RUTHFULLY YOURS

Robert M Kaplan is a forensic psychiatrist. His book The King who strangled his psychiatrist and other dark tales is in press.

They have been told to shut up by the American Psychiatric Association, which has rejected the “diagnosis” of Hillary-supporting mental health “professionals” who swear that Donald Trump is a loony and must be removed from office. Something like that happened in Bavaria and didn’t end well

Following the publication of Michael Wolff’s book “Fire & Fury” — reviewed for Quadrant Online by Geoffrey Luck — there has been a cacophony of comment on the president’s mental state and whether Amendment 25 in the US Constitution can be applied to remove him from office. The amendment was instituted during the Eisenhower administration, the intention being to provide a mechanism for being rid of a president rendered incapable of governing. The example in mind was the severe incapacity of Woodrow Wilson from a stroke during his last years, his wife and doctor colluding to hide this from the government.

There are many examples of presidential mental states that led to concerns about psychiatric disorder; Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s-afflicted final years in office being just two. In those cases, nothing was done and the fact remains that there has never been an attempt to remove a president on these grounds.

For those contemplating such action with the current incumbent, a look back in history at a baroque example will serve as a warning. The case concerns the monarchical defenestration of King Ludwig 11 of Bavaria and the Palatinate, known to this day as “Mad King Ludwig” (above). This is a startling tale of royal eccentricity and grandeur, venal relatives, penny-pinching bureaucrats and miscarriage of justice, to say nothing of broken medical ethics. Those studying the current White House will recall Marx’s dictum that history repeats itself first with tragedy, then with farce.

Ludwig was the splendid king of Bavaria. Influenced by Richard Wagner, he built a number of fairy-tale castles – Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, Linderhof, Nymphenburg and Hohenschwangau – for no purpose other than to meet his fantasies. His castle-mania drained the state coffers, causing much concern to the treasury and unpaid creditors escalated. His family, a Macbeth-like bunch, seethed with jealousy, resentment, intrigue and envy. To add to the problem, Ludwig queered the pitch with his rampant sexual exploits, rogering the stable men and guards in the royal barracks. His nocturnal sleigh-rides and opulent orgies with soldiers in artificial grottoes did not go down well in staunchly Catholic 19th century Bavaria.

At a January 16, Senate Judiciary committee hearing, Senator Cory Booker informally announced he’s running for president in 2020 by bullying Kirstjen Nielsen, President Trump’s DHS Secretary. With eyes and neck veins popping, Booker pounded his fists, pointed his finger, yelled accusations of racism, and further accused the Secretary of lying. She, in turn, could do nothing but sit in dignified silence as this went on. His posture was threatening, even scary.

Consider this behavior in a normal professional setting. If a colleague at your work acted like Booker, someone would likely step in and ask him to calm down. (He might even get fired.) If a police officer witnessed a man yelling at a woman in public, pounding his fists, using menacing body language, the officer would walk over to ask if there was a problem. And if a Republican senator had accused a female Obama official of lying without any proof, shamed her as a racist, cut her off when she tried to defend herself, another senator would have interrupted him immediately.

There is no professional environment—indeed, no public space—where Booker’s conduct would be tolerated. So how is it that he not only got away with it, but is now lauded as a hero for this highly unprofessional and embarrassing display? Because attacks against women on the Right—particularly those who support or serve in the Trump administration—are considered completely acceptable on the Left, especially in the Trump era. And on the Right there remains an unwillingness to fight on equal terms.

Booker’s 10-minute unhinged obloquy is a fitting crescendo to the yearlong mugging of Right-leaning women. Angered by President Trump’s alleged comment describing some African countries as “shitholes,” tough guy Booker decided not to take it up with Trump himself, but instead direct his rage at Nielsen. Quoting Martin Luther King Jr, Booker accused Nielsen of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” When he misrepresented what she said, and Nielsen tried to defend herself, he cut her off, yelling, “let me finish!” His voice rising, spit flying, Booker pounded on the dais, pointed at Nielsen, and essentially accused her of being a liar and a racist: “Your silence and your amnesia is [sic] complicity.” He ended his tirade by mocking her recollection of the meeting: “You don’t remember. You can’t remember the words of your commander-in-chief. I find that unacceptable.”

The big explosive scandal is the one that hardly anyone talks about.

It’s not Russia collusion. It’s not even Uranium One. It’s the eavesdropping on Trump staffers by Obama staffers. This eavesdropping was partially legitimized by the Steele dossier. It was accidentally uncovered and since then it’s cost multiple people their jobs, not the people responsible, but those who learned about it.

Now the reckoning may finally be here. Sara Carter reports.

A review of a classified document outlining what is described as extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse was made available to all House members Thursday and the revelations could lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice, several sources with knowledge of the document stated. These sources say the report is “explosive,” stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates.

The House Intelligence Committee passed the motion along party lines Thursday to make the classified report alleging extensive ‘FISA Abuse’ related to the controversial dossier available to all House members. The report contains information regarding the dossier that alleges President Trump and members of his team colluded with the Russians in the 2016 presidential election. Some members of the House viewed the document in a secure room Thursday.

That’s why #ReleaseTheMemo has begun trending on Twitter.

The document also apparently outlines “several problematic” issues with how FISA warrants were “packaged, and used” state several sources with knowledge of the report.

That’s why the media’s Fusion GPS echo chamber has begun claiming that the Steele dossier’s exposure is getting people killed. It’s a desperate measure to end the investigation of the coup conducted by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton against the 2016 election.

By now it should be readily apparent to all, even those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome, that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative is a spent force or as leftist political commentator Van Jones put it, “a big nothingburger.” Nearly a year has passed since the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and not a scintilla of evidence demonstrating collusion has been forthcoming. Moreover, the investigation itself has been plagued by scandal and partisanship placing a cloud of taint over the entire inquiry. Nevertheless, Mueller’s Russia probe will continue to putter along and after wasting millions of taxpayer dollars (as of December 2017, the cost has reportedly reached a staggering $7 million) the former G-Man will get a trickle of indictments and plea bargains on peripheral figures for matters wholly unrelated to the original investigation. Democrats will then pat themselves on the back and Mueller will go back to obscurity.

Democrats and their allies in the establishment media have cleverly succeeded in temporarily deflecting America’s attention away from the real collusion story, one with real substance and far greater ramifications. A persuasive case can be made that former president Barack Obama colluded with a sworn enemy of the United States, the Islamic Republic of Iran. With each passing day, another disquieting facet of the Obama administration’s dealings with the Islamic Republic is revealed and when taken in totality, paints a disturbing picture of the administration’s underhanded efforts to placate and appease the mullahs and their proxies, including Hezbollah.

The Obama administration’s current dealings with Iran began with an outright fabrication to the American people. On August 5, 2015 Obama asserted that negotiations with the Iranians commenced in 2013. Obama argued that the ascent of the “moderate” Hassan Rouhani offered the United States an opportunity to engage with the Iranians. This was in fact, a bald-faced lie. Circumventing the State Department and using Sen. John Kerry (whose Iran connections are a matter of public record) as its point man, the administration began engaging with Iran in 2011 when the toxic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president. For the record, Ahmadinejad is a rabid Holocaust denier. Four years later, Obama sealed his infamous Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, alternatively known as the Iran deal, which gave the Iranians $150 billion worth sanctions relief while simultaneously providing them with a legal pathway toward acquiring nuclear weapons.

The flow of lies and deceit continued from there. The JCPOA was, to put it mildly, a flawed agreement, one in which the benefits flowed one way. Charles Krauthammer aptly described it as the worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history. But there were alarming elements of the agreement, chiefly secretive side arrangements between Iran and the IAEA, which were so patently egregious and absurd that even Obama understood that it would render the agreement a hard sell. Under these side arrangements, Iran’s highly opaque Parchin military facility was off limits to international inspectors undermining Obama’s claim that the agreement provided for anytime, anywhere intrusive inspections. Consequently, Obama tried and failed to keep this information from Congress.