The irony of it. Hillary Clinton collapsed at a 9/11 memorial ceremony. Her swoon sent shock waves through her campaign amid fears that a poll plunge might follow her fall. No longer can she dodge the rumors about her poor health being just a right-wing conspiracy; it is as real as a heart attack.

But the big story was a media flyby. This year's 9/11 could be the date when Hillary's bid for the presidency came crashing down.

The weather for the 15th memorial service at ground zero was a blue-sky day, just as it had been when the Towers disappeared from the Manhattan skyline. Hillary arrived early about 8 a.m. She toured the memorabilia exhibits of the catastrophe, but after 90 minutes she complained about being “overheated”, despite the morning being a pleasant 75 degrees.

The situation deteriorated rapidly. She had to leave and leave immediately. The Democrat presidential nominee was escorted to the roadside by her personal physician, Lisa Bardack.

Hillary rested against a concrete pillar (a bollard) for support while she waited for her motorcade. After a few minutes, it arrived. She took a step towards her SUV but faltered, then fainted at about 10:30, roughly the same time the first tower fell. Staffers shuffled Hillary into her van, which then sped off to the nearest hospital.

After an hour-and-a-half, she reappeared not from a hospital but her daughter's apartment apparently fully recovered and cheery.

In a staged event, she was welcomed by a little girl, and answered questions by not answering them, saying how great she was feeling and what a beautiful day it was. Then back into the van to disappear once again.

The incident raised several questions:

(1) Why, was her motorcade detoured from a hospital to her daughter's apartment, as the N.Y. Post wrote? Answer: If she went to a hospital, her underlying physical illness might become public knowledge.

(2) Is pneumonia contagious? Answer: Yes, if it's caused by a virus, bacterium, or fungus. But Hillary's doctor said her pneumonia was not contagious. That leaves only non-contagious aspiration pneumonia, the leading cause of mortality in Parkinson's disease (PD).

(3) If she indeed had pneumonia and heat stroke, how did she manage to recover so quickly? Answer: Perhaps pneumonia and dehydration were not her real physical problems but only a cover for a far more severe condition.

(4) Why after emerging from Chelsea's apartment was she so upbeat and alert? Answer: She may be taking Provigil, a stimulate often prescribed to combat daytime sleepiness in patients with PD.

And (5) Does Hillary have PD? Our thoughtful answer is, yes. However, for a definitive answer, we'll have to wait until she releases all her medical records. What is known is that she asked a staff member to research the side effects of Levodopa.

Levodopa is a drug prescribed to patients with PD. Its side effects mirror complaints manifested in Hillary: excessive and unexplained daytime fatigue, clumsiness or unsteadiness, confusion, double vision, and incontinence.

One side effect that Levodopa does not produce is persistent coughing episodes. However, Hillary's chronic coughing is a symptom of PD.

Still another red flag are Hillary's blue-tinted “sunglasses.” Very likely they are blue color therapy glasses. They are worn by PD patients to relieve the symptoms of dyskinesia. Dyskinesia is difficulty performing a voluntary movement. PD causes this. It is also a side effect of long-term therapy with Levodopa the number one drug for treating PD.

One week before Hillary's ground-zero incident, Trump was scheduled for a comprehensive physical examination. The results of these tests were revealed on the Dr. Oz TV program. Oz evaluated them and was impressed: “Frankly, if I had a patient with these numbers, I would be very happy.”

Trump's on-air interview with Oz was followed the next day by a damage control statement. A “comprehensive update” issued by her doctor said, “she continues to be healthy.” But this was based on little more than information that could be provided by any drugstore monitor that measures blood pressure, body mass index, and pulse. Hillary's medical checkup was shoddy.

Until Hillary releases all her medical records about her 2012 concussion, post-concussion syndrome, neurological and cardiovascular examinations, questions about her health will continue to swirl around her.

Does she have PD, a brain tumor, subcortical vascular dementia, heart disease?

And even this: Is Hillary Clinton dying?

Sincerely, Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

Political analysts have recently pointed out a major realignment of the American electorate.  The Republican party is dead.  In its place a new party is forming, unfortunately under the old name.   Out are the white-collar managerial types who always ran the show, the educated.  The core of the party is now blue collar, without education.  The kind that used to unionize, and depend on the Democratic Party.

The problem with this new arrangement is the decidedly anti-intellectual slant of blue collar types.  They flat-out won't listen to those who know better than they do, because in their minds, they don't.  Experts be damned-- it's easy to dismiss them as mere elitists.

With the rejection of experts is an orientation to reality that's skewed.  What's true is what they choose to believe is true, not what can be established as factual.  Facts are summarily dismissed if they lead to a conclusion that's undesirable.  So it all devolves to paranoid drivel.  We're living in a post-truth world, one created by the propagandists at FAUX News and Breitbart.

Another problem is the appeal to resentment and bigotry.  This is the chief lure of the New Republican Party.  Democrats lost them with their emphasis on the less privileged, thought of by working-class whites as the undeserving, or more openly as non-whites.  This was the game of the old Republican elite:  getting blue-collar voters to go along with their rigging of the system in their own favor, by getting them to resent the poor rather than the rich.  They manipulated ignorance and bigotry toward that end, but it's gotten way out of hand.  Now the old guard finds naked racism most distasteful-- they prefer the dogwhistle variety-- but it's no more difficult to dismiss their marginally superior sensibilities here than it is to dismiss their superior education.

Elite used to have a positive connotation.  It no longer does, and public discourse is impoverished as a result.  Are we to conclude that it's better to be low-down riffraff?  Is any aspiration to something better than just empty snobbism?  Apparently.

Ironically, the working class will continue to get screwed.  They'll just be screwing themselves, because they still believe in the same, bad economic policies:  Tax cuts for the rich, corporate subsidies, get rid of regulations (that protect their lives and health, and prevent exploitation and fraud.)  Because profit is the be-all and end-all.  The old guard taught them well.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA 18828