Come Heller high water …
- Yeah, I believe Hillary Clinton when she says she didn’t tell anyone about the pneumonia at first because she thought it was no big deal. My mom has had an operation and didn’t tell anyone. It’s how that generation rolls. When we found out, we asked mom why she didn’t tell us, she said, without a trace of humor, “You didn’t ask.” So now we ask, even if she seems fine. “Any operations today, mom? Having your gall bladder removed? A leg chopped off? Anything like that?” My guess is reporters will do the same with Clinton from here on out. I pity her.
Seriously, though, I’m not worried about Clinton’s or Trump’s health. Sure, they could die or be incapacitated in office. Stuff happens. But presidential candidates in their late 60s and early 70s these days are a lot likelier to be healthy than ever before. Do you know how many of our presidents had real and undisclosed health issues? Do you know how many smoked, drank, never exercised, had quacks for doctors, had cancer, dementia, heart disease and so on? If we’re so worried about the health of our president, maybe we need an age limit.- What I don’t like about modern presidential elections is they’re all about the parties trying to get our shorts in a bunch over stuff that doesn’t matter. They’re spook shows, bogeyman fests. Maybe it’s always been that way, but it’s discouraging. Can we please hear something substantive?
- Here’s how I think presidential campaigns should go: The parties pick their own candidates without a primary. I don’t care how they do it – flip a coin, poll your party, whatever. Then on Nov. 1 everyone gets the day off work – by law – and – by law – they are required to read a uniform one-page Q&A about each candidate and their views. The next day we all vote online or at precincts. Boom. Done. Popular vote, no electoral college, so it’s not just the big states that matter. If someone doesn’t vote, they pay a hefty fine and their photo is posted in the town square on a big board.
- Favorite insult meme of the week: “You are the reason they have instructions on shampoo bottles.”
- Airfare seems really cheap right now. They must be up to something.
- I’ll repeat: NFL football games do not require pregame, halftime or postgame mini-concerts, for gosh sakes. Who the heck decided I had to endure Birks Dentley, or whatever the heck his name is, before the game? Aren’t the former NFL players and coaches who think they’re hysterical bad enough? Reminder to self: Do not turn on game until after the game has started.
- People seem ridiculously excited that Chik-fil-A is opening branches in Lansing and Troy. May I ask why? I’ve been to one. It seemed like a fast food joint. Am I missing something? Mostly it seems like they can’t spell.
- OK, perhaps Hillary was too cutting with her “basket of deplorables” quip about the racists, homophobes and Islamophobes who support him. Maybe she could have been a touch softer by going with something like “hamper of haters” or “Hefty sack of intolerants.” Still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of Trump supporters are indisputably and proudly what she called them. Truth hurts, I guess.
- “Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” – P. J. O’Rourke.
Image credit: DonkeyHotey
When your in that position and all the problems with Hillary and Slick Willie she needs to disclose everything. She just lost a lot of support for that gaff. Candidates should disclose their health problems. If somebody hides terminal cancer I would like to know if I am voting for the right vice presidential candidate!
When you’re in that position and all the problems with Trump, he needs to disclose everything. He needs to disclose his tax returns (no, we don’t buy his excuse that they’re being audited–prove it), his ties to Russian and other foreign investors, his pay-to-play with Attorney General Pam Bondi in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas, his Trump University scam, his use of $20,000 contributed to his foundation, by others, to pay for his personal portrait, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Yes, we need to know if a presidential candidate has a serious illness, but we don’t need to know their blood pressure, urine analysis, blood tests and all the other normal tests we all take. The recent whiney comments from Hillary’s press pool and other media people after the pneumonia episode makes me think that the next thing they’re going to want to know is when she goes to the bathroom. It’s getting ridiculous. No, I take that back, this presidential race has been ridiculous from the moment Donald Trump came down the escalator. I can’t wait for November 8th to be over.
Do you remember that we had a serious candidate with cancer? Senator Tsongas. He did not win.
But, they showed commercials of him wearing a Speedo, to try to convince us he was a healthy son of a gun.
“Basket of deplorables,” The truth hurts, with all the name-calling that Trump has done in the past three months he has insulted a lot of countries and a lot of races. A large portion of his followers are racist and bigots.
The Democrats haven’t hit Trump where it hurts yet, it’s coming and it will start with his tax returns.
Love your idea about how the elections should be run. Let’s do this!
re: Chik-fil-A. amen. But volley a bigger salvo at Chipotle’s. To borrow from John Oliver: “why is Chipolte’s still a thing?” They’re in the news more than any other restaurant and it’s all bad news. Yet people keep buying they’re crap and eating it. Reminds me of all the Patsy Lou stickers I’ve seen on cars. Really? After everything her husband did to ruin this birthplace of GM?
You’re right, many people aren’t going to go around telling everyone they are ill. My Mom is like that, too. She is a cancer survivor and gets mad when anyone talks about it. Something like pneumonia is not a huge thing anymore. If you’re not contagious, no problem.
I think we’ve all gone to work ill. I’m a retired nurse and got flak asking for sick day or non patient work ! Sometimes women feel pressure to tough it out. Need money no sick pay, criticism from co-workers to pull your weight.
Clinton has a spotlight on her and all the speculation over the months regards her stamina, possible health issues. No wonder she tried to keep going.
I see Trump is appearing Thurs on Dr Oz! to reveal his recent physical exam info.
No in depth questioning by Oz was a condition.
It’s all show business…the media needs to take a good look at their behavior the election…never mind it’s all about the Benjamins not in depth journalism.
Your idea of how to change the way we run elections is fine except that the Democrats would call it voter suppression if we ask them to read a one-page document. Many of them can’t read and we would be accused of discrimination!
Yup we are some dumbass people. All republicans can read! I didn’t know that!!! Oh And by the way I had to have my wife read this and write the reply!
Jim, you’ve won this round!
Andrew,
As I have told you in previous posts, the biggest bigots and racists on the planet are liberals.
Hilliary called anyone that is opposed to her being crowned, er, sworn in a president of the United States.
To be a member of the KKK a person had to be a member of the democratic party.
The KKK was founded by a bunch of southern democratic losers of the Civil War.
The only hateful words that I heard come someone is on the democratic side of the race.
The democrats in the south wrote the Jim Crowe laws. They were the ones who sic ed the police dogs on the civil rights marchers in the 1960’s.
MLK voted Republican.
A lot of the blacks who held public office after the Civil War in the south were republicans.
There were quite a few officers in the military in the 1910s’ , but after Woodrow Wilson and his staff got through with the military in 1920. They had been busted down to the level of cabin boys. Woodrow Wilson was a democrat
As to Hilliary’s health issue, I do believe that her controllers and hilliary herself does not want the public to know too much about her health.
1910,1920, 1960s last time I looked at the calendar it was 2016.
Thank you, Jim. You saved me the effort of looking all that up.
Anyone else think this is comparing apples to oranges??
Oh boy, here we go with that old canard again. We all know, or should, that southern white conservative Democrats switched to the Republican Party in 1964 when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. So yes, they WERE conservative Democrats who left that party and joined the Republicans. You might want to read about the Republicans’ so-called “Southern Strategy.”
As far as Hillary’s health issues, they were addressed by her doctor in more detail today, and she was given a clean bill of health other than recuperating from pneumonia. I would suggest that you might want to listen to more than Fox News, Breitbart News, Alex Jones, et al.
Yeah, Little Jim, you give us all these Amazing Facts, but it all is history. Blacks used to be Republicans because A. Lincoln was a Republican. But that was a hundred and fifty years ago! Southern racists used to be Democrats, but that ended fifty years ago!
We already know this. It is true, but you are silly. You need to think for yourself and make original personal comments, rather than trying to repeat somebody’s Amazing Fact talking points. We are not amazed. We already knew this. We already know the truth.
Pneumonia usually isn’t a big deal but it sneaks up on you slowly if you’re healthy and active. Hillary probably blamed the initial symptoms, (fatigue/muscle soreness), on the campaign trail.
I’ve had ‘walking pneumonia’ more than once. Prescription: Robitussin and an antibiotic, try to get some rest, drink fluids and eat regular meals. (hot soup helps, you get both fluids and food) when nothing tastes good.