Crazed Conservatives: ‘Hillary Clinton Has Parkinson’s Disease’

“Conspiracy theories are so much more interesting than the truth,” CNN’s Brian Stelter says.

Conspiracy theorists and conservative media outlets have taken to the internet to diagnose Hillary Clinton with seizures and Parkinson’s Disease, the latest ailments of which the Democratic presidential nominee does not suffer.

Take, for instance, Jim Hoft, who runs the far right-wing blog The Gateway Pundit. Hoft declared that the diagnosis was breaking news (perhaps unfamiliar with the term), citing fellow conservative outlet Danger & Play’s research team of unnamed medical “professionals” which analyzed Clinton’s health.

These “analysts” consisted of the author, an unnamed anesthesiologist described as not having the “expertise to evaluate [Parkinson’s Disease] signs and symptoms,” a “close friend of the author’ and “the author’s brother.” (Hoft is frequently cited as the “stupidest man on the internet.”)

“Hillary’s health is declining, as anyone who has looked at her can see,” Danger & Play asserted, perhaps suggesting that the millions of people globally who have followed her career have never, in fact, looked at the former Secretary of State.

The unnamed anesthesiologist proceeds to dissect Clinton’s health record utilizing highly-respected medical tools such as YouTube to offer his diagnosis. (It is unknown if Web M.D. was consulted.)

He discusses Clinton’s elbow fracture in 2009, in which “little else was revealed,” though does not advise if other human beings have ever fractured an elbow, or discern what additional “breaking” news should have been disclosed.

He points to a rally in which Clinton, holding her microphone with her left hand, occasionally holds “her right hand pressed against her chest.” (The video of the rally shows that she’s discussing a topic she calls disheartening.) It was at the same event that Clinton later gestured with her right hand, which is “very unnatural,” unless you are one of the many human beings who have gestured with their right hand.

The perhaps now-notorious photo of Clinton receiving assistance after slipping on a residential staircase during a campaign stop is called into question, perhaps due to the fact that human beings do not slip on staircases, nor do they receive help in the unlikely event.

A video in which Clinton, in response to reporters barraging her with questions about a meeting with Elizabeth Warren prior to her vice presidential pick, “without warning… began a bizarre head-bobbing episode,” is further “evidence”:

Not of Clinton’s failing health, Associated Press reporter Lisa Lerer, seen in the video, has since written. But rather of what she calls “fodder for Trump supporters’ most popular conspiracy theories: [Clinton’s] failing health.” She goes on to discuss that where she “saw evasiveness, they saw seizures.”

Not to be out-“researched” by far right-wing websites, Fox News host Sean Hannity dedicated an entire week of his program to the “investigation,” asserting that the video in fact showed Clinton having a seizure and that during the exchange, reporter Lisa Lerer was scared. Except: 

Hannity also discussed the issue with neurosurgeon and failed presidential candidate Ben Carson. Carson, who laughed at the sight of the video (“it just looks funny,” he said), offered that “certainly as a person gets older, the number of medical conditions that we have to watch for increases.” (Donald Trump, it should be noted, is older than Hillary Clinton.)

One reporter, who is epileptic, wrote that Hannity’s “willingness to deceive [his] viewers [and] to degrade those of us with epilepsy, to suggest something is a seizure when it looks nothing like one… is unforgivable.” He further asked of Hannity, “what kind of seizure do you think it was, Sean? Jacksonian? Tonic-clonic? Atonic? Complex-partial? …You don’t even know what any of that means.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter further blasted the coverage, RealClear Politics reported. “Conspiracy theories are so much more interesting than the truth,” Stetler said in his report, video below. “But the last time I checked, Fox still has the word ‘news’ in its name.”

While conservative outlets have utilized much of the internet to diagnose Hillary Clinton with failing health, the Clinton campaign released a letter from her doctor on Friday.

Dr. Lisa Bardack, unequivocally more qualified to discuss the presidential candidate’s health, advised that “she is in excellent physical condition and [is] fit to serve as President of the United States.”

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license