It’s now been a week since the communications office of the Supreme Court announced that Clarence Thomas had been hospitalized “for an infection” and that he would go home in a few days.  That few days has now expanded to a full week, and repeated attempts by the press to get more information on him have been met with silence.  This is one of the most odd set of circumstances about the health of a SCOTUS justice that I can recall, especially after the detailed blow by blow reporting from the court about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health in the few years before she passed away in 2020.

Coincidently, news is breaking daily about the deep involvement of Thomas’ wife, Ginni, in the effort to overturn the US presidential election in order to illegally keep Trump in office after he lost.  It turns out that not only did she attend the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6th, she communicated extensively with Mark Meadows and others in the conspiracy to overturn the election by amplifying lies about non-existent voter fraud.  Apparently there were 29 texts between them from the election to January 10, 2021.  She also communicated with other like minded folks in Trumpland including Jared Kushner.

Not coincidently, Justice Thomas voted against the other 8 justices when the court refused to intervene in the order to release Trump’s WH records.  He also wrote a dissent when the Court declined to hear the Pennsylvania case that was seeking to disqualify mail-in ballots in that state.  Ginni Thomas also publicly supported expelling Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the RNC when they voted to impeach Trump in the second impeachment and then joined the January 6th Committee.  In her texts to others in Trumpland, she also repeated QAnon bullshit conspiracy theories, loudly proclaiming the election was stolen and supporting the lawyers spreading the lies.  Worse, she has Justice Thomas’ ear 24/7/365 and even mentioned to Meadows in one text that she was talking to her “best friend” about how the election was stolen.  Not coincidently, her “best friend” has ruled 100% in Trump’s favor in cases brought before him.

The stink of the Thomases’ corruption just adds to the existing stench of the cheating and partisanship that has finally overtaken the Court since McConnell successfully stole Merrick Garland’s seat and then rammed through the nominations of Kavanaugh and Barrett, clearly unqualified nominees.  The Court has been rapidly undoing decades of precedent in many areas with particular focus on taking away a woman’s right to seek her own healthcare and making it harder for non-Republicans to vote.  John Roberts has been concerned about the eroding public confidence in the Court, and with good reason.  In a recent Gallup survey, confidence in the Court has declined to a low point of 40%.  Twenty years ago, confidence was as high as 62%.

Is it merely coincidence that Justice Thomas has suddenly dropped off the face of the earth as the scandal of his wife’s deep involvement in the insurrection comes to light?  I think not.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a sudden retirement from the bench to avoid what looks to be the first impeachment case built against a SCOTUS justice.  Nothing else explains the deafening silence about Thomas’s supposed health problem and hospitalization.  We’ll be watching this one closely.

Trump lies about his enemies’ mental states and physical health in a continuous stream as long as those lies serve his purposes, whatever those are.  Well, karma turned on him yesterday, this time self inflicted.  Here’s how the story has evolved:

Remember last November when Trump made a rushed and unexpected trip to Walter Reed Hospital?  The trip was not scheduled, and he was accompanied by the White House physician.  We asked about the trip, a spokesman said the trip was for preliminary tests before Trump’s annual physical.  We all knew THAT was a lie, but no one really figured out the real reason.  Well, now we know and it’s not good; for Trump I mean.  Here’s how the story is playing out…

Yesterday a new book titled Trump v. The United States by NY Times reporter Michael Schmidt was published.  It is an investigative look at the chaos of the Trump WH and how he is actually threatening the very survival of democracy in the US.  In the book, though, Schmidt mentions that during said November trip to Walter Reed, Pence was put on standby to take over in case Trump needed to be put under anesthesia for a surgical procedure.  That story had not been picked up by any major news agency, and then Trump tweeted this:

So, Trump denies reports that he had a series of mini strokes, when, in fact NO ONE WAS REPORTING THAT.  Maggie Haberman of the NY Times then tweeted:

So, Trump, frantic to kill any story that happens to be true about his health, actually outed himself.  As you would expect, the Twitterverse exploded, and one doctor even gave a plausible argument that Trump is actually displaying signs that he has had a stroke:

The fact that Trump has had a series of strokes explains a LOT of his physical issues including slurring of words, his difficulty walking down the ramp at West Point, and trouble drinking water with one hand.  Everyone in the United States (except for Trumpists) know Trump is in terrible physical condition.  He is at least 40 pounds overweight, he eats junk food every day, and even had to ride a golf cart during a walk of world leaders during a G7 meeting in 2017.  The possibility that he’s had a series of strokes explains all of those unanswered questions about Trump’s health.

Karma is a bitch, to be sure.

We all know that generally, Trump is in poor health.  He’s obese, and lies about his weight and his height to conceal that.  He wears lifts in his shoes to appear taller which throws off his posture.  At the G7 summit in Italy in 2017, he rode in a golf cart while other world leaders strolled through the town where it was being held.  His diet is terrible, and he was rushed to Walter Reid Hospital last November for an unknown reason, only that it was for pre-work for his annual physical.  That physical is reported to have occurred in April, but results weren’t released until June 3rd, showing weight gain but stating the he “remains in good health”.

There have been a lot of questions about his true health as frailty, unsteadiness, and slurring his words have come to light regularly.  At It happened again on Saturday during the West Point graduation that Trump invited himself to attend, demanding that graduates already released to protect them from COVID-19 were ordered back to provide a backdrop for another of his rambling, self-aggrandizing word salad speeches.  This time, though, he struggled to drink water out of a glass, unable to raise it to his mouth with one hand, struggled to pronounce the word “ceremony” and then, after the speech unsteadily negotiated a shallow ramp down from the stage.  Here’s the walk.

Some make the excuse that he’s 74 years old; some think that he’s unsteady with those lifts in his shoes; I think he has some kind of health issue that he’s concealing from the public.  The slurring of words and weakness on his right side are telling, and feed speculation about Trump’s health on social media.  The lies and bombastic rhetoric pouring out of the White House  and his enablers tend to numb the public to his outrageous behavior; add that to his doctors exaggerating his “good health” and you get what you have today – speculation about his true condition.  Trump even gaslights the American people about his own health.  It’s time for him to come clean before the election, but I’m not holding my breath.

Yesterday, Trump had an unscheduled 2 hour medical appointment at Walter Reed.  In a written statement, Stephanie Grisham, new White House press secretary toady, spouted some tripe about “getting a head start” on his annual physical for 2020.  I call bullshit.  This is one of two things: 1) He has a real health problem born of his morbid obesity, poor physical condition, and horrible diet; 2) This is the setup for manufacturing a health problem that will eventually end in a resignation from the office “for health reasons”.

First let’s talk about his physical condition.  Trump and his enablers regularly lie about his health.  He and his doctors claim he’s 6′ 3″.  That’s not even close.  I actually met him at a golf tournament about 15 years ago and he was not as tall as me, and I’m 6’0″.  Also, he’s known for a really goofy forward leaning, ass sticking out posture.  Here’s an example:

Also, Trump’s trouser length varies greatly, sometimes clownishly long.  Here’s a pic of Trump when he visited a Virginia church arriving directly from one of his hundreds of rounds of golf.

Analysts of body language say this odd posture is because Trump wears shoes with 2 1/2″ to 3″ lifts in them to make him look taller.  Those lifts throw off his balance causing this posture to lean noticeably forward to stay upright.  When he’s not wearing lifts, like when he plays golf, his trousers are way too long.

Why does Trump do this?  Probably for the same reason he lies about his hand size, intellect, global knowledge, and “unmatched wisdom”, but also to hide the fact that he’s morbidly obese.  His last physical in February 2018 had him at 243 lbs., 4 lbs. over his previous physical.  At his fictionalized height, that would give him a body mass index of 30.4, right on the edge of obesity.  At an actual height of, say, 5’10”, which has been projected as his actual height, that gives him a BMI of 34.9, right on the edge of morbid obesity.  With his other maladies, such as physical condition, high cholesterol, and grade school boy diet, he’s clearly in the morbid zone.

Having talked about his actual terrible condition, let’s talk about a “bad health” exit strategy.  This is actually the perfect exit for Trump once the tsunami of evidence against he gets so high that even he can no longer ignore and attack it.  Think about it – his doctors today freely lie about his condition; it’s conceivable that (in lieu of an actual health crisis) doctors could diagnose him with just about any malady and it would be believable.  He could resign based on this diagnosis, saving at least some face, ushering in Pence who would then pardon him for at least all of his federal crimes.  Trump could then retire to Mara Lago out of the public eye and then start fighting the state charges that would surely come.

Call me crazy, but I’ve always believed that a health based resignation could be a viable alternative for Trump to avoid facing impeachment charges.

Outside doctors have reviewed Trump’s test results from his physical last week, and some have concluded that he has heart disease and is at risk for heart attack or stroke.  From the horse’s mouth, Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist at the Scripps Research Institute on Trumps LDL cholesterol of 143:

“That’s a really high LDL,” Dr. Topol said. “We’re talking about a 70-plus-year-old man who is obese and doesn’t exercise. Just looking at the lab value, you would raise a big red flag. I would never use the words ‘excellent health.’ How you could take these indices and say excellent health? That is completely contraindicated.”

Dr. David Maron, the director of preventive cardiology at Stanford University’s medical school, was asked if Trump was indeed in “excellent  health”.  His answer?  “God, no.”

Trump is well known for eating like a 14 year old and drinking a dozen Diet Cokes a day.  He boasts about not drinking alcohol, but that hasn’t lowered his risk for heart attack in the slightest; in fact, he’s grossly overweight eating crap on a daily basis.  Talking about his obesity, Topol said,

“Here the issue is, does he have abdominal obesity? I don’t care what his height is. All you have to do is look at his abdomen. Abdominal obesity, that’s the machinery for inflammation for the heart.”

Sanja Gupta of CNN went further saying that the calcium in his blood indicates heart disease.  The Twittersphere erupted on that news.  Other doctors, though, dismiss Gupta’s claim as being overstated.  Apparently the cholesterol level is more indicative of the potential heart problem.

The scary part of this whole thing?  No, not his health; we all know he’s a heart attack looking for a place to happen.  It’s that a Navy doctor practicing at Walter Reed Medical Center and the White House physician has misrepresented the health report of the President of the United States, then gone on national television and talked about his “excellent health”, which anyone with functioning eyes in their head knows is false.  He ought to lose his medical license and be drummed out of the Navy.