The Donald’s latest attack on Hillary Clinton’s health,
saying she does not have enough stamina to be President is just one more
episode of personal attacks based on little or NO EVIDENCE. And now we can add to his long list of lies (like
the birther lie), that Trump is trying to make us believe that a woman – no, an
older woman – does not have stamina. His
equating of age and gender with illness and lack of stamina is ageism and
sexism at its worst. And why won’t he
release his own health records? Because
the Donald is probably hiding something that would make him look like a ‘sick
old man’, and he couldn’t ever stand to be perceived in that way. But it’s OK if Hillary is perceived as old and
sick, because older women just aren’t worth a ‘bucket of spit” to him anyway.
Well, here’s some information that the Donald and his
followers need to consider.
1) Concussions
take some time to heal. So give Hillary,
and football players, and workers without helmets, and athletes and a whole
host of other affected people a break.
In Hillary’s case it looks like she may have ‘episodes’ stemming from
that concussion, but her doctor says she is recovering. It will take a while. Using such an incident
as a means of ridicule and degradation and disqualification is despicable and shows
what kind of President – what kind of non-feeling, insensitive PERSON --
Trump really is.
We have had many
Presidents with health-related problems, both before and while they were in
office. Recovering from a concussion is
not a disqualifier for Hillary or anyone else.
Nor apparently is Alzheimer’s for Reagan, Addison’s Disease for Kennedy,
Polio for FDR (constantly held up and supported by aides or family members),
stroke for Wilson, Graves’ Disease for H.W. Bush, or many ailments for Jackson,
as well as some for Cleveland and Taft.
Let us just be a little more careful of accepting the premise that one
simply can’t function as president with any kind of disorder, whether chronic
or acute. It is simply a false premise.
2) Hillary
is taking Coumadin to thin her blood and guard against blot clots in her legs
and elsewhere. I know what Coumadin does
for you, because I take it too. It is a
wonderful drug, but it has side effects of which one must be aware. But those effects can be tolerated - they do
not disqualify or void anyone’s potential necessarily; they just are what they
are. If we start disqualifying office-seekers and office-holders for the drugs they take and the side effects they display but endure, then we
are going to thin out the Congress, the Judiciary and the Executive branch in
one big hurry! Too bad we don’t know
what the Donald takes for his daily dosages.
You can bet there’s something he doesn’t want the public to know.
We Coumadin-takers put up
with a lot of side effects, but they don’t disqualify us from being active,
just as I am more active now in politics and community service than I ever was
when I was half my age, and I’m older than Trump or Hillary. I have experienced almost all the possible
side effects of this drug and can understand what Hillary may be experiencing. A little empathy please for those of us who
have to put up with moderate to strong side effects.
It does take fortitude and stamina of which Hillary has an abundance, it
seems to me. I have experienced the same
effects to which she seems to be adapting:
nausea, stomach cramps, muscle and joint pain sometimes making it
difficult to maneuver, constant back pain, vision changes that include some
loss of depth perception, slurred speech and occasional confusion.
3) In
other words, Mr. Trump, often these medications are more potent than the malady
they are meant to guard against. We all
know from ads on television that some drugs are so potent, they now have to
advertise their equally potent side effects.
Get with it, Trump. The medicine is more likely to cause Hillary’s episodes than any acute illness or
disqualifying syndrome. If you think
it’s OK to denigrate and ridicule someone for the effects of medicines, why
don’t you stop by this way sometime soon and I’ll demonstrate to you my stamina
and strength. I’ll even describe for you
in detail the 3 days of 8 hours each during which my grandson and I did
landscaping in the hottest, most humid weather of the summer (it included my
hoisting over fifty 30 and 40-pound bags of landscaping stones and mulch before
my grandson ever arrived). Think you
could handle that, plus the hoisting of large items into a dumpster as we
cleaned out a garage and basement? – all of this with past open heart surgery, valve
replacement, a pacemaker/defibrillator!
And Coumadin isn’t the only strong medicine I’m taking, so there are
several more side effects that gnaw at me – like dizziness, loss of balance,
and some lack of coordination – but I’m not done yet, and am more active than
ever – and so is Hillary. If you could
just stop being misogynistic and stupid and narcissistic at the same time, there
might be hope for you to become a positive human being.
4) And
try to give all of us New Yorkers with hay fever a break. Hillary’s cough and wheezing and
rough voice over the last few weeks could have been caused by pollen in the air, most likely ragweed. This
is hay fever season in New York, and Hillary is apparently quite allergic, as
am I along with thousands of others! I
know what she is going through – and this season seems particularly
problematic, most likely because of drought and dryness, plus strong winds
carrying the pollen long distances.
5) Now she has been diagnosed with pneumonia. One of my political activist friends is just recovering from it as we speak, and several others have caught this 'bug'.
People magazine reported facts that put a whole different light on Hillary's "illness:"
"The illness that sickened Hillary Clinton with pneumonia and caused her to have to be escorted away from September 11 ceremonies in New York on Sunday also struck down several members of her campaign team at Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, PEOPLE has learned.
"Everyone's been sick," a campaign source tells PEOPLE. At the end of August, two weeks before Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia, a debilitating bug was making the rounds among staff at her headquarters and campaign aides who travel with Clinton, a source tells PEOPLE. At least half a dozen senior staff were felled, including campaign manager Robby Mook. Two top advisers even needed emergency medical treatment, the source says. One top adviser diagnosed at a Brooklyn urgent-care center with a respiratory infection was being treated with antibiotics in the days before Clinton's diagnosis. Another top adviser was taken by ambulance to the ER after collapsing from what turned out to be severe dehydration, the source said."
5) Now she has been diagnosed with pneumonia. One of my political activist friends is just recovering from it as we speak, and several others have caught this 'bug'.
People magazine reported facts that put a whole different light on Hillary's "illness:"
"The illness that sickened Hillary Clinton with pneumonia and caused her to have to be escorted away from September 11 ceremonies in New York on Sunday also struck down several members of her campaign team at Clinton headquarters in Brooklyn, PEOPLE has learned.
"Everyone's been sick," a campaign source tells PEOPLE. At the end of August, two weeks before Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia, a debilitating bug was making the rounds among staff at her headquarters and campaign aides who travel with Clinton, a source tells PEOPLE. At least half a dozen senior staff were felled, including campaign manager Robby Mook. Two top advisers even needed emergency medical treatment, the source says. One top adviser diagnosed at a Brooklyn urgent-care center with a respiratory infection was being treated with antibiotics in the days before Clinton's diagnosis. Another top adviser was taken by ambulance to the ER after collapsing from what turned out to be severe dehydration, the source said."
So here’s the deal Donald:
your accusations and innuendos and lies about Hillary’s health are maddening
and irritating. I know what she is going through because we are
both dealing with some of the same maladies. She
isn’t chronically ill; she isn’t out of stamina; she isn’t unqualified to be
president. She just happens to be like
many of the rest of us who run into things we can’t necessarily control, but we
adapt and we move ahead. She is no more
sick than you are (of course your sickness has by some been termed as ‘mental’
which can often be more debilitating than physical ailments). But that’s another whole story already
addressed by others with greater professional training than I have in my background.
It’s time for you to give up – if you can – your addiction
to insults and lies and innuendoes. How
about giving us something for the wellness of our
hearts and minds like empathy, sympathy, brotherhood and sisterhood, family values and caring for the underdog. Or how about a dose of medicine of another
kind – showing immigrants, and poorer folks, and members of minorities, the
disabled and wounded - some human compassion instead of trying to separate them out and limit
their possibilities. Or, how about a
modicum of respect
for women, Muslims, Mexicans, and LGBT.
Maybe you could muster up a bit of
extra help for
veterans, children in poverty and for all those struggling to find jobs, feed
their families adequately and to find resources for a quality education for
their children. Try occupying your time
and ours with other than negatives, and “accentuate the positive”
for a change.
Sorry,
didn’t mean to spoil your day with what you will probably regard as ‘naïve
suggestions.’ But it’s fair pay-back for
all the days and ways that you have spent making many of us miserable with your
negativity and your narcissism. It
worries me that we may never fully recover from this ‘new normal’ in politics
when an egotist like yourself can unashamedly defame and disrupt so many lives
with lies, innuendoes, insults and slander, encourage followers to do the same,
and still be considered as qualified to be the President of all of us. You’re the one who presents as being sick. Get some help!
