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Are You Kidding Me? This Is Why That NYT Story About Trump's Bone Spur Diagnosis Is Straight Trash
Townhall.com ^ | December 26, 2018 | Matt Vespa

Posted on 12/26/2018 1:50:47 PM PST by Kaslin

Well, the liberal media is back at it again. What else is new? The Left hates Trump so much that were now re-litigating his bone spur diagnosis, which earned the young Donald Trump a pass from the draft during the Vietnam War. First, who cares? Whatever comes from this story won’t impact his presidency. He’s not going to resign over this, and his supporters surely won’t abandon him either. So, here’s the story, which cannot be verified in any way: the daughters of some podiatrist, who is now dead, say the bone spur diagnosis was a favor to Fred Trump to keep his son out of the war. What’s worst is that The Times admits there are no records to corroborate…anything (via NYT) [emphasis mine]:

In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.

Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump. 

The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“I know it was a favor,” said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.

Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said.

“What he got was access to Fred Trump,” Elysa Braunstein said. “If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.”

No paper evidence has been found to help corroborate the version of events described by the Braunstein family, who also suggested there was some involvement by a second podiatrist, Dr. Manny Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein, who diedin 1995, lived in two apartments in Brooklyn owned by Fred Trump; city directories show he moved into the first during the year Donald Trump received his exemption.

OR#NYTimes runs piece sourced from anti-Trump daughters of a doc who is now dead with ZERO actual evidence any of it is true#Jounalism https://t.co/5hyNSaDKMJ— Jim Hanson (@Uncle_Jimbo) December 26, 2018

So, no one knows what is going on, and even if there was something to this story, who the hell cares? Say it’s true, let’s just entertain this garbage for a second, you’re meaning to tell me the bombshell is that the well connected and wealthy Trumps received a favor? I’m stunned. I’m shell-shocked…because the Kennedys, Bushes, or the Clintons never asked for favors on anything, right?

The daughters of a podiatrist, who’s dead, say this was a favor to the Trump family that cannot be verified and the only other solid lead, the alleged second podiatrist, is also dead. Sounds like this story was a drooling vegetable from the get-go.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; draft; larrybraunstein; mannyweinstein; mediawingofthednc; newyork; newyorkcity; newyorkslimes; newyorktimes; nonplayercharacter; nonplayercharacters; npc; npcs; partisanmediashills; presidenttrump; presstitutes; smearmachine; trump; trumpwhitehouse
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To: arthurus

I was 3 pounds underweight for the Marines. Recruiter said that a visit to the malt shop might help. Two hours and three banana splits later, I took the first towards becoming a Marine..


21 posted on 12/26/2018 2:14:12 PM PST by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: Kaslin

Don’t you need an army doctor to confirm this? Why take the word of some schmuck from Queens?


22 posted on 12/26/2018 2:18:41 PM PST by Andy'smom (Proud member of the basket of deplorables)
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To: arthurus
I had a bone spur diagnosis in 1971 the had surgery to remove it. My orthopedist said he could write a letter either way for me, to get me exempt from the draft or as a waiver to get through the induction physical.

I chose the same course you did mostly for the same reasons and I was an Air Force brat, so in I went and had nine of the best years of my life.

23 posted on 12/26/2018 2:18:46 PM PST by pfflier
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Comment #24 Removed by Moderator

To: arthurus

I was post war (1979) and the intake Doc had me duck walk. After the duck walk, the tops of my feet were a bit red from dragging them on the carpet and he tried to DQ me for that. The Marine SSGT overseeing us told him to shut up and pass me.

Intake can get weird depending on if snowflakes have infiltrated or not.


25 posted on 12/26/2018 2:24:10 PM PST by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: Kaslin

You forgot to mention it’s on PAGE ONE.


26 posted on 12/26/2018 2:27:15 PM PST by firebrand
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To: Kaslin

Didn’t Bubba just say....I’m not going?


27 posted on 12/26/2018 2:29:07 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: entropy12

And not only lie about a diagnosis, but breach doctor-patient confidentiality.


28 posted on 12/26/2018 2:31:12 PM PST by erkelly
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To: Kaslin

How is this not slander and/or a HIPAA violation?


29 posted on 12/26/2018 2:32:33 PM PST by glenduh
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To: Kaslin

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-09-17/news/mn-796_1_clinton-camp


30 posted on 12/26/2018 2:33:56 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: Red Badger

“Once upon a time, long, long ago there was a fairy princess.......


31 posted on 12/26/2018 2:34:41 PM PST by Ed Condon (subliminal messages here in invisible ink)
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To: arthurus
I wasn't trying to evade, but the army did it for me. At the point of the pre-induction exam where you and 20 others strip and stand in line and wait for the infamous, grab-turn-cough routine the army screwed up. Across the room from our line of strippers were several tables,, our files laid out accordingly, and another doc waiting with his stamp and for the verdict from the testicle exam.

My doc spent a lot of time speaking quietly with the guy next to me, but spent no time with me.

End of day, I'm stamped F-4, rejected because of an undescended testicle ? It was late in Vietnam, and I was pleased, having no clue what the real significance was. I didn't think to question it. A year or so later at the NIU health center, I asked the doc why an undescended testicle would keep a guy out of the army.

"You don't have an undescended testicle." Holy crap. They stamped my papers with the rejection of the guy next to me.

Divine intervention. I would have been a poor soldier, too..or worse, dead. I like to think they caught his ailment at the next round of exams.

32 posted on 12/26/2018 2:35:56 PM PST by chiller (Dem's ideals are beautiful...they just never work in a real world. Feel good, OR do the right thing.)
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To: Kaslin

this is easy to refute....all that needs to be done is have a physical exam by a doctor today....bone spurs do not magickly disappear and if it was corrected years later surgically that to would be in his medical record.


33 posted on 12/26/2018 2:39:07 PM PST by PCPOET7
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To: Kaslin
his supporters surely won’t abandon him

Not even if they have a picture of him on the grassy knoll holding a smoking 6.5×52mm Carcano Model 91/38 infantry rifle.

34 posted on 12/26/2018 2:39:38 PM PST by Feckless (The US Gubbmint / This Tagline CENSORED by FR \ IrOnic, ain't it?)
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To: DMZFrank

I was in the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas when Bill Clinton came to Fayetteville to plead his case. I never met Bill Clinton, either that weekend or before or after; but I do know that he stayed with Mac McClarty that weekend. Mac was a friend of mine back then and, of course, a long time friend of Bill. I was part of student government back then and Mac was the President of the Student Body. I was supposed to be escort Senator Barry Goldwater who was scheduled to speak on campus, but I had a hot date with my future wife and begged off. McClarty told me that he would find a replacement and I forgot about it. The replacement on that weekend was Bill Clinton.

I knew COL Holmes and his executive office, LTC Clint Jones. COL was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and spent WWII in a Japanese POW Camp. LTC Jones was a recepient of the Distinguished Service Cross for valorous actions in Korea. Holmes was pressured by the Arkansas Governor and Senator Fulbright to admit Clinton. In the end, he agreed to do it because since Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar and that fact would help the ROTC program. I think that he made a good decision. At that time, many graduate students and law students were applying to ROTC since their deferments were ending. Holmes could only accept about 100 candidates from hundreds of applicants, but Clinton was certainly in the top 100 candidates.

When Clinton got a high draft number and wrote the famous letter to Holmes, COL Holmes ordered LTC Jones to destroy the Clinton file. He believed that it wouldn’t be fair to Clinton years later. LTC Jones did not agree and secretly kept a copy. Both were honorable men, unlike Clinton, and made reasonable decisions. Both of those men molded my character and I remember them fondly.


35 posted on 12/26/2018 2:40:01 PM PST by centurion316
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To: TheBattman

He had the letter pleading for his deferral all ready in his pocket and then he got his very high number, which meant he would almost definitely never be drafted, and he never mailed the letter.

There was a book published in 1996 or so that told this story and now I can’t find it. Was it the Marranis book? Not sure.


36 posted on 12/26/2018 2:40:42 PM PST by firebrand
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To: glenduh

HIPAA doesn’t apply to anyone the Democrats don’t like.


37 posted on 12/26/2018 2:47:11 PM PST by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism.)
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To: Andy'smom

I don’t remember civilian doctors doing draft physicals. I would think they’d have confirmed anything diagnosed by a private doctor.


38 posted on 12/26/2018 2:48:43 PM PST by Emmett McCarthy
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To: Sacajaweau
Wright said that at the time Clinton agreed to join the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, it was his intention to serve. In previous statements, Clinton has said that it was immediately after signing up with the ROTC and getting his draft deferment that he had second thoughts. The deferment was dropped two months later after Clinton says he "put myself back into the draft."

Something like this, but he "put himself back into the draft" because he had received his high number.

39 posted on 12/26/2018 2:48:58 PM PST by firebrand
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To: entropy12

The troops in Iraq look very happy to be visited by CIC Trump.


40 posted on 12/26/2018 2:53:17 PM PST by Freee-dame (Best election ever! 2016)
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