Debate Flashback: When Al Gore Invaded George Bush's Personal Space

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In an upcoming book, Hillary Clinton claims that in their final 2016 debate, Donald Trump invaded her personal space:

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.’ I chose option A. I kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off.

The claim is, of course, ludicrous. Watch the video.

Commentators are already noting the irony of Mrs. Clinton's complaint, given that she's been married to a serial space invader, as it were, for 40+ years (see the cases of Juanita Broderick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones and others we will probably never know about).

In fairness, Trump's words in that debate were strong and aggressive, often personally so, though anyone following the primaries would know that this was Trump's M.O. in every primary debate, where his targets were other men.

Not including Marco, of course.

It's rich that a "feminist" like Clinton would imply that things should be different because she's a woman.

During the early primary race, I thought Trump's debate style was obnoxious and off-putting. Later, I came to think it was righteous and effective, or at least it was so in that debate with Clinton. I suspect his lively performance that night was one of the reasons why he won.

And now Hillary is whining that it was unfair.

But back to personal spaces. The most memorable personal space intrusion in modern debate history (indeed, it's the only one that I know of) was Al Gore striding up to George Bush in their final 2000 debate in St. Louis. I have no idea whether it was planned or even really intentional. But in any case, it backfired, with Bush feigning a funny surprised greeting at Gore's sudden looming appearance, eliciting a laugh out of the audience and an awkward grimace from Gore.

Hillary Clinton in Hell

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Yesterday, a reliable source claimed that Hillary Clinton had made a tearful 6:30 AM phone call to an "old friend" where she blamed FBI Director James Comey and President Obama for her election loss.

Insiders who know the Clintons say that their M.O. is that when things go against them, they always blame others. For all I know that might be an effective strategy for ambitious and successful people of a certain mental slant. There's no question that the Clintons are ambitious. And there's no question that they have been on the whole successful, not withstanding Tuesday's loss.  

But I was reminded of a scene from the wonderful novel by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

Some of the novel is set in Hell. it's not an orthodox Catholic burning hell. But it's still not a very nice place. It's denizens spend much of their time in self-created loneliness, stewing in bitterness or anger about this or that - which is of course at least one of the reasons why they're there.

One of the characters mentions that he thought one of the consolations of Hell would be that he would meet interesting people. The problem is that while Hell includes many people who were "interesting" in life, in Hell they often turn out to be much less interesting.

‘The nearest of those old ones is Napoleon. We know that because two chaps made the journey to see him. They’d started long before I came, of course, but I was there when they came back.’ …. 

‘But they got there?’ 

‘That’s right. He’d built himself a huge house all in the Empire style—rows of windows flaming with light….’ 

‘Did they see Napoleon?’ 

‘That’s right. They went up and looked through one of the windows. Napoleon was there all right.’ 

‘What was he doing?’ 

‘Walking up and down—up and down all the time— left-right, left-right—never stopping for a moment. The two chaps watched him for about a year and he never rested. And muttering to himself all the time. “It was Soult’s fault. It was Ney’s fault. It was Josephine’s fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English.” Like that all the time. Never stopped for a moment. A little, fat man and he looked kind of tired. But he didn’t seem able to stop it.’

Man, I Wish Jack Chick Were Alive to See This

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A painting of two men "eating" another man, hanging on the wall of John Podesta's office

Yesterday's Wikileaks from the John Podesta emails included a note from Podesta's brother, Tony, inviting him to a "Spirit Dinner" at the home of occult performance artist Marina Abramovic. 

The creepy grossness of this at first seemingly insignificant item was not merely noted by paranoid anti-Clinton people but was highlighted by Wikileaks itself.

Spirit Dinners are part of the religion of Thelema, founded by Satanist Aleister Crowley.

This video made by Abramovic, shows her take on Spirit Dinners:

And here's a picture of one such "dinner," attended by none other than Lady Gaga. She's on the left (licking a spoon). The woman on the right with strategically poised fork is Abramovic.  The blood is allegedly fake, and the "body" is supposedly a woman (though it looks like a man to me).

There's no evidence either way on whether John Podesta actually attended the dinner. 

However, a 2015 Politico article shows that there is (or was) a creepy Spirit Dinner-ish painting hanging in none other than John Podesta's office.

Lest you think it's a painting illustrating 17th century surgery or whatever, Podesta actually confirmed in an April Time Magazine interview that it was what it looked like - two men eating another man.

On the wall in his office at Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters, campaign chairman John Podesta has an oil painting on loan from his lobbyist brother, who is an avid art collector. The image shows two men hunched over a dining room table, bearing knives and forks. On the table lays a man in a suit, who looks vaguely like Podesta. “It’s better to be the guy with the fork,” Podesta quips to his colleagues, if they ask about the image, “than the guy on the table.”

Note that the painting is Tony Podesta's, who had forwarded Abramovic's dinner invitation to his brother.

What does it all mean?

Do I think the Podestas are members of a secret occult society (or at least dining club)?

No, actually. I don't. You, if you are a Christian, believe in the reality of the occult. I suspect the Podestas do not. They simply think dinner parties featuring nude bodies bathed in blood are part of the 21st century good life, you know, of high-flying Democrat lobbyists and politicos. Faux-occult things are hip.

Of course faux can often become (or actually be) not so faux, regardless of the intentions or beliefs of the participants. Or so it has been said. 

I have no idea what Marina Abramovic actually thinks or believes. I'm not sure she knows herself. She's an artist. 

Whether the whole thing is satanic, sinister or merely idiotic is your call.

I just wish Jack Chick were alive to see it.

BOMBSHELL: Young Man Claims to be Trump's Abandoned Illegitimate Son; Also, DISGUSTING Video Surfaces of Trump Flaunting His Erection at Female Reporters

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I lied.

Or I sort of lied. Both things actually happened. It's just that Trump was not involved.

And of course I lied to make a point.

Things are different for Trump.

The alleged father of the young man was Bill Clinton.

And the person caught on video, making a lewd gesture by raising one of his legs and exposing his crotch to a captive audience of reporters (many of them female and at least one of them obviously uncomfortable) was none other than Barack Obama.

You can easily find these stories (and the video, if you wish) by looking at today's Drudge links or by a few seconds of Googling.

I assume you won't find them on any conventional or mainstream media outlets. Indeed, Drudge has just reported that CNN imposed a blackout on the Clinton story.

If Trump were involved, they would be the lead story on every network and on the front page of every newspaper in the country.

It's Trump supporters who are attacked by fascist mobs.

But (according to the media) it's Trump and his supporters who the fascists.

By the way, Billy Bush wasn't fired (or in the process of being fired, or whatever) from NBC for being caught laughing at sexist banter. He was fired for being caught with Trump.

Milo Yiannopoulos wasn't banned from Twitter for making fun of Leslie Jones. He was banned for suggesting that gays should vote for Trump.

And you weren't rejected for that job because you had a bad interview. Rather, someone in Human Resources checked your Facebook page and saw you wearing that "Make America Great Again" hat.

Things are different for Trump.

And things are different for you.

You think it's bad now?

Wait till she wins.

Debate Officials Threatened to Have Security Remove Clinton Rape/Assault Survivors

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Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Juanita Broaddrick

The story is below, but let me first make two general points:

Given the actual facts of Bill Clinton's serial misogynistic behavior before, during and after he occupied the White House...

Given that his lying to investigators about one of his affairs - which included having sex in the oval office with someone who started out as an intern - plunged the government into an extended crisis involving only the second impeachment of a president in US history...

Given the credible claims that Hillary Clinton long acted as a collaborator and enabler, including threatening at least one (and probably more) of her husband's victims to keep quiet...

Any sort of inordinate focus on a secretly recorded tape of a boorish Trump moment, eleven years ago, released as a last-minute dirty trick...

Or any assertion, implied or explicit, of moral equivalence between the personal behavior of Trump and that of the Clintons - perhaps the premier American political mafia couple of modern times... 

Is utterly grotesque.

And the recent craven and disloyal reaction to the "crisis" by many Republican politicians has been utterly contemptible.

From The Washington Post:

Trump wanted to put Bill Clinton’s accusers in his family box. Debate officials said no. 

ST. LOUIS — Donald Trump’s campaign sought to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband by seating women who have accused former president Bill Clinton of sexual abuse in the Trump family’s box at the presidential debate here Sunday night, according to four people involved in the discussions. 

The campaign’s plan, which was closely held and unknown to several of Trump’s top aides, was thwarted just minutes before it could be executed when officials with the Commission on Presidential Debates intervened. The commission officials warned that, if the Trump campaign tried to seat the accusers in the elevated family box, security officers would remove the women, according to the people involved, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. 

The gambit to give Bill Clinton’s accusers prime seats was devised by Trump campaign chief executive Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner, the candidate’s son-in-law, and approved personally by Trump. The four women — three of whom have alleged that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted or harassed them years ago — were to walk in the debate hall at the same time as the 42nd president and confront him in front of a national television audience. 

“We were going to put the four women in the VIP box,” said former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who represents Trump in debate negotiations. “We had it all set. We wanted to have them shake hands with Bill, to see if Bill would shake hands with them.” 

The four women — Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and Kathy Shelton — sat with other ticketed members of the audience. Bill Clinton long has denied the allegations of Jones, Broaddrick and Willey. Shelton was 12 years old when she accused a 41-year-old man of raping her. Hillary Clinton was selected by a judge to defend the man, who eventually pleaded to a lesser charge. 

Frank J. Fahrenkopf, the debate commission’s co-chairman and a former Republican National Committee chairman, caught wind of the plot on Sunday and immediately moved to put an end to it. Fahrenkopf tartly warned a Trump staffer that if the campaign tried to put the four women in the family box, security personnel would remove them, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversations. 

“Fahrenkopf said, ‘no’ — verbally said ‘no,’ that ‘security would throw them out,’” Giuliani said. 

That came shortly after commission officials told the Clinton campaign that they could not seat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) with Bill and Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, in the Clinton family box. The discussions continued up until the debate programming began. 

After issuing his warning, Fahrenkopf and co-chairman Mike McCurry, a former Clinton White House press secretary, took the stage to make pre-debate announcements. 

At that point, the co-chairmen were not certain whether the Trump campaign would abide by Fahrenkopf’s order. A Republican strategist later said that it was only when Fahrenkopf saw Giuliani leading the women to other seats that he knew the campaign had backed down. 

Giuliani said Bannon kept pushing to have the women come out until three minutes before the debate began. 

“But we pulled it because we were going to have a big incident on national TV,” Giuliani said. “Frank Fahrenkopf stopped us, and we weren’t going to have a fight on national TV with the commission to start the debate.” 

Bannon declined to comment late Sunday, but his role in coming up with the idea was confirmed by multiple Trump campaign advisers. Senior Clinton campaign officials said they were unaware of the Trump campaign’s plans to try to seat the women in the family box. 

Giuliani was highly critical of Fahrenkopf in an interview after the debate Sunday and said the Trump campaign is considering asking for him to step aside before the third and final debate, scheduled for Oct. 19 in Las Vegas. 

Informed of Giuliani's comments, Fahrenkopf declined to respond. 

Giuliani said it was unfair that the commission has allowed Mark Cuban, a billionaire Trump tormenter and Clinton surrogate, to sit in the front row, but would not permit Bill Clinton’s accusers to sit in Trump’s family box. 

“In the first debate with Mark Cuban, Fahrenkopf said we’ll make a deal and everybody will [be able] to approve who’s in the shot, and if it’s not family, they have a right to object and we have a right to object,” Giuliani said. “So we object. But 10 minutes before that debate, he tells us he can’t do anything about Cuban sitting in the first row, that security can’t throw him out.” 

Giuliani said that experience led them to believe the campaigns could control their seats. 

However, the staging of the second debate differed from the first. 

In St. Louis, family members sat in an elevated box, while in Hempstead, N.Y., they were seated in the front row with other attendees. 

“The women were outraged,” Giuliani said. “They were in the holding room and ready to go. No one was pushing them. They volunteered. But I knew the minute we got pushback that we had gotten into their heads. [Hillary Clinton] was rattled. They were rattled.”

"You're like, f**k this." The Obama/Clinton Policies in Syria Aren't a Failure, They're a Fraud

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Who are these guys, again?

I assume one of the reasons the Trump/Pence campaign isn't talking about this is because many Republicans themselves bought into the fraud and were even partly responsible for it, quickly identifying Assad as the primary villain in Syria and then continuing to double down on that beyond all reason.

From SOFREP News by way of Consortiumnews and Creeping Sharia:

US Special Forces sabotage White House policy gone disastrously wrong with covert ops in Syria (Jack Murphy, SOFREP News):

“Nobody believes in it. You’re like, 'Fuck this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, so they are sabotaging it by saying, ‘Fuck it, who cares?’” 

“I don’t want to be responsible for Nusra guys saying they were trained by Americans,” the Green Beret added. A second Special Forces soldier commented that one Syrian militia they had trained recently crossed the border from Jordan on what had been pitched as a large-scale shaping operation that would change the course of the war. Watching the battle on a monitor while a drone flew overhead, “We literally watched them, with 30 guys in their force, run away from three or four ISIS guys.” 

How the US Armed-up Syrian Jihadists ("Alistair Crooke", Consortiumnews): 

In a detailed report, US Special Forces Sabotage White House Policy gone Disastrously Wrong with Covert Ops in Syria, Jack Murphy, himself a former Green Beret (U.S. Special Forces), recounts a former CIA officer having told him how the “the Syria covert action program is [CIA Director John] Brennan’s baby …Brennan was the one who breathed life into the Syrian Task Force … John Brennan loved that regime-change bullshit.” 

Murphy states bluntly: 

“distinguishing between the FSA and al-Nusra is impossible, because they are virtually the same organization. As early as 2013, FSA commanders were defecting with their entire units to join al-Nusra. There, they still retain the FSA monicker, but it is merely for show, to give the appearance of secularism so they can maintain access to weaponry provided by the CIA and Saudi intelligence services. The reality is that the FSA is little more than a cover for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra. … 

“The fact that the FSA simply passed American-made weaponry off to al-Nusra is also unsurprising considering that the CIA’s vetting process of militias in Syria is lacklustre, consisting of little more than running traces in old databases. These traces rely on knowing the individuals’ real names in the first place, and assume that they were even fighting-age males when the data was collected by CTC [Counterterrorism Centre] years prior.” 

Nor, confirms Murphy, was vetting any better with the 5th Special Forces operating out of Turkey: 

“[It consisted of] a database check and an interview. The rebels know how to sell themselves to the Americans during such interviews, but they still let things slip occasionally. ‘I don’t understand why people don’t like al-Nusra,’ one rebel told the American soldiers. Many had sympathies with the terrorist groups such as Nusra and ISIS.” 

Others simply were not fit to be soldiers. “They don’t want to be warriors. They are all cowards. That is the moderate rebel,” a Green Beret told Murphy, who adds: 

“Pallets of weapons and rows of trucks delivered to Turkey for American-sponsored rebel groups simply sit and collect dust because of disputes over title authorities [i.e. Presidential authorities] and funding sources, while authorization to conduct training for the militias is turned on and off at a whim. One day they will be told to train, the next day not to, and the day after only to train senior leaders. Some Green Berets believe that this hesitation comes from the White House getting wind that most of the militia members are affiliated with Nusra and other extremist groups.” 

Murphy writes: 

“While the games continue on, morale sinks for the Special Forces men in Turkey. Often disguised in Turkish military uniform, one of the Green Berets described his job as, ‘Sitting in the back room, drinking chai while watching the Turks train future terrorists’ … 

“Among the rebels that U.S. Special Forces and Turkish Special Forces were training, ‘A good 95 percent of them were either working in terrorist organizations or were sympathetic to them,’ a Green Beret associated with the program said, adding, ‘A good majority of them admitted that they had no issues with ISIS and that their issue was with the Kurds and the Syrian regime.’” 

If Hillary Loses, Will Historians Credit Jimmy Fallon?

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Last night, this happened.

Fallon was good-natured as always. But it was devastating.

IF Hillary loses, I suspect they will partly credit Jimmy Fallon in the same way that when Gerald Ford lost, they partly credited Chevy Chase.

If Hillary wins, Fallon's a dead man.  

Trump Invites "Deplorables" Onstage to Tell Hillary What They Think of Her (VIDEO)

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"We are going to make America great again, and Hillary needs to take a nap!"

As creepy as Hillary is, Trump remains the underdog. Predictit still has the Democrats favored 2:1.

But this was neat.

From Gateway Pundit:

Trump Makes Fun of Clinton's Health: "Oh Boy, is ISIS Hoping for Her!" (VIDEO)

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"Go back home and go to sleep."

After recently claiming that "Obama was the founder of ISIS" and then doubling down by calling Hillary Clinton a "co-founder," Donald Trump kept at the ISIS theme in a speech this morning, quipping, "Oh boy is ISIS hoping for her!"  He also made fun of Clinton's health.

Trump obviously has a different style than his Republican predecessors. People either love it or hate it. I think many conservatives find it cathartic, especially after the previous two milquetoast nominees. And the more the media ridicules it, the more satisfying to them it becomes. 

The question is whether this will make any difference in the election, one way or another - either by changing anyone's vote or through turnout.

Trump is now at only 25 cents on PredictIt. Indeed, there's a 7 cent contract that Trump will drop out of the election by the end of August.  Nate Silver is in line with the markets, putting the chance of a Trump victory at only 24%.

Are these low numbers partly because of Trump's speaking-truth-to-power/buffoonery or in spite of it?

I have no idea.

BORING: If We're Going to Get an Evita, Can't We At Least Have an Interesting One? (FULL VIDEO)

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Hillary Clinton's speech was boring and predictable.

Donald Trump's speech (as long as it was) was quirky, interesting and original.

Does that mean Clinton is bad and Trump is good?

No.

Does that mean Trump will be a better president than Clinton?

No.

But whatever else it is, it's the Frumpster vs. the Trumpster.

Obviously, I have my preferences, but that's not the point.

Demographics and policies will determine 90% of this election.

The question is, will the final 10% be swung by standard political slogans or spunky in-your-face claims and quips.

I have no idea.

Trump is currently beating Clinton in the polls.

On the other hand (and probably more importantly) Clinton is beating Trump 2:1 in the prediction markets.

On the other hand, Nate Silver is betting 57.5% for Trump.

What do you think?