Not his Fault, Fat Shaming and Manterrupting
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Vol. 5, No. 271
Weighty Issues: Donald Trump spent his day yesterday blaming the microphone, the moderator, and the questions after taking a thumping from Hillary Clinton in the first of three presidential debates. About 82 million people watched the debate, making it the most-viewed presidential debate ever.
Trump scored points on trade issues, but got hurt on his personal taxes, his racism, and even his enthusiasm for making money on the national housing market collapse, and even his treatment of a Miss Universe winner who gained weight after she won the title. Alicia Machado told The NY Times that Trump, who was executive producer of Miss Universe, repeatedly reproached her about her weight and publicly shamed her. “I was sick — anorexia and bulimia for five years,” she told the paper last May. “I was 18. My personality wasn’t created yet. I was just a girl.”
Yesterday on Fox News Trump said, “She was the winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem… not only that, her attitude,” Trump said.
Split Screen: One of the most revealing things about Monday night’s debate was what each candidate was doing while the other was speaking. A split video screen had both on camera at all times. While Hillary Clinton pretty much maintained her composure and a smile, Trump was not only heard but seen; mugging, denying, frowning, sniffing, shaking his head, and interrupting — doing everything but keeping cool. Chris Cillizza wrote for The Washington Post, “Debates are aimed at revealing not only policy proposals but also personality and temperament. Split screens help illuminate who these people are when under duress and attack, when they are nervous and when they feel backed into a corner. Trump didn’t fare as well as Clinton with the split screen. He sighed, made faces and looked, well, not very presidential.”
And where did the chronic sniff come from?
Fact Check: Trump has a talent for denying the undeniable and here’s just one example. When Clinton reminded viewers that Trump has said climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, he said, “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.”
In 2012, Trump tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Bank Fees: Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf will be docked $45 million in pay and stock awards because of the millions of bogus accounts created by his employees to make sales quotas. Carrie Tolstedt, the recently-retired executive whose division is accused of massive fraud, will have to give up about $19 million worth of stock.
They aren’t being sent to work at the laundry. Tolstedt still has about $77 million worth of stock and Stumpf has $109 million in stock, plus $24 million in and 401(k) benefits.
Bridgegate: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was told about the George Washington Bridge lane closings to punish a New Jersey mayor and laughed when he got the news, according to the testimony of former political ally David Wildstein, who pleaded guilty to criminal charges, said Christie laughed when he was told. The lane closings continued for two days.
The Obit Page: Shimon Peres, a defining figure in the history of Israel who was the country’s prime minister twice and president once, has died at age 93, two weeks after suffering a stroke. Peres shared the Nobel Prize for Peace with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for reaching the Oslo peace accords.
>Herschell Gordon Lewis, the maker of 1960s “splatter” movies known as the “Godfather of Gore,” has died at the age of 87. His actors never won Oscars. The titles tell his contribution to movie history; Blood Feast, The Wizard of Gore, and She-Devils on Wheels. One of his movie promos said, “Two Thousand Maniacs, gruesomely stained in blood color.”
Oh, Man: Donald Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton while she was speaking about 40 times in Monday night’s debate, or as many critics have described it, he “manterrupted.” This is part of a new lexicon of words used to described boorish male behavior; “mansplaining,” explaining what a woman meant to say; “manspreading,” spreading your legs while sitting on a subway seat. Trump was standing straight at his lectern, but he also attempted to do some mansplaining while he was manterrupting.
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