Leading Democrat: Critics can't conclude Trump is impaired

[webfact]

Leading Democrat: Critics can't conclude Trump is impaired

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions about his response to the violence, injuries and deaths at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville as he talks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York, U.S., August 15, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Sunday that it was premature to try to remove U.S. President Donald Trump by claiming he is physically or mentally impaired.

 

Schiff told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” program that it did not make sense for Trump's opponents to focus on the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which two Democratic lawmakers invoked against the president after his controversial comments about a white nationalist rally in Virginia.

 

Under the 25th Amendment, the vice president takes over as acting president if he and a majority of either Cabinet officials or "such other body as Congress may by law provide" declare in writing that the president "is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."

 

“I think we’re still far from concluding that that’s the case," Schiff said, "even though we find, many of us, his conduct anathema and there to be a serious problem here."

 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

California Representative Zoe Lofgren on Friday introduced a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence and Trump's Cabinet to have medical and psychiatric professionals examine the president to help determine whether he can do his job.

 

"Many Americans, including many Republicans, have observed the President's increasingly disturbing pattern of actions and public statements that suggest he may be mentally unfit to execute the duties required of him," Lofgren said in a statement.

 

Representative Jackie Speier, also of California, said in a Twitter post on Tuesday that Trump was "showing signs of erratic behavior and mental instability that place the country in grave danger. Time to invoke the 25th Amendment."

 

Speier wrote the post after Trump's explosive news conference on Tuesday, when he blamed violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, not just on white nationalist rally organizers but also on counter-protesters. Trump said there were "very fine people" in both groups.

 

Those comments also provoked criticism from Republican Senator Bob Corker, who told reporters on Thursday that Trump "has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful," according to a Tennessee local news website. Corker did not refer to the 25th Amendment in his remarks.

 

(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-08-21

[canuckamuck]

In the upside down world of the left, a person making reasonable political decisions is considered mad.

[iReason]

16 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

In the upside down world of the left, a person making reasonable political decisions is considered mad.

 

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Those comments also provoked criticism from Republican Senator Bob Corker, who told reporters on Thursday that Trump "has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful," according to a Tennessee local news website.

[Silurian]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

California Representative Zoe Lofgren on Friday introduced a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence and Trump's Cabinet to have medical and psychiatric professionals examine the president to help determine whether he can do his job.

 

Or just give Donny John a fidget spinner and set him off in a safe corner somewhere.

 

The Republiklans will never allow such a resolution to come to vote. They don't really see any issue with most of the sewage that Donny John spouts off.

 

[Get Real]

This do not come as a schock. Just been saying that this man has not even been fit to be the president.

He might be mentally ill. Probably so!

He lacks the qualifications needed to do the work.

Never thinks about his statement and what the effects might be of thoose.
 

Just happy that some higher powers starts to understand this now. Maybe there is time to remove him before he creates an irreversable situation with his madness.

[GinBoy2]

Do I think Trump is unhinged? Probably. Do I think he's an embarrassment to the Republic? Absolutely. Do I think he's possibly the most unfit person to hold the office? Without a doubt.

But on the plus side. You cannot deny that the system is working as beautifully as the framers intended. No man, no single President, or branch of government, regardless of how crazy they may be can wreak havoc, without the inbuilt checks and balances restraining the lunacy.

Somewhere in the framers minds they must have had a prophetic vision of the Trump Presidency when writing the constitution. 

So, Thank You

[boomerangutang]

                             Trump is mentally impaired.  Everyone can see it, even his staunchest fans in Congress.  

 

                         Yet he can't be booted out, at this time, for mental deficiencies.  The reason:  Most Republicans will prop him up no matter what.   Probably the only true thing Trump has said in the past 15 months is:  "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters."    How presidential is that?   They should put that quote on his tombstone.

 

Maybe in early 2019, there will be enough Dems in Congress to do what's right.  The only thing for sure, right now, is the USA is in a haywagon rolling uncontrollably down a steep rocky slope.   

[soalbundy]

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

In the upside down world of the left, a person making reasonable political decisions is considered mad.

Let us not talk about left or right, there are intelligent reasonable people on both sides of the spectrum, it's just that Trump isn't one of them. I personally think that Trump has mental issues that have probably become worse due to the presidency, he is a lonely man, frightened to come to terms with the reality of his own incompetence, in his own business he was cocooned by yes men. 

[Grouse]

1 hour ago, canuckamuck said:

In the upside down world of the left, a person making reasonable political decisions is considered mad.

To whom are you referring? Who is making "reasonable" political decisions?

[connda]

There was the same noise about trying to invoke the 25th Amendment with Obama.

 

I really don't care what a person's political views are: right, left, center, or something else.  But going down this path to attempt to remove sitting presidents is a very slippery slope that can not bode well for the future.  
Once that genie is out of the bottle, it will end up being like playing the 'coup card' here in Thailand.  I'd personally rather not see the American Republic degenerate into a third-world political morass -- but there sure seem to be a whole lot of people who want to go there.  As the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for."

Edited August 21, 2017 by connda

[RobFord]

Do I think Trump is unhinged? Probably. Do I think he's an embarrassment to the Republic? Absolutely. Do I think he's possibly the most unfit person to hold the office? Without a doubt.
But on the plus side. You cannot deny that the system is working as beautifully as the framers intended. No man, no single President, or branch of government, regardless of how crazy they may be can wreak havoc, without the inbuilt checks and balances restraining the lunacy.
Somewhere in the framers minds they must have had a prophetic vision of the Trump Presidency when writing the constitution. 
So, Thank You

Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[CaptHaddock]

It's pretty clear that Trump has dementia.  If you watch an interview with him from the 80's, at that time he was capable of speaking in complete sentences using a vocabulary and grammatical structure consistent with a college education.  He was already a psychopath, but that wasn't necessary blatant every time he opened his mouth.  Today he shows the limited vocabulary and dumbed-down sentence structure of an impaired person.  And that's when he is even coherent.  He also has another symptom of dementia, balance problems.   Trump apparently fell playing golf recently.  In January when Teresa May visited the White House, he grabbed her hand as they walked down the ramp to the Rose Garden admitting to her that he has trouble with stairs.  Loss of impulse control is another symptom of dementia. 

 

Trump's characterological defects have been present since childhood: the bullying, the extreme narcissism, and the psycopathy.  But the dementia must have developed in recent years.  Too bad for us that that's the finger on the button these days.

[iReason]

Carl Bernstein: This is the Trump story reporters need to cover

 

"Republicans in Congress, the highest of intelligence officials, the highest of military officers in our country, leaders of the business community -- all of whom have dealt with the White House, and many of them dealt personally with Donald Trump -- have come to believe that he is unfit for the presidency," Bernstein told CNN's Brian Stelter on Sunday."

 

"He said those people are "raising the very question of his stability and his mental fitness."

 

"We need as journalists to make this our primary function right now."

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/20/media/trump-carl-bernstein-reliable-sources/index.html

 

Strong words from the Republican Senator and Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:

 

 

 

[smileydude]

Symptoms of arrogance, narcissism and delusions of grandeur are very easy to detect but stupidity cannot be 100% diagnosed unless you take a biopsy of the frontal lobe (which controls emotions) and find that the cells are pathological liars and shriveled up to the point of being non-functional.

Edited August 21, 2017 by smileydude

[DogNo1]

I would like to direct your attention to this article in today's New York Times: A Deal Breaker for Trump’s Supporters? Nope. Not This Time, Either.

 

As one poster commented, Trump may have dememtia.  So did Ronald Reagan whose wife ran his schedule according to the directions of her astrologer.  Did Reagan remember things that he had done such as selling weapons to the Iranians?  No, he didn't.  Accordingly, it's very unlikely that President Trump can be removed due to mental incompetence.  The thing that we should all be thinking about is whether he will pull the trigger on Operation Chain-Kill, a preemptive strike against North Korea.  His presumed bigotry and assumed approval of Neo-Nazis is relatively inconsequential.  Who cares if the captains of industry have deserted his advisory groups - as if they have any real moral fiber.

[rudi49jr]

12 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

In the upside down world of the left, a person making reasonable political decisions is considered mad.

In the upside down world of the right, a raving lunatic like Trump is considered a good president. Or at least to be preferred over any bleading-heart liberal Democrat president.

[CaptHaddock]

1 hour ago, DogNo1 said:

I would like to direct your attention to this article in today's New York Times: A Deal Breaker for Trump’s Supporters? Nope. Not This Time, Either.

 

As one poster commented, Trump may have dememtia.  So did Ronald Reagan whose wife ran his schedule according to the directions of her astrologer.  Did Reagan remember things that he had done such as selling weapons to the Iranians?  No, he didn't.  Accordingly, it's very unlikely that President Trump can be removed due to mental incompetence.  The thing that we should all be thinking about is whether he will pull the trigger on Operation Chain-Kill, a preemptive strike against North Korea.  His presumed bigotry and assumed approval of Neo-Nazis is relatively inconsequential.  Who cares if the captains of industry have deserted his advisory groups - as if they have any real moral fiber.

 

It's true that his blatant support for murderous neo-Nazis and white supremacists seems like a moment when he has at last lost his legitimacy.  But the pussy-grabbing tape seemed the same way at the time.  But that passed and the neo-Nazi disgrace may pass as well.  These are not the episodes that will bring Trump down.  His die-hard supporters don't care, being racists themselves to a greater or lesser degree.  But he needs more than the die-hards to get re-elected and his support is steadily diminishing.  Of the 30 off-year elections that have been held so far since the November election, the Democrats have been up an average 13 points, of which 9 or 10 points would be enough to retake the House next year.  So, there has been an actual, measurable loss of support.

 

Nixon won in 1972 by taking 49 states out of 50, the first president to do so, if I remember correctly.  Nevertheless, within two years he also became the first president to be pushed out of office.  What took so much time time then is the same process that is taking time now, the special prosecutor's investigation.  Mueller is working methodically and knows his job.  He has apparently already turned Manafort and probably Felix Sater.  Certainly, he is turning up the heat on many of the others of Trump's team with threats of prison terms.  Mueller's eventual report is likely to include money-laundering, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, collusion with the Russians to violate campaign laws, and possibly even espionage.  Mueller can recommend prosecution and/or make a referral to the House for impeachment.

 

So, the current outrage is not the game point, but that is coming. 

[bendejo]

I think the Republican leadership will be pleased as punch to have Pence in the WH, he'd be the perfect stooge, doing whatever he's told.  Like GOP stalwart Grover Norquist said during the 2012 primaries "it doesn't matter who is in the White House, just so long as they sign our legislation."

Of course, if DT's term is cut short for any reason (other than his passing away or an extreme physical illness ) it will be an enduring black-eye for the party.

 

I suspect Pence has something very contentious to hide: anyone who makes such a display of their religious piety is suspect IMO.

 

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by bendejo

[DogNo1]

Yes,  I think that Pence could actually be worse than Trump.  We will see what the special prosecutor turns up.  Trump gave a very unimpressive speech tonight about increasing the troops in Afghanistan.  All of the old, failed policy objectives were mentioned.  It seems that America has no good options for fighting the wars in South Asia.  It is so clear that these are part of a larger Sunni-Shia conflict but the fights are always put in terms of countries, tribes, etc.  The CIA doesn't want to own the war as a counter-insurgency struggle.  Eric Prince had some good ideas about it on Fox News tonight.  The generals are reluctant to put the war in the hands of private contractors but with the dispatch of regular troops I sense the slope becoming slippery with the US again becoming responsible for nation building and maybe even a permanent presence in Afghanistan.  I guess that we won't be rebuilding our infrastructure any time soon.

[Silurian]

35 minutes ago, DogNo1 said:

Eric Prince had some good ideas about it on Fox News tonight.  The generals are reluctant to put the war in the hands of private contractors but with the dispatch of regular troops I sense the slope becoming slippery with the US again becoming responsible for nation building and maybe even a permanent presence in Afghanistan.

 

I wonder if putting a war in private contractor hands would only prolong it even further. What does it benefit a private contractor to have a speedy war? Seems they make more profit from a continued drawn out confrontation. In fact, doesn't the whole military complex (defense contractors included) make more money if there is no end in sight?

 

I think in this case, Donny John is just following along with the same old same old. Not much of a strategy change here.

 

 

Edited August 22, 2017 by Silurian

[DogNo1]

Your comment causes me to recall Dwight Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex.  Indeed, a career in the US armed forces these days is a well-paying job with good retirement benefits.  I don't suppose that the generals consider themselves to be motivated by financial gain for themselves and their services but it does seem to be a factor.  The private contractors, who are paid handsomely, probably have little motivation to shorten any conflict.  The American taxpayers lose when wars are extended unnecessarily.  Incidentally, we have solid evidence that Nixon extended the Vietnam War by over a year for political purposes.  War would appear to be a growth business. I look for a long, protracted conflict in South Asia.

[Golgota]

Well he looked directly at the sun during the eclipse..pretty good hint for sure.

[DogNo1]

I wonder if he could continue to serve if he lost his sight.  What recklessness!

[boomerangutang]

For all the rumblings about Trump's mental deficiencies and his utter lack of presidential attributes, the numbers simply aren't there to rightfully boot him out of the Oval Office.  Republicans would rather have a dangerous dufus as prez, than have any Democrat.   Partisanship rules.  

 

The legendary journalist, Carl Bernstein, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal says President Trump’s attacks on the free press are more treacherous than Richard Nixon’s.

“The most dangerous 'enemy of the people' is presidential lying--always. Attacks on press by @realDonaldTrump more treacherous than Nixon’s,” 

 

Noam Chomsky takes it a step further: "The Republican Party is the most dangerous organisation in human history."    source

[selftaopath]

On 8/21/2017 at 2:59 PM, iReason said:

Carl Bernstein: This is the Trump story reporters need to cover

 

"Republicans in Congress, the highest of intelligence officials, the highest of military officers in our country, leaders of the business community -- all of whom have dealt with the White House, and many of them dealt personally with Donald Trump -- have come to believe that he is unfit for the presidency," Bernstein told CNN's Brian Stelter on Sunday."

 

"He said those people are "raising the very question of his stability and his mental fitness."

 

"We need as journalists to make this our primary function right now."

http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/20/media/trump-carl-bernstein-reliable-sources/index.html

 

Strong words from the Republican Senator and Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:

 

 

 

Another respected, intelligent, patriot speaks:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/23/politics/james-clapper-trump-phoenix-rally-don-lemon-cnntv/index.html

 

Edited August 23, 2017 by selftaopath
To insert the video.