All Things Trump

[pErvinalia]

Well, we have an educated man, a physician. Dictation means reading aloud for transcription. When I used to "dictate" stuff for an assistant, she took it down word-for-word. It's not dictation if you suggest points to be included, but leave the wording up to the other person.

We are meant to be given the impression (by the doctor) that Trump "dictated" the letter - that it is Trump's writing, not his. The doctor then says, flat out "I did not write it." Well, if someone just says to you that they're going to give you points that need to be covered in a letter, and you write it up, then you did write it. You can't say you didn't write it, because you did. Add to that that the doc says "i made it up as i went along." I made it up. "I" made it up. How did he make it up, if he did not write it?

The letter sounds ridiculous. "I can tell you unequivocally that he would be the healthiest President in American history..." or whatever? On what basis would a doctor say this? What kind of a doctor would put his name to that? He can't know that to be true. And, I sure don't see trump using the world "unequivocally."

What possible reason would the doctor have for signing such a letter? Did he need the money? Was Trump his only patient, or something?

And, look at the guy. Something is going on there.

That's the point. He's dodgy as fuck. And only you could use the fact that someone is dodgy as a defence against them being dodgy for Trump..

[Brian Peacock]

Politically, this whole business must be very bruising for Trump.

#NOCONTUSION

[pErvinalia]

#NOANYTHING

His supporters don't and will never care. The best hope is that he loses the next election so that he can be forgotten. Impeaching/imprisoning him is only going turn him into a martyr for his nutbag supporters. Imagine what's going to follow next after that...

[Tero]

Rachel Maddow is on it.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

[Tero]

Kilimnik ...from Ukraine..has been stashed away to Russia to keep Trump happy.

[Scot Dutchy]

It is one big sewage pipe that keeps on giving.

[Brian Peacock]

Donald paid Michael back for paying Stormy.

[Forty Two]

As I said, there is no requirement for it to be black or white; only one thing or another: the doctor either took dictation in the manner you described re your assistant, as a verbatim fecord, or the doctor single-handedly fabricated the contents of the statement without the input of the President, and thus; that if the statement was not a verbatim record of the President's utterances then it must, and can only ever be, a fabrication produced without the President's input. As I hinted before, to rely on such an argument is to rely on the polarised thinking of a false dichotomy or dilemma.

I agree with you that Trump could have given him points he wanted covered in the letter, and left the wording to the doctor. But, when you do that - like if you say to a doctor - "I need a doctor's note, and it has to say that I have strep throat and a broken arm, and that I am unable to come to work, and I cannot lift anything at all..." and then the doctor writes up the note - then it's the doctor writing the note, and not you. He wrote it. He can't say he did not write it. He can't say later "my patient dictated the note to me, so it's not mine." It is the doctor's words.

Here, (a) trump literally dictated it word for word, or (b) the doc wrote it up without any comment from Trump, or (c) something in the middle - Trump said what he wanted in the letter and the doctor then, as he said "made it up as he went along." The only way this is not the doctor's letter which the doctor wrote is (a). Both (b) and (c) mean the doctor wrote it. His words. He "made it up as he went along." If he did not agree with its content, then his obligation as a physician - a professional - is to write something else that in his professional judgment is correct.

This doctor seems to have trouble describing reality, though. He was criticized for disclosing the President's personal medical information by telling people that the President was prescribed Propecia to take to combat hair loss. He told that to the New York Times, and then when asked about it he denied that revealing the President's medical condition and prescription medication was not a breach of patient-doctor confidentiality, because "what's wrong with that? [taking propecia]" (or words to that effect).

However, I would agree with your statement that "It's not dictation if you suggest points to be included, but leave the wording up to the other person" at least when talking of dictation in the verbatim sense, but can we really exclude all other possible meanings of the term 'dictate' such that it forecloses on the notion that Trump could have dictated the content and/or the terms of the statement, in the sense of an obliged or required instruction, while leaving the final wording to his physician, or that the statement could have been produced from a combination of the two?

Sure, but in that instance, the doctor wrote it (even if the patient says "I need a letter that says X" - if the doctor writes it and signs it, he wrote it. He can't say "I did not write that letter" (which is what this doctors flat out said. And, then he said in the next breath, "I made it up as I went along." Doesn't that seem to imply that the doctor made it up?

Would you dispute or entirely exclude the doctor's claim that the health statement was produced under his client's instruction on the basis of the application of a singular, exclusive meaning of a single word?

Not based on the singular meaning of a single word. The key phrase along with that is "I made it up as I went along." And, clients don't instruct doctors on what medical opinions to write. Even when it comes to the President, if the doctor doesn't agree with it, then he's obliged to say no or refer the patient to a new doctor. It's like if the President tells his lawyers what to write in a letter. If the lawyer doesn't think it's accurate, then he is obligated not to write the letter. Client might not like it, and even if it's the President, professional responsibility would trump Trump's instruction to put something in a letter. And, if the lawyer "makes it up as he goes along" and puts his name to it, then he wrote it. He can't say "I did not write that."

Whatever the facts of the case, it seems pretty clear that both of us are applying a higher level of critical consideration to this matter than either the President or his personal physician: what does it mean to dictate, to be dictated to, or to take or give dictation &c.

Or, the media, which as usual did a piss-poor job of interviewing this guy and getting to the bottom of it. They let the quote stand and have done little to nothing to find out. Ask the guy "so, how was the letter prepared?" Did you type it yourself? Did you have an assistant type it? Did you speak directly to Donald Trump about the content of the letter? How? When? Where?

If we continue down this road I'm sure we could have an interesting discussion touching on the conflict between formal and colloquial meanings of various word forms, and perhaps we would even agree on how a person who, as in your own example, relies upon an amanuensis to generate a verbatim account of their utterances can legitimately be referred to as 'a dictator'. Is or was Trump a dictator, and in what sense does he dictate? This of course is all by-and-by isn't it? Which I guess is kind of the point of it in the first place.

Not really - because this doctor said "I did not write the letter." And he said "I made it up as I went along." If he did not write the letter, than someone else did. If he made it up as he went along, then he must have written some portion of it - otherwise he's not making anything up. If it was dictated to him, then either (a) literal dictation word for word, or (b) points were given to him that were to be in the letter, but he wrote the letter in accordance therewith. If it's (b) then he can't say "I did not write that letter," and if it's (a) he can't say "I made it up as I went along.

In other words - something's fucked up, and he needs to clarify with specificity how the letter was written and why. Someone should ask him. What it sounds like now is some weird looking doctor got pissed off because the President went and grabbed his medical records from the weird doctor after he disclosed the President's confidential medical info to the New York Times.

Let me say this - do I think that letter sounds like a doctor wrote it? No. It sounds ridiculous. It makes me wonder what in the world Trump was seeing this doctor for for 30 years anyway. It sounds silly. So silly, though, that I really can't even see Donald Trump thinking that it sounds like a doctor wrote it. It's mind-boggling.

As to the motivation of the good doctor - well, first I would like you to address your own questions if you actually have a point to make in relation to said motivation. Otherwise it seems completely irrelevant to the essence of what the doctor is asserting: that the contents of the his statement on the state of the President's health was, as it were, a big fat lie peddled at the President's insistence.

That's not the essence of his statement - he did not say that the facts stated in the letter (blood pressure, surgical history, taking aspirin and statins, and overall general health, etc., were lies. He's not saying the lied about the President's medical condition facts. The bits that are at issue are "healthiest president ever" and other words like "extraordinary" and "astonishingly excellent." Are you suggesting this doctor lied about the facts of Trump's health, like he lied about blood pressure? Lied when he said the medical examination came back with good results? Lied about Trump's weight loss? Aspirin and statin intake? Lack of surgeries since he was 10 years old?

[Forty Two]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... candidates

'In 2009, my wife and I moved to my hometown of East Aurora, New York to have a family. Making far less money back home, we had a far better quality of life. That is, until the Trump-Russia narrative took off. Today, I can’t possibly pay the attendant legal costs and live near my aging father, raising my kids where I grew up.

'Your investigation and others into the allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia are costing my family a great deal of money – more than $125,000 - and making a visceral impact on my children.

'Now I must to move back to Washington, New York City, Miami or elsewhere, just so I can make enough money to pay off these legal bills. And I know I have you to thank for that.

'Here’s how I know: how many of you know Daniel Jones, former Senate Intelligence staffer for Senator Dianne Feinstein? Great guy, right? Most of you worked with him. One of you probably just talked to him this morning.

'Of course, very few of us in flyover country knew Daniel until recently. Now we know that he quit his job with your Senate committee not long ago to raise $50 million from ten rich Democrats to finance more work on the FusionGPS Russian dossier. The one the FBI used to get a FISA warrant and intimidate President Donald Trump, without anyone admitting -- until months after it was deployed -- that it was paid for by Hillary Clinton.

'In fact, good old Dan has been raising and spending millions to confirm the unconfirmable – and, of course, to keep all his old intel colleagues up-to-speed on what FusionGPS and British and Russian spies have found. Got to keep that Russia story in the news.

'Of course Dan’s in touch with you guys. We know from the news that he’s been briefing Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of this committee. Which one of you works for Senator Warner? Please give Danny my best.

'I saw some of his handiwork just last month. Remember this lede paragraph, from McClatchy on April 13?

'The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

'That’s your pal Dan, isn’t it? He came up with some kind of hollow proof that Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting with Russians when he wasn’t. He tried to sell that to reporters, and they didn’t buy it because it doesn’t check out. So, to get a reporter to write up his line of bull, he gave the documents to the Office of Special Counsel.

'We know that’s likely, because he’s told people he’s briefing investigators.

'So, technically, the special counsel’s office has evidence. Your pal Dan gave them more of the Democrats’ dossier, funded by more Democrats, provided again by Russian and British spies. Information no reporter would write up, but now there’s an angle: the Special Counsel has it. Now it’s a story.

'It’s a clever but effective ruse. That’s a story, just like when reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News wrote this gem on September 16, 2016:

'“…U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate … a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. That meeting, if confirmed, is viewed as especially problematic by U.S. officials…”

'Dozens of stories were written from the Isikoff piece, doing real damage to the Trump campaign. Of course, now we know Isikoff’s reference to “intelligence reports” was just him renaming a dossier funded by Democrats and dug up by his longtime pal Glenn Simpson and some foreign spies. Once Simpson gave his Clinton campaign opposition research to the feds, it was news.

'This was especially true after Isikoff intentionally labeled the campaign materials as intelligence – just like McClatchy called Dan’s information “evidence.”

'But who is McClatchy’s second source? It couldn’t be Dan; he was the first source. It couldn’t be Simpson; he works for Dan. It can’t be the Mueller investigation; they kicked the McClatchy story to the curb with aplomb. So who could it be – perhaps one of his former Senate Intelligence colleagues? I mean, you’re all in this together. You’re the swamp.

'What America needs is an investigation of the investigators. I want to know who is paying for the spies’ work and coordinating this attack on President Donald Trump? I want to know who Dan Jones is talking to across the investigations – from the FBI, to the Southern District of New York, to the OSC, to the Department of Justice, to Congress.

'Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election.

'I want to know because God Damn you to Hell.'

[Brian Peacock]

As I said, there is no requirement for it to be black or white; only one thing or another: the doctor either took dictation in the manner you described re your assistant, as a verbatim fecord, or the doctor single-handedly fabricated the contents of the statement without the input of the President, and thus; that if the statement was not a verbatim record of the President's utterances then it must, and can only ever be, a fabrication produced without the President's input. As I hinted before, to rely on such an argument is to rely on the polarised thinking of a false dichotomy or dilemma.

I agree with you that Trump could have given him points he wanted covered in the letter, and left the wording to the doctor. But, when you do that - like if you say to a doctor - "I need a doctor's note, and it has to say that I have strep throat and a broken arm, and that I am unable to come to work, and I cannot lift anything at all..." and then the doctor writes up the note - then it's the doctor writing the note, and not you. He wrote it. He can't say he did not write it. He can't say later "my patient dictated the note to me, so it's not mine." It is the doctor's words.

Here, (a) trump literally dictated it word for word, or (b) the doc wrote it up without any comment from Trump, or (c) something in the middle - Trump said what he wanted in the letter and the doctor then, as he said "made it up as he went along." The only way this is not the doctor's letter which the doctor wrote is (a). Both (b) and (c) mean the doctor wrote it. His words. He "made it up as he went along." If he did not agree with its content, then his obligation as a physician - a professional - is to write something else that in his professional judgment is correct.

This doctor seems to have trouble describing reality, though. He was criticized for disclosing the President's personal medical information by telling people that the President was prescribed Propecia to take to combat hair loss. He told that to the New York Times, and then when asked about it he denied that revealing the President's medical condition and prescription medication was not a breach of patient-doctor confidentiality, because "what's wrong with that? [taking propecia]" (or words to that effect).

However, I would agree with your statement that "It's not dictation if you suggest points to be included, but leave the wording up to the other person" at least when talking of dictation in the verbatim sense, but can we really exclude all other possible meanings of the term 'dictate' such that it forecloses on the notion that Trump could have dictated the content and/or the terms of the statement, in the sense of an obliged or required instruction, while leaving the final wording to his physician, or that the statement could have been produced from a combination of the two?

Sure, but in that instance, the doctor wrote it (even if the patient says "I need a letter that says X" - if the doctor writes it and signs it, he wrote it. He can't say "I did not write that letter" (which is what this doctors flat out said. And, then he said in the next breath, "I made it up as I went along." Doesn't that seem to imply that the doctor made it up?

Would you dispute or entirely exclude the doctor's claim that the health statement was produced under his client's instruction on the basis of the application of a singular, exclusive meaning of a single word?

Not based on the singular meaning of a single word. The key phrase along with that is "I made it up as I went along." And, clients don't instruct doctors on what medical opinions to write. Even when it comes to the President, if the doctor doesn't agree with it, then he's obliged to say no or refer the patient to a new doctor. It's like if the President tells his lawyers what to write in a letter. If the lawyer doesn't think it's accurate, then he is obligated not to write the letter. Client might not like it, and even if it's the President, professional responsibility would trump Trump's instruction to put something in a letter. And, if the lawyer "makes it up as he goes along" and puts his name to it, then he wrote it. He can't say "I did not write that."

Whatever the facts of the case, it seems pretty clear that both of us are applying a higher level of critical consideration to this matter than either the President or his personal physician: what does it mean to dictate, to be dictated to, or to take or give dictation &c.

Or, the media, which as usual did a piss-poor job of interviewing this guy and getting to the bottom of it. They let the quote stand and have done little to nothing to find out. Ask the guy "so, how was the letter prepared?" Did you type it yourself? Did you have an assistant type it? Did you speak directly to Donald Trump about the content of the letter? How? When? Where?

If we continue down this road I'm sure we could have an interesting discussion touching on the conflict between formal and colloquial meanings of various word forms, and perhaps we would even agree on how a person who, as in your own example, relies upon an amanuensis to generate a verbatim account of their utterances can legitimately be referred to as 'a dictator'. Is or was Trump a dictator, and in what sense does he dictate? This of course is all by-and-by isn't it? Which I guess is kind of the point of it in the first place.

Not really - because this doctor said "I did not write the letter." And he said "I made it up as I went along." If he did not write the letter, than someone else did. If he made it up as he went along, then he must have written some portion of it - otherwise he's not making anything up. If it was dictated to him, then either (a) literal dictation word for word, or (b) points were given to him that were to be in the letter, but he wrote the letter in accordance therewith. If it's (b) then he can't say "I did not write that letter," and if it's (a) he can't say "I made it up as I went along.

In other words - something's fucked up, and he needs to clarify with specificity how the letter was written and why. Someone should ask him. What it sounds like now is some weird looking doctor got pissed off because the President went and grabbed his medical records from the weird doctor after he disclosed the President's confidential medical info to the New York Times.

Let me say this - do I think that letter sounds like a doctor wrote it? No. It sounds ridiculous. It makes me wonder what in the world Trump was seeing this doctor for for 30 years anyway. It sounds silly. So silly, though, that I really can't even see Donald Trump thinking that it sounds like a doctor wrote it. It's mind-boggling.

As to the motivation of the good doctor - well, first I would like you to address your own questions if you actually have a point to make in relation to said motivation. Otherwise it seems completely irrelevant to the essence of what the doctor is asserting: that the contents of the his statement on the state of the President's health was, as it were, a big fat lie peddled at the President's insistence.

That's not the essence of his statement - he did not say that the facts stated in the letter (blood pressure, surgical history, taking aspirin and statins, and overall general health, etc., were lies. He's not saying the lied about the President's medical condition facts. The bits that are at issue are "healthiest president ever" and other words like "extraordinary" and "astonishingly excellent." Are you suggesting this doctor lied about the facts of Trump's health, like he lied about blood pressure? Lied when he said the medical examination came back with good results? Lied about Trump's weight loss? Aspirin and statin intake? Lack of surgeries since he was 10 years old?

Your post to which I initially replied was entirely premised on the apparent contradiction in the doctor's reported claims based on an equivocation on the word 'dictation/dictate'. If he 'made it up as he went along' then the President could not have dictated the statement. This is a matter of record. Nonethelss, I am heartened by the fact that you now accept that the statement could have been dictated by the President and the doctors could have chosen the wording by which to express that.

But OK. Let's put aside the accusation of lying. I'll accept that it may be over egging the pudding and we don't want to get bogged down when neither of us have the means to verify and validate such an objective charge. We could call it playing fast-and-loose with the actuality, or a wilfully misleading statement, or political spin, rather than a lie. It doesn't really matter and it doesn't really change the point. The doctor apparently told the reporter ('In no uncertain terms' according to the report) that: "He [Trump] dictated that letter. I did not write that letter", and, in likening it to the film Fargo, said, "It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction."

I think we both now agree that we're not talking about dictation in the strictly verbatim sense, so let's address the broader claim, that the statement was produced on the instruction of the President (no problem there) but that its content was essentially determined by the President, and that the doctor's role was to authorise a fundamentally political communication as if it was an objective and independent assessment of the state of the President's health. Do you find this troubling in the general sense, and if so, do you also find it troubling in this particular case?

[Forty Two]

Your post to which I initially replied was entirely premised on the apparent contradiction in the doctor's reported claims based on an equivocation on the word 'dictation/dictate'. If he 'made it up as he went along' then the President could not have dictated the statement. This is a matter of record. Nonethelss, I am heartened by the fact that you now accept that the statement could have been dictated by the President and the doctors could have chosen the wording by which to express that.

No no. I don't accept the "Fact" that the statement could have been "dictated" by the President and the doctor could choose the wording. If the doctor chose the wording, then the doctor wrote at least part of it, and it was not dictated. What I have accepted is that the doctor may have been incorrectly using the word "dictate" to mean something other than "dictate," and instead what he meant was "The President told me he wanted a letter that included X, Y and Z...."

However, my original post was ALSO premised on the fact that the doctor said "I made it up as I went along." "I" made it up. So, the doctor wrote something. He must have. He cannot honestly say "I did not write that letter," which was part of his assertion.

My interpretation is that the doctor knows he wrote it, but he's blaming Trump, saying that "Trump made me do it." That I find absurd, and suggests that something is up with this doctor that he would think he had to write something that includes such obviously ridiculous statements as "healthiest President ever to hold office" or whatever.... I mean, really. Is that what he "made up as he went along?"

But OK. Let's put aside the accusation of lying. I'll accept that it may be over egging the pudding and we don't want to get bogged down when neither of us have the means to verify and validate such an objective charge. We could call it playing fast-and-loose with the actuality, or a wilfully misleading statement, or political spin, rather than a lie. It doesn't really matter and it doesn't really change the point. The doctor apparently told the reporter ('In no uncertain terms' according to the report) that: "He [Trump] dictated that letter. I did not write that letter", and, in likening it to the film Fargo, said, "It takes the truth and moves it in a different direction."

I don't see how you can leave out "I made it up as I went along." That's part of what I've been saying - yes, he says he didn't write it, but in the next breath he says he did - he made it up. HE made it up. So if it takes the truth and moves it in a different direction, we have to figure out what's the truth and what's the move?

If you read the letter, all it says is that the doctor has been seeing Trum for like 39 years, and Trump has great blood pressure, is on aspirin and a statin, has had no surgeries except an appendectomy when he was 10 years old, and his latest examination was excellent "all with positive results" (that statement is weird). The only deviations from factual reporting are when he uses superlatives like "extraordinary" and astonishing and "healthiest President ever."

What's not true? Maybe the superlatives - but superlatives are inherently sales puffery, like "world's best cup of coffee" - it doesn't mean anything.

I think we both now agree that we're not talking about dictation in the strictly verbatim sense, so let's address the broader claim, that the statement was produced on the instruction of the President (no problem there) but that its content was essentially determined by the President, and that the doctor's role was to authorise a fundamentally political communication as if it was an objective and independent assessment of the state of the President's health. Do you find this troubling in the general sense, and if so, do you also find it troubling in this particular case?

Right, Trump did not dictate the letter verbatim. At most, Trump told the doctor the kind of stuff he wanted in the letter. Then the doctor wrote the letter (contrary to what the doctor said), and "made it up as he went along" thinking that he was doing Trump's bidding. But, the doctor wrote the letter.

I do not find much of this "troubling," as the President is not going to have the doctor write a letter that's damaging, or reveals health issues. This letter reveals some basic health information, and the only "political" spin are the superlatives - best health of any president ever - extraordinary - astonishing - but, those words don't mean anything.

What troubles me are the following possibilities:

1. That Trump demanded that the doctor use the superlatives, thinking that it would sound reasonable in a doctor's note -- I don't get that.
2. That the doctor would put the superlatives in the note, whether or not he made them up, or did so on the express demand of the patient, any patient.

But these are small things -- there is no crime here or even a "wrong." Everybody keeps their health issues secret, and selectively reports what they feel others should know.

I mean - did Kennedy report his health accurately? (the guy was fucked up big time, and on massive amounts of drugs) Did FDR? (they hid the fact that the guy was paralyzed).

Let me ask it to you this way - read the actual text of the doctor's letter. What parts do you think are away from the truth in a different direction? What would an accurate letter report? Would it just be removal of the superlatives?

[Brian Peacock]

Nice try, but the point is about what the doctor has claimed about the letter, not the letter itself. We can talk about the letter all day and never touch on the doctor's claims - and indeed that appears to be exactly what you'd rather be doing.

I don't think I have left out the 'I made it up as I went along' part. In fact I think I offered a good context for that, to wit; that the implication is that the statement bore little or no relation to the facts; that it wasn't a true and honest representation of the state of the President's health. The doctor made it up because he couldn't or wouldn't reveal the facts. Again we're getting bogged down in epistemological issues irrelevant to the broader point: That Trumped asked his doctor to produce a plausibly false statement. In this regard we can't rely on the statement either in respect to the 'basic health information' it revealed or in its use of superlatives.

Let's also not forget the context of the statement either - all that conspiratorial stuff about Clinton having a stroke and being worked like a puppet by her secret service detail etc. The political dimension to this is pretty straightforward - the statement was published to bolster the claim that Clinton was physically unfit for office and to assert that Trump was not only in better shape but that he would be the fittest candidate to ever sit in the big chair.

Now, if you got to determine what your doctor put in his statement about your health to your life-insurance provider, such that it said you were in ruder health that you were, you'd be engaging in a deception - and in that case possibly fraud. Why does this not apply here? It seems that for a candidate to mislead the public about the state of their health is OK by you because everybody does it. I guess some of us just value political honesty over political expediency.

[Forty Two]

Nice try, but the point is about what the doctor has claimed about the letter, not the letter itself. We can talk about the letter all day and never touch on the doctor's claims - and indeed that appears to be exactly what you'd rather be doing.

I don't think I have left out the 'I made it up as I went along' part. In fact I think I offered a good context for that, to wit; that the implication is that the statement bore little or no relation to the facts; that it wasn't a true and honest representation of the state of the President's health. The doctor made it up because he couldn't or wouldn't reveal the facts. Again we're getting bogged down in epistemological issues irrelevant to the broader point: That Trumped asked his doctor to produce a plausibly false statement. In this regard we can't rely on the statement either in respect to the 'basic health information' it revealed or in its use of superlatives.

Of course, the doctor didn't say the health-related statements were false. Those truths were "taken in a different direction" -- and I assume he means via the superlatives. We don't know what he meant. But, you seem to be suggesting a coverup of some sort of medical condition that has not been revealed. I'm not willing to go there, not based on the doctor's statements which are vague and squirrely.

Let's also not forget the context of the statement either - all that conspiratorial stuff about Clinton having a stroke and being worked like a puppet by her secret service detail etc. The political dimension to this is pretty straightforward - the statement was published to bolster the claim that Clinton was physically unfit for office and to assert that Trump was not only in better shape but that he would be the fittest candidate to ever sit in the big chair.

Well, big deal. Hillary's doctors were directed to prepare letters regarding her health, too, and you can bet they did not disclose anything more than what Hillary authorized. And, that's o.k. That's the whole idea with medical confidentiality. The patient decides what to reveal. Her doctor letters didn't sound ridiculous, though, with the superlatives - but, they were offered for exactly the same purppose - political purposes because of her repeated coughing fits, apparent seizure events, and other public scuttlebutt bout her health.

Now, if you got to determine what your doctor put in his statement about your health to your life-insurance provider, such that it said you were in ruder health that you were, you'd be engaging in a deception - and in that case possibly fraud. Why does this not apply here? It seems that for a candidate to mislead the public about the state of their health is OK by you because everybody does it. I guess some of us just value political honesty over political expediency.

These are public statements, and you and I do get to determine what a doctor puts in a statement in terms of what conditions are revealed. If you want a doctor's note to get you out of work, you can have the doctor write about the flu you have, without having him reveal that you're on antidepressants and such, too. Obviously, you can't make the doctor publish a falsehood -- but, if you tell your doctor you would like a letter stating that you are healthier than the healthiest person ever, it's up to him to say no. It's not a fraud.

I think it's o.k. for candidates not to disclose all of their health information, and very few candidates, if any, disclose all of it. They determine what's relevant.

Also, there is no indication that the factual statements in the letter are not accurate - the doctor did not say that the blood pressure noted was wrong, or that trump did, in fact, have hip replacement or other surgeries, etc. What are you saying is false?

You've said that twice now -- what about the letter are you saying is a falsehood? Everything in it? Some of it? The superlatives? What?

[Tero]

Hey Trump, why did you have Cohen pay Stormy 130 000? Because she rode in your golf cart?

[Forty Two]

To keep her mouth shut, obviously. So?