US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4970

On September 13 2016 03:27 TheTenthDoc wrote:
It's easy to see what you're doing, you're doing everything you can to blow this issue into an election ending catastrophe for Clinton because you thought at the time of the collapse it was a sign her brain was falling apart and she was having a meltdown.

A lack of transparency about her health turned what might have been a non-issue into a hugely problematic storyline for Hillary Clinton that could plague the Democratic presidential nominee into November, say allies and confidants.

One ally described the string of events that culminated in Clinton leaving a Sept. 11 memorial early as a “self-inflicted f---ing nightmare.”

Clinton’s campaign sought to deal with the fallout on Monday of damaging video that showed Clinton’s knees buckling and Secret Service agents helping her into a van. Clinton later revealed that she was suffering from pneumonia.

David Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser to President Obama, slapped Clinton and the campaign for unnecessarily withholding information from the public.
“Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia,” Axelrod wrote on Twitter. “What’s the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?"

Behind the scenes, the criticism was even more withering.

A second ally said Clinton and her team probably wanted to withhold that she’d been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday so that conservatives who have been raising questions about her health wouldn’t have ammunition.

Yet in withholding the information and allowing Clinton to go forward with an event that she was not able to handle, they made the situation worse.

“Why couldn't the campaign just have been aboveboard about this?” a second ally questioned. “She got sick — tell people she’s sick and move on. I know they thought it would give the right wingers something to pounce on but who cares?”

Clinton’s campaign on Monday was seeking to contain the damage.

Spokesman Brian Fallon told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the campaign would be releasing additional health records for Clinton in the coming days.

He also said Clinton would be back on the campaign trail after canceling a trip to the West Coast by the middle to end of the week and that if it were up to Clinton, she’d already be on the trail.

Fallon argued that Clinton was "dead set" on attending the 9/11 ceremony on Sunday, despite being diagnosed with pneumonia two days earlier. The pneumonia diagnosis was disclosed on Sunday evening after video emerged of her stumbling.

The Clinton aide said the campaign could have better kept press informed in the 90 minutes after Clinton left the memorial.

“That's on the staff, that's on us, and we regret that,” Fallon said.

Another Clinton aide, Jennifer Palmieri, responded to Axelrod on Twitter, acknowledging, “We could have done better yesterday.”

It’s not the first time a lack of candor came back to hurt Clinton, something even allies were quick to point out on Monday.

“They should have been more transparent,” one confidant said, adding that it is a “chronic problem of lack of trust in the media” that leads to the secrecy, but which has also hurt Clinton with voters.

Polls have repeatedly found that a large number of voters do not trust Clinton or find her honest.

Clinton’s pneumonia diagnosis comes after a couple of coughing fits triggered narratives from not just conservative media outlets but those in the mainstream, including NBC.

At the time, the Clinton campaign aggressively pushed back at the NBC report.

On Monday, Fallon insisted that Clinton was suffering from pneumonia but that there was no other condition or illness. He said it had nothing to do with a concussion Clinton suffered in 2012 that has been pushed by conservatives.

“There’s no other undisclosed condition. The pneumonia is the extent of it,” he said.

Clinton confidants swear Clinton is in great health. They point to her grueling schedule and say she wouldn’t be able to handle the dizzying pace of the campaign trail if she wasn’t.

And her longtime aides still brag that she visited 112 nations as secretary of State.

Still, knowing that Clinton has a tendency to operate at a break-neck pace, some friends encouraged her to slow down in the post-convention days this summer and take a break before the final stretch of the campaign.

Clinton only had a few public events in August. But she spent most of the month fundraising and filling her campaign coffers for the busy fall season.

On September 13 2016 03:38 farvacola wrote:
Neither The Hill nor The Week think that Hillary has been very above board. The sky appears blue.

Donald Trump is taking his health records to the doctor — Dr. Oz, that is.

Pressured in recent weeks to release his medical records, Trump will appear on the first week of The Dr. Oz Show’s eighth season, which kicks off next week. Trump will reportedly appear alongside his daughter, Ivanka Trump, in the hour-long interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz.

A teaser for the interview says that Trump “addresses why the health of the candidates has become such a serious issue in this campaign” and “reveals his own personal health regimen.” The interview is scheduled to air next Thursday.

On September 13 2016 03:46 farvacola wrote:

I've been this lame as long as you've only been able to post partisan news sources that agree with you. So since I registered on this site?

As an aside, how does Trump not know that Dr. Oz is a controversial figure?

On September 13 2016 03:49 xDaunt wrote:

Maybe I overestimated you.

But since when are The Week and The Hill partisan outfits? It's not like I'm quoting from Breitbart or National Review.

On September 13 2016 03:54 farvacola wrote:
A tabloid/news outlet needn't be partisan for an article it publishes to be partisan. I even agree with the thrust of both posted sources, they just do a shit job of hiding their "I see the world like xDaunt" bias.

On September 13 2016 04:04 farvacola wrote:
I did not complain relative to your posting of xDaunt-approved articles, I'd expect nothing more. The issue arises when you then point to those articles as you intimate that anyone who takes issue with them is either lying or ignorant.

I largely agree with Axelrod's observations.

On September 13 2016 04:11 ticklishmusic wrote:
Pre-Trump xDaunt wouldn't have said things like "I'm a lawyer" and "Let the adults talk". I miss that guy, hopefully he comes back.

On September 13 2016 04:14 xDaunt wrote:

If everyone who responded to my posts acted like an informed adult, then I'd be a nicer individual. But unfortunately, that's not the reality that we live in, and I only have so much patience. I think the issue is nicely summarized in the last page of our little meta-discussion thread in the Website Feedback section of the forums. Just be thankful that I ignore as much crap as I do.

On September 13 2016 04:22 Mohdoo wrote:
I think Clinton is gonna be hurt really bad by this unless she releases 100% of her health records or something. If it wasn't for her image of dishonesty, this wouldn't be nearly such a big deal. Now people need to be convinced she is not dishonest. So that creates an interesting situation. She has to release all her medical history. But, if anything makes her look shitty, they can't. Just trade her out for fucks sake.

On September 13 2016 04:22 Mohdoo wrote:
I think Clinton is gonna be hurt really bad by this unless she releases 100% of her health records or something. If it wasn't for her image of dishonesty, this wouldn't be nearly such a big deal. Now people need to be convinced she is not dishonest. So that creates an interesting situation. She has to release all her medical history. But, if anything makes her look shitty, they can't. Just trade her out for fucks sake.