Editor’s note: naturally, it’s always at the precise moment you start to fall behind a little bit that the news insists of feeding you more “have to discuss” stories one after another. I am currently hard at work on a piece about Joy-Ann Reid and the new McCarthyism; as well as a discussion of protest in America as it relates to Colin Kaepernick and the Standing Rock anti-pipeline protests. Unfortunately, the shocking events at yesterday’s 9/11 memorial in NYC and the flagrant, unbearably offensive behavior of the pro-Clinton, neoliberal media at large in response to those events are going to force me to have this discussion here and now before I can get back to writing about those other things.

This is primarily going to be an op-ed and since I really don’t want to waste more time than necessary on this, I’ll be scattering my sources throughout the article with a little less set up than normal; please, I’m begging you – don’t angrily ask me for “sources” if you’re not going to click on the links in this article that provide them.



First of all, let me start off by confessing that until this precise moment I have largely ignored the Hillary Clinton “Health Scandal” for two reasons that perhaps in retrospect haven’t worked out all that well for me:

When the story first broke, it was primarily championed by the absolutely dregs of Right Wing Nutjob media; places like the Drudge Report and journalists whose methods I personally consider less than reputable, to put it politely. Furthermore the news pretty much revolved around people who’d never examined Hillary Clinton in a clinical setting commenting on news clips and blown up still frames that objectively didn’t prove a whole lot and in some cases were obvious smear jobs. Ethical doctors are not prone to diagnosing patients they’ve never met (from eighteen seconds of Youtube footage) and distinguished luminaries such as Doctor Drew aside; the vast majority of the people discussing the issue were simply not very credible.

The simple truth is, I didn’t think it would matter in the goddamn slightest. Despite years and years of campaign rhetoric about the importance of energy and vigor in a President; it doesn’t matter one iota to a candidate’s qualifications for the job if he or she is too ill to complete a season of American Ninja Warrior. Numerous past Presidents have suffered from significant, even serious physical ailments and while these illnesses were invariably the subject of great secrecy and speculation – as long as the politician in question didn’t actually fucking die, the American public generally seems comfortable putting on its blinders and ignoring a President’s physical (and even mental) infirmities.

Late yesterday morning (and only after watching multiple video clips that I will share below) I came to the sudden and yes, shocking realization that I’d been as they say in the business “completely fucking wrong” about both the severity and potential importance of the Hillary Clinton heath scandal. Of course, my first clue probably should have been when major media outlets began firing employees for merely discussing Clinton’s health “issues” in a manner that in no way, shape or form appeared to be ethically “out of bounds” by any objective measure of the things in the media that do get published without anyone being fired.

Please understand that I use the expression “health scandal” both because I’m not particularly qualified to diagnose exactly what is wrong with Clinton, but also because even in the seemingly unlikely event that Clinton’s ailment really is pneumonia; the lies, attacks and distortions used by both the Clinton campaign and surrogates/supporters in pro-Clinton media do now represent a “scandal” in their own right. Let’s take a look at a rough timeline of how this whole thing shook out first and afterwards, I’ll explain why I suspect Hillary is still lying about her health and why it really doesn’t matter anyway because the damage has already been done.



Timeline Beginning on Sunday, September 11th 2016:

9:30 AM: Hillary Clinton is rushed away in a van from the NYC 9/11 memorial event after feeling unwell. Early details are extremely sketchy but it soon becomes clear that Clinton had purposely been separated from her press corps (who were reportedly penned in by security while Clinton was evacuated) and that she’d been taken to daughter Chelsea’s nearby apartment. There are also immediate suggestions that the incident is some kind of health problem; but little else is reported at this time.

11:00 AM: news begins to break that Clinton’s campaign has released a statement claiming Hillary felt “overheated” and this report was widely repeated in the mainstream media almost immediately. There are also scattered and confusing reports of the campaign’s attempt to actively obscure what’s going on; in addition to penning in reporters, one unnamed law enforcement source indicated low-level staffers were sweeping the crowd to find video of Hillary’s medical incident. Predictably, this extra level of secrecy guarantees the campaign’s “overheated” answer does not satisfy everyone and soon afterwards a “verbal” war breaks out across social media during which Clinton surrogates repeatedly gaslight and smear anyone who questions the “overheated” report.

11:30 AM: not long after the Clinton campaign releases it’s first official statement, dramatic video of Clinton’s exit from the event surfaces and it is immediately fucking clear that something far more serious than “overheating” has occurred. At around about the same time, stories of Clinton’s quick recovery (complete with “random” encounter with a young girl on the street that ends in hug) and retreat to her Chappaqua, NY home are released.

5:15 PM: as the hours passed, additional videos featuring mirrored angles and close-ups of the original footage emerged; further raising calls for a more adequate answer than the now quite clearly false “overheating” excuse until finally, Hillary Clinton’s doctor releases a statement saying the candidate had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday – two days (and two events) prior to her collapse/seizure.

Sunday Night: the Clinton campaign’s sudden switch from “overheating” to “undisclosed pneumonia” did very little to quell the controversy because it meant that clearly, the Clinton camp and all their surrogates/media allies had openly lied to the public; not to mention attacking, smearing and gaslighting anyone who disagreed on social media. Furthermore, several high-traffic right wing news outlets immediately seized on the fact that Clinton had hugged a small child upon emerging from Chelsea’s apartment and then visited with her grandchildren; presumably with a three day old pneumonia diagnosis. This forced the Clinton campaign to dig themselves into an even deeper hole when spokesman Brian Fallon said Hillary’s pneumonia was not contagious – see below.

Monday: all hell broke loose; first reports out of multiple mainstream magazines were released on Monday morning that strongly indicated some sort of (clearly contagious) virus was running through the Clinton camp; which was ostensibly designed to “prove” that Clinton had pneumonia. The problem with this of course, is that it directly conflicted with Brian Fallon’s statement that Hillary wasn’t contagious the night before; was Fallon playing word games with pneumonia and the virus that had actually given Clinton pneumonia or was the whole damn thing made up on the fly? These contradictions were not improved by a New York Times story that attempted to deflect criticism from Clinton’s decision to hide her pneumonia up to this point by revealing that Hillary’s health was a closely guarded secret and most of her campaign staff were unaware of the illness; which is yet another problem in the wake of the People/Vanity Fair reports that the contagious illness had ravaged Clinton’s campaign. The shit had really hit the fan however by mid evening when both anonymous sources and Democratic Party luminaries began talking about potentially replacing Clinton as the nominee and famed “Concussion” doctor Bennet Omalu openly floated the theory that Hillary Clinton might’ve been poisoned by Donald Trump or Russia; I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried folks.

Monday Night: of course, these patently absurd contradictions did absolutely nothing to stop the tidal wave of sympathetic, sycophantic Clinton supporters both inside and outside the media from continuing to propagate all of these lies; even the objectively debunked deceptions – like Clinton “overheating” on a day that was notably mild while she was out in the sun in NYC. Despite these efforts, even ostensibly Pro-Clinton observers who wished to maintain even a slight veneer of objectivity were required to admit that Clinton had lied and should have disclosed the “pneumonia” diagnosis sooner; for which they were dragged mercilessly. As if to put a cherry on top of it all however, Hillary Clinton herself did a phone interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN in which she claimed she didn’t think the pneumonia “was a big deal” and that she hadn’t actually fainted or lost consciousness! Both of these claims are of course objectively refuted by the evidence at hand; if it wasn’t a big deal, why had Clinton’s staff work so hard to cover up her illness for more than two days and why had they lied about “overheating” when it finally did become public knowledge? As for Clinton’s claim that she never lost consciousness; a simple close up examination of the limp, “dead foot” her body exhibits on the way into the van (which cost her a shoe) makes it clear she’s lying. For someone with as much practice at deception as Hillary has; she’s still really, really fucking bad at it.

The Film Doesn’t Lie

So just what in the name of god does all of that mean? Well, for starters; I’m almost completely fucking certain that Hillary Clinton doesn’t actually have pneumonia and that even if she does, it isn’t what made her jerk around and lose consciousness on her way into the van like that. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a doctor but after watching multiple resolutions of the footage available over and over again for roughly a day and a half; I strongly suspect that what we’ve just observed on film is Hillary Clinton having a “complex partial seizure” with a symptom know as “automisms” – that sort of repetitive, jerking motion she makes three times and the “hu-wuh” noise that audibly emanates from her despite her distance from the camera and the loud background noises, are the two biggest clues.

Please understand that I am not certain and identifying a seizure from clips of video footage is neither a perfect science, nor a medical diagnosis of any kind; a seizure is a (primarily) physical symptom of a number of medical conditions, rather than a medical condition in its own right. There are at least six different types of seizures, as well as types of fainting that can be difficult for the layman (myself included) to distinguish from an actual seizure; I am only familiar with complex partial seizures in particular because I suffer from similar symptoms myself but ultimately, there are only a few short seconds of film to observe available at this time.

It is entirely possible that Hillary stumbled while struggling to maintain consciousness, passed out completely and the second and third jerking motions you observe on the film are the result of her meathead security manhandling her on the way into the van; indeed this theory would go a long, long way to explaining the “dead foot” we observe on the close up view of Hillary’s feet when they push her, bent in half, into the van. I’ve watched the film enough times to say this explanation is possible (although not necessarily likely) based on the footage, and remember, one unidentified senior law enforcement official described security tossing Clinton in the van like “a side of beef.“

Unfortunately there are a number of problems with the idea that Hillary is not having a seizure and that she merely fainted; besides her own absurd declaration that she never lost consciousness and merely “stumbled” that is. The first of which is that fainting is neither a common, nor rare symptom of pneumonia; the counter to which has thus far been to mention the antibiotics Clinton was prescribed for her pneumonia and which could, in some rare cases cause fainting. There’s a problem with this answer too however, because the type of pneumonia that can spread among vast portions of your campaign staff (viral) isn’t actually treatable with antibiotics at all. Dehydration, which has become an important deflection among Clinton’s allies as of late can cause fainting but I can find little evidence in either medical literature or my own, long years of athletics (and observing athletics) that suggest it can cause violent, repetitive jerking – again, I’m not a doctor but I do have Google search.

The real kicker however is simply watching the video, especially from the mirror angle and up close; Clinton doesn’t trip, if she does “stumble” it’s in something that could only be described as herky-jerky, slow-motion and her body definitely seems to jerk three times, in a repetitive pattern. The notably audible sound she makes early in the video times out perfectly with one of these physical “jerking” movements and is intimately familiar to anyone who’s frequently around people suffering from a seizure.

There are other, harder to answer questions too; questions like “am I the only one who noticed those weird, dark blue sunglasses Clinton was wearing on a day where nobody else in the pictures seemed to need shades?” Are those photosensitive lenses and before you laugh at me, keep in mind that Doctor Drew Pinsky looked at Clinton’s medical records and she’s already been prescribed special glasses that strongly indicate she suffered brain damage back in 2012. Just what in the fuck exactly is going on in this picture? Why is she clutching her nurse’s fingers like that? She also (seemingly involuntarily) drops a small object of some kind that sounds like it’s made of solid metal when it hits the pavement and the way she’s struggling against her security’s attempts to help her, with her back rigidly straight, doesn’t look like someone passing out from dehydration; at least to me.

Actions Against Words

Look, let’s just get down to brass fucking tacks here shall we?

If Clinton had just passed out from mere dehydration (despite the very scary looking jerking motions we see on film) – is that any way to treat a sixty-eight year old woman with pneumonia who just (violently) fainted while waiting for her car; to throw her, bent almost completely in half, into the back seat of a waiting security van “like a side of beef?” Would pneumonia and a simple fainting episode in any way, shape or form justify manhandling the future President of the United States on a NYC public street like that if all she needed was the air-conditioning and a cup of fucking water?

If Clinton was so dehydrated that she literally fainted; how the fuck was she back on the road a mere hour and a half after the episode? Every medical journal in existence will tell you that sufficiently severe dehydration (the kind that would make you pass out) requires immediate medical attention; we’re talking a visit to the hospital here, not chilling out in your daughter’s apartment for an hour to retouch your fucking make-up. Remember, Clinton wasn’t just “kind of dry” folks, she was supposedly so dehydrated it made her violently pass out for fuck’s sake – none of this makes a lick of goddamn sense whatsoever.

Actually, that brings up another important question I still haven’t asked; assuming it even is pneumonia, who the fuck allowed this? Who let a sixty eight year old woman, just diagnosed with “pneumonia” go to a fundraiser then a rally on back to back days in the middle of a grueling Presidential campaign that has run on for roughly fourteen months now?

Even if Clinton had insisted that she attend, what medical doctor thought that would be a good fucking idea considering her age, schedule and prior medical history? Who let’s an aging, suffering woman in that condition anywhere fucking near children; who are objectively tiny human germ factories and really shouldn’t be anywhere near a woman with pneumonia for their own sake either? Is this malpractice or was the doctor’s dire insistance overruled by Clinton – because nothing about this situation suggests Hillary exercised even reasonable fucking judgement for a future President, if she did this despite a medical practitioner’s objections.

This dovetails into another, equally important question; if this were just a simple case of pneumonia, why did Clinton’s campaign work so fucking hard to conceal it? This question becomes especially fucking important when you remember that the alt-right, lunatic fringe were already speculating that Clinton had serious goddamn health problems and might legitimately be fucking stone dead before November. Wouldn’t simply telling people Clinton had contracted pneumonia and was taking a week off the campaign trail to prepare for the debates have been far, far less damaging than actively validating “conspiracy theories” about her health that will now undoubtedly haunt her for the rest of this fucking election?

The disturbing questions don’t end there however; the pneumonia excuse also immediately calls into question the Clinton campaign’s reason for lying about the episode until they were forced to admit the problem was more serious than “overheating” because someone caught the whole fucking thing on video. Who decided to risk letting a nightmare-fueling, fascist assclown like Donald Trump potentially become President by lying about something so utterly inconsequential as an almost seventy year old woman catching completely treatable pneumonia during a busy campaign? Why is lying the absolute first, borderline instinctual response from Hillary (and her campaign) whenever anything bad happens at all; because whether you or I can agree that Clinton has pneumonia matters a whole lot less than the fact that people associated with her campaign spent more than five hours on Sunday gaslighting people, calling them insane or sexist, and trying to destroy careers to defend “overheated” – and it was never true!

Doctoring the Truth

In the final analysis, the simple truth is that I am not a medical doctor, Hillary Clinton is not available for examination and I don’t know anywhere near enough about the human body to offer you even a rough guess at what might actually be wrong with her. I’m just a blogger suffering from a nervous disorder that causes seizures who’s got a keen eye for video and knows how to get the most out of a Google search.

I have however, seen enough people having seizure-like symptoms of an illness to say with some confidence that I suspect that’s what I just saw happen to Mrs Clinton on all of these video clips; I strongly suspected (but cannot prove) that this episode continued for a little while inside the car and that Clinton was not completely unconscious the entire time. I also suspect (but again, don’t know for certain) that Hillary Clinton may indeed be suffering from a serious, long term medical condition – either as a result of brain injury or a more traditional illness, like Parkinson’s disease.

The really fucked up part about all the theories on Clinton’s heath in my mind however, is that fact that it really doesn’t even fucking matter if Clinton has an illness that would be disqualifying for the Presidency or not; after the shitshow her campaign just unloaded on America on Sunday, Monday and now Tuesday – the damage to her Presidential run can already be described as utterly fucking catastrophic.

Think about this for a second; even viewing this whole goddamn clusterfuck in the most favorable, pro-Clinton light (that still flies with logic) and while giving the Clinton campaign every single benefit of the doubt – an objective assessment of the situation still reveals that they told a very stupid, easily disprovable and extremely fucking dangerous lie, then attacked anyone who didn’t (correctly it turns out) believe that lie; all while sending a sixty-eight year old woman to two public campaign events with pneumonia severe enough to make her “faint.”

Have I mentioned that Clinton’s campaign did all this less than sixty fucking days from an election in which she claims to be battling the closest thing to fucking Adolf Hitler this country has seen and indeed, a man she has accused of potentially working for Vladimir Putin and Russia?! Are you fucking kidding me; this could go down as the biggest fucking gaffe in the history of US Presidential politics if she manages to fucking blow this election by lying about “pneumonia.” At this point I am almost literally hoping she’s lying about a more serious health issue because dying of embarrassment after making such a colossal blunder is on the fucking table here now! The fact that virtually none of the risk-reward scenarios involved here make any fucking sense at all is actually one of the reasons I’m having such a hard damn time believing Clinton (and her trained staffed) risked all this over simple pneumonia.

There is of course one more reason that I’m having a hard time taking Clinton’s word for it as a result of her recent “health scandal” however; simple experience – and I’m not talking about lies during the Whitewater investigation thirty years ago or Chinagate.

Time and time again throughout this entire election season; Clinton, her campaign and her loyal minions in the mainstream, liberal media have decried legitimate questions about Hillary Clinton as mindless, sexist conspiracy theories. Whether we’re talking election fraud, Hillary’s secret email server, destroying federal records/obstruction of justice, charity fraud or influence trading through the Clinton foundation; team Clinton has reflexively denied every single staggering charge and actively engaged in a web of deception to keep the facts hidden in every single case.

Yet, in each and every single one of these serious, potentially disqualifying incidents; Clinton and her sycophants turned out to be lying in at least some way, if not outright.

In light of this, when Hillary Clinton tells me that I should ignore my own observations from recorded video and instead believe her medical episode was a non-serious complication of simple pneumonia and dehydration; after having previously told me it was just “overheating” and “seasonal allergies” before that – I have absolutely no reason to believe her and frankly, neither do you.

This isn’t about who is, or isn’t medically fit to be President; we’ve had sick Presidents before and even if someone dies while in office, the country will still go on under the Vice President. What it’s about now is a simple question; how many open, bald-faced and laughably embarrassing lies to the American public is too many? Frankly, you can ask that question towards either major party nominee in this election because the easiest way to tell when Donald Trump is lying is the fact that he’s fucking speaking – that bigoted jackass simply never stops lying.

How many lies is enough to make people walk away from politics, too frustrated to vote? How many lies is enough to get Jill Stein and Gary Johnson into the debate? How many lies is enough to get one of them into the White House? Perhaps the better query is; how many lies does it take to put Trump inside the Oval Office? Are we all about to find out the answer to that question because of the paranoia and arrogance of one woman who absolutely should know better by now?

I honestly don’t know. At this point, the only thing I’m truly sure of anymore is that Hillary Clinton does suffer from an allergy – to the truth.

Nina Illingworth

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