California Democrat Zoe Lofgren has proposed a new law that puts the screws to the president.
A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives would require President Donald Trump to undergo a physical and mental health exam to determine if he is stable enough to stay in office.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced the bill on Friday. Should the results of the said exam be unfavorable, the bill calls for Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Cabinet to remove Trump from office.
The move would invoke the 25th Amendment, a rarely-used constitutional provision that allows the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members to jointly remove the president from office and replace him with the vice president.
The bill doesn’t propose a law, but a resolution directed solely at Trump, because, well, dementia happens. Had this been handled artfully, Lofgren could have put the president in an untenable position, either refusing to be evaluated to prove he’s not demented or being evaluated, which would be potentially disastrous.
But partisanship got the best of Lofgren, and so rather than try to play the honest broker of mental health, she went right for the enemy of the moment.
There are a great many reasons to believe that Trump is fucking nuts and mentally incompetent, but that didn’t prevent him from being elected president. And this isn’t going to prevent him from remaining in office, even though it would be an interesting aside to know how far the dementia has spread.
There is a very real and legitimate concern for the deterioration of mental and intellectual capabilities of a president, particularly given advanced age. Hate to say it, but stercus accidit, and even after election, a president can go downhill fast.
Unfortunately, it implicates a reliance on the squishiest of disciplines, psychiatry, and is wide open to the bias of the evaluator, displacing the wisdom of the electorate with the sensibilities of the therapist who may not share the acceptance of the soundness of certain political views. Can we trust psychiatry to know better than the voters?
In this case, of course, the go-to adjective of “beautiful” for pretty much everything suggests that capacity to speak cogently is the third thing to go. And still, he was elected. Go figure.
H/T Wild Bill
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Not often said, especially in the MSM half-truths (facts?) is that Hillary already exhibited the signs that worries Zoe during the election. I am pretty sure that that was a very significant factor in getting Trump elected.
I say that we require a similar psychiatric exam for every member of Congress, Cabinet Post and Federal Judge, including Zoe. We cannot go third-world fast enough like Great Britain.
My primary reluctance is that I don’t trust psychology or psychiatry enough. Not that I trust government officials to not suffer from mental illness and incapacity, either.
A method famously used in the Soviet Union to make dissidents disappear.
We trust you know this firsthand, Mister McLeod?
Thanx for the H/T FirstMate/Admiral–whatever? You finally noticed us. (Only kidding!) We were unable to stop laughing for an hour after this came out. Barleycorn, you’re next. The President is wearing few clothes, and it’s a pity he is not aware (of his own naked mental state of near incompetence).
P.S., We still would have voted for him, cause,… reasons!
All the best,
Wild Bill
Well, he did stop Cackley Crone, and whatever happens in the next three years and four months, that, by itself, was worth a great deal.
Wanting power is the clearest sign you are too insane to be allowed it.. Any political office!
Definately test them all with a panel of shrinks made up of equal numbers of Dems & Reps supprters!
Dissociative Disorders. Who could really get elected president in a two party system without them?
Narcissistic personality disorder. Who else would try?
This post was beautiful. What were the first two things to go?
Our president, if you can’t tell, he
‘s a fan of Francesca Battistelli.
He says “beautiful, beautiful”
Because he is dutiful,
Not because he is Machiavelli!