Trump Hospital Visit Hardly ‘Routine’

30 thoughts on “Trump Hospital Visit Hardly ‘Routine’”

1. the week:

   President Trump spent about two hours at Walter Reed Medical Center on Saturday for what he called “phase one of my yearly physical” in a tweet on Sunday. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said Saturday afternoon that Trump, 73, was simply “taking advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam.”
   Unlike Trump’s previous two physicals, this one wasn’t on his public schedule — or, CNN reported Sunday, his private calendar. Also, NBC News notes, the previous exams didn’t involve “multiple ‘phases.'” The medical staff at Walter Reed “did not get a staff-wide notice about a presidential” or “VIP” visit, as would normally happen, CNN says, “indicating the visit was a non-routine visit and scheduled last minute.” One source told CNN that Trump’s visit was “abnormal” but he’d appeared to be in good health late Friday.

   [… more here including this tweet from Jonathon wackrow

   This does not add up; the White House Medical Unit has very comprehensive facilities at the White House complex that could easily accommodate most of what is needed in an annual physical.  As a fmr USSS Agent assigned POTUS, I have never seen the annual formality occur in stages…]

   Like “thousands of other people who have worked” in the White House, “here is something I know first-hand,” tweeted James Fallows, a Carter administration alumnus: “If a president needs routine tests, there’s an amply staffed medical office right inside the White House. It’s a one-minute walk.” Whatever Trump was doing Saturday, he added, it was “100 percent not ‘routine.'”

2. 

3. karen tumulty at wapo:

   The only thing of which we can be fairly certain about President Trump’s mysterious Saturday-afternoon trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is this: The White House is not telling the truth when it claims the president was there “to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam.”
   We know this because — well, because those people lie about pretty much everything.
   And the compulsion of Trump and his team to contradict the obvious reality that we see with our own eyes is particularly egregious where the president’s health is concerned.
   Who could forget the fables from his personal physician, Harold Bornstein, who released a letter in 2015 assuring the nation that an overweight 70-year-old man with a lifetime of bad eating habits and an aversion to strenuous exercise would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency?” (Bornstein later said Trump himself had dictated the letter.)
   Then there was the miraculous growth spurt that occurred between the issuing of his driver’s license in 2012 and his physical in 2018, which reportedly added an inch to his height. That exam also allowed him to come in exactly 1 pound short of being classified as medically obese at a reported 239 pounds. By 2019, however, Trump had added another four pounds and crossed the line.
   So now the oldest president in U.S. history claims the purpose of his two-hour medical visit, which was not on his public schedule, was to conduct “phase one of my yearly physical. Everything very good (great!). Will complete next year.” Phase one? What does that entail? Has anyone else ever taken a routine physical in installments spread out over months? Has he signed up for some kind of quirky flexible spending plan with his insurance?
   […]
   As Trump embarks on his effort to convince us that he deserves another four years in office, Americans should demand something more than what they are getting, starting with a briefing from the physicians who treated him at Walter Reed.
   “Oh, the rumors are always flying,” his press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Saturday night on Fox News. “He’s as healthy as can be.” Could we please have a second opinion on that?

4. had forgotten about that original weirdo doctor who lied for him

5. another day another poll

   ABC and Ipsos:

   Washington, DC, November 18th, 2019 – New American public opinion polling from ABC News and Ipsos finds that most of the American public is following the impeachment inquiry hearings about President Trump, but opinion continues to be divided on if he should be removed from office.
   In this survey conducted on Saturday & Sunday, November 16-17, on the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, 58% of Americans say they are following the hearings very or somewhat closely. Additionally, 51% of Americans say that “President Trump’s actions were wrong and he should be impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.” Nineteen percent of Americans say President Trump’s actions were wrong but he should not be removed from office and 25% say President Trump did nothing wrong.
   A small plurality (32%) of Americans say their positions on impeaching President Trump were established before the Ukraine scandal erupted into public consciousness. However most Americans (67%) say they have decided on their position in the wake of the first reporting on Ukraine in September with one in five (21%) saying their decision has come after last week’s public hearings.
   About the Study
   This ABC News/Ipsos Poll was conducted November 16 to 17, 2019 by Ipsos KnowledgePanel® – a division of Ipsos. This poll is based on a nationally-representative probability sample of 506 general population adults age 18 or older.

   [continues]

6. wapo:

   A federal appeals court in Washington on Monday is set to consider whether the Justice Department must immediately release to Congress secret grand-jury materials from former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation.
   The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is due to review a lower-court ruling that requires disclosure of evidence the House Judiciary Committee says it needs in its “urgent efforts” to determine whether President Trump committed impeachable offenses.
   Last month, Judge Beryl A. Howell, chief of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, found that the House was legally engaged in a judicial process that exempts Congress from grand-jury secrecy rules.
   […]
   In her 75-page opinion, Howell said the Judiciary Committee and the House, in determining whether to recommend articles of impeachment, are serving like a grand jury.
   “In carrying out the weighty constitutional duty of determining whether impeachment of the President is warranted, Congress need not redo the nearly two years of effort spent on the Special Counsel’s investigation, nor risk being misled by witnesses, who may have provided information to the grand jury and the Special Counsel that varies from what they tell” the House, Howell wrote.
   Howell, a former Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee counsel and a 2010 nominee of President Barack Obama, said the need for continued secrecy was “minimal” because the Justice Department already had made redacted portions of the Mueller report available to certain members of Congress and because the Judiciary Committee agreed to negotiations to prevent release of information that would harm any ongoing investigations.
   In opposing the release, Trump administration lawyers said a Watergate-era court ruling was wrongly decided in finding impeachment proceedings exempt from grand-jury secrecy rules.
   Howell disagreed and rejected Justice Department claims that the House had not yet exhausted other means of obtaining the information, including throughsubpoena.
   “These arguments smack of farce,” she wrote, citing a letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone to House leaders saying the administration would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
   “The reality,” Howell wrote, “is that DOJ and the White House have been openly stonewalling the House’s efforts to get information by subpoena and by agreement, and the White House has flatly stated that the Administration will not cooperate with congressional requests for information.”

7. STDs

8. Brain murmurs

9. Do you think his brain is murmuring  ” get out of Dodge you idiot”

10. Can’t find the video of the Secret Service agents running around the motorcade vehicles getting SFB stuffed in for the ride to Walter Reed, I think it was a CNN clip.  It was very interesting considering the agent near the low intelligence narcissist looks to be holding a medical device.  The short clip showed everyone moving fast, which is not how those normally go.  Also, they did not use the hellofacopter, which is normal for the hop over to Walter Reed.

    Also, stupid did not go golfing Sunday, breaking a multi-month streak.

11. Looks like any way it goes he’ll be made into an alt-right martyr.   That sucks.

12. GOP needs to cut bait soon because once moderate Republicans realize their reps have been unabashedly lying to them for 3 straight years, and those lightbulbs are flickering on, now, they’ll lose all their seats.

13. reuters:

    WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily put on hold a lower court ruling that would require President Donald Trump’s accounting firm to hand over some of his financial records to a Democratic-led House of Representatives committee.
    The order issued by Chief Justice John Roberts does not indicate whether the court ultimately plans to hear Trump’s appeal, filed on Friday, of the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It merely puts the litigation on hold while the nine justices decide how to proceed. The hold remains in effect until the court acts.
    The case represents an important showdown pitting the powers of the presidency against the authority of Congress, with Trump fighting doggedly to keep details of this finances private even as he faces an impeachment inquiry in the House.
    Trump turned to the justices after the D.C. Circuit decided last week that it would not revisit its October decision backing the House Oversight Committee’s authority to subpoena the records from Mazars LLP, Trump’s longtime accounting firm.
    Earlier on Monday, the committee said it would not oppose a 10-day delay in enforcing the subpoena, but would not favor a longer delay sought by the Republican president.
    Trump’s lawyers had asked the justices for at least a temporary hold on the enforcement of the subpoena. They also want the matter to be put on hold for a longer period while the litigation is resolved.
    If the Supreme Court declines to hear Trump’s appeal, the documents would have to be handed over to lawmakers. Five votes among the justices are needed to grant a stay request. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority.
    In a separate case, Trump last Thursday asked the Supreme Court to review a New York-based federal appeals court’s ruling that local prosecutors can enforce a subpoena also issued to Mazars demanding Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns from 2011 to 2018.
    The House committee subpoenaed Mazars this year, saying it needed the records to determine if Trump complied with laws requiring disclosure of his assets, and to assess whether those laws needed to be changed.
    (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

14. bbronc, is this it?

15. WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. State Department officials were informed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was feeling pressure from the Trump administration to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden even before the July phone call that has led to impeachment hearings in Washington, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press.

    In early May, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, including then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, were told Zelenskiy was seeking advice on how to navigate the difficult position he was in, the two people told the AP. He was concerned President Donald Trump and associates were pressing him to take action that could affect the 2020 U.S. presidential race, the two individuals said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic and political sensitivity of the issue.
    State Department officials in Kyiv and Washington were briefed on Zelenskiy’s concerns at least three times, the two sources said. Notes summarizing his worries were circulated within the department, they said.
    The briefings and the notes show that U.S. officials knew early that Zelenskiy was feeling pressure to investigate Biden, even though the Ukrainian leader later denied it in a joint news conference with Trump in September.
    [continues]

16. patd – that is one of the clips.  The one I saw was a slightly different angle, most likely shot from a camera a foot or so to the left of that one.  Put together it shows a fat orange blob being hustled for a drive.

17. Pat, your ability to apply discovery to every dimension is beyond impressive. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

18. I understand that he was delivered to the VIP Section, Room 25.

19. Interesting topic today….    hmmmmm…
     
    I just shipped my last scarves for the Xmas season today….     now I can breathe!

20. flatus, you’re welcome welcome welcome.

    bbronc, click this to see another at 

    https://crooksandliars.com/2019/11/watch-apparent-rush-take-trump-walter-reed

    Lots of speculation today as video emerges of Donald Trump getting into his motorcade to head to Walter Reed Army Hospital for what the so-called White House calls a “routine” physical.

    The so-called president appears to be holding a folder of some kind and is not wearing a tie. He appears from this distance to be in a hurry, and disheveled.
    The theories range from this being a show to prepare the public for a medical resignation, to a plea for sympathy over the very bad week of Congressional testimony and Roger Stone’s conviction.
    Trump has zero public events today, and may or may not be tweeting from the White House. (No one has video confirmation of his return to 1600.)
    What is certain is, no one believes any single statement from the White House. Sad!

    [a few commenter tweets here]

    Of course, Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro attributes the speed at which he was taken to the hospital to his “super human” abilities.

    [ fox pirro vid here]

21. Anxiety attack   — he finalized realized he really is the worst president ever and that is how he will be remembered

22. patd – I had not heard that there is no confirmation he left Walter Reed.

23. Perhaps he had a spontaneous erection

24. Occasionally I have something happen on the internet tubes which surprises me.  I have had many comments on media sites go to top likes.  That has been going on since the “like” was started, a very long time ago in Internet time.  I have had posts go to top on various media sites, primarily political. 
     
      What I am not used to, or even ready for, is a hot topic on a specialty website.  Right now my question about using PEX pipe to replace what is on my boats is going “hot”.   It is not an ego boost, I am finding it more of a surprise of how you have no idea about the workings of the Internet.  Standing back a few steps says I touched a subject in a way that others wanted to know about, but had not known how to ask the question.  As wide as the tubes are, there are many questions not yet answered online.

25. Start saving now for a PEX crimping tool. why wouldn’t you use it?

    Edit: PEX is industry standard, now, there are adapters to plumb it to PVC but looks like most people just re-plumb the whole boat.

26. There’s three kinds of pipe:  there’s what you have, and you can see where that’s gotten you.  Then, there’s bronze, which is fine, until something goes wrong, and something ALWAYS goes wrong.  Then:  there’s copper, which is the only pipe i use.  It costs money.  It costs money because it saves money.

27. There is no pipe material out there for freezing applications that is anything like PEX. The damn stuff is amazing. I’ve got three long runs of formerly copper piping to outdoor faucets, and I have replaced two of the busted copper piping with PEX And it has been a godsend. After placing both busted copper and broken PVC, when I renoed my garage I had all the plumbing done in PEX. I know it won’t freeze and burst. That’s worth plenty. I just hope it doesn’t put carcinogenic shit in the water. 

28. ive had pex burst on me- on the line, too, not at a connection

    ok, keep your plums bobbed and your bobs plumb

29. Weird. Musta been well below zero or bad PEX. I’ve got one 10’ run that is outside, uninsulated, 10 years old that I’ve never closed the valve supplying it. It’s never failed, and we get winter here, in spades. Copper inside a crawl space – failed twice. PVC, don’t get me started. PEX, never had a problem. (Knock on wood). 

30. NEW THREAD

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