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[EnigmaticHat]

Trump’s opinion on net neutrality will likely depend on who talked to him about it last.  Including Fox and Friends.

[smjjames]

Aren't conservatives generally for net neutrality? Pretty sure it's something that had generally broad bipartisan support.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Everybody reasonable is for net neutrality, but it doesn't stop conservatives from voting for conservatives against NN and then retconning, so who even knows.

[Frumple]

Aren't conservatives generally for net neutrality? Pretty sure it's something that had generally broad bipartisan support.

It does have broad support, but, as is fairly common, there is a difference between conservatives and their representatives.

[Zangi]

Representatives also represent 'people' who 'donate' to the campaign funds.

[Akura]

Trump's physical results are in.

Overweight, just under obese. Physically capable of exercise, just... doesn't. Not sure if they were talking about the President's physical examination, or his hairpiece's.

Reading it a bit more, it sounds like the physician had been instructed to say specific things.

"It is called genetics," Jackson said when asked how a borderline obese man with on cholesterol-lowering medication could be considered in excellent health. "I don't know. Some people have great genes."

Great genes, the best genes!

[EnigmaticHat]

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump, hoping to rebut questions about his mental fitness, requested the White House physician perform a cognitive exam during his physical last week.

The President, 71, received a perfect score, the doctor said Tuesday during an extraordinary hourlong questioning session at the White House, and he raised no concerns about Trump's ability to carry out his job.

Are... we North Korea now?  And no I don't actually think the US resembles NK but this one thing feels like Glorious Leader style propaganda.

I don't know specifically what a cognitive exam entails, but I'm willing to guess that most people (much less most 71 year olds!) don't get a perfect score.  I probably couldn't get a perfect score because I lose my train of thought mid-sentence more often than average, and verbal ability can be a symptom of cognitive problems.  So that should be at least one point off whatever scale.  No way in hell Trump is more verbally coherent than I am.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is actually a bit of a desperation sign from Trump. He can be removed on the basis of medical incompetence much more easily than he can be removed for crimes, and so he's setting this up as a preemptive strike against it.

Of course, the idiot had his amazingly unprofessional looking physician give him a perfect score instead of just a softballed [wheatmode]STRONG AND STABLE[/wheatmode] one, so all it comes off as is "the White House physician is willing to lie if the President is medically incompetent". I'm not sure if this is more directed at the public or his cabinet, as they'd be the ones removing him.

As time goes on, I'm increasingly believing Trump really is in early dementia.

[Maximum Spin]

I don't know specifically what a cognitive exam entails, but I'm willing to guess that most people (much less most 71 year olds!) don't get a perfect score.  I probably couldn't get a perfect score because I lose my train of thought mid-sentence more often than average, and verbal ability can be a symptom of cognitive problems.  So that should be at least one point off whatever scale.  No way in hell Trump is more verbally coherent than I am.

They're actually really easy to pass. It's not designed as an IQ test, it's just designed to detect dementia. If you couldn't get a perfect score, it would probably be something to worry about. My 85-year-old grandfather can.

What I wonder is if the doctor asked him the traditional "do you know who is the current President of the United States?"

[Max™]

[snip]

Might want to fix your hair after the big woosh there which I hoped was implied by the "unite by standing alone politely amongst their neighbors" bit.

[Dunamisdeos]

I don't think being verbose is an indicator on how well your cognition functions. There are plenty of folks who have difficulty with oration or speaking in general (or at all) that have no problem processing new information. And according to a quick google around 86% of people 71+ have no form of dementia whatsoever.

So all of that is totally possible. I'd be 100% unsurprised to find that he knows exactly what he is doing all day long and understands exactly the impact of the things he says. He's narcissistic and self-absorbed in the extreme, not necessarily insane.

[smjjames]

Trump was the one who actually requested the cognitive thing. Though yeah, it does smack of desperation a little and just trying to allay health fears.

The report does mention about doing nutritionist to help with eating healthier, but getting healthy food from the WH kitchen doesn't do much if he still sneaks out to get hamburgers and other fast food.

And yeah, being verbose isn't an indicator of cognitive problems, I have a tendency to ramble on sometimes too. It's just Trump's speaking style and we aren't used to politicians rambling off because politicians try their hardest NOT to ramble off.

[Tawa]

Well, it's not like he's just plain old verbose. Look, being verbose — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

[smjjames]

I don't think you can make a diagnosis on the pattern of verbosity....

[Frumple]

You definitely can based on speaking patterns, though it's generally a fairly off the cuff thing rather than a particularly careful diagnosis, far as I'm aware.

They're actually really easy to pass. It's not designed as an IQ test, it's just designed to detect dementia. If you couldn't get a perfect score, it would probably be something to worry about. My 85-year-old grandfather can.

Yeah... grandfather (who's a bit older than yours) had a quick one done along those lines -- probably not that specific one, but something similar -- fairly recently and got a "no problems we can see" results. Meanwhile he's regularly remembering things that didn't happen, sometimes not really capable of comprehending things like, "We can't help you here," and every once in a while has fairly major emotion control issues that weren't there five or ten years ago. Amongst other things.

... basically the tests don't seem to be very good at much beyond exactly what they were designed to do. Not a terribly reassuring thing, especially if you're dealing with a patient that has irregular symptoms rather than a persistent problem. If they're going neurologically haywire every few days instead of exactly when they're taking the test, or under conditions that aren't being replicated, well...