Author: Marie3

The Original MAGA Charlatan

A seriously good, investigative report: The Pope’s Long Con.

…
On election night [2016], Trump swamped Clinton in Bullitt County, winning nearly three-quarters of the vote. In the 49th District race, Johnson beat Belcher [D inc] by 156 votes.
…

So, even in a Kentucky county, the rigid partisan Republicans and fools are a bare majority when the charlatan is a local political candidate.  (Foreshadowed Moore’s election with two differences, better pre-election news coverage in Moore’s case and Moore narrowly lost.)

I’ll refrain from posting additional excerpts because it would take away from reading this series of articles.  Go read it.  Then perhaps some of us can engage in constructive conversations in the comment section here.  

Disaster & Response

In a flash:

That’s Coffey Park.  One neighborhood in Santa Rosa that along with several others in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties that were in the path of multiple wildfires in early October 2017.  The latest Tubbs Fire estimate is that 4,658 homes were destroyed.

The most damaging period of the wildfires began at 1:00 am and raged through 4:30 am on October 9. Firefighters and police could do no more in those hours than sound alarms to get the people out of the areas under imminent danger.   Thirty-five to forty are known not to have made it out in those early morning hours.  (A week later more than 34,000 people remained under evacuation)

Almost all gone before daybreak on October 9.

As the fires raged on that day and for the next two weeks, the emergency response management and resources — local, mutual-aid from surrounding cities and counties, and the state (principally CalFire) — kicked into high gear during the first hours and higher gear over the next few days.  By that first evening, shelter, food, and water had materialized in sufficient size to care for all the evacuees.  If they had a way of obtaining the information.

Internet, cable TV, and cell phone coverage mostly went down that first morning.  The primary information source became local am radio.  How fortunate we were that a media conglomerate (ie Bain Capital, etc.) has yet to take over this community’s airwaves.  Otherwise, a computer from some distant location would have continued piping in the same crap they do everyday.  
KSRO and KZST are locally owned and employ local on-air talent.  People that could immediately shift from their standard format to become information dissemination and clearing houses.*  (I’m giving props to KZST personnel that stayed on the job but equipment losses were too heavy for them to function as well as KSRO did.)  Heather Black  and Steve Jaxon along with their producers deserve special mention.

That was the primary means for local officials and officeholders to communicate with the people.  They too were on the job in those early hours.  Under the circumstances, all of them were good enough, some were better than good enough, and two stood out as phenomenally good public employees.

Not to overlook or dismiss those that also did a fine job, what follows is my scoring of many officials under an emergency situation.

Good Enough:

Mike Thompson (CA-CD-5)

Jared Huffman (CA-CD-2)

Jerry Brown, Governor of California

Sonoma County Supervisors

Hank Schreeder, Santa Rosa Chief of Police

Chris Coursey, Mayor of Santa Rosa

Jill Ravitch, Sonoma County District Attorney

Better than good:

Tony Gossner, Santa Rosa Fire Department Chief

Cal Fire spokespersons

Exceptional:

Rob Giordano, Sonoma County Sheriff

Mike McGuire, California State Senate, 2nd District

Girodano is a long-term employee of the Sonoma Sheriff’s Department.  In August 2017 the Board of Supervisors appointed him interim Sheriff.  He has no intention to run for Sheriff in the election next year.   What made him great is that actively collected every shred of information he could possibly get and communicated all of it as quickly and thoroughly as possible.  IOW, he satisfied all the criteria for a leader.

On October 18, Sonoma Sheriff Rips Immigration Official’s Statement On Arson Arrest.

The sheriff of a county devastated by some of the worst wildfires the region has seen has issued a scathing statement after a statement from federal immigration officials.

Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano called the Immigration and Customs Enforcement statement “inaccurate [and] inflammatory.”

Tough enough to take on Trump’s ICE Acting Director AND Sheriff Refutes Breitbart Report Linking Wine Country Fires To Illegal Immigrant. Pow-Pow.

My assessment of Girodano’s performance during the disaster isn’t unique.  A very good chance that he may find himself drafted to run for Sheriff.

McGuire was out in the field and on the road assessing the situation from early Monday morning.  Area wise, SD02 is huge and includes much of the area impacted by the fires.  (His colleague Bill Dodd SD03 represents other impacted areas.  Have to assume that he too was on the job but I have no recollection of hearing from him.)

McGuire demonstrated that he really knows his district.  Who’s who, what’s what, and how to go on from here.  The 2015 Valley Fire was in his district and recovering from that is an ongoing effort.  He’s an authentic, roll-up his sleeves politician.  Not a privileged, Ivy League entitled politician in the biz to feather his own nest.  He’s climbing a political ladder one rung at a time and learning his stuff.  Impressive and refreshing.  So unlike so many House Reps, Senators, Governors, and that thing in the White House.

The Sis, who doesn’t live in McGuire’s district and isn’t particularly political, is ready to knock on doors for McGuire when he runs for a statewide office.    Next year the challenge will be to boost him up from his 2014 vote share of 70% in his re-election, assuming that anyone will bother to run against him.

(There’s more, much more, about the responses to this disaster that rightly should be shared.  As heartbreaking as the destruction was, the response from every quarter was excellent.  The disaster wasn’t compounded by a disastrous response which is more the norm.  It was so good that we avoided having Trump come here and try to exploit the disaster for his own reputation.)  

*By comparison, the local public radio station was worthless.  Some of the NPR high priced talent may helicopter in and put together a very important story on it someday when it’s convenient and easy to do.  Public broadcasting in the US is nothing like what was promised when initially funded out of the public purse.          

Oh, Donna, oh, Donna, — Update

Politico – Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC – When I was asked to run the Democratic Party after the Russians hacked our emails, I stumbled onto a shocking truth about the Clinton campaign.  By DONNA BRAZILE, November 02, 2017.

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested.  …
So I followed the money. …

Others, myself included, had followed the money months before Ms. Brazile claims to have wandered down that path.  Of course, we were limited to inspecting public FEC filings and had no access to DNC internal records.  Thus, we had to engage in some dot connecting.  Still —

There are several money trails into and out of the HVF which may have led to much of the confusion or inability to grasp the totality of what’s going on with the it.  Some of it is perfectly legal, some questionable, and some illegal.  The HVF, state parties, and DNC have some easy and ready-made explanation when questioned, …

Nor did it escape our attention that during his tenure as POTUS, particularly after 2012, Obama either had little interest in being more than the nominal leader of the party and therefore, the DNC or had willingly ceded the reins to team Clinton.  That “dot” easily connected to the 2016 Democratic primary debate schedule and the September HFA, DNC, and state Democratic parties joint fundraising agreement that wasn’t publicly disclosed and was only began to be discovered by Margot Kidder in April 2016.  Something a crack political journalist would have been on months earlier.  Alas, they are all too important to do that sort of grunt work.

Yet, the vice-chair of the DNC, Donna Brazile, was totally out of the loop until July 24, 2016 when she became interim chairperson of the DNC.   When she managed to get “in the loop,” her heart broke as she made her secret phone call to Bernie Sanders a few weeks before the election and now over a year later wants others to know about.

Perhaps one characteristic of Brazile that differentiates her from other political operative pros — and has made it difficult for me over the years to be too harshly critical of her — is that at certain points in time, she does somewhat come clean.  Sometimes because she’s in a box and there are no other good alternatives and sometimes without any pressure.  Did she make a promise to Sanders during that secret phone call that someday she would reveal what she knew?  If Hillary had won, that “someday” would still be in the future and not today.

So, thanks, Donna for sharing, even if it’s days late and dollars short.    

A big tell from Donna: I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails.
Pity Tour – May 31, 2017 – NYPost

…

“So I’m now the nominee of the Democratic Party. I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party,” Clinton said. “I mean, it was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. Its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong…I had to inject money into it…To keep it going.”

Clinton claimed that Republicans, on the other hand, had been funneling money into President Trump’s campaign.

“So Trump becomes the nominee and he is basically handed this tried and true, effective foundation,” she said.

Tres riche given the real facts as to when her campaign team took over the DNC.

Oops – February 27, 2014 – NPR – Clintons Provide Firepower Behind DNC ‘Voter Expansion Project’ (IOW the Clintons were instrumental in the DP 2014 midterm election strategy.)

…

At a briefing for reporters, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said: “We are not just going to be on defense anymore. The DNC is going to dominate offense. We are focused on expanding the map…

…

Starting much earlier in the election year on boosting turnout and voter protection is a big part of the plan, DNC officials said.

“Voter protection has gone from being a bunch of lawyers suing on Election Day to more proactive,” said Pratt Wiley, the DNC’s voter protection director. “It’s gone from being a legal strategy to an organizing strategy.”

UPDATE

About time!

Whitefish in Puerto Rico

This was really fast:

—

Faster than I could follow this matter and put together the diary that I was ready to post before this breaking news.  Perhaps it will still have some value and all the relevant information has yet to be disclosed.

This is completely bizarre and inexplicable.  So much so on its face from reports in WaPo and the NYTimes  that even federal agenciesmembers of Congress from both parties are calling for an investigation,

The bare-bones facts are:  1) Electricity in Puerto Rico is supplied by the state owned and operated Puerto Rico Electrical Power Authority (PREPA) that filed for bankruptcy in July 2017.  2) Hurricane  Irma damaged the electrical grid in PR, but it was Hurricane Maria that destroyed most of it.  3) Retoration of power in PR is a major project.* 4)  FEMA grants to PREPA total $171 million 5) PREPA awarded a $300 million contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings, Montana  (WEH)
$300 million is a major contract.  Major contracts go to large, well-established major contractors and often such contractors form joint-ventures because no one contractor possesses all the resources required to get the job done.  SOP for any public entity is to solticit bids from contractors and award the contract to the lowest cost responsible bidder.**

Whitefish isn’t a major contractor.  It was only established in 2015.  Not as a consolidation or spin-off from long-established electricity contractors but brand new.  That means that it has an extremely limited track record and limited working capital and equity.  In no way would such a contractor be deemed a “responsible bidder” for a three hundred million dollar prime contract.  As electrical contractors self-perform, as contrasted with subcontract, most of the work, getting to that “responsible” level requires a higher degree of in-house construction expertise and capital bases than that required for a general contractor.

Not possible that Whitefish would qualify for much, if any, public works contract.  That includes work for public utilities (i.e. LADWP), COE, and DOD.  And contracts with private utility companies would be relatively small, less than a million dollars.  
A $300 million public works contract?  Not even close to plausible.  Yet somehow it did happen.  And now a whole lot of people and entities are asking a whole lot of questions.

The Guardian:

The mayor of San Juan on Wednesday accused the company restoring power to Puerto Rico of threatening to withdraw its services after she drew attention to its controversial contract.

Who does Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski think he is?  Donald Trump? (The company’s investors also include HBC Investments, a Texas-based firm whose founder donated generously to President Trump. )  No CEO of any “responsible” construction company would ever respond to questions by making a threat on twitter.  That confirms how out of its league Whitefish is.   Does it help that Whitefish Energy Apologizes to Puerto Rico, San Juan Mayor for Twitter Comments?

The Daily Beast reporter Ken Klippenstein has been tweeting about the contract.  Unfortunately, his link and Vice’s link to the contract doesn’t work.   Recall this is a public works contract and therefore, the contract should be accessible.  Thus, until it is available, I can’t make any assessment of the terms of the contract.

However this anomaly came to be, some are scrambling:

…The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Friday that it has “significant concerns” with the contract that PREPA drew up with Whitefish, and that it would be reviewing it — but that it had not done so prior to the contract’s approval, as the contract itself states.
…
The White House, too, disavowed the contract, saying that neither the federal government nor Zinke had any involvement in it.

“He reiterated once again that we have no role — the federal government — and specifically he had no role in that contract,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during a White House press briefing. She also said that President Donald Trump specifically asked Zinke whether he was at all involved with the contract on Friday, “just for clarification purposes.

Zinke took to Twitter himself to say he was not involved in the contract negotiations.

If the statements from the Trump administration aren’t true (would be an exception for them if they are true), this will be a big deal.  Possibly a very big deal because disaster aid for Puerto Rico is already a weak spot for Trump according the the HarrisHarvard poll:

62% disapproval on “Administering the government” (page 12) (strongly approve 16% (page 16)

And specifically: Trump’s Handling Of Hurricane Maria Is Getting Really Bad Marks

The latest Associated Press/NORC poll found that just 32 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of disaster relief for victims of recent hurricanes “in U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” while 49 percent disapproved. In the same survey, 48 percent approved of his handling of disaster relief in Florida and Texas; just 27 percent disapproved.

——-

*Makes the Sonoma County fire related outages (over two weeks in some areas) look like child’s play.

**Recall Bunnatine Greenhouse.
https://news.vice.com/story/multiple-investigations-opened-into-controversial-puerto-rico-energy-con
tract

Real Democrats 2017

The Real Democrats Stand Up

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The Not Real Democrats Remember:

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(A nice picture for that event is already in the can, but it might be supplanted with a future golf foursome pic.)

A Perfect Firestorm – Update #3

Not yet out of the woods.  (Mandatory evacuation zones continue to increase.)  The two largest fires in Sonoma County are at zero and one percent containment as of Wednesday morning.  The Tubbs Fire is hitting both Sonoma and Napa (specifically Calistoga) counties.  Large fires are also raging in Mendocino and Lake counties and only getting less media coverage because they’re not as populated as Sonoma and Napa.    

Too heartsick to write much of a diary.  The Press Democrat twitter feed and main page covers the up-to-date details.

Many first responders — fire fighters, police, medical professionals — have been on the job during the past forty-eight hours as their homes were destroyed.  In Santa Rosa, power, cell phone coverage, and internet access went down for most of the area early Monday morning and now is slowly being restored.  Two of the three major hospitals remain closed (patients transferred to other Bay Area hospitals) but expect to reopen sometime on Thursday.

Weather permitting.  

Update — Monitoring developments of the fires (necessary to determine if I need to bug out), the mandatory evacuations ordered for Calistoga and Agua Caliente and an evacuation advisory for the northern part of the City of Sonoma seemed confusing. Until I checked on the direction of winds that have been increasing over the past few hours. Then a factor that hasn’t been mentioned in any of the reports from local officials or media finally hit me. Better known in SoCal and therefore, it wasn’t surprising that the LATimes identified it in ‘Diablo winds’ fuel widespread destruction…

…
October can be a troublesome month for firefighters throughout California. The normal weather pattern near the coast is for moist sea breezes to come off the Pacific Ocean and into the land. But in the fall, high pressure that builds into the Great Basin causes wind to shift in the opposite direction, said Jan Null, adjunct professor of meteorology at San Jose State University and former meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

In Southern California, they’re called Santa Ana winds, and in Northern California, they’re called Diablo winds. So in Northern California, air coming down from Nevada and Utah falling from an elevation of about 4,000 feet gets pushed down to sea level, and that air is compressed, and warm winds are created. Overnight, exceptionally dry winds came in screaming from the northeast to the southwest.
…

Update #2 The expected warmer and stronger NNE and NE winds did materialize. They’ve varied from WNW to NNW and been in single digits with few gusts. Clearing out the air (worse today in SF than in Santa Rosa) and stopping westward progress of the fires. Not so good for areas east of the uncontained fires: Geyserville, Lake County (2015 Valley Fire), Mt. St. Helena, Calistoga, and SE Sonoma Co and SW Napa.

Firefighter reinforcements and equipment arrived yesterday. None too soon as many had been on the lines for forty-eight hours. (Normal shifts are an astounding twenty-four hours.)

What hasn’t been in short supply is food and drink. Good food for the first responders and evacuees.

In the midst of chaos, grief, fear and exhaustion, many local restaurateurs, farmers, caterers and chefs are offering up the most valuable thing they can this week — warm meals.

Something that wouldn’t be seen in too many places: Red Cross headquartered at Santa Rosa cannabis company. Even as Northbay cannabis farms devastated by fires. Many wineries were also devastated and grapes not yet harvested have been destroyed. (No estimate yet on the toll on vineyards.)

Relief for some residents but until the fires are out, we’re all still in a state of shock and unable to begin to process this disaster.

Update #3 – The situation deteriorated overnight. Flared up and is racing near Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Mandatory evacuations ordered at 4:30 a.m., 8,500 additional evacuees. CalFire spokesperson said that the next twelve hours are critical — they’re making progress but fire and wind remain difficult to predict. State Senator Mike McGuire (will have more to say about him later) announced that emergency managers are working to open another evacuation shelter in Marin County because all of the others are full.

A Puerto Rico Bloodsucker

The Intercept – We Can Finally Identify One of the Largest Holders of Puerto Rican Debt

For years, the identity of the owner of one of the largest holdings of Puerto Rican debts has been a mystery.

That mystery has finally been solved, with the help of the The Baupost Group, who unmasked themselves to The Intercept. The Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge fund managed by billionaire Seth Klarman, owns nearly a billion dollars of Puerto Rican debt, purchased under a shell company subsidiary and hidden from public scrutiny. Baupost acquired the debt through an on-paper Delaware-based corporation named Decagon Holdings LLC, whose beneficial owner had been unknown until now.
…

Why do these financial vultures hide the investments that give them the returns that make them the darlings of Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, etc. and stature in elite social circles?  Not just their identity but also the identities of those investing in the hedge fund’s vulture capitalist funds.

Klarman supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling Trump “completely unqualified for the highest office in the land.”

So, ya wouldn’t think that Trump is now working to protect Klarman’s Puerto Rico bond investments.  But turn over some rocks and some crawly things can be seen scurrying away.

As a “hedger,” Klarman has been an equal opportunity contributor to political candidates and parties.  If “equal opportunity” is defined as something like 5% to Democrats and 95% to Republicans.  It varies a bit  by election cycle, but it’s always chump change for those Democratic politicians that he favors.  And unlike Trump who bragged about his bi-partisan political contributions, Klarman contributions over the years have been extensive.  A good sample is Klarman’s 2010 contribtutions..  (Scroll through the other election cycles to get a glimpse of Democrats that he has favored.  Not many surprises.)

The Intercept article includes a listing of Klarman’s 2016 election cycle PAC contributions.  All anodyne sounding names.  I’ve added the descriptors/names that are more informative to this list and one mega contribution from the prior election cycle:

American Unity PAC (GOP/pro-gay)*: $1,000,000 (3/6/14) $500,000 (9/11/15) $500,000 (10/28/15) $500,000 (2/11/16) $500,000 (5/29/16)

Leadership Matters for America (Chris Christie):  $5,000 (2/6/15)

Right to Rise (Jeb Bush):  $25.000 (2/17/15) -$2,927 (5/2/16)

Independent Voice for Illinois (Mark Kirk): $100,000 (2/23/15)

America Leads (Chris Christie): $100,000 (6/15/15) $100,000 (12/22/15)

Conservative Solutions PAC (Marco Rubio): $250,000 (12/4/15) $250,000 (2/26/16)

Fighting for Ohio Fund (Rob Portman): $100,000 (3/14/16)

*Why the American Unity PAC merits additional consideration (other than the fact that it received most of Klarman’s contributions) is that it’s a creation of Paul Singer.  Possibly the best known and most ruthless vulture capitalist.  So, hedge fund manager Klarman hangs with Paul Singer.

Singer also opposed Donald Trump’s candidacy.  Two other biggies on his list are Ending Spending Action Fund (a degree of bi-partisanship in 2016) and Our Principles Action Fund (single purpose anti-Trump ).  Ah, but things can change:
Former Trump critic Paul Singer reportedly chipped in $1 million for inauguration.  From Politico:

Trump was hanging out in the Oval Office with a handful of his top advisers in mid-February, prepping for his first solo news conference as president, when Singer arrived, according to three people familiar with the visit.

“Bring him in!” Trump bellowed.

Singer was directed to a seat beside Trump’s desk, where he got to listen as senior aides tossed Trump a handful of murder-board-style questions. Then, after everyone else shuffled out, Singer stayed for a one-on-one meeting. They discussed economic policy, according to a person briefed on the conversation.

Something to ponder:

[Shane Harris – WSJ reporter]

Why, oh why, would the Trump administration be protecting the secret identities of the persons/entities that paid for the Steele dossier?  While GOP House members continue to accept what is included in the dossier?  Weird.

Not As Bad – Update

Well, except for the POTUS being uncensored and bleating the worst and most uncivil thoughts that flit through the minds of ugly Americans.

Unless you were there, it’s difficult to describe what it was like in 1966 and that assholes like Donald Trump were the norm.  This gets close:

Muhammad Ali’s most famous act of social activism — one that would strip him of his best fighting years, cost him millions of dollars, forever alter his image and eventually send him into debt — began with one off-hand quote: “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.”
…
For the most famous athlete on the planet to openly decry the war was, at the time, blasphemous. When he declared his apathy toward the Viet Cong, public support of the Vietnam War was at its peak — in the first three months of 1966, the war’s approval rating was over 50 percent, according to Gallup. Ali, citing his faith and membership in the Nation of Islam, refused service and said he was a conscientious objector.
…
In a flash, Ali, already controversial for his conversion to Islam and name change from Cassius Clay, became one of the most hated public figures in the country. Nobody close to Ali’s level of fame had resisted the draft, and his seemingly flippant opposition to the war made him a target of ridicule from the public, the government and his sport. He’d spend the next four years battling for his beliefs in court instead of the ring, and after his 1967 arrest for draft dodging, all of his state boxing licenses were stripped. Ali’s boxing career was effectively over.
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Anyone who immediately came to Ali’s defense put themselves in danger. In A People’s History Of Sports In The United States, writer Jerry Izenberg recalled receiving bomb threats and tons of hate mail because he was willing to hear Ali out in the early days of his service refusal. But in most of the media, nastiness prevailed. Unlike Izenberg, famous sportswriters like Red Smith and Jim Murray were calling Ali a “punk” and “the white man’s burden.”
… [emp added]

It was really difficult to do, but last night Trump crossed that NFL/Roger Goodell line in the sand.

A bit mealy-mouthed from Goodell, but a big step up from his past silence whenever Trump trashed Kaepernick and other NFL players.  Will the NBA Commissioner speak out now that Trump has gone after a Stephen Curry?  Will other players join LeBron James?

What it won’t be like is 1966 when nobody with a public voice and megaphone supported Muhammed Ali.  And that’s why today isn’t as bad at then.

The Guardian – NFL players protest during anthem after criticism from Donald Trump – in pictures

Beautiful pictures. Emotionally powerful. (As she wipes her teary eyes.)

What Didn’t Happen

(Not the most important thing, but when you’re down, the second worst thing to do is fudge, embellish, concoct, etc. in an effort to get back up.)

The Guardian

“This is not OK, I thought,” Clinton writes. “It was the second presidential debate, and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”
Clinton continues: “It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching: `Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly: `Back up, you creep, get away from me! I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.'”

Ah, but she’s tough and

, “biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while determined to present a composed face to the world”.

And not once could viewers see a hint of Hillary clenching and digging.  Or even one of those autonomous body reflex responses to feeling threatened.

When I read that report, it piqued my curiosity.  I recall that in her Senate debate with Lazio, as have others.  

“We’ll shake on this right now,” Clinton offered as Lazio invaded her personal space. Her body language was familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to escape from an overzealous conversationalist at a party.
…
Lazio made himself look like a lunatic. As she’s shown time and time again, Hillary is most likeable when she’s under attack.

I also seem to recall that in one of the early debates in ’08, Obama got too far into her face.  To her benefit and his detriment.  Being a quick study, he didn’t repeat that mistake.  (Sanders and O’Malley seemed to know better than to go there.)

How could something as graphic and important enough to be included in Clinton’s latest memoir not have garnered attention in real time.  Anything that scores a point in a debate as this should have from the still pictures and video gets wide play.

It did draw attention from CNN.  Trump looms behind Clinton at the debate.  

It was perfect  timing to add weight to the then trending “pussygate.”  If other news operations were on top of it as CNN was, it wouldn’t have answered the question as to why it quckly dropped by the wayside.

Instead of researching and speculating on that question,  I did one of those unpopular things and went back to the source material, the video of her second debate with Trump.  It’s a mind-numbing task to watch a debate without sound, but it’s the best way to study the visual with the least amount of distraction.  Even then the amount of data available can be overwhelming and much of it calls for an interpretation which often ends up what people fight over.  (For that reason, I’ll skip over that part of my observations because I don’t enjoy spats over mostly inconsequential minutia and I’ve learned that here no matter how neutrally I phrase anything about Clinton or Trump, it’s not received as neutral.)

Somehow — too much data, a lapse in attention, or ??? — I found myself nearing the end of the debate video without having seen the moments I was looking for.  However, that may have been a plus because halfway through it I recognized that the perspective was often distorted.  Not intentionally.  It was a function of the stage set, camera angles, and shifts from full screen, close-ups, and split screen presentations.  Many became more evident after I constructed a mental map of the debate stage.

It’s round with a large inner circle and a two foot border around it.  The podiums and chairs for the two candidates are near what viewers would describe as near the back of the circle.  The arrangement beginning from stage right is Trump’s podium, Trump’s chair, a center empty space of six to eight feet, Clinton’s podium and then Clinton’s chair, nearest to stage left.  There are several feet from the stage right edge of Trump’s podium and the stage left edge of  Clinton’s chair to the boundary of the inner circle.

Directly in front of the candidates and near the inner circle boundary is the moderators’ table.  Directly behind the candidates is a blank space (approximately 45 degrees — give or take a few degrees (geometry isn’t my forte)).  Then there’s an small audience section (45 degreees?) on both sides and those are followed with a second section of similar size.  The first sections are mostly not within the candidates’ line of sight when they turned their heads in that direction; they had to turn their bodies to the left or right to get them in full view.

Draw an imaginary line down the center that’s equidistant from the stage left edge of Trump’s chair and stage right edge of Clinton’s podium and a second line from right to left along the front edge of the furniture plus a foot.  Trump on the right and Clinton on the left (a coin flip or a set designer’s little joke?).  That gave each candidate less than a quadrant of personal space.  (Neither candidate was seen to violate this defined area of personal space.)

The remainder of the stage was treated by one candidate as open to whoever chose to make use of it.  The other candidate never crossed that center line from back to front, where the moderators were seated.  When not responding to a question, Clinton was mostly stationary and mostly seated and Trump remained standing and frequently moved around in his personal space or a few steps forward from the edge of the furniture.

So, how did Trump invade Clinton’s personal space and physically intimidate her with his size?  (Clinton’s allegation.)

He didn’t.

Here’s what happened.  At 24:55 minutes in, a man sitting in the first stage right section posed a question.  Trump stood directly in front of that section as the question was asked.  He responded in less than ten seconds, turned towards the moderators, motioned to Clinton that she could have the floor, and took several steps towards the moderator’s section.  Clinton talked while walking stage right and ended up on the same spot that Trump had used moments earlier.  Trump walked back to his podium positioned himself in front of it and faced the stage right audience section that was listening to Clinton.  He stood there with few body movements as Clinton answered the question.

Stop the video at 27.21 for the fullest stage front camera view of where the two candidates are positioned.  Trump is behind Clinton and is several (at least five) feet away from her.

Clinton completes her answer and returns to her chair.  Trump takes up the question and moves near the spot that he and Clinton had both used moments earlier.

Stop the video at 28:37.  What you see in this image is Trump in the center and Clinton behind and to the right of Trump.  From this camera angle they appear to be in close proximity to each other.  But they weren’t.  Clinton was in her stage left chair and Trump was no further stage right than his stage right podium.  Clinton was positioned to look at the stage right audience section, just as Trump had done while she was addressing that section.  Stop the video at 29:46 to see a more accurate view of the distance between them at this point.  Not close.

At 30:00 Clinton begins to walk back to stage right and Trump moves back closer to his podium.  Trump ends up slightly further (a couple of feet) stage left in relation to his podium and chair then he’d been while Clinton first spoke to the stage right audience.  He paces a couple of steps left and then right but maintains his new spot (or mark).

At 31:04 he moves his upper body and face towards the moderators.  At 31:13 he gestures to the moderators with his right hand.  At 31:26, the right hand gesture is enlarged with the extension of his index finger.  Clinton stops speaking and begins to walk stage left and Trump begins speaking towards the moderators.  Both candidates end up positioned directly in front of their own chairs, facing the moderators, but Trump appears to be further forward than Clinton.  Cooper takes the mic at 31:41.

Recap on this segment:

  1. Clinton walks behind Trump to get to stage right.
  2. Clinton walks in front of Trump to return to stage left.
  3. Clinton walks in front of Trump to return to stage right.
  4. Clinton walks in front of Trump to return to stage left.

After appearing to cede the question to Clinton, Trump had to move to avoid obstructing Clinton’s view of or path towards the stage right audience section.  Turning towards the back empty space and moving to a position on or behind his chair would have been preferable.  Why did he move towards the moderators?

Stumped I turned the sound on for a clue.  In the moments before the question was asked, Trump had been sparring with the moderators.  Trump was attentive to the question from stage right and began to address it when Cooper interrupted him and said that Clinton would go first on this one.  Both Clinton and Trump were gracious towards each other as to who would take the question first.  If Trump sought to intimidate anyone at this point, it was Cooper and not Clinton, but if he did, the absence of any aggressive body posture, quick steps, or gestures is non-confirming.  The video doesn’t include an image of Trump’s face at that point when he turned to return to his defined space.  Therefore, no indication that he was surprised to see that Clinton crossed the center line to address this question from stage right.

For all the stage right audience questions, Clinton placed herself stage right in front of the stage right sections.

Later when the stage left audience sections asked questions, Trump responded from a stage right position.  As if the imaginary center line between the right and left halves of the stage was a boundary he wasn’t permitted to cross.  (Wouldn’t get all Freudian about this.)  I don’t know what to make of this, but he did not take advantage of the opportunity to get very close to Clinton’s defined personal space.

One last note.  Trump’s hand gestures toward the moderators as Clinton was speaking.  He did this frequently throughout the debate.  So, in one area he did do debate prep.  And it was effective.

Related Note:  An NYU professor staged a gender reversal reenactment of several segments of the actual Clinton/Trump second debate  (Without the circular stage set that distorted visual perceptions.)  The results were surprising.