve seen throughout his presidency . The emergency physical may have been a quick trip to get a shot of tPA because they feared he might be having another one. I do have a friend with some sort of slow-growing benign mass in his brain that has similar problems, e.g., weird gate, slightly slurred speech, etc.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gvg:
It looked to me like the general was staying carefully next to him in case Trump fell.
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense:
????
different-church-lady
@Kay: After all, it would be irresponsible not to.
Sab
@Sloane Ranger: I was ambidextrous before I started school but I slightly favored my left hand. My left-handed mother insisted that I be treated as right-handed for writing.
Apparently I was meant to be left-handed, because my feet have reverse dominance. I favor my left foot when most right-handed people favor their right, and vice-versa. It depends on the sport.
MomSense
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’ve been calling him King Minus for a long time. He has long had a King Midas fantasy about himself (there were decades old interview comments about it and it is the reason behind the gold leaf decor) and he is the fucking opposite. I commented on a Pete Souza insta post and he liked it but changed it to Comrade Minus. Works for me.
NotMax
“Sir, we did strongly recommend not chewing gum at the same time.”
//
SFAW
@Barbara:
If on-the-fence “voters” are going to base their decisions on the derisive comments found on a top-10,000 blog, well …
dmsilev
@germy: There’s always a Tweet, isn’t there?
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: I lived with a pathological liar. Trust me, he is one. Even when telling a simple truth that would make him look good, he has to embellish it so that he “looks” even better.
ThresherK
@Barbara: My wife has had a knee replaced (is getting the other one done soon), is a lifetime handicap parking tag holder, and walks with a cane. She could not run out of a burning building faster than 2mph if her life depended on it.
She knows Trump will not stop braying about his health, and remembers how Hillary was “at death’s door” for much of 2016 per the TV and the NYT. She is fine with the trending item #TrumpIsNotWell.
zhena gogolia
@Hoodie:
Look at footage from early in his presidency. There’s a big difference.
Benw
@MomSense: word.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I just don’t think we have to apologize for it. You’re allowed to hit the bully back.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@zhena gogolia:
A suggested edit
Such delicate flowers, we jackals can be…
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I admit to having large gaps in my memory, but I don’t recall living with you.
raven
@Sab: Eugene Levy has two left feet!
Kay
Also, I understand that we don’t want to rely on medical people doing an eval from afar, but the idea that they NEVER do that is just nonsense.
They all do it. Physicians, nurses, all of them. We have a friend who is a cardiologist and he’ll sit in a restaurant and tell me which people are headed for a heart attack. It makes sense- they see thousands of people. They know what this shit looks like.
MattF
OT. Hadn’t realized that Flynn is a totally bonkers Christianist. Not surprising, I guess, given Pompeo and Barr…
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Sir? You are the epitome of truth in comparison to my ex.
raven
This shit bums me out mainly because I went down the “stroke and life expectancy” rat hole yesterday. It’s been almost 2 years since I had mine so I guess I don’t have much time left.
MomSense
@Kay:
I don’t even think we are stretching in our speculation. We have enough video to know that we are looking at a man who is morbidly obese, who has a diet of fast food, and who abhors exercise. We also know that he uses pseudoohedrine- because it is a stimulant. His former producer Noel Casler is a credible source, especially since trump has never clapped back or insulted him. He has been saying that he snorts Sudafed and adderall and that he has used meth and benzos for decades. We have recent video of slurring, and dilated pupils. Tremendous dilated pupils. No one has ever seen pupils as dilated as his pupils. Put chronic substance abuse on a low IQ, morbidly obese man with a family history of dementia – and you get what we can all observe with our own eyes on our teevees. Psychiatrists have been saying since before the election that they have adequate evidence to diagnose him and that he poses a significant enough risk to public health and safety that they have a duty to do so.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Gin & Tonic:
Somebody needed to beat Amy Chozick with a baseball bat many years ago. She’s been a mostly hidden villain.
On another note, I’m thinking about the state of life four years ago. Took until about 2012 to slog out of the economic despair of 2009 through 2011. Things stayed on a steady pace through 2014, then from 2014 until 2017, things really went well – I could buy new cars, we leased one for youngest daughter away at school, could afford an apartment for her alone, and we could travel literally everywhere in the world (and did, frequently. Money was never a problem, as my mostly working class, multiethnic clientele had the disposable funds to pay for services.
Simce then, it has been constant retrenchment as disposable income has drained out of the economy. My clientele is whiter and a lot more financially tender, gross revenue having fallen off in every year since 2016’s high. Things were a little down in 2017, but 2018 and 2019 were the big tell – gross revenue was off by about 35% from that 2016 high, with no concomitant expense reduction.
Now, the choices of places to travel are constrained by my own government even before COVID, and you can’t even get a passport renewed.
In 2016, we had a DOJ that was responsive on civil rights violations; nowadays, DOJ sides with the violators.
In 2016 we had a staffed and expert pandemic team which would have worked this crisis early without regard to political agendas or ideology or personal connections, but that was eliminated in favor of the bloated mediocrity’s gut. As a result, we have a worsening pandemic that is only enriching the already wealthy.
By every measure he’s failed at everything but casual racism and noxious cruelty.
raven
@Kay: My tenant was an volunteer fireman and when they brought my neighbor out on the gurney and were beating his chest he said “bye-bye”. He nailed it.
Geminid
It’s game on for Virginia 5th Congressional district Democrats. Bob Good rolled sitting congressman Denver Riggleman yesterday at the 5th district republican convention, 58% to 42%. Good calls himself “a bright red Biblical and Constitutional Conservative.” In 2018 the Democrats used caucuses to pick a mediocre nominee who lost to the mediocre Riggleman by 7 points. This year we have 4 decent candidates facing off in a primary later this month. I think the Republicans can kiss this seat Good-bye.
moonbat
“…he is invariably a demented word salad shooter…” Woman, I love your writing. Hahahahaha
Kay
@MomSense:
Oh, I agree. But then I’m a girther. Trump lies about his weight. I say this not as a medical professional but as a person who has been around larger men my whole life- purchased clothing for them, washed clothing for them, fed them, took them to doctors appointments when they were giant teenagers and knew their weight. I know what they look like and I know what that height and weight looks like.
Ascap_scab
I’m 60, soon to be 61, and I have balance issues. One foot is half amputated so I wear a brace that dosen’t bend backwards. On the other leg, my knee is shot and twisted sideways. Yes, ramps are a problem.
I’ll give Trump this one, I hate falling, too.
geg6
@Sloane Ranger:
But that doesn’t explain why he has to drink with two hands, his weird posture, his vocal tics that weren’t evident just a few years ago..
Kay
@raven:
My daughter had a ten minute conversation with my neighbor on my driveway. “You should worry about Dave. He has now or will have COPD and he’s still smoking”.
Kay
On the falling, think back to one week ago when Donald Trump tweeted a nasty lie about a 75 year old man who was pushed by police and took a bad fall. Cracked his head open. Was pushed.
You have NOTHING to apologize for. In fact, someone should give him a hard push, see how he does.
JPL
@MomSense: True!!! ? ? ?
Mike R
People deserve the respect they give, Trump gives none, therefore he deserves nothing but scorn and ridicule.
JPL
@Kay: This morning I read that he can’t walk. trump is a spiteful human being who deserves nothing but mocking from us.
Aleta
different-church-lady
@MomSense: The Ex-Lax Touch.
debbie
@raven:
Can the Ministry of Silly Walks be far behind?
Geminid
When trump started playing golf again a few weeks ago I caught some long range video. When he sat in his cart and tried to swing his legs up, the outside foot bounced off the door sill, and he had to reach and grab his leg and pull it in. Neurological problem? or is he just too damn flabby?
Barbara
@Geminid: They seem not to have learned from the debacle with Cuccinelli. Maybe they figure the district is safe. It will be interesting to see whether Riggleman makes nice.
different-church-lady
@Ascap_scab: I’ll give Trump this one when he’s gone through all the same shit you have.
MomSense
@Kay:
I’m with you. I’m just not getting the reticence to be ruthless with him (not from you). We are in a fight for survival. Over 100,000 US citizens have died and we are owed some fucking accountability. It’s fight or flight and we have nowhere to go.
Our democracy is in shambles right now.
Betty Cracker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I never understood what was so effete about windsurfing anyway. I’ve tried it — it’s hard! It takes a fair amount of upper-body strength.
That’s the thing that scares the crap out of me about media pile-ons: you never know what will set the hounds to baying. Dukakis in a tank — big fucking deal. Yeah, he looked kinda goofy, but GHWB was an awkward, goofy sumbitch all the damn time. The “Dean scream.” God, how stupid.
The fear that the media will make a meaningless incident “a thing” is what made me cringe the other day when Biden was talking on TV with his face mask hanging off his ear. Good method to minimize contamination? Yeah, but God knows that wouldn’t stop the media from making a mini-scandal of it.
Luckily, they don’t seem to hate Biden enough to nitpick everything he does to death the way they did with Hillary Clinton. So far, at least. May it continue, but it really sucks to be at the mercy of such nitwits.
NotMax
Bids being sought for a presidential sedan chair?
:)
Related respite, just for grins
debbie
@raven:
Not so. Plenty of people live long lives after strokes. You make far better choices than Trump. You have a far better chance than Trump.
Barbara
@SFAW: I meant the ad, not our comments. We live to point and mock, me included. The only downside is becoming distracted from other things that matter more.
Barbara
@raven: Well, my mother in law had a catastrophic stroke and lived for another 7 years, until she was 88. So my money is on your continued health and longevity.
SFAW
@Barbara:
OK, got it.
SW
I think people are looking for a unified field theory of Trump’s dissolution. In my experience that isn’t the way aging works. Shit wears out. Like an old car one thing after another starts to break. The drinking glass thing looks like a rotator cuff tear to me. I suffered from one of those for years and had exactly the same problem raising a glass to my lips including the weird sensation of the damn thing just stopping and having to give it an assist with the other hand. Mine was from throwing a baseball but I assume you also get it from playing golf. This doesn’t mean there aren’t all sorts of other things going on. They are clearly lying to us about his health. He is an unhealthy 74 year old man. Deteriorating before our eyes. But I don’t think there is one source for all his ills.
Elizabelle
@raven: Yes you do, raven! And thank dog you. are. not. Trump.
debbie
@Barbara:
That won’t happen, and it doesn’t matter. Conservatives alienated me plenty with the crap they spewed about Obama and his family.
To hell with their precious feefees. //
Ken
Same way – he’ll take a pratfall in public and lie there while they walk all over him.
NotMax
@Geminid
That could be attributed simply to aging. I do the same thing (not always, but often enough) with one leg when getting into a car.
raven
@Kay: Well, I quit smoking in 1968 so I got that going for me!
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: THIS THIS THIS
The man is a monster. He needs to suffer for all his various sins and crimes and cruelties.
raven
I feel better now!
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: exactly- he literally is unfit and mentally incapable and his continued presidency is a danger to us all . I loathe Pence but we would be in better hands if he took over.
Mary G
The consensus seems to be that this is a Photoshop fake, but I love it anyway.
Villago Delenda Est
@MomSense: Graham Nash wrote a song about him back in 1967.
AliceBlue
@Frankensteinbeck: Same here. The general reminds me of how I used to walk with my mother before she finally started using a walker.
gVOR08
Saw something a few days ago that offers a simpler explanation for the ramp, speculation that he wears lifts in his shoes. Also a corset. Of course lifts wouldn’t explain the water glass thing. The question of mini stroke or lifts is amenable to to usual resolution of conservative dichotomies, both.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Same! The results of the first official annual physical were more than a little suspicious when it was claimed Trump somehow grew an inch (in his 70s!) over his previously reported height and was pegged at exactly one pound below the height-weight ratio that would classify him as obese.
piratedan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
speaking to your brief note on Ms. Chozick, its indicative that we not only need to “reform the police”, we also need to reform the media. I don’t have an issue with political reporting that shows Dems to be “not nice” people because I understand and accept that there are “not nice” people fucking everywhere in every walk of life, all it takes are trigger events and crappy circumstances to shine the light on our flaws and being “not nice” is not confined to one political party.
What I want to see removed are the political hit jobs that have one kernel of a shred of truth and using that to extrapolate into greater misdeeds as if they have merit. I grow weary of watching them turn every issue into both sides without specifics and context. I also am getting tired that journos in their own way, give latitude to the bad guys in their ranks by not calling this shit out when they KNOW a piece is not factual, not true and is simply crap promoted to generate click bait that informs no one.
while morals can be personally malleable as we start to discover more about who we are, ethics shouldn’t be and we have a serious ethical crisis in a good many of our professions that we rely on to function as a Democracy.
Betty
@MomSense: Well said!
Karen S.
@Kay:
You may already be aware of this, but Chozik is really cashing in on her Clinton weirdness.
Netflix series based on Chozik memoir
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
This.
He lies with the ease of a well practiced con man. He’s not good at the lying because he lies to and about everyone and everything, including himself. He lies about the obvious, his own self/demeanor/words/actions. He lies about the mundane and the horrible. The only thing he doesn’t lie about is his abject racism. He revels in that, he’d roll around in it if he could get back up to lie some more. He lies to your face, he lies behind your back. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t actually know the truth about anything. If he does, he lies about that. He is basically the definition of bullshit. And all of this has been long before his current massive level of cognitive decline. The people propping him up, lying about his mental and physical health, they are doing this for a reason. Does anyone think that shitforbrains is actually calling the shots here? That he is in any in charge? He’s operating at a level of a drooling idiot, and policies are being changed. Policies that he’s totally incapable of understanding. Someone inside/behind the scenes is shadow running/ruining our government. Breaking laws/stealing millions. trump is not doing this. Maybe he was 3 yrs ago, but now he’s a shadow puppet that someone is manipulating, using this declining old ignorant, racist fart, to accomplish things that he should never be able to do, and moscow mitch and the senate is going along, supporting this illegal and massively racist theft of our government.
Ken
So he’s throwing the West Point administrators under the bus.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
It’s possible they actually do energize him. There’s a documentary about Glen Campbell’s last tour that I saw. He was well advanced in Alzheimer’s, and in rehearsals totally befuddled by the simplest things like where to stand and where to walk. He appeared to have no idea what was going on.
And yet night after night, when the lights came on and the actually crowd was out there cheering for him, he was totally there. Playing the music, singing the words, completely present.
In a similar way, I think MAGA rallies might actually be waking up the last remaining brain cells in whatever toxic sludge is inside Trump’s skull. He can’t govern, he can’t react to a crisis, he can’t understand any aspect of his job down to the most trivial, he can barely even speak the English language anymore. But when the hate and the screaming starts at the rallies, he remembers those lyrics.
SW
Physics 101: Humiliation via the inclined plane.
scav
The other thing is, this is also just another instance of their lying about things we can readily see. This overall behavior needs to highlighted, underlined, bolded, lit with flashing lights on a marquee with or without big neon arrows. If these medical instances are how one breaks through the blinders to some people, so be it. Establish that doubt about what this establishment says and what is visible.
CliosFanBoy
@Geminid: except it’s one of the reddest districts in the state. But I hope you’re right!!!
Aleta
Mocking his neurological health hasn’t convinced the press or his handlers to give us honest answers about it. We should mock all of them mercilessly.
Michael Cain
I’m 66 and still fence occasionally (well, up until the virus). I get a chance to watch how much effect on balance there is as people I’ve fenced with for years reach the far side of 70. I still ride my bike but have given up on cleats that attach me to the pedals, or even toe clips, because I’m no longer confident that I can get a foot loose if I need it. I’m sure Trump’s too egotistical to ask, “Your arm, General?” but having to wouldn’t be particularly unusual.
oatler.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/2020/06/13/trump-supporters-burn-michigan-absentee-ballot-applications/111958524/
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I’d like to see the list (and dosages) of Trump’s medications. Given that Trump is a long-term self-medicator and that he selects physicians who do what he tells them to, it would be revealing.
Luciamia
What will be the excuse Trump will give to try and get out of the debates?
MomSense
@Aleta:
Agreed – and we should also contact their advertisers.
TS (the original)
@Barbara:
The media was perfectly happy to discuss Clinton’s health & Biden’s health – why can it not discuss trump’s health in the same way. The only people to get alienated would be the deplorables – and just maybe a few might start to wonder about trumps fitness (physical or mental) for office.
I think his rally is going to be an equal disaster as was the West Point day. Nothing he has done – since refusing to take on managing COVID-19 has been a success – and each public appearance is losing him more votes.
Biden is doing the right thing by staying relatively quiet – trump is losing the election all on his own.
Omnes Omnibus
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
JMG
@SW: This makes sense to me. Trump never exercises except to swing a golf club, and he went several months without doing so until just a week or two ago. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he damaged something in his first round or two. Also, there’s no question he’s incredibly nearsighted.
None of this would matter in the least if he wasn’t so defensive about it. I’m 70. I walk slowly and carefully. It’s no shame.
MattF
@Luciamia: Too busy. Biden should be ignored.
Ken
Take comfort in the fact that #RampGate and #TrumpIsUnwell took off by themselves, and didn’t need secret financiers and a Russian datacenter full of twitterbots.
Ruckus
@Just Chuck:
Please don’t do that.
He is a horrible sack of shitty human being. I wish he wasn’t, but he is. But don’t wish horrible bodily decline on anyone. For him to be out of power and not out of prison, absolutely. Not even all that concerned about the COVID thing, it’s not like he’s done shit to help anyone else with it or do anything to help like he is supposed to do. But massive diseases of the brain? Having his brain should be torture enough. I spent most of the last 4 years being told I either do or don’t have Parkinson’s. I wouldn’t wish this or other major debilitating diseases on anyone. I had a friend with ALS. He’s not suffering any longer. I get wanting shitforbrains to suffer, hell he’s causing massive suffering just by still breathing. But I want him to suffer in prison, to pay for his life of theft and lying. I want him to suffer knowingly, to experience that which he’s causing on everyone else. No one should have to experience neurological disease.
MagdaInBlack
@Ruckus:
And another ????
Luciamia
And why would they give him a slippery ramp?
Ken
Nonsense, his West Point day was sabotaged by… someone who put up a long steep slippery ramp and set out a heavy water glass. The rally is being run entirely by his campaign, and everyone there is completely loyal to
their paycheckTrump.raven
I keep waking up all by myself
With a bluejay in my brain
Flapping his wings, making me sing
It was just about to rain
Like it was Dreamville where I was born
Light years from here
And the air smelled good in Dreamville
In Dreamville
MomSense
@gVOR08:
Lifts and a girdle do not explain the slurred speech, dilated pupils, lack of focus, diminished vocabulary, etc. Remember the Republicans lies about Reagan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis? Who the fuck was president while he was incapable? Nancy? Her psychic? No one voted for them.
Every time we let Republicans get away with this shit they come back with worse. That party is a fucking Hydra.
It’s way past time to be ruthless with everyone and anyone who is not actually fighting for our democracy. This will be unpopular but that also means digging in to our so called allies. We see the press making money off this catastrophe. They actually admitted it in 2016. Bad for the country but great for our bottom line. There are also “progressive” entities that will make money off of this who will not be effective and/or honest in the fight. We need to nip that shit in the bud. Remember some of the “progressives” who made their money off bashing Obama “from the left”? Some of them came back and assisted Trump in 2016. We have to be ruthless or we will lose what’s left of our democracy and worse.
kindness
I voted against Reagan twice. I thought Ronnie had obvious Alzheimer’s symptoms his first term. Polite ‘society’ says it was his second term. This period reminds me of that with TrumpCo except the people pulling the marionette strings behind the scenes were less evil during Ronnie’s run, which I had no idea was a possible thing back then. Oh the joys of youthful beliefs. Anyway it’s the people pulling the strings we really have to worry about. Those folk want us to fight each other. They don’t care if we die. They’ll be safe in their walled off compounds they think. So please stay safe and try to stay happy & sane. That’s a tough call these days.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: OTOH, I would expect that the West Point people are competent while his own people are, shall we say, less so.
MomSense
@Ruckus:
I don’t wish any illness on him. We do have a right to know what the fuck is going on with him, though.
I do wish trial and conviction for treason and other crimes. Then I hope for the maximum allowable sentence. In the case of treason – that would be just fine with me.
Ascap_scab
@different-church-lady: Well, you know, he has those bone spurs.
JMG
The health of the President of the United States is everybody’s business, period. He or she can blow us all up, so we have more than a right to know the true score.
jeffreyw
@raven:
Picnicking Birds pic.twitter.com/2EzaQnmfeh— jeffreyw (@imjeffreyw) June 14, 2020
laura
I have zero credible medical information about trump. I have zero medical training. But I saw what can be seen in the video and that’s a man that does not or cannot depend upon his right leg. Something is amiss. Same with the helping himself with a sip.
If his adult children weren’t the exact same kind of monster their father is, they would’ve talked him out of running in 2016 and they’d talk him out of running for reelection. But they are all greedy self-serving monsters.
I do not wish physical impediment or mental decline on him or anyone else. However, it appears that he cannot escape suffering any better than anyone else but he appears incapable of connecting the suffering he experiences to the suffering he has forced on others.
raven
@jeffreyw: WTF-K, all ya’ll got twitter????
Geminid
@NotMax: good point. I have a weak knee I often favor going down stairs. I might have looked a little funny going down those stairs at West Point. And I don’t carry much extra weight. More significant might be reports that he was having trouble pronouncing words.
TS (the original)
@Ken:
In my old age I’m a little slow on the uptake – but after reading trump’s tweet 3 times – I’m thinking why would ANYONE expect to find rails on walkways at West Point? Sure we have them in the retirement community, in the care homes & maybe even in some school walkways for the very young ones – but at West Point – where the best & finest of the future military are to be found. Never.
Roger Moore
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I think the basic explanation is that Trump is disengaged most of the time because that stuff is boring to him. He has limited reserves, and he isn’t going to spend them on a bunch of stuff that he has no interest in or talent for, even if that’s his job. He’s saving his limited energy and attention for the parts of the job that he enjoys, i.e. Nuremberg rallies.
Omnes Omnibus
@TS (the original): Because it should be ADA compliant.
Mike in NC
Appears that Fat Bastard had a “mild” stroke a couple of months ago, which was covered up like everything else about him. A summer hate rally in Tulsa during a pandemic is just what the doctor ordered, so to speak.
JaB
@OzarkHillbilly: 2.5/12 is fairly steep for a ramp. Standard accessible ramp is 1/12. Still, shouldn’t have been a problem.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: I like ruthless, for your purposes. Overdue for some of these enablers.
MomSense
It wasn’t even raining at West Point yesterday! The field was dry. He is saying it was slippery to cover for what we could all see. He has balance issues and his right side is not functioning well. It’s a long ramp which by definition makes it not steep. There are so many obvious lies in his explanation. Why is he lying?
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Isn’t the ADA just another one of those pesky over-regulations (like clean water, air, safe work environments and non-discrimination) that businesses have been liberated from because of Covid?
zhena gogolia
@raven:
One of my favorite moments.
MomSense
@Geminid:
They weren’t stairs. It’s a looooong and very gradual ramp. Even when I had just relearned to walk I could’ve done that ramp. I did use ramps to go to physical therapy and the hospital.
There is a powerful need for all of us to try and explain away or lessen his behavior because the obvious truth about him is terrifying. We have to face it and not shy away from it. At some point the coping mechanisms become destructive.
zhena gogolia
@raven:
You and your wife take care of you much better than Drumpf and his wife take care of him. You’ll be good.
Elizabelle
And: Philip Rucker of the WaPost goes there. Up for an hour now on their website front page:
WaPost:
Trump tries to explain his slow and unsteady walk down a ramp at West Point
Don’t know if someone else put this up already, but reading it for you now for excerpts, if not.
Marci Kiser
His gait would also look like this if he wore lifts in his shoes.
Not to say Trump isn’t at baseline probably quite unhealthy, but I’m hard-put to distinguish between the Hillary-is-Dying video sleuthing and this. We know he wears lifts. We suspect he has underlying neurological issues. Perhaps they’re both at play. It’s fair to contrast this with “concerns” over Biden’s health, but motivated diagnosis is a real thing we have to be wary of.
zhena gogolia
@Ascap_scab:
You’re not president of the United States and lying about your health to the American public.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
I can’t access WaPo.
jayjaybear
It’s ALL projection with these people. He’s accusing Biden of being a doddering old fool with dementia because HE is a doddering old fool with dementia.
Marci Kiser
@MomSense: All of the symptoms you describe, though, are more typical of neurocognitive decline and not necessarily a CVA. Yes, Trump slurs his speech and has trouble with word-finding… but he’s also an incurious turnip who couldn’t care less to get things right in the first place.
One of the most common tells for true expressive dysphasia is stymied effort. Joe Biden’s stutter is an excellent example. He knows exactly what is trying to say and visibly struggles to do so at times. While I try not to watch him too much, Trump does not seem to be trying to say certain things and failing. He just fucks up and doesn’t care.
Similarly, trying to divine the nature of his health from the kerning of his pupils is one of those bits of diagnosis that probably only convinces those ready to be convinced and makes everyone else mistrustful of such speculation.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: It’s a short WaPost article, so here goes: Philip Rucker:
SiubhanDuinne
@Ken:
It boggles the mind that his advance team, if they are the least bit competent*, wouldn’t ensure safe and easy transit for him at every moment of an event. This is pretty basic.
*I know, I know. Or maybe they’re perfectly competent but they hate him.
jeffreyw
@raven: Twitter is neither good nor bad. It is what you make it.
Elizabelle
That is so interesting to me: did you guys know today is Trump’s 74th birthday? I had no idea, although I ignore him as much as possible.
But, does not seem to be widely reported on. Because he with “supernatural stamina” does not age?
FWIW, I hope he’s in public housing that is well guarded next year too. Next year in prison, Trump.
debbie
@scav:
ADA hasn’t gone anywhere. When I call my bank’s automated line, there’s a message about contacting them with ADA issues.
TS (the original)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Even at West point? I would think they would be exempt – and under trump’s admin, especially so.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Pretty sure we’re going to see long ramps that a lame dog could descend and ascend soon. Maybe with carpeting and reinforcement on them too.
Like for dachshunds, to avoid back problems from jumping.
TrumpDogRamp. Because he’s the most fit (for office) president. Ever!
chopper
it’s the first tool in the GOP campaign belt – attack the other guy for your weaknesses.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
This. All of this.
Mocking him is fine, he mocks everyone else. I just do not like wishing debilitating diseases on him, or anyone else. No one deserves that. Prison – absolutely. There are innocent people in prison, along with the guilty, another guilty person should take those innocent people’s place.
Aziz, light!
Had Trump just won the Olympic decathlon, he would still be my pick for the worst person in America. His physical frailties at the age of 74 are the least of our problems.
Elizabelle
Incidentally, that music at West Point is superb for the Trump descent.
I at first thought it might have been dubbed in from Looney Tunes. And Trump looks like a walking caricature.
scav
@debbie: I hadn’t actually heard it was one of the things vanished. It was more the general principle of him relying on regulations similar to those he’s so freely tossing as symbolic red meat to his base (who also rely on them).
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: I want Trump beset with serious legal troubles, court dates, embarrassment upon embarrassment and disclosure upon disclosure, from here on out. I worry that he would escape some punishment because of diminished capacity (which we are discussing, throughout this thread).
We will not get justice, but I hope from here on out he regrets the day he ever accepted the nomination.
Asshat should have taken Howard Stern’s advice and just stuck to the grift he was good at. More golf.
Omnes Omnibus
@TS (the original): Why would West Point be exempt? Just because the cadets are supposed to be physically capable does not mean that faculty, staff, family, and visitors may not require accessibility features. Also, even the most athletic among us are one bad step away from a temporary disability.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
It’s a good start. I wish they didn’t use the critics say framing
PJ
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I saw Glen on his last tour. He had a teleprompter for lyrics (as many older performers do these days), and forgot which song they were doing a few times, but his guitar playing was excellent throughout. The body knows things which the memory has forgotten.
pat
@Ruckus:
Hear hear! I often wonder who is writing these “speeches” and who is coming up with all these terrible “executive orders” that are destroying the environment, our standing in the world, and our moral principles.
Stephen Miller is my first choice but I’m sure he has lots of people whispering in his demented ears.
Elizabelle
@MomSense: True. But at least the media cannot always fall back on “Democrats say …”
Trump’s “critics” are becoming legion.
Jinchi
I know it was many scandals ago, but just last year he was personally extorting the government of Ukraine. Since then he threatened to withhold critical aid to Democratic governors during a pandemic and he has directed the DOJ to fire and investigate at least half a dozen law enforcement officials for the crime of discovering him committing treason.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. He may also surround himself with grifters and conmen, but there’s no reason to fall for an incapacity defense.
Villago Delenda Est
@TS (the original): Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. A paraphrase of Napoleon.
counterfactual
OT: a new poll has Biden trailing Trump by 2 points.
In Arkansas.
https://talkbusiness.net/2020/06/poll-independents-dissatisfied-with-trump-cotton-biden-competitive-in-arkansas/
Elizabelle
An astute WaPost reader comment:
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Disagree.
The press should find the truth and tell the public about it.
Having slight paralysis on one side isn’t necessarily disqualifying. Neither is garbled speech, and all the rest. Stephen Hawking had all kinds of physical issues and still was able to do his job.
But the public needs to know, and needs to use that information (along with the libraries full of other information) to decide their votes in the fall (for President and for the other members of the parties).
This isn’t about political pay-back. This is about informing the public and informing voters.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: I was thinking specifically of Stephen Hawking. Could have run rings around Trump, at any time in both their lives.
raven
@Ruckus: Well none of it really means shit.
So long to the blue days of wishing
If wishes were changes
There’d be no goodbyes
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
If, and it’s a big IF, the problem is that he’s disengaged because he is bored that is another reason he should be removed from office. Two million Americans are infected with COVID and over 100,000 have died. Being tuned out because he’s bored is unacceptable.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I don’t believe so, although it is possible. I believe that he is in massively declining health. That he has at least one if not more debilitating diseases of the brain. Whatever illicit drug he might be taking probably wouldn’t help but I could be easily convinced that he’s not on illicit drugs, just in decline.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
This is a very important point that people tend to miss. Also, even people who are perfectly healthy can benefit from some of the designs that were originally intended for people with disabilities.
Skepticat
You have to ask? He’s incapable of doing anything else.
raven
@jeffreyw: I knew there was a reason we’re not facebook friends!
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
This fucking up is his entire life, not just who he is. He’s always tried to do things in public and call it great. It never has been. When he didn’t do it to all of us, few cared. When he’s fucking all of us to this degree, we all care.
raven
@Roger Moore: I worked at the Center for Rehabilitation Technology (now the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation) at Georgia Tech way back in the day. The projects there were fascinating and always done with an eye toward wider application.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
OT: My wife watches the Zoom service at the National Cathedral most Sundays. Right now, the Rev Dr. William Barber II is giving the guest sermon. Pretty powerful and moving stuff.
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
I guess so but I still find it frustrating that the only angle appears to be the election. Aside from the messaging of both campaigns – we are in the middle of a health crisis that has been made worse by inaction and lying. Shouldn’t the connection be made between 100,000 lives lost and lies about COVID? The lies are literally killing us.
Bill Arnold
@zhena gogolia:
Link? I collect these. Particularly the ones that seem to be related to a single cerebral hemisphere., or the two hemispheres bickering in public.
Sister Golden Bear
OT: If people are looking for some different entertainment, a friend of mine just did a fantastic online production of “MacBeth.” It’s available online for another three days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLwpz4eSYog
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
Never mind, I see the link a couple of comments earlier.
Hoodie
@Another Scott: Agree. If this theme starts trending, might be a good time for Biden to accelerate the VP selection process and start putting together a shadow cabinet. Don’t explicitly tie it to Trump’s decline, but given all the other chaos currently going on, it might reinforce the sense that the current government is in disarray, and perhaps it’s in part because the CIC is not well and is surrounded by flacks preoccupied with covering up his problems. That could be part of what the Tulsa rally is about, there’s something wrong with him physically and they’re so worried about making him look healthy, they’re willing to risk giving a bunch of his supporters COVID.
Repatriated
If he has difficulty with ramps, does he also have issues with leeks?
(Or other onions, for that matter?)
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
It’s not just that he’s disengaged. I think he’s disengaged at least in part because he doesn’t have the physical and mental stamina to remain engaged.
jeffreyw
@raven: The mainest reason being I’m not on Facebook.
trollhattan
One constant with Trump since he first entered the public’s eye: he’s fucking weird. Every little thing about him is weird. He’s the weird guy at school/the office/in the PTA/living down the block who you avoid at all cost, and who yet inevitably corners you to impose upon you with yet another weird story about himself. Weird, weird, weird dude you would never so much as lend a screwdriver to.
Roger Moore
@raven:
One of the things people miss is that even fully able people have their hands full, or have to move heavy things, or otherwise have to do things that make their movements awkward and difficult. There are a huge number of things in everyday life that were badly designed but were kept that way out of inertia or because people thought they looked nice. Consciously designing for people with disabilities has forced us to rethink some of those things and come up with designs that are better for everyone.
Just Chuck
@Ruckus:
No one deserves to have their children taken away and put in cages either. He will almost certainly never see the inside of a prison cell, so I want him to suffer and suffer badly. The only reason I now agree with you about not wishing illness on someone is that the bottomless hatred I have for T is too poisonous to me. I don’t like myself too much for it, but I still hate him.
rollSound
@Chief Oshkosh:
Disasters get plenty of press. Don’t need a close race for great ratings. Propping up Rump is the only thing they have to prove their coverage of Hillary was justified.
montanareddog
@Kay:
My brother had a regular in his bar who was an oncologist. A customer came in with a large growth on his neck. From behind this customer, the oncologist caught my brother’s eye and slowly drew his index finger across his throat.
MomSense
@Hoodie:
I think he has to wait – all the media will be all over that and it’s best to keep them on trump as much as they can. They’re like cats with a laser light.
I also think his events have been interesting. Lots of different events with former candidates together or with groups that weren’t initially their constituency. I think he’s using this time to try to bring all the factions together. His campaign has been remarkably good. They’re playing the long game and I’m loving it.
Remember when everyone was freaking out that Obama wasn’t hitting hard enough or fast enough in 2008. Then McCain behaves like McCain has a habit of doing – impulsively- and Obama was the adult in the room and positioned to bring cool competence. I honestly think Biden is doing this the best anyone could right now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: Light switches. My last place was designed to be ADA compliant. The light switches were awesome – big rocker switches mounted at about waist height. You could just slap them to turn the light on our off. Wide hallways were nice too.
Another Scott
@Geminid: Yup, it’s a pickup opportunity. If we fight for it.
They’re insane.
(via NotLarrySabato via BlueVirginia.us)
Cheers,
Scott.
NoraLenderbee
Syphilis of the brain?
OK, not serious, but if he’s gonna have a brain disease, let’s make it a good* one.
*you know what I mean.
One More Red Nightmare
@Elizabelle:
He is clearly not well.
When I saw the latest videos of Trump I felt an intense sadness.
Sadness that he will probably die before he is incarcerated for his many crimes against humanity.
I hope he stays healthy enough to be jailed. For a long time.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Repatriated: I remember running into the word “rampion” when reading a version of Rapunzel to my kids. I still don’t know what it means, except that it’s edible. (The man sneaks into the witch’s garden to steal some because his pregnant wife craves some).
I ran into the word “rocket” in the English translation of some ingredient in a European restaurant. Took me a while to figure out that it meant “arugula”.
Food seems to be one of the areas where the US and UK are most separated by their supposedly common language.
@One More Red Nightmare: Barring that, I think it’s absolutely crucial for us as a nation to investigate and document the crimes of him and his administration, regardless of whether he suffers the consequences. Starting with those goddamn tax returns.
trollhattan
@MomSense:
Agree. When your opponent is busy digging himself a hole, let him continue. Maybe offer a sharper shovel.
trollhattan
@NoraLenderbee:
It would be irresponsible to speculate which STD Trump has not had.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Like Obama, I think Biden has a plan that he is basically sticking to. He isn’t trying to win the day or the week. You’ll notice that he said he what his plan for the primaries was, write off IA and NH and concentrate on SC. A lot of people assumed it was a ploy of desperation, but it was his plan and, damn, did it work.
Villago Delenda Est
@Just Chuck: He inflicts pain on others because he enjoys it. He is a monster. No quarter for the likes of Donald.
Omnes Omnibus
Car parts are another.
germy
@montanareddog:
I hope he also warned the man.
Ken
@trollhattan: All of them, Katie.
FelonyGovt
What’s most interesting to me is that HE CAN’T LEAVE ANYTHING ALONE. He did not help himself with that whiny, lying tweet about the slippery ramp or about “running” at the end (which everyone can see didn’t happen). But he has to get in the last word, even if it makes him look worse.
raven
@Roger Moore: roger that, Roger.
germy
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was thinking of traditional door knobs and faucets, which require you to grab with your hand and twist with your wrist, which is terrible for people with arthritis. Faucets especially have been replaced with lever style, but a lot of door knobs have been replaced with handles, too. They only require a push instead of a twist, which is good for people with weak hands, but they also let people whose hands are full or dirty operate them with their wrists or elbows. It’s just a better design all around.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree completely. He also has said he is a transitional leader and he keeps showcasing other leaders in the party. He had an event with Pete Buttigieg the other day. I think he is easing people into the idea that it’s not going to be he alone can fix it. It’s going to be Biden with a lot of others while building the next leaders for the party.
Repatriated
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
All I remembered was that ramps were also a vegetable of some sort, and looked them up to see if there was a good pun to be made. Honestly, I’d conflated them with rocket/aragula… Finding leek->leak was a pleasant surprise.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I found this outfit in Dublin that sells KIA accessories for WAY cheaper than you can get here.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker:
It’s like schoolyard bully behavior–if they want to take you down, anything at all will do. Parents agonize about giving their kids names that can’t be twisted into taunts but anything can be; you just have to repeat it in a contemptuous voice.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
The drug that cannot be named (FYWP) that he is said to use, “equal parts racemic amphetamine and dextroamphetamine”, is probably responsible for his large pupils[1], if one does not believe that they are caused by purely by possession (single cerebral hemisphere, right probably, i could guess about lobes involved too. :-), like some Christians would if they thought honestly about their favorite antichrist for just a minute. :-) (‘Course, such a thing could have a fondness for amphetamines; lazy way to get bursts of peak brain performance. :-)
Such drugs would/might also cause effective damage to a flabby human brain like D.J.Trump’s, over long periods of time. (Haven’t really studied amphetamine-caused brain damage, just read accounts.) The DHA in his fillet-o-fish sandwiches might be helping his brain. The fat/grease/salt, not.
[1] What about Medications/Drugs as a Cause of Trump’s Large Pupils?
Frankensteinbeck
@Ruckus:
We’re looking at a Sun King situation. Bear in mind, Trump is stupid and occasionally incoherent, but most of the time he is paying attention and does have opinions, even if they’re idiot opinions. His ego is also in full force. Trump is in charge of his administration, period. However, you’re right, he’s way too stupid to understand most of the stuff being done in his name. What you get in that situation is court intrigue. Factions plotting against each other, flattering the boss and trying to get him to approve of their priorities by making them sound like they match his priorities. All the leaks we’ve heard from the White House match this scenario perfectly. It also means that if Trump is taken out of the picture for any reason, there’s going to be chaos in the Executive because no one will work with anyone else.
Gvg
@raven: huh? My Grandmother had a two strokes, was in a wheelchair, ate unhealthy, overweight, diabetes etc and lived more than 15 more before she died. Oh forgot the gall stones attack too. She didn’t work at her therapy after the strokes and didn’t regain mobility. I do recommend widening bathroom doors before you have mobility issues though.
Calouste
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Some food names are different between the US and the UK because in the US those particular foods were introduced by Italian immigrants, where in the UK they were introduced by French chefs.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@MomSense:
QFT
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I will always be grateful to the disability community for the one large stall in public bathrooms.
Geminid
@MomSense: Well, I mistook someone’s description of the rise and run of the ramp to mean that it was a actually a set of stairs. Instead it was a ramp which I would walk with no difficulty. But I have no need to explain anything away. I’ve been watching Trumps health for a while now, and he keeps looking worse, and I keep hoping hoping he will keel over. I just try to temper my wishful thinking with a little skepticism.
Baud
@MomSense:
“Biden keeps going up in the polls. Here’s what he’s doing wrong.”
raven
@Gvg: Yea, I probably worried myself too much looking at various studies.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
If you mean Adderall, we can write it since the redesign. Thanks, WaterGirl!
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: Just before the Iowa caucus, I predicted that Biden was going to lose IA and NH but eventually get the nomination (not my favored outcome, but it seemed likely). Right after Iowa, suddenly there was all this buzz about how Biden was toast and it was turning into a two-man Sanders vs. Bloomberg race, stuff like that. And I started to feel foolish for predicting all that. But then it happened after all.
(I predicted Sanders would win Iowa; actually it was an effective tie between him and Buttigieg, but Buttigieg went nowhere after that.)
Matt McIrvin
My feeling about going after Trump for this stuff is that whatever you do, you have to make sure you’re not causing collateral damage. Sure, Trump deserves anything he gets, and you can get him for hypocrisy and lying, but the random other disabled person with mobility issues does not deserve any of this, so you need to be mindful of that distinction and phrase your attacks to keep it in mind.
Similarly with going after Lindsey Graham for whatever scandal, attacks on conservative women pundits who are themselves misogynists, etc.
Ken
@Matt McIrvin: Thank you again, African-American voters of South Carolina.
Delk
Crude Descending a Staircase
Baud
@Ken:
South Carolina was great, but that was just one state. In another universe, Biden doesn’t win a single other state. What was remarkable is how Super Tuesday voters responded a mere three days after South Carolina. Remember that Biden had no money and therefore almost no presence in the Super Tuesday states.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I think Mike Bloomberg’s embarrassing debate performance, and Elizabeth Warren absolutely flattening him and stopping the run to Bloomberg as the un-Bernie, was key. To the extent that the Sanders fans started wailing about how Warren had stabbed THEM in the back by going after Bloomberg (since they relied on the field remaining divided). At that point, many other candidates having quit, Biden was the centrist refuge candidate.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Warren did us a great service there.
mrmoshpotato
@Pigdog: Driftglass and bluegal have years of notes.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
No. It is who he is. He has never, ever cared about anyone other than himself. It’s more obvious now because he is now under 24/7 scrutiny.
NotoriousJRT
@MattF:
l am willing to bet the officer accompanying him is thinking, “WTF, WTF, WTF?!” all the way down that ramp. I think there is a lot of visual evidence that Trump has motor issues that make his health and physical fitness fair game to question. His campaign is projecting on Biden, and Trump is nobody’s kindly grandmother. He is a cruel SOB, so I have not problem with him getting a taste of what he gives every waking moment of his day.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
A lot of this can be just down to Trump is a lazy ass bastard and sits around all day watching TV so he likely has lot of muscle spasms from inactivity, that’s what Trump’s walk and that arm twitch looked like. Then again being an incurious, lazy bastard who does nothing watches TV all day does set Trump for dementia.
NotoriousJRT
@Dorothy A. Winsor: agreed!
Origuy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Rampion, Campanula rapunculus, is a species of bellflower. Its leaves and taproot are edible. It’s also called rapunzel, which is where the Brothers Grimm got the name.
The food name difference I see most often is eggplant, in the UK called aubergine.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I think Trump is noticeably less engaged than he was at the beginning of his term. As ridiculous as it sounds, he spends more time hiding out tweeting and watching Fox and less doing actual work than he did a few years ago. I guess hiding in his room might be a reaction to bad news, but I think it’s also a reflection of him just not having the energy.
Fair Economist
@Michael Cain:
Trump grabbed *Theresa May’s” hand to go down a short set of stairs. His balance is so bad it overrides his massive ego. Theresa May even claimed he grabbed it because he needed the help.
Brachiator
@Repatriated:
Given his age and food preferences, Trump probably has difficulties taking a leek.
Ruckus
@raven:
You take care of yourself? Are you 50 or more pounds overweight? Neither of those sound or look like you. We all age in one way or another. But if done reasonably there is no reason you can’t have a long, healthy and reasonable life.
I’ve had a HA. I have an aneurysm. I have a few other issues as well, none of which is comforting. But my docs expect me to be healthy for some time because I take care of myself, best as I can and as I think that you do as well. I’m looking for 95, just for the hell of it. I say aim high, plan for low, be surprised at the results.
trnc
The general’s proximity had nothing to do with speed. He was walking that close in case DT collapsed.
Roger Moore
@trnc:
I assumed the general was trying to stay behind Trump because of protocol and kept getting closer to passing him because he wasn’t expecting Trump to be that slow.
mrmoshpotato
So many people for these grifters to beg for bail money…err… campaign contributions.
Montanareddog
@Baud:
Why? Do you have a wide-stance?
Brachiator
@Origuy:
What the hell is a bellflower?
I was going to joke here that I wondered what the French call it, then I fell down the rabbit hole.
Eggplant doesn’t look much like an egg to me, but it had also been called a “vegetable egg” for various reasons.
It’s also called “brinjal” in some countries. This word has Dravidian origins, but for our purposes, we follow it as it traveled to Spain and became “berengena.”
“The berengena” is “Al berengena,” which became alberengena, which became the French aubergine.
ETA: A past girlfriend was vegetarian, and so we would go to vegetarian restaurants, some of which featured eggplant. Never a favorite food of mine. On nights we did not see each other, I would always end up at Fatburger or Tommy’s for a double chili cheeseburger.
Good times.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Golden Bear:
Ooh, sent to myself. Right now I’m stuck in the middle of David Tennant’s Much Ado, and having a hard time finishing because while he’s a fine Benedick – a little slapsticky, but not grossly out of bounds for the character – I can’t stand the actress playing Beatrice. I could use another shot of the Bard to wash that one down!
Brachiator
@Sister Golden Bear:
Thanks for this. It’s funny. I work from home, but still am tired at the end of the day. So I have a lot of stuff for viewing that piles up for the weekend.
I’m adding this to my list. Fortunately, Macbeth is a relatively short play.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
The big purple ones you see in the supermarket are far from the only variety, and they vary widely in appearance. There are some varieties that look a lot like eggs.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: You are on fire today, MomSense!
Feathers
@Omnes Omnibus: What’s bad is when you get used to being able to just slap them to turn on the lights. Then you find the room that hasn’t been updated and slam your palm into a regular toggle switch.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: We tried to get my nephew to eat arugula by telling him it was rocket, but no go.
I find it interesting to see which vegetables we use the English names for and which the Italian ones. My guess is it was who introduced them via their cuisine, but someone must have written on this.
ETA: I’ve been watching some Japanese cooking videos. Soothing, and no guilt on not cooking them, because I can’t get the ingredients. Also intriguing that vegetables will look quite different from what is in US stores. I wonder if it is just a translation issue – i.e. not actually spinach, but close enough; or an agricultural one – the same veg, but grown to different specifications. Also, I am yearning for a square Japanese omelet pan.
mrmoshpotato
Mary G
@Roger Moore: YES! I changed all my door knobs, light switches, etc. as soon as I could, like in the 80s. I had to special order them at Home Depot. I hate a round door knob with the heat of a thousand suns.
ETA: faucets also too.
Roger Moore
@Feathers:
Different cultivars of the same thing can look very different. For example, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kale are all the same species; they’ve just been bred to emphasize different parts of the plant. And then you get cases where there are a few species that have been hybridized to produce a really huge variety of crops. For example, almost all citrus come from hybrids of three parent species (mandarins, citron, and pomelos).
Another Scott
@Mary G: The “t-shirt” focus is much sharper than the rest of the picture. I pretty good sign that it’s been manipulated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Luciamia: The same one he whined before: “Unfair!!”
I’ve said for years that there won’t be any debates this time. Remember, he was afraid of Megyn Kelly. He’s much worse now.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Luciamia:
That’s an interesting concept, him not accepting an invitation to debate. If he does this, I suspect Biden should not comment at all. A spokesperson should though and ask the question, what possible valid reason can DT have for not debating? He’s going to look bad? Oops. He’s busy? Doing what? He’s not well? Oops. He doesn’t respect the office? Oops. I can’t see an upside for him declining. But that’s OK I can’t see an upside for him showing up either.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: and Swiss chard is a kind of beet.
Chief Oshkosh
@germy: Ahahahahaha! Man, that tweet should be the caption every damned time someone shows that video of Trump’s ramping down at the West Point graduate ceremony.
joel hanes
@debbie:
ADA hasn’t gone anywhere.
Find a violation. Report it to the Feds. See how far you get.
Like so many of our laws, it remains on the books, but is ostentatiously not enforced. Another example: the election finance laws that are supposedly the mission of the FEC. Trump violates them nearly daily.
joel hanes
@Elizabelle:
we’re going to see long ramps
He likes escalators. Remember his candidacy announcement?
James E Powell
@Ken:
Bill Simmons (mostly sports guy) interviewing Bakari Sellers about the primary asked, “Why did South Carolina become the place where Biden turned this election around?” Sellers answered, “Because of my mom and her friends are the people who choose the Democratic nominee.”
Ruckus
@Just Chuck:
Hate him? With the heat of a thousand suns I do. He is a horrible, horrible example of human, and he’s been that way his entire life. He deserves prison for all the shitty and racist things he’s done. But no one, and I mean no one deserves, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, or ALS or cancer, or deserved polio, or COVID, or… but even his absolute lack of humanity and all the rest of it doesn’t get him to the point of deserving that. It just doesn’t. Of course if there was a line, he should be at the head of it. There just shouldn’t be a line.
Another Scott
@debbie: +1
VF (from 2017):
(Emphasis added.)
Nothing is allowed to interfere with Donnie’s picture (and proclaimed story) of reality.. He’s been like that for years (at least).
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I read this story before, but it underscores the fact that Trump lies and commits to the lie. This has always been what he does.
Only now, his lies have consequences, he forces people to support his lies, and he will attack anyone who defies him by disputing his lies.
low-tech cyclist
I agree totally. But in addition to prison, would it be OK if I hope that he’s afflicted with the fleas of a thousand camels?
MisterForkbeard
@Brachiator: Right. It’s not only that he commits to the lie, but that he forces people to object over and over and over again until they just… stop.
And then because no one’s objecting, it becomes accepted. This was silly and narcissistic about a painting, it’s really fucking dangerous when Trump insists on murdering 5 innocent black people, or on climate change, international relations, anything.
Ruckus
@low-tech cyclist:
Are you asking if the camels could rid themselves of their fleas onto shitforbrains? Camels without fleas and shitforbrains with their shares. Hmmm. You know that just might work.
Kilgore Trout
@geg6:
Agree 100%. It’s his right side. He couldn’t lift the glass to his mouth with his right hand and the really short awkward steps down the ramp were with his right leg.
scav
@Origuy: Eggplant and aubergine is your most come across UK/USA variation? How healthy you are! Biscuit v. cookie for me.
Elizabelle
@Origuy: And courgette. Or plain old zucchini.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: Vanity Fair, WRT Trump, is the gift that keeps giving. From a link embedded in your story about the not-Renoir:
Vanity Fair, 2015, Mark Bowdoin: DONALD TRUMP REALLY DOESN’T WANT ME TO TELL YOU THIS, BUT …
Over a long weekend on assignment for Playboy magazine, Mark Bowden found that behind the garish Trump façade lies only more ugliness.
Worth a click. Article is short and excellent. This might be a dead thread, but might have to excerpt some more in an evening thread, in honor of the birthday boy ….
Mohagan
@SFAW: Plus he is only 74, which is not really elderly if you have taken any kind of care of yourself. I remember my mother in her mid 80s telling me quite seriously that “you slow down after 80”. At the time I (in my mid 50s) thought the remark was hilarious, but now that I will be 69 this year, I am taking it more seriously as a guide to aging.
prostratedragon
@SW:
It is, after all, a type of wedge.
Ruckus
@Mohagan:
My mom still worked part time doing dog licenses at the police department when she was 85. Dad was in the ground from Alzheimers by that time. We all age differently but if one cares for themselves and that drunk doesn’t drive over you, a cop doesn’t shoot you (if you are black) and you get lucky, you too can live to a ripe old age. Now some of that we can – have to change for the better, like that shooting part and the drunk part. Your genes are nothing you can do anything about but that caring for yourself, that you can do something about.
Feathers
@Roger Moore: That was my thought. Those are all separate enough now to have different common names in pretty much all languages, though. I was thinking more about “spinach” looking more like a cross between our baby spinach and kale. One of the things that is intriguing me is the difference in how cooking prep is done. This spinach is washed, then the bunch re-rubber banded together. The bunch is put in the boiling water stalks first, so they can cook for a bit longer before before the leaves are put in as well. You see the lady holding the tops with her cooking chopsticks, but with the editing I don’t know if that is how they stay out of the water the whole time the stems are cooking. This is a very intensive style of cooking. One thing though, this is a small bunch and having cooked as a single item, it is sliced into pieces and makes for a very nice presentation.
Morzer
As far as Trump’s various diseases and mental problems are concerned, my view is that when they go low, we kick them in the teeth.