How did Hillary Clinton and her team buy this woman’s story hook, line and sinker? Because it served their narrative against Trump. Hillary and company are willing to believe the most absurd and dangerous people in their desire to destroy Trump.
Steve Sailer writes: Last night, Hillary Clinton chose to wrap up her debate with the sad story of a Latina woman victimized by Donald Trump. Alicia Machado was previously little known in the English-speaking world:
HOLT: Very quickly, because we’re at the final question now.
CLINTON: You know, he tried to switch from looks to stamina. But this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said…
TRUMP: I never said that.
CLINTON: …. women don’t deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men.
TRUMP: I didn’t say that.
CLINTON: And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman “Miss Piggy.” Then he called her “Miss Housekeeping,” because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.
TRUMP: Where did you find this? Where did you find this?
CLINTON: Her name is Alicia Machado.
TRUMP: Where did you find this?
CLINTON: And she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet…
TRUMP: Oh, really?
CLINTON: … she’s going to vote this November.
TRUMP: OK, good. Let me just tell you…
(APPLAUSE)
Thank God this poor Latina immigrant was just last month given the vote in our election in time to wreak her vengeance upon Donald Trump.
Today, this New York Times article totally buys into Hillary’s positioning of Ms. Machado as a sad victim of sexism:
Shamed and Angry: Alicia Machado, a Miss Universe Mocked by Donald Trump
By MICHAEL BARBARO and MEGAN TWOHEY SEPT. 27, 2016For 20 years, Alicia Machado has lived with the agony of what Donald J. Trump did to her after she won the Miss Universe title: shame her, over and over, for gaining weight.
Private scolding was apparently insufficient. Mr. Trump, who was an executive producer of the pageant, insisted on accompanying Ms. Machado, then a teenager, to a gym, where dozens of reporters and cameramen watched as she exercised.
Mr. Trump, in his trademark suit and tie, posed for photographs beside her as she burned calories in front of members of the news media. “This is somebody who likes to eat,” Mr. Trump said from inside the gym.
On Monday night, Hillary Clinton turned Ms. Machado’s pain into a potent political weapon on the biggest stage.
In the process, Ms. Clinton, the first female presidential nominee of a major party, elevated a largely forgotten tale of Mr. Trump, when his oversight of beauty pageants collided with his unforgiving fixation with female beauty.
And Mrs. Clinton put a spotlight on Ms. Machado, Miss Universe 1996, who says she has never recovered from the experience.
But it turns out that Ms. Machado somehow recovered enough to live an interesting life over the last 20 years, although NYT didn’t see fit to mention any of the following today. From the Associated Press’s archive:
VENEZUELAN BEAUTY QUEEN ACCUSED
AP , Associated Press
Jan. 23, 1998 6:39 PM ETCARACAS, Venezuela (AP) _ The Venezuelan beauty queen who made headlines two years ago for putting on weight after being crowned Miss Universe is back in the news.
A lawyer for a man who was shot outside a church in November said Friday that Alicia Machado, 21, was seen driving the car in which her boyfriend sped away from the scene of the shooting. Francisco Sbert Mousko suffered brain damage when two bullets punctured his skull outside a church where his dead wife was being eulogized.
Sbert’s family said the alleged gunman, Sbert’s brother-in-law Juan Rodriguez Reggeti, had accused Sbert of driving his sister to commit suicide.
“Our accusations against Alicia Machado are based on coinciding testimony from witnesses, who place her in the vehicle in which Juan Rodriguez fled the scene,” said Omar Arenas Candelo, one of three attorneys who presented the allegations to a criminal court late Thursday.
A couple of weeks later, the AP also reported:
EX-MS. UNIVERSE ACCUSED OF THREAT
STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press
Feb. 5, 1998 4:36 PM ETCARACAS, Venezuela (AP) _ A Venezuela judge said Thursday a former Miss Universe threatened to kill him after he indicted her boyfriend for attempted murder.
Venezuelan beauty queen Alicia Machado threatened “to ruin my career as a judge and … kill me,” Judge Maximiliano Fuenmayor said on national television.
The 21-year-old Machado, who created an international stir in 1996 when she gained 35 pounds after being crowned Miss Universe, allegedly called the judge after he issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Juan Rafael Rodriguez Regetti.
Rodriguez, 26, is accused of shooting and wounding his brother-in-law, Francisco Antonio Sbert Mousko, outside a church in Caracas last November where Sbert’s wife _ Rodriguez’s sister _ was being eulogizing.
Rodriguez apparently blamed Sbert for driving her to commit suicide.
The victim’s family accused Machado of driving the getaway car, but Fuenmayor has not indicted her, citing insufficient evidence. The judge said there were no witnesses to place Machado at the scene _ or to back up her claim she was home sick at the time.
Fuenmayor said he planned to open a new case against Machado for Wednesday’s threatening phone call.
In the past two decades, Venezuela has had four Miss Universes, four Miss Worlds and two Miss Internationals _ the world’s top beauty title record.
But Machado was not convicted on any of the charges.
Machado later became engaged to major league baseball player Bobby Abreu. From Deadspin:
Bobby Abreu’s Otherworldly Restraint
Leitch
6/13/05 11:42 amWe had heard nothing about this Bobby Abreu story from last month. Maybe it’s because we don’t watch Spanish language TV. But still.
Here’s the details, if you’re as in the dark as we were. The Phillies outfielder — enjoying the greatest season of his career, by the way; right around the time this story broke, he hit homers in six consecutive games — was engaged to former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. In May, she appeared on a Mexican reality television show called “La Granga (The Farm)” and … had sex with a fellow cast member on camera. Needless to say, Abreu was not a fan of this — as Jason Mulgrew points out, Latin men tend not to handle such matters well — called off the engagement and subsequently went on his homer barrage. We still think this might have been cooked up by Phillies general manager Ed Wade and manager Charlie Manuel, like in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, when they smashed Louis’ car right before the football game. But we still can’t believe we hadn’t heard about this, mostly.
From the website PlayersWives.com
Machado went on to moderate success as a soap opera star, and appeared nude for the Mexican edition of Playboy in 2006.
“Tienes una pinga divina.”
Abreu and Machado were engaged in 2005, when Machado went on a reality TV show. The concept of being filmed for a nationwide (and with the glory that is the internet, worldwide) reality TV show apparently escaped Machado as she had sex with a housemate,… of course, all caught on camera. The photos and video appeared online, and Abreu called off the engagement shortly thereafter.
Abreu dumping Alicia Machado was announced in the Philadelphia Daily News on May 2, 2005. Freed from her, the Phillies outfielder suddenly went on one of the hottest streaks of his career. From Wikipedia:
2005 Season:
In May, Abreu was honored as the Player of the Month in the National League, after he hit .396 and 11 home runs. He also led the NL for the month in slugging average (.792), on-base percentage (.535), and walks (30) and was tied for the league lead with 30 RBI. He became the first player in Major League history to hit at least one home run in nine out of ten team games.
In Mexico a few years later, Machado insisted that her new baby was the child of businessman Rafael Hernandez Linares rather than of narco cartel druglord José Gerardo Álvarez Vázquez, a.k.a., El Indio, as Mexico’s Attorney General claimed….
Alicia Machado is a good example of the ongoing envibrantisimoization of American life. But most American institutions don’t really pay much attention to Latin American pop culture.
For example, today wasn’t the first time the New York Times had written about Alicia Machado. In a long article denouncing Trump in May, the NYT credulously used Machado as their anchorwoman to wrap up their indictement:
Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private
Interviews reveal unwelcome advances, a shrewd reliance on ambition, and unsettling workplace conduct over decades.
By MICHAEL BARBARO and MEGAN TWOHEY MAY 14, 2016
But when Mr. Trump lost confidence in women, he could inflict lasting damage on their lives.
After Alicia Machado won the 1996 Miss Universe title, something very human happened: She gained weight. Mr. Trump did not keep his critique of her changing body quiet — he publicly shamed her, she said.
Mr. Trump said he had pushed her to lose weight. “To that, I will plead guilty,” he said, expressing no regret for his tactics.
But the humiliation, Ms. Machado said, was unbearable. “After that episode, I was sick, anorexia and bulimia for five years,” she said. “Over the past 20 years, I’ve gone to a lot of psychologists to combat this.”
Deborah Acosta and Nicholas Casey contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Alicia Machado became a U.S. citizen last month, just in time to vote for Hillary.
“One of the requirements for naturalization is good moral character (GMC)” – Vol 12 Part D – CH – 9.
How much of her lurid life did she disclose to the U.S. government? Theoretically, applicants for citizenship must have “good moral character,” but we all know that “vetting” is racist.
More on Alicia Machado from the Daily Mail.
COMMENTS:
* The new America: one part Jerry Springer, one part World Star Hip Hop News and one part telenovela.
* Boy, the Dems are really batting a thousand on these would-be diversity icons they keep coming up with.
You’d think that in a nation of 320 million, they’d be able to find one honest-to-God poster child who doesn’t wind up confirming all the stereotypes.
* Trump should jump on this, the one woman Hillary chose as her example in the debate was in fact believed by the cops to be the getaway driver in an attempted murder and then threatened the life of the judge.
If Hillary can’t even vet the one woman she’s going to use as a prop in the debate for basic non-criminal background–when there were published stories about her!–how is she going to vet 600,000 Syrians whom we know nothing about.
This stuff writes itself. Get off your ass Trump and get going.
* It’s clear: Trump’s insult turned her to a life of crime.
* The thing that I found amazing during this entire exchange, well given that the question was even asked and addressed by the candidates, that Clinton actually boasted about getting this woman into the United States and making her a citizen.
* Why do super predators hate Trump?
* And the beauty of it all is that her story is literally so salacious that there’s no way the media can fail to pick it up, from the tabloids on up.
And the idiot, slimy NY Times obviously coordinated with the Clinton’s campaign to use Machado. How else would it have an article ready to go on Machado the very next morning after the debate?
The Times is going to look like credulous dupes themselves for failing to investigate or report on this sleazy, and very likely criminal, side of Machado. I mean, a google search would have turned this stuff up. What did the Times do in its “reporting”, just take it all straight from a Clinton campaign memo?
They’ll look like vicious little morons, so eager for a slam on Trump that they’ll repeat any crap thrown their way.
Every day that passes, the Times gets dumber and more embarrassing.
* Harvard economist George J. Borjas writes:
I’ve always found libertarians to be the most unpersuadable people when it comes to immigration; their religious-like attachment to open borders seems totally impervious to facts. So it was a bit of a shock to come across this news article describing Charles Murray’s change of heart when it comes to low-skill immigration:
Charles Murray announced his support for a moratorium on low-skilled immigration…“I want to shut down low-skilled immigration for awhile,” Murray said, explaining it was the only way to find out if it would actually help native low-skilled workers…”I have had to undergo a great deal of re-thinking…The thing that has gotten to me over the course of this year… has been the idea, the very simple idea, that the citizens of a nation owe something to each other that is over and above our general obligations to our fellow human beings. That there is a sense that we should take care of our own, our own in this case being Americans.”
Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like the responsible nationalism now advocated by Larry Summers:
“A new approach has to begin from the idea that the basic responsibility of government is to maximize the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good. Closely related to this is the idea that people want to feel that they are shaping the societies in which they live.”
Who would have thought it would take the rise of Donald Trump for these very wise men to see the obvious?
* Alicia Machado, doing the jobs Americans won’t do-drug-dealing, robbery, murder, porn, gold-digging, whoring. Wonder if Ol’Bill had a hand in her application for citizenship.
* …whole fact check thing is really getting out of hand and is now being used as a weapon to show that everything out of Trump’s mouth is a lie. Obviously we need fact checking, but there is a degree of difference between lying and being slightly off with a figure. For example, Rush brought up how Trump said Hillary has been around power for 30 years. That’s a lie because the correct answer is 26. But the point he was trying to make was valid.
Now Trump seems to have figured this out. At his rally tonight he mentioned that Hillary wanted to increase Obama’s Syrian refugee take by 550 percent. He said he had originally stated the number was 500 percent, but the fact checkers told him he was lying. He asked them to explain and they said the real number was 550 percent. The crowd ate it up.
Maybe this is a new strategy Trump will use. Ridicule every little fact check that is used to make Trump seem like a liar so that the public becomes immune to the constant claims of the fact checkers.
* Please Mr. Trump, return to the subject of Alicia Machado in the next debate.
I think Ms. Clinton has a little explaining to do.
How proud is she that Machado is a citizen? How happy is she to have Machado voting for her, and supporting her?
And the vetting of course, how about that? Better or worse than for the many thousands of Syrian refugees?
* She gained 50 pounds! As Miss Universe she has a responsibility and image to uphold. This would be akin to having an baseball player under gaining too much weight which would affect his performance. Physical appearance is important with Miss Universe. Ask yourself if she would have won carrying that weight? Gaining so much weight after winning goes against one’s responsibility in wearing that crown.
A boxing promoter would have every right to condemn his boxer if he got too fat and out of shape. Likewise a beauty pageant guru has the same right.
* Steve, they don’t care who they are using as poster children, nor do they have to. NYT is not going to do a follow-on correction story on what a tawdry little specimen Machado actually is. Lester Holt is not going to do a 20/20 docudrama on her real life. Pretty much the only people who will know the truth are we band of brothers reading these blogs. Everyone else will buy the sob story hook line and sinker. This is guerilla warfare, plant a limpet mine on the hull then swim away into the murk after the damage is done. The Machado story has put another hole under Trump’s waterline and she will now be dropped down the memory hole like Khan. That’s the power of owning the megaphone.
* Vanessa Williams was pressured to resign as Miss America when nude photos of her came out. So I see nothing wrong with ensuring Miss Universe maintains her physique.
* Here is the original CNN article from January 29, 1997, entitled “Expanding Miss Universe Works to Shed Pounds”.
This excerpt shows CNN had fun with her weight gain. They don’t sound as sympathetic as they do today.
NEW YORK (CNN) — When Alicia Machado of Venezuela was named Miss Universe nine months ago, no one could accuse her of being the size of the universe. But as her universe expanded, so did she, putting on nearly 60 pounds
This excerpt shows others were noticing too. Possibly Kellogg might not have renewed her contract over this.
And as her weight grew, so did reports that Kellogg had canceled a deal for her to appear on boxes of Special K in Venezuela or that Kellogg modified her body on the box. But a Kellogg spokesman said the contract simply expired in December and that they were “real pleased” with the promotion.
This is a great excerpt. Trump decided to work with her and not force her to give up the crown. This sounds quite reasonable.
Rumors also surfaced that she might be forced to give up her Miss Universe crown.
But Trump, as co-owner of rights to the pageant, said he would never let that happen. “We had a choice of: termination or do this,” he said. “We wanted to do this.”
situpsThe pageant’s meaning of “do this” was for Machado to get her weight down to about 130 pounds.
Finally, Trump pokes some fun at the media about their weight. Maybe this was done to help make Alicia feel better, or to put some in their place for having made fun of her.
“A lot of you folks have weight problems. I hate to tell you,” Trump told the rowdy pool of reporters.
