Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Lunatics Running the Asylum

The question that’s getting a lot of play in the last few days is: Is Donald Trump mentally unfit to be President?

 

Obviously, the answer is: DUH! Of course Donald Trump is mentally unfit to be President!

 

Except…

 

Well, technically we don’t really know that, do we?

 

Not in a scientifically and medically verified sort of way.

 

I mean, we can read the tweets, we hear the sound bites. Common sense should assess the empirical evidence of our eyes and ears that Donald Trump is mentally unfit to be President!

 

But lacking someone with a degree on their wall in the psychiatric sciences having a sit down with Li’l Donnie, we can never know for sure.

 

There are things that a general practitioner can determine about someone’s mental health but that area is off limits as well. Trump is going in for a physical soon and the White House is most emphatic that it is a PHYSICAL. Standard stuff like measuring blood pressure, that sort of thing.

 

Standard practice for a person who is 71 years old is to include cognitive testing. Reaction speed, memory, recognition of words…so on and so on. But apparently such testing is not part of the menu for Trump’s physical.

 

When Li’l Donnie goes for his physical exam Friday, the White House said his mental fitness won't be tested. White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said such tests are not part of the president’s planned physical.

 

The specific exclusion of mental fitness testing begs the question: what is Trump trying to hide?  

 

Also the physical is being conducted by a military doctor, in fact the same one who served as Obama’s doctor. Boy, this doctor is going to be in for a surprise.

 

BEFORE: “President Obama, I have your results and I think you’re still sneaking off to have a cigarette once in a while. Otherwise, you look OK.”

NOW: “President Trump, I have your results and HOLY FUCK! HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE? YOUR LIVER HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A BIG MAC!”   

 

Unlike a private doctor, a military doctor is bound to secrecy to protect the privacy of the president, commander in chief of the military. So if the military doctor does find anything egregious, Sarah Huckabee Sanders will still lie her ass off as per standard procedure and try to claim the Trump is the healthiest President ever in the history of Presidents or in the history of health.  

 

And even if there was credible information on Trump’s debilitated mental health, it may not still be enough to get him out of office. 

 

The 25th Amendment is getting a lot of discussion as a means to remove Trump from office. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the President’s cabinet to declare the President unfit to carry out his duties and have him removed from office. The 25th Amendment was created to allow for a situation where the President is physically incapacitated but not quite dead yet. For example, when John F Kennedy was assassinated, he was shot in the head. His body conceivably could’ve been kept alive, his mind all but gone but technically not dead. The 25th Amendment was created with such a circumstance in mind, not a diagnosis of raging paranoia and narcissism. 

 

The House of Representatives could still pass articles of impeachment citing a President’s diminished capacity to fulfill his duties. But with Republicans in charge of the House and a President still capable of sitting upright in a chair and scrawling his signature on any party line approved legislation they want to send his way, there is no incentive to act on that. The Democrats can try to introduce articles of impeachment but unless any Republicans who can look past their own selfish partisan ways cross over to sign on, any attempt would be dead in the water along a party line vote.  

 

The question continues to be asked: Is Donald Trump mentally unfit to be President?

 

And the answer continues to be: DUH! Of course Donald Trump is mentally unfit to be President!

 

And there may be nothing we can do about. The lunatics are well and truly running the asylum.  

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