MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2026
Fellow citizens, we're just saying: We had planned to take the rare afternoon off—and yes, it felt very good. Then, the headline you see below leaped right off the screen.
Just as in the days of old, your incomparable DAILY HOWLER keeps banging out those results:
CNN Medical Analyst Calls for ‘A Bipartisan Congressional Inquiry’ Into Trump’s Mental Fitness After Letter to Norway PM
CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner urged Congress to act following President Donald Trump’s unhinged letter to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre blaming Norway for driving him to acquire Greenland.
Reiner posted to X on Monday, “This letter, and the fact that the president directed that it be distributed to other European countries, should trigger a bipartisan congressional inquiry into presidential fitness.”
Reiner served as a cardiologist to former Vice President Dick Cheney...
Ad so on from there.
Yes, it's just a post to X, and Reiner has flirted with this general stance before. There will surely be no bipartisan congressional inquiry at this point in time.
That said, we'd regard his recommendation as a start, if we expected anyone else to follow "this Pilgrim way." But we pretty much basically don't.
As we've noted in the past, our journalists may not know how to talk about this type of topic. For starters, you have to exhibit sympathy and regret—and it helps if you actually mean it.
Also, you can't fashion discussion of such medical possibilities as some sort of insult. The problem with that leads back to Professor Brabender's great observation about our imperfect instincts as imperfect human beings:
"Where I come from, we only talk so long. After that, we start to hit."
There was no reason to include Brabender here.
BalasPadamTrump: I will continue killing people and invading countries until the Nobel Prize is awarded to me. Why would anyone find this disconcerting?
BalasPadamReiner's post reads "Presidential fitness" not "Mental Fitness".
BalasPadamFrom Digby:
BalasPadam“ Yesterday, ICE raided a home on St. Paul’s East Side. Their target was ChongLy Scott Thao, an elderly Hmong American man. He’s a U.S. citizen with no criminal record. Armed ICE agents broke down the door without presenting a valid warrant, entered with guns drawn, and handcuffed him in front of his 5-year-old grandson, who was left crying and traumatized.
This happened in sub-zero conditions, with wind chills near -30°F. Thao was dragged outside wearing only shorts, a blanket, and Crocs and marched through the snow. ICE then drove him around for nearly an hour, questioned and fingerprinted him, confirmed he was a citizen and not the person they were looking for… and dropped him back at home. No apology. No explanation. No accountability.
The Hmong in the U.S. were American allies during the Vietnam war. They were invited here.”
This is how ICE is treating citizens. This must stop.
We need to start writing to our congress and senate critters that any ICE funding must be contingent on them acting lawfully. Preferably, it needs to be significantly reduced. Even more preferably, ICE needs to be eliminated altogether. At least as a paramilitary organization.
PadamWe're not eliminating shit. We sill expand it.
PadamDHS has been lying about this incident. The family says:
Padam“ Thao's family released a statement on Monday, forcibly pushing back against McLaughlin's assertions.
"Mr. Thao is a United States citizen with no criminal record," the statement reads in part. "He does not live with, nor has he ever lived with, the individuals DHS claims were targets of this operation. The only people living at the residence are Mr. Thao, his daughter-in-law, and his young grandson. They do not know the individuals DHS references."
"The family strongly objects to DHS's attempt to publicly justify this conduct with false and misleading claims," the statement continued. "These statements have caused additional harm to a family already struggling to recover from a terrifying and unjustified encounter."
Citizens need Super Soakers loaded with piss!
BalasPadamShit is fucked up and shit. " I was astonished to learn this morning that Our Fucking President sent a letter to the Norwegian prime minister saying that he was gonna take Greenland because they didn't give him the Nobel Peace prize.
BalasPadamAs a fiction writer, I am outraged. If I wrote this in a story, readers would object that it's too stoopid to be realistic.
It isn't. It's the world we live in now."
Not even President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Comacho would pull a stunt like this.
PadamDemocrat filth invading churches now. We must and will crush this disease.
BalasPadamSqueal louder, bigot.
PadamICE drags naturalized citizen out into sub-zero weather clad in underwear and Crocs
BalasPadamImmigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the home of Chong Ly Scott Thao on Sunday and detained Thao and two other individuals with whom he lives. After they were released, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin posted a lengthy statement on X saying ICE officers had targeted two sex offenders at the residence, both of whom remain at large.
Thao's family released a statement on Monday, forcibly pushing back against McLaughlin's assertions.
"Mr. Thao is a United States citizen with no criminal record," the statement reads in part. "He does not live with, nor has he ever lived with, the individuals DHS claims were targets of this operation. The only people living at the residence are Mr. Thao, his daughter-in-law, and his young grandson. They do not know the individuals DHS references."