“Consider this another data point that will largely get ignored when Democrats and the media start beating the drum again on “Medicare for All” in the 2018 midterms. The UK’s vaunted single-payer system has collapsed into “third world” conditions, thanks to a lack of resources that has ambulances unable to pick up patients, who would find difficulty in getting an empty bed at a hospital. The order came down this week from on high to cancel as many as 50,000 scheduled surgeries over the next several weeks until the National Health Service can figure out how to climb out of the hole (via Guy Benson):
Every hospital in the country has been ordered to cancel all non-urgent surgery until at least February in an unprecedented step by NHS officials.
The instructions on Tuesday night – which will see result in around 50,000 operations being axed – followed claims by senior doctors that patients were being treated in “third world” conditions, as hospital chief executives warned of the worst winter crisis for three decades.
Hospitals are reporting growing chaos, with a spike in winter flu leaving frail patients facing 12-hour waits, and some units running out of corridor space.
It’s not just the hospitals, either. The NHS will close down outpatient clinics as well, leaving Britons with very few options for healthcare at the beginning of 2018:
Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director, on Tuesday ordered NHS trusts to stop taking all but the most urgent cases, closing outpatients clinics for weeks as well as cancelling around 50,000 planned operations.
Believe it or not, UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt considers this an improvement over last year’s performance. At least this time people got advance notice of the closures:”
“Unregulated migration may be responsible for the rise in violent crimes in Germany, a study commissioned by the German government claims. The researchers used the state of Lower Saxony to examine the correlation between the refugee arrivals and violent crimes between 2014 and 2016, a period during which such crimes surged by 10.4 percent. More than 90 percent of these additional crimes were attributed to the newly arrived refugees.
Since Germany opened its border to unregulated immigration two years ago, the country has been in the grip of a migrant crime wave. Despite massive efforts undertaken by the political establishment to suppress the reporting of migrant crimes, the fallout simply can’t be contained. There has been a 50 percent rise in migrant crimes in the country, German Federal Crime Bureau (BKA) says in its last annual crime report published in April 2017.
“The number of immigrants suspected of criminal acts in 2016 has risen by 52.7 percent, to the figure of 174,438, compared to the previous year. To ensure a fair comparison with the rest of the population, crimes that only immigrants can commit, such as illegal entry to the country, have been taken out from the statistics,” German newspaper Die Welt reported, citing the finding of the BKA report.
German newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten surmised the findings of the 103-page report commissioned by German Ministry of Family Affairs.
The numbers speak for themselves. Refugees are behind the significant rise in violent crimes between 2014 and 2016, a latest report reveals. A research team led by criminologist Christian Pfeiffer analysed the situation on the behest of German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs. “Lower Saxony is an average German state, so we can generalize the finding to an extent,” the co-author Dirk Baier from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences and Sören Kliem from the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony said during the presentation on Wednesday.
According to the statistics, violent crimes rose by 10,4 percent between 2014 and 2016, out of which 92,1 of the spike was attributed to the refugees, they claimed. [Translation by the author]”
From last night on the open thread: It seems those talking heads don’t realize that the reason most people voted for Trump is tha the ain’t Hillary.
The same thing will happened if they run Pocahontas next time. – Chas
Do you mean Elizabeth Warren? You are right, but I think you have it backwards, in one way. If the Democrats run a smart person with no baggage, people will vote for him/her because it’s not Trump. If the GOP nominates that bully again, I will definitely be an active campaigner for a good 3rd party/independent candidate. I don’t think our country could stand 8 years of Trump’s immaturity, and, dare I say, insanity.
“So Wolff flat out says that he believes that at least some of his sources were lying to him, and while he attributes some accounts to their sources, he acknowledges that this isn’t always the case.
This could be problematic for Wolff. He’s being accused of including fiction in what’s presented as a non-fiction book, and he admits that not all of his sources were trustworthy, but he doesn’t specify what’s fact true and what’s false. On its face, this sounds like a classic candidate for a defamation case.
Let’s run through the elements for a defamation claim. There has to be a statement that is 1) false, 2) defamatory, 3) published to a third party, and in the case of statements about public figures (like those included in Wolff’s book), 4) with “Actual malice,” meaning knowledge that the statement is false, or reckless disregard for whether it’s true.
At first glance, it sure sounds like Wolff is admitting to publishing statements–many of which are defamatory–that he knows to be false. He does, however, have some defenses here.
First, as he points out, in some case, Wolff makes it clear that certain dubious versions of events are coming from those dubious sources. In those cases, he’s not saying the contents of those statements are true. In other cases, where he’s merely presenting an account of what happened, even though he admits that he may have heard conflicting stories, the version he presented was one “I believe to be true.”
If Wolff believed that everything he presented as fact was in fact true, then he wouldn’t have acted with actual malice, even if he was wrong. On the other hand, one could argue that he still knew there was a chance that the version of events that he published was false.
Wolff insisted to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, “I am certainly and absolutely, in every way, comfortable with everything I’ve reported in this book.” That may be the case, but he may not be comfortable with the potential influx of lawsuits heading his way.”
Ricky @11:01, Very good question. I’m not sure of the answer. I don’t know that Trumpers in general would agree with me, but I have begun to view access to basic healthcare (vaccinations, antibiotics, emergency care, etc) as a public good–like utilities and roads. I would not drop Obamacare without a reasonable way for those using and those who are currently uninsured to be covered I appreciated my senator, Sen. Lamar Alexander, working across the aisle to try to make adjustments to Obamacare to make it work for the current congress.
I guess “polar vortex” isn’t good enough for the climatistas and other panicky people any more. This year it has to be “bomb cyclone,” which I think is actually the secret “go code” for Trump throwing his button at the Nork’s Little Rocket Man. … Anyway, it is fun enjoying the anguish of Al Gore, who just can’t catch a break.
____________________________
Canada has reached a 40 year low in unemployment. Could this be a Trudeau Effect? Or could it be a Liberal-Socialist Effect as those parties control almost all the legislatures? Could businesses be so happy with a Liberal-Socialist regime that they are hiring in record numbers. If this is how economics actually worked, imagine a Bernie Sanders Effect. Instead like the US economic news there are far more valid economic explanations. The height of a business cycle, residential construction, foreign investment, raise in wages and disposeable income, low interest rates, etc….
AJ, if one wanted to demonstrate the short comings of govt health care, England is a good place. But its not a single payer system. Its a dual single payer plus private care. In fact its similar to the US. The US has Medicare, Medicaid and the VA whereas the UK has the NHS. On the other track is private insurance and cash. The UK system does cover more people and has less bureaucracy but that’s only difference. Interestingly the Nordic countries copied the UK model but have far better results. Not sure why but I’m guessing cost containment and funding are better.
Canada is one of the very few single payer systems in the OECD. Without a second track, cost containment is easier and there’s less bureaucracy. Of course, there’s no jumping the queue.
The direction the ACA is supposed to take is somewhat similar to the Swiss model where people are mandated to buy from a selection of private insurance plans with the aid of govt subsidies if necessary. The more people in exchanges as opposed to Medicare and Medicaid, the more effecient the system works.
Thus, to avoid the UK system, the US needs to improve on the ACA not dismantle it. Or you could try Canadian style single payer. But given the political and business realities of the US improving the ACA is the way to go.
There will be no serious attempt to launch a libel suit in the US. The burden of proof is high — the plantiff must prove the allegation is false and defamatory and there is a famous person exemption in the US.
Now in the UK, the defendant must prove his claims are true and there’s no famous person’s exemption. In the past, American celebrities would wait until the libelous words were printed or sold in the UK and then launch a lawsuit there, however, the UK is tightening up on libel tourism.
If the book is sold in the UK and paperwork isn’t filed the next day, then all the libel talk is mere posturing. Posturing to discredit the author.
Furthermore, one can escape libel charges by simple prefixing words with the phrase “Sources say…” or “Some people may say…..”. TV pundits and talk radio hosts uses variations of these phrases daily to escape any responsibility for their words.
There will be no serious attempt to launch a libel suit in the US. The burden of proof is high — the plantiff must prove the allegation is false and defamatory and there is a famous person exemption in the US.
Now in the UK, the defendant must prove his claims are true and there’s no famous person’s exemption. In the past, American celebrities would wait until the libelous words were printed or sold in the UK and then launch a lawsuit there, however, the UK is tightening up on libel tourism.
If the book is sold in the UK and paperwork isn’t filed the next day, then all the libel talk is mere posturing. Posturing to discredit the author.
Furthermore, one can escape libek charge by simple prefixing words with the phrase “Sources say…” or “Some people may say…..”. TV pundits and talk radio hosts uses variations of these phrases daily to escape and responsibility.
Rather, the big question is organizational, managerial, and psychological: Can the people who surround Donald Trump work around his incapacity successfully enough to keep his unfitness from producing a historic calamity?
They have done so for a year, with some debacles (Puerto Rico) but also some genuine successes (the defeat of the Islamic State). People may laugh at Wolff’s assertion that “the men and women of the West Wing, for all that the media was ridiculing them, actually felt they had a responsibility to the country,” and for some figures (perhaps especially in the press office) the laughter will be justified. But for others the work has been necessary and important, and the achievement of relative stability a genuine service to the United States.
Can it continue in the face of some greater crisis than Trump has yet confronted? Can it continue if the Democrats take a share of power or if the president’s own family faces legal jeopardy? Is the American system more able to correct for presidential incapacity than some of us have feared?
The last year has given us some reason to think the answer to the last question might be “yes.” May the new year give us more, because our president’s chaotic mind isn’t going anywhere.
— Jennifer "Trump Convicted Felon" Rubin 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@JRubinBlogger) January 7, 2018
Like Debra, she does not think it is appropriate for Mattis, Kelly, McMaster, Cohn et al. to do the things Douthat has praised them for doing. We have an interesting situation.
Ricky, I think what we have been witnessing over the past year is an attempted coup by the media and the deep pockets that own or support them. The latest articles by Rubin and Douthat come from two different angles, but both assume Trump is incompetent for the presidency, and they devolve from there. The President is unconventional, but there is no evidence—and they present none—on which to base an assumption of incompetence. Rubin’s Washington Post has literally dozens of reporters and the personal backing of the wealthiest individual on the planet, yet they have delivered nothing of substance, and what they have offered up is often later shown to have more ambivalence than they acknowledged, or to be just plain false.
We have a special prosecutor with no actionable intelligence against the President and a judiciary that has taken it upon itself to try to deliberately thwart public policy by reducing the usual power of the president. And many in the legislature act as though the people’s choice of president is an intolerable personal affront which simply cannot be borne, and so, have gathered their toys and stalked off to their various abodes. As an example of the latter, of my two senators, the one I thought lesser of, pulled together a coalition to actually do the job of proper governance, while the one I thought greater, turned out to be a petulant run-away. As I said before, this is a time when people are being revealed—not just changed.
If there is just cause, let it be shown in the proper way by the proper authorities, and let the President be properly impeached or Article 25ed. But the media doesn’t get to decide that. They don’t have the power to precipitate anything unless we give it to them. And for my part, I won’t.
Supposedly, comparisons of interviews Trump gave years ago to his current vocabulary and behavior in interviews show a neurological decline. He used to be much more articulate. Quite frankly, I found that tweet about having a bigger, more powerful nuclear “button” pretty disturbing and unwise, to say the least.
Andrew McCarthy seconds a good article by David French on how impeachment is a political, not a legal process.
Spot on analysis by @DavidAFrench. Prob w/ Clinton impeachment: wrongdoing didn’t go to core responsibilities of POTUS, hence no political support for removal. High popularity was not that he was personally popular – reflected public opposition to removal over what was at issue. https://t.co/IQYsZKBRYn
Three things can save Trump from this divisive and damaging fate, and only one of them is largely in his control. If Mueller exonerates Trump or the GOP retains the House, then Trump is safe. But Trump has virtually no influence over the Mueller investigation, and as of now the GOP is hoping to hold the House in spite of Trump. Democrats appear energized and ready to change the balance of power.
Trump has a much greater degree of control over his own popularity. He can’t change the past. The facts are the facts, and the evidence is the evidence. Millions of Americans have made up their minds about him. Their attitudes have hardened, and their ideas are fixed. Not everyone is ready to write him off, however, and he should be doing everything in his power to change the narrative, to divert attention from the drama of his presidency and instead focus on the policies and achievements of his presidency. Let’s be blunt: Provocative tweeting makes impeachment more likely. Rambling interviews make impeachment more likely. Anything and everything that’s likely to unsettle Americans, exhaust Americans, or provoke Americans is an action that brings him one tiny step closer to an involuntary exit.
Trump should view improving his public perception as a priority of the second year of the first term. But “less drama” is a tough sale for a president who’s dramatic by nature, built his brand on drama, and won a presidential election even as he crammed the news cycle with controversy. Yet when he beat Hillary Clinton, he ran against an unpopular person, one of the most-disliked politicians in American history. She couldn’t help but create drama all her own. If he “runs” against impeachment, he’ll be battling an idea — the alluring thought of a Trumpless government where his opponents promise that prosperity is possible without ceaseless panic.
The first adults to act like adults may well win the day.
In fact, with a modicum of self-discipline, it’s entirely possible to flip the script on hysteria and instability. All too many Democrats have pitched childish temper tantrums in response to conventional Republican reforms. They apply the same sky-is-falling, we’re-all-going-to-die hyperbole to tax cuts or individual mandate repeal that they do to the prospect of accidental nuclear war with Korea. A few months of peace and quiet in the White House — accompanied by peace and prosperity on the home front — could make a material impact. The first adults to act like adults may well win the day.
Trump fans who feel confident that he can beat the next progressive Democratic nominee must understand that Trump has to get there first. All the legal arguments in the world may not enough to save a president who won’t help himself.
Like Douthat said, the best evidence of mental incapacity is in his Twitter feed:
The leader of the most powerful nation on earth, with multiple crises looming across the globe, and this is what he's doing. And then Trumpers ask why anyone would believe the Wolff book. Gosh, it's a mystery. https://t.co/mfo5wMZSWk
Yeah, the genius comment was probably the most ridiculous so far. But he has always used twitter in this way. The point is, I’m not willing to put more credibility in the media than I do in the President. He was elected by the people. The media has its own agenda, and their interests are not the same as the people who elected Trump. As I said, if there is just cause let it be brought out properly—not by media bombardment. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Debra, I agree the mainstream press is biased to the left.
The ironic thing is that if Trump had stayed off Twitter and been the type of President you wanted him to be, I think the press would have been more than fair to him.
They would have applauded his protectionism as most of the press don’t really understand economics and like to think they are for the “working people”. They would have cheered if he had broken up the big banks and gone after Wall Street. Since most of them are pacifists at heart, they would have applauded his isolationism.
The problem is that they haven’t had to be biased to make him look foolish. When someone calls himself “a very stable genius”, the story writes itself.
I was traveling yesterday and heard Trump’s statement at Camp David and his answers to a few reporters’ questions live on the radio. I thought he did well. The only time he struggled was when they asked him about the “Genius Tweet”. A couple of weeks ago he gave the 30 minute interview (without the knowledge of his aides) to the NYT reporter. He came across as genial, though somewhat incoherent.
I have wondered if his staff is keeping him too isolated from the press. One reason the Tweets and the anonymous reports from staff get so much coverage is that Trump has so little interaction with the media. He has had only one formal press conference as President. His last one-on-one TV interview with someone other than a Foxian was the disastrous Lester Holt interview in May.
If he wants to show he is competent and stable, it might be a good idea to nix the Tweets and regularly schedule interviews and press conferences and then really PREPARE for those sessions.
“Supposedly, comparisons of interviews Trump gave years ago to his current vocabulary and behavior in interviews show a neurological decline. He used to be much more articulate. ”
Supposedly, because some treasonous leftist said so?…..
It’s Twitter for cryin’ out loud. It’s tough to be articulate in 140 or less.
The whole mental fitness nonsense is just the next tool in The Resistance’s bag. Like all the prior ones, it too will fail.
“First, the left rioted. Them they tried to intimidate members of the Electoral College into not voting for Trump. Then we had the Russia collusion conspiracy theories.
Now, they are trying to make the case that Trump is mentally unfit for office.
We are headed into the second year of Trump’s presidency and the left is still trying to think of ways to undo the 2016 election and have Trump removed from office. And they are calling other people crazy?
In this latest effort, Democrats have drafted Yale Psychiatry Professor Bandy Lee to declare Trump mentally unfit.
Ezra Klein’s site VOX is pushing this hard:
The psychiatrist who briefed Congress on Trump’s mental state: this is “an emergency”
The longer Donald Trump is in office, the more he shocks and alarms us with his strange and extremely unpresidential behavior.
From the incoherent, fallacious interview he gave the New York Times on December 28 to Tuesday’s tweet about his “nuclear button” to his Saturday morning assertion that he is a “very stable genius,” the remarks keep getting more menacing, bizarre, and portentous of disaster…
Yet there is a growing call from a group of psychiatrists — the best medical experts at interpreting aberrant human behavior — for exactly this: an emergency evaluation of the president’s mental capacity, by force if necessary.
Leading this call is Bandy Lee, an assistant professor in forensic psychiatry (the interface of law and mental health) at the Yale School of Medicine who has devoted her 20-year career to studying, predicting, and preventing violence.
She recently briefed a dozen members of Congress — Democrats and one Republican — on the president’s mental state. And this week, she, along with Judith Herman at Harvard and Robert Jay Lifton at Columbia, released a statement arguing that Trump is “further unraveling.” The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a collection of essays from 27 mental health professionals that Lee edited, was published in October.
This psychiatrist wants to forcibly subject Trump to an evaluation. Listen to how reasonable she sounds. (Emphasis is mine):
So in an emergency, neither consent nor confidentiality requirements hold. Safety comes first. What we do in the case of danger is we contain the person, we remove them from access to weapons, and we do an urgent evaluation.
This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care.
Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us. But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection.
Even the always cool minded Byron York of the Washington Examiner found this startling:”
———————-
“Is President Trump mentally unbalanced? In recent days, it is a popular topic of conversation among the chattering class. It would only happen during a Republican administration. Democrats even found a psychologist that agreed to brief members of Congress, as CNN reported.”
——————–
“It may feel like a new line of attack on Trump but this question began mere days after the inauguration. An article was posted online by Psychology Today as early as January 31, 2017, discussing a petition on Facebook signed by 18,000 psychologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals.”
“It appears this action was the result of Trump’s travel ban. Liberal psychologists and others in the mental health service industry decided Trump is mentally unbalanced because he was attempting to fulfill a campaign promise and constitutional requirement to do everything in his power to keep Americans safe at home. Fortunately, not all in the field are so crippled by partisan ideology and a divide was forming in the community.
What about the Goldwater Rule? Hold on, the Trump haters have an answer for that, too.
It is widely regarded as unethical—a violation of the so-called Goldwater Rule—for mental health experts to offer a professional diagnosis of any person they have not personally examined. The rule was established in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association and is still in force today. Although psychologists are not expressly forbidden from making public pronouncements about the mental health of public figures, the American Psychological Association has affirmed the rule and psychologists generally abide by it.
But Gartner argues that the mental health community has an obligation to protect the public that overrides the Goldwater Rule, and that even in the short time since the inauguration, Trump has proved himself “a clear and present danger.”
Mind you, this was all just days after the inauguration. Running with this narrative, a group of 27 psychiatrists and mental health professionals wrote a book claiming Trump presents a clear and present danger to America. They present public discussions on the topic. None have interviewed Trump or even just spoken to him. I wrote about this not long ago after watching a liberal talk show host interview former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on Netflix. Boxer heard the presentation and even extended it out to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She claims Sanders is brainwashed by Trump. It sounds to me like some in the mental health industry are cashing in on really unethical behavior.
The media and their cohorts on the left are eating this story up. All of them would like for Trump to be gone, preferably impeached. It is common for Democrats and the media to claim Republicans are crazy. Remember, for example, the treatment Ronald Reagan received from them? There is an argument to be made that Trump is not a typical president. There has been nothing to prove he is a clear and present danger to America unless the goal of bringing Trump down has taken over your own brain.”
It wasn’t a “treasonous leftist” who wrote the article to which Kizzie referred. Sharon Begley is a journalist with a long history of writing about science. As part of her article she asked a number of experts from different fields to study the changes in Trump’s speech patterns over the years. This is from Begley’s article I posted @ 4:31:
‘Research has shown that changes in speaking style can result from cognitive decline. STAT therefore asked experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to compare Trump’s speech from decades ago to that in 2017; they all agreed there had been a deterioration, and some said it could reflect changes in the health of Trump’s brain.”
This apparent cognitive decline is a separate and different issue than the mental illness issue raised by the psychiatrist.
Why did Begley ask experts to study Trump’s speech patterns?
Here is the partial (almost complete) transcript of Trump’s recent NYT interview.
I may have been generous to Trump @5:40 when I described him as “somewhat incoherent”.
Ironically, Trump’s short attention span and incoherence was what allowed Michael Wolff access to the White House. When Wolff proposed the project of writing a book on the Administration’s first few months to Trump in front of aides, Trump’s response was unintelligible and he then changed the subject. None of the aides could tell if the answer had been a “No”, so Wolff was allowed to roam the White House for months.
AJ – To add to Ricky’s explanation at 9:11, I’ve also read a discussion on this, which included a pretty staunch conservative saying he had listened to previous interviews (from a couple decades or so ago) and has come to the same conclusion.
But I did say “Supposedly” because I have not done the comparison myself. Even so, it makes sense to me from what I have heard from Trump.
The strangest thing is that the McConnell types seem to be extremely happy with Trump right now. It was a little embarrassing for them to stand behind him yesterday as he defended the “genius” Tweets, but with Bannon, Gorka and Flynn gone and Bannon completely ex-communicated, many seem to think Trump will now become a traditional Republican. Yesterday, Trump seem to indicate he would not help Bannonite challengers against incumbent Republican Senators.
Unfortunately, for those incumbents and House Republican incumbents, the day of reckoning in November draws closer every day. On that day it will not matter if a Republican Senator or Congressman is a Trumpkin, a Bannonite, a traditional conservative or a Bushie. They will all be in trouble.
I promise that I did not ask Trump to give us another example of his incoherence. However, he obliged:
I guess "an enormously consensual presidency" in this tweet was supposed to be "an enormously consequential presidency." But even a very stable genius nods. https://t.co/DzNgCCB3f6
The tweet was a typo of sorts. He was quoting Michael Goodwin at the New York Post.
And I found the interview coherent if not overly informative. And of course, his narcissism was on flaming display as usual. But that’s part of the package.
Just think how dull your evenings would be if he were a more conventional president…or if Twitter cancelled his account. :–)
So a Never-Trumper like Ricky. Beagley’s a hack. A climate change pushing partisan hack.
Not really makin’ your case.
And did you two miss this? These “experts” are breaking the rules.
“It is widely regarded as unethical—a violation of the so-called Goldwater Rule—for mental health experts to offer a professional diagnosis of any person they have not personally examined. The rule was established in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association and is still in force today. Although psychologists are not expressly forbidden from making public pronouncements about the mental health of public figures, the American Psychological Association has affirmed the rule and psychologists generally abide by it.”
Except when they’re partisan hacks, like here. And so is the reporter and her “sources say” nonsense. Hackiness is not an admirable trait.
Wandering Views 
This is yet another reason why single payer sucks.
What happens when the single payer runs out of money?
Nothing.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/01/05/great-moments-single-payer-britain-cancels-50000-surgeries/
“Consider this another data point that will largely get ignored when Democrats and the media start beating the drum again on “Medicare for All” in the 2018 midterms. The UK’s vaunted single-payer system has collapsed into “third world” conditions, thanks to a lack of resources that has ambulances unable to pick up patients, who would find difficulty in getting an empty bed at a hospital. The order came down this week from on high to cancel as many as 50,000 scheduled surgeries over the next several weeks until the National Health Service can figure out how to climb out of the hole (via Guy Benson):
Every hospital in the country has been ordered to cancel all non-urgent surgery until at least February in an unprecedented step by NHS officials.
The instructions on Tuesday night – which will see result in around 50,000 operations being axed – followed claims by senior doctors that patients were being treated in “third world” conditions, as hospital chief executives warned of the worst winter crisis for three decades.
Hospitals are reporting growing chaos, with a spike in winter flu leaving frail patients facing 12-hour waits, and some units running out of corridor space.
It’s not just the hospitals, either. The NHS will close down outpatient clinics as well, leaving Britons with very few options for healthcare at the beginning of 2018:
Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director, on Tuesday ordered NHS trusts to stop taking all but the most urgent cases, closing outpatients clinics for weeks as well as cancelling around 50,000 planned operations.
Believe it or not, UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt considers this an improvement over last year’s performance. At least this time people got advance notice of the closures:”
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Huh. Go figure.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/01/study-refugees-behind-surging-violent-crimes-in-germany/
“Unregulated migration may be responsible for the rise in violent crimes in Germany, a study commissioned by the German government claims. The researchers used the state of Lower Saxony to examine the correlation between the refugee arrivals and violent crimes between 2014 and 2016, a period during which such crimes surged by 10.4 percent. More than 90 percent of these additional crimes were attributed to the newly arrived refugees.
Since Germany opened its border to unregulated immigration two years ago, the country has been in the grip of a migrant crime wave. Despite massive efforts undertaken by the political establishment to suppress the reporting of migrant crimes, the fallout simply can’t be contained. There has been a 50 percent rise in migrant crimes in the country, German Federal Crime Bureau (BKA) says in its last annual crime report published in April 2017.
“The number of immigrants suspected of criminal acts in 2016 has risen by 52.7 percent, to the figure of 174,438, compared to the previous year. To ensure a fair comparison with the rest of the population, crimes that only immigrants can commit, such as illegal entry to the country, have been taken out from the statistics,” German newspaper Die Welt reported, citing the finding of the BKA report.
German newspaper Stuttgarter Nachrichten surmised the findings of the 103-page report commissioned by German Ministry of Family Affairs.
The numbers speak for themselves. Refugees are behind the significant rise in violent crimes between 2014 and 2016, a latest report reveals. A research team led by criminologist Christian Pfeiffer analysed the situation on the behest of German Federal Ministry of Family Affairs. “Lower Saxony is an average German state, so we can generalize the finding to an extent,” the co-author Dirk Baier from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences and Sören Kliem from the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony said during the presentation on Wednesday.
According to the statistics, violent crimes rose by 10,4 percent between 2014 and 2016, out of which 92,1 of the spike was attributed to the refugees, they claimed. [Translation by the author]”
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Debra, I think you deserve an Assist (to use a basketball term) on this ReTweet:
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From last night on the open thread:
It seems those talking heads don’t realize that the reason most people voted for Trump is tha the ain’t Hillary.
The same thing will happened if they run Pocahontas next time. – Chas
Do you mean Elizabeth Warren? You are right, but I think you have it backwards, in one way. If the Democrats run a smart person with no baggage, people will vote for him/her because it’s not Trump. If the GOP nominates that bully again, I will definitely be an active campaigner for a good 3rd party/independent candidate. I don’t think our country could stand 8 years of Trump’s immaturity, and, dare I say, insanity.
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Ricky, The trick is to be relevant in the game without falling victim to the pessimism it naturally breeds. Tough balancing act. Well done. ;–)
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I read this article yesterday:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/05/trump-media-feedback-loop-216248
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Then this morning this happened:
https://twitter.com/kt_so_it_goes/status/949639515504865280
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AJ @ 8:40 What is the Trumpian plan for healthcare?
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More on Wolff’s legal jeopardy for publishing what he knew were lies.
https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/wolffs-admission-to-lies-in-his-book-puts-him-in-legal-jeopardy/
“So Wolff flat out says that he believes that at least some of his sources were lying to him, and while he attributes some accounts to their sources, he acknowledges that this isn’t always the case.
This could be problematic for Wolff. He’s being accused of including fiction in what’s presented as a non-fiction book, and he admits that not all of his sources were trustworthy, but he doesn’t specify what’s fact true and what’s false. On its face, this sounds like a classic candidate for a defamation case.
Let’s run through the elements for a defamation claim. There has to be a statement that is 1) false, 2) defamatory, 3) published to a third party, and in the case of statements about public figures (like those included in Wolff’s book), 4) with “Actual malice,” meaning knowledge that the statement is false, or reckless disregard for whether it’s true.
At first glance, it sure sounds like Wolff is admitting to publishing statements–many of which are defamatory–that he knows to be false. He does, however, have some defenses here.
First, as he points out, in some case, Wolff makes it clear that certain dubious versions of events are coming from those dubious sources. In those cases, he’s not saying the contents of those statements are true. In other cases, where he’s merely presenting an account of what happened, even though he admits that he may have heard conflicting stories, the version he presented was one “I believe to be true.”
If Wolff believed that everything he presented as fact was in fact true, then he wouldn’t have acted with actual malice, even if he was wrong. On the other hand, one could argue that he still knew there was a chance that the version of events that he published was false.
Wolff insisted to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, “I am certainly and absolutely, in every way, comfortable with everything I’ve reported in this book.” That may be the case, but he may not be comfortable with the potential influx of lawsuits heading his way.”
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Ricky @11:01, Very good question. I’m not sure of the answer. I don’t know that Trumpers in general would agree with me, but I have begun to view access to basic healthcare (vaccinations, antibiotics, emergency care, etc) as a public good–like utilities and roads. I would not drop Obamacare without a reasonable way for those using and those who are currently uninsured to be covered I appreciated my senator, Sen. Lamar Alexander, working across the aisle to try to make adjustments to Obamacare to make it work for the current congress.
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Peter,@ 9:20
I agree with your thesis, but j don’t see it working. It seems the Democrats are only interested in obstruction now.
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2020 Battle cry.
“This guy is worse than us!”
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I can’t even imagine what the next presidential election will look like.
Meanwhile, more on global warming — along with some more political cartoons. There’s so much material to work with these days.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/the-week-in-pictures-bomb-cyclone-edition.php
__________________________
I guess “polar vortex” isn’t good enough for the climatistas and other panicky people any more. This year it has to be “bomb cyclone,” which I think is actually the secret “go code” for Trump throwing his button at the Nork’s Little Rocket Man. … Anyway, it is fun enjoying the anguish of Al Gore, who just can’t catch a break.
____________________________
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Donna,
🙂
It’s gonna be fabulous. It will be a spectacle to behold, for sure. 🙂
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Canada has reached a 40 year low in unemployment. Could this be a Trudeau Effect? Or could it be a Liberal-Socialist Effect as those parties control almost all the legislatures? Could businesses be so happy with a Liberal-Socialist regime that they are hiring in record numbers. If this is how economics actually worked, imagine a Bernie Sanders Effect. Instead like the US economic news there are far more valid economic explanations. The height of a business cycle, residential construction, foreign investment, raise in wages and disposeable income, low interest rates, etc….
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AJ, if one wanted to demonstrate the short comings of govt health care, England is a good place. But its not a single payer system. Its a dual single payer plus private care. In fact its similar to the US. The US has Medicare, Medicaid and the VA whereas the UK has the NHS. On the other track is private insurance and cash. The UK system does cover more people and has less bureaucracy but that’s only difference. Interestingly the Nordic countries copied the UK model but have far better results. Not sure why but I’m guessing cost containment and funding are better.
Canada is one of the very few single payer systems in the OECD. Without a second track, cost containment is easier and there’s less bureaucracy. Of course, there’s no jumping the queue.
The direction the ACA is supposed to take is somewhat similar to the Swiss model where people are mandated to buy from a selection of private insurance plans with the aid of govt subsidies if necessary. The more people in exchanges as opposed to Medicare and Medicaid, the more effecient the system works.
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Thus, to avoid the UK system, the US needs to improve on the ACA not dismantle it. Or you could try Canadian style single payer. But given the political and business realities of the US improving the ACA is the way to go.
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There will be no serious attempt to launch a libel suit in the US. The burden of proof is high — the plantiff must prove the allegation is false and defamatory and there is a famous person exemption in the US.
Now in the UK, the defendant must prove his claims are true and there’s no famous person’s exemption. In the past, American celebrities would wait until the libelous words were printed or sold in the UK and then launch a lawsuit there, however, the UK is tightening up on libel tourism.
If the book is sold in the UK and paperwork isn’t filed the next day, then all the libel talk is mere posturing. Posturing to discredit the author.
Furthermore, one can escape libel charges by simple prefixing words with the phrase “Sources say…” or “Some people may say…..”. TV pundits and talk radio hosts uses variations of these phrases daily to escape any responsibility for their words.
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There will be no serious attempt to launch a libel suit in the US. The burden of proof is high — the plantiff must prove the allegation is false and defamatory and there is a famous person exemption in the US.
Now in the UK, the defendant must prove his claims are true and there’s no famous person’s exemption. In the past, American celebrities would wait until the libelous words were printed or sold in the UK and then launch a lawsuit there, however, the UK is tightening up on libel tourism.
If the book is sold in the UK and paperwork isn’t filed the next day, then all the libel talk is mere posturing. Posturing to discredit the author.
Furthermore, one can escape libek charge by simple prefixing words with the phrase “Sources say…” or “Some people may say…..”. TV pundits and talk radio hosts uses variations of these phrases daily to escape and responsibility.
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Peter @ 9:20. Hopefully, Trump put your fears to rest.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/06/trump-wolff-mental-health-327116
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Debra, I don’t think you will like Douthat’s latest article, but I think you will have to admit it is fair.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/opinion/sunday/trumps-petticoat-government.html
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From the article:
Rather, the big question is organizational, managerial, and psychological: Can the people who surround Donald Trump work around his incapacity successfully enough to keep his unfitness from producing a historic calamity?
They have done so for a year, with some debacles (Puerto Rico) but also some genuine successes (the defeat of the Islamic State). People may laugh at Wolff’s assertion that “the men and women of the West Wing, for all that the media was ridiculing them, actually felt they had a responsibility to the country,” and for some figures (perhaps especially in the press office) the laughter will be justified. But for others the work has been necessary and important, and the achievement of relative stability a genuine service to the United States.
Can it continue in the face of some greater crisis than Trump has yet confronted? Can it continue if the Democrats take a share of power or if the president’s own family faces legal jeopardy? Is the American system more able to correct for presidential incapacity than some of us have feared?
The last year has given us some reason to think the answer to the last question might be “yes.” May the new year give us more, because our president’s chaotic mind isn’t going anywhere.
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Jennifer Rubin deals with the same facts as Douthat, but reached a different conclusion.
Like Debra, she does not think it is appropriate for Mattis, Kelly, McMaster, Cohn et al. to do the things Douthat has praised them for doing. We have an interesting situation.
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Ricky, I think what we have been witnessing over the past year is an attempted coup by the media and the deep pockets that own or support them. The latest articles by Rubin and Douthat come from two different angles, but both assume Trump is incompetent for the presidency, and they devolve from there. The President is unconventional, but there is no evidence—and they present none—on which to base an assumption of incompetence. Rubin’s Washington Post has literally dozens of reporters and the personal backing of the wealthiest individual on the planet, yet they have delivered nothing of substance, and what they have offered up is often later shown to have more ambivalence than they acknowledged, or to be just plain false.
We have a special prosecutor with no actionable intelligence against the President and a judiciary that has taken it upon itself to try to deliberately thwart public policy by reducing the usual power of the president. And many in the legislature act as though the people’s choice of president is an intolerable personal affront which simply cannot be borne, and so, have gathered their toys and stalked off to their various abodes. As an example of the latter, of my two senators, the one I thought lesser of, pulled together a coalition to actually do the job of proper governance, while the one I thought greater, turned out to be a petulant run-away. As I said before, this is a time when people are being revealed—not just changed.
If there is just cause, let it be shown in the proper way by the proper authorities, and let the President be properly impeached or Article 25ed. But the media doesn’t get to decide that. They don’t have the power to precipitate anything unless we give it to them. And for my part, I won’t.
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What she said. 😀⬆⬆
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Supposedly, comparisons of interviews Trump gave years ago to his current vocabulary and behavior in interviews show a neurological decline. He used to be much more articulate. Quite frankly, I found that tweet about having a bigger, more powerful nuclear “button” pretty disturbing and unwise, to say the least.
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I have heard the same thing, Kizzie. I will look for an article on the subject.
Debra, As Douthat said, the best evidence of Trump’s incapacity is his Twitter feed. Speaking of which, those Tweets led to this great headline:
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Here we go, Kizzie:
https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/23/donald-trump-speaking-style-interviews/
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Andrew McCarthy seconds a good article by David French on how impeachment is a political, not a legal process.
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From the article:
Three things can save Trump from this divisive and damaging fate, and only one of them is largely in his control. If Mueller exonerates Trump or the GOP retains the House, then Trump is safe. But Trump has virtually no influence over the Mueller investigation, and as of now the GOP is hoping to hold the House in spite of Trump. Democrats appear energized and ready to change the balance of power.
Trump has a much greater degree of control over his own popularity. He can’t change the past. The facts are the facts, and the evidence is the evidence. Millions of Americans have made up their minds about him. Their attitudes have hardened, and their ideas are fixed. Not everyone is ready to write him off, however, and he should be doing everything in his power to change the narrative, to divert attention from the drama of his presidency and instead focus on the policies and achievements of his presidency. Let’s be blunt: Provocative tweeting makes impeachment more likely. Rambling interviews make impeachment more likely. Anything and everything that’s likely to unsettle Americans, exhaust Americans, or provoke Americans is an action that brings him one tiny step closer to an involuntary exit.
Trump should view improving his public perception as a priority of the second year of the first term. But “less drama” is a tough sale for a president who’s dramatic by nature, built his brand on drama, and won a presidential election even as he crammed the news cycle with controversy. Yet when he beat Hillary Clinton, he ran against an unpopular person, one of the most-disliked politicians in American history. She couldn’t help but create drama all her own. If he “runs” against impeachment, he’ll be battling an idea — the alluring thought of a Trumpless government where his opponents promise that prosperity is possible without ceaseless panic.
The first adults to act like adults may well win the day.
In fact, with a modicum of self-discipline, it’s entirely possible to flip the script on hysteria and instability. All too many Democrats have pitched childish temper tantrums in response to conventional Republican reforms. They apply the same sky-is-falling, we’re-all-going-to-die hyperbole to tax cuts or individual mandate repeal that they do to the prospect of accidental nuclear war with Korea. A few months of peace and quiet in the White House — accompanied by peace and prosperity on the home front — could make a material impact. The first adults to act like adults may well win the day.
Trump fans who feel confident that he can beat the next progressive Democratic nominee must understand that Trump has to get there first. All the legal arguments in the world may not enough to save a president who won’t help himself.
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Like Douthat said, the best evidence of mental incapacity is in his Twitter feed:
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Yeah, the genius comment was probably the most ridiculous so far. But he has always used twitter in this way. The point is, I’m not willing to put more credibility in the media than I do in the President. He was elected by the people. The media has its own agenda, and their interests are not the same as the people who elected Trump. As I said, if there is just cause let it be brought out properly—not by media bombardment. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
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Debra, I agree the mainstream press is biased to the left.
The ironic thing is that if Trump had stayed off Twitter and been the type of President you wanted him to be, I think the press would have been more than fair to him.
They would have applauded his protectionism as most of the press don’t really understand economics and like to think they are for the “working people”. They would have cheered if he had broken up the big banks and gone after Wall Street. Since most of them are pacifists at heart, they would have applauded his isolationism.
The problem is that they haven’t had to be biased to make him look foolish. When someone calls himself “a very stable genius”, the story writes itself.
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I was traveling yesterday and heard Trump’s statement at Camp David and his answers to a few reporters’ questions live on the radio. I thought he did well. The only time he struggled was when they asked him about the “Genius Tweet”. A couple of weeks ago he gave the 30 minute interview (without the knowledge of his aides) to the NYT reporter. He came across as genial, though somewhat incoherent.
I have wondered if his staff is keeping him too isolated from the press. One reason the Tweets and the anonymous reports from staff get so much coverage is that Trump has so little interaction with the media. He has had only one formal press conference as President. His last one-on-one TV interview with someone other than a Foxian was the disastrous Lester Holt interview in May.
If he wants to show he is competent and stable, it might be a good idea to nix the Tweets and regularly schedule interviews and press conferences and then really PREPARE for those sessions.
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Mr. Ed is the only “stable genius” I know of.
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A vote of confidence for Mr. Ed:
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Kizzie,
“Supposedly, comparisons of interviews Trump gave years ago to his current vocabulary and behavior in interviews show a neurological decline. He used to be much more articulate. ”
Supposedly, because some treasonous leftist said so?…..
It’s Twitter for cryin’ out loud. It’s tough to be articulate in 140 or less.
The whole mental fitness nonsense is just the next tool in The Resistance’s bag. Like all the prior ones, it too will fail.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/01/unable-to-defeat-trump-at-the-polls-dems-enlist-yale-psych-prof-to-diagnose-him-mentally-unfit/
“First, the left rioted. Them they tried to intimidate members of the Electoral College into not voting for Trump. Then we had the Russia collusion conspiracy theories.
Now, they are trying to make the case that Trump is mentally unfit for office.
We are headed into the second year of Trump’s presidency and the left is still trying to think of ways to undo the 2016 election and have Trump removed from office. And they are calling other people crazy?
In this latest effort, Democrats have drafted Yale Psychiatry Professor Bandy Lee to declare Trump mentally unfit.
Ezra Klein’s site VOX is pushing this hard:
The psychiatrist who briefed Congress on Trump’s mental state: this is “an emergency”
The longer Donald Trump is in office, the more he shocks and alarms us with his strange and extremely unpresidential behavior.
From the incoherent, fallacious interview he gave the New York Times on December 28 to Tuesday’s tweet about his “nuclear button” to his Saturday morning assertion that he is a “very stable genius,” the remarks keep getting more menacing, bizarre, and portentous of disaster…
Yet there is a growing call from a group of psychiatrists — the best medical experts at interpreting aberrant human behavior — for exactly this: an emergency evaluation of the president’s mental capacity, by force if necessary.
Leading this call is Bandy Lee, an assistant professor in forensic psychiatry (the interface of law and mental health) at the Yale School of Medicine who has devoted her 20-year career to studying, predicting, and preventing violence.
She recently briefed a dozen members of Congress — Democrats and one Republican — on the president’s mental state. And this week, she, along with Judith Herman at Harvard and Robert Jay Lifton at Columbia, released a statement arguing that Trump is “further unraveling.” The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a collection of essays from 27 mental health professionals that Lee edited, was published in October.
This psychiatrist wants to forcibly subject Trump to an evaluation. Listen to how reasonable she sounds. (Emphasis is mine):
So in an emergency, neither consent nor confidentiality requirements hold. Safety comes first. What we do in the case of danger is we contain the person, we remove them from access to weapons, and we do an urgent evaluation.
This is what we have been calling for with the president based on basic medical standards of care.
Surprisingly, many lawyer groups have actually volunteered, on their own, to file for a court paper to ensure that the security staff will cooperate with us. But we have declined, since this will really look like a coup, and while we are trying to prevent violence, we don’t wish to incite it through, say, an insurrection.
Even the always cool minded Byron York of the Washington Examiner found this startling:”
———————-
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More on these frauds here….
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/01/07/crazy-left-think-trump-mentally-unbalanced/
“Is President Trump mentally unbalanced? In recent days, it is a popular topic of conversation among the chattering class. It would only happen during a Republican administration. Democrats even found a psychologist that agreed to brief members of Congress, as CNN reported.”
——————–
“It may feel like a new line of attack on Trump but this question began mere days after the inauguration. An article was posted online by Psychology Today as early as January 31, 2017, discussing a petition on Facebook signed by 18,000 psychologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals.”
“It appears this action was the result of Trump’s travel ban. Liberal psychologists and others in the mental health service industry decided Trump is mentally unbalanced because he was attempting to fulfill a campaign promise and constitutional requirement to do everything in his power to keep Americans safe at home. Fortunately, not all in the field are so crippled by partisan ideology and a divide was forming in the community.
What about the Goldwater Rule? Hold on, the Trump haters have an answer for that, too.
It is widely regarded as unethical—a violation of the so-called Goldwater Rule—for mental health experts to offer a professional diagnosis of any person they have not personally examined. The rule was established in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association and is still in force today. Although psychologists are not expressly forbidden from making public pronouncements about the mental health of public figures, the American Psychological Association has affirmed the rule and psychologists generally abide by it.
But Gartner argues that the mental health community has an obligation to protect the public that overrides the Goldwater Rule, and that even in the short time since the inauguration, Trump has proved himself “a clear and present danger.”
Mind you, this was all just days after the inauguration. Running with this narrative, a group of 27 psychiatrists and mental health professionals wrote a book claiming Trump presents a clear and present danger to America. They present public discussions on the topic. None have interviewed Trump or even just spoken to him. I wrote about this not long ago after watching a liberal talk show host interview former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on Netflix. Boxer heard the presentation and even extended it out to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She claims Sanders is brainwashed by Trump. It sounds to me like some in the mental health industry are cashing in on really unethical behavior.
The media and their cohorts on the left are eating this story up. All of them would like for Trump to be gone, preferably impeached. It is common for Democrats and the media to claim Republicans are crazy. Remember, for example, the treatment Ronald Reagan received from them? There is an argument to be made that Trump is not a typical president. There has been nothing to prove he is a clear and present danger to America unless the goal of bringing Trump down has taken over your own brain.”
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It wasn’t a “treasonous leftist” who wrote the article to which Kizzie referred. Sharon Begley is a journalist with a long history of writing about science. As part of her article she asked a number of experts from different fields to study the changes in Trump’s speech patterns over the years. This is from Begley’s article I posted @ 4:31:
‘Research has shown that changes in speaking style can result from cognitive decline. STAT therefore asked experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to compare Trump’s speech from decades ago to that in 2017; they all agreed there had been a deterioration, and some said it could reflect changes in the health of Trump’s brain.”
This apparent cognitive decline is a separate and different issue than the mental illness issue raised by the psychiatrist.
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Why did Begley ask experts to study Trump’s speech patterns?
Here is the partial (almost complete) transcript of Trump’s recent NYT interview.
I may have been generous to Trump @5:40 when I described him as “somewhat incoherent”.
Ironically, Trump’s short attention span and incoherence was what allowed Michael Wolff access to the White House. When Wolff proposed the project of writing a book on the Administration’s first few months to Trump in front of aides, Trump’s response was unintelligible and he then changed the subject. None of the aides could tell if the answer had been a “No”, so Wolff was allowed to roam the White House for months.
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AJ – To add to Ricky’s explanation at 9:11, I’ve also read a discussion on this, which included a pretty staunch conservative saying he had listened to previous interviews (from a couple decades or so ago) and has come to the same conclusion.
But I did say “Supposedly” because I have not done the comparison myself. Even so, it makes sense to me from what I have heard from Trump.
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The strangest thing is that the McConnell types seem to be extremely happy with Trump right now. It was a little embarrassing for them to stand behind him yesterday as he defended the “genius” Tweets, but with Bannon, Gorka and Flynn gone and Bannon completely ex-communicated, many seem to think Trump will now become a traditional Republican. Yesterday, Trump seem to indicate he would not help Bannonite challengers against incumbent Republican Senators.
Unfortunately, for those incumbents and House Republican incumbents, the day of reckoning in November draws closer every day. On that day it will not matter if a Republican Senator or Congressman is a Trumpkin, a Bannonite, a traditional conservative or a Bushie. They will all be in trouble.
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I promise that I did not ask Trump to give us another example of his incoherence. However, he obliged:
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The tweet was a typo of sorts. He was quoting Michael Goodwin at the New York Post.
And I found the interview coherent if not overly informative. And of course, his narcissism was on flaming display as usual. But that’s part of the package.
Just think how dull your evenings would be if he were a more conventional president…or if Twitter cancelled his account. :–)
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Staunch conservative….
So a Never-Trumper like Ricky. Beagley’s a hack. A climate change pushing partisan hack.
Not really makin’ your case.
And did you two miss this? These “experts” are breaking the rules.
“It is widely regarded as unethical—a violation of the so-called Goldwater Rule—for mental health experts to offer a professional diagnosis of any person they have not personally examined. The rule was established in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association and is still in force today. Although psychologists are not expressly forbidden from making public pronouncements about the mental health of public figures, the American Psychological Association has affirmed the rule and psychologists generally abide by it.”
Except when they’re partisan hacks, like here. And so is the reporter and her “sources say” nonsense. Hackiness is not an admirable trait.
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