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Hillary Clinton sat serenely before me, as if she didnt have a care in the world. That was my first surprise as I was ushered into a room at a Pasadena hotel to talk to the former Secretary of State and the woman who won the popular vote in the 2016 election about Hulus four-part documentary series, Hillary (premieres March 6). Although shes been accused of being plodding and dour, Clinton exuded buoyant warmth. And then there was her laugh. At first I was convinced that it was deployed for effect. (Politicians get media training; is laughter training a thing?) But gales of it tumbled out so regularly and recklessly that it seemed clear Clinton was just relaxedmaybe for the first time ever?

Sure, sometimes her laughter sounded rueful, but a lot of us feel rueful these days. And while she has stopped ascending the political ladder, Clintons name still sparks both adoration and loathing, as well as generalized post-traumatic stress. Some people wish she would withdraw into media exile rather than shadow the current election like the ghost of campaigns past. That gave some pause to Nanette Burstein, the documentary filmmaker behind The Kid Stays in the Picture and American Teen who took on this project in 2018. Burstein knew the Clinton defeat was still a raw wound for liberal America. But it was a cross she was willing to bear, given the complete editorial control and 35 hours of interviews with her subject she was granted, along with leeway to pose any questions she wanted.

I started to ask Clinton how it felt to participate in this legacy-defining project after so many years of having her lifes narrative framed by others, but the word framed triggered an explosive howl of laughter. By all definitions of that word! she said, eyes flashing, before collecting herself again.

I decided to do it because Im not running for anything and I think my life and my story has parallels with womens lives and stories and whats going on in politics, Clinton told me resolutely. (This was several weeks before the rumor circulated that Mike Bloomberg was considering asking Clinton to be his running mate.) Thirty-five hours sitting in a chair answering questions is grueling but I felt like if I didnt tell my side of the story, who would? she added with a shrug. At least therell be a baseline: Heres what actually happened in my life. Heres what I actually said about it.

That led to some very uncomfortable conversations about the many scandals that engulfed the Clintons, including her husbands affair with Monica Lewinsky. (It was awful what I did, Bill Clinton tells Burstein, barely able to look at the camera. I feel terrible about the fact that Monica Lewinskys life was defined by it.) I had to ask the ex-president of the United States about the most personal thing in his life and why he would make such a decision, Burstein recalled. It was very intimidating! But it was about: How did this affect Hillary and her marriage and the repercussions of that, which followed her 20 years later, into this last election.

The series flickers back and forth between Hillary Clintons youth and the present, weaving together a complicated and flattering (if not quite hagiographic) portrait of a woman whos provoked admiration and abhorrence for much of her life. Sometimes she seems like a real-life Zelig, popping up near the center of American culture for the last half century. But Zelig was a bystander, whereas Hillary got right in the thick of the action, sometimes changing the course of events and others times being swept along by them.

Clinton came of age at the exact moment that the womens liberation movement was rising, and her 1969 Wellesley commencement speech landed her a spot in Life magazine. As a young lawyer, she wrote briefs as part of the staff for Nixons impeachment hearings (decades later, in a savage irony, she saw the process from another angle when her own husband was impeached). After following Bill to Arkansas, she confronted good old boy sexism, encountering judges who thought women shouldnt be lawyers and constituents who felt the first lady of Arkansas should take her husbands name. When Bill cheated on her in the White House, some women were furious with Hillary for standing by him. Conversely, when Bill entrusted her with the daunting task of devising a universal health care plan 16 years before Obamacare, right-wing rage, and revulsion boiled over. Footage in the Hulu series features protesters brandishing posters with slogans like Hillary makes me sick and Heil Hillary. At a Kentucky rally, they even burned her in effigy.

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Hillary Clinton on Her Surreal Life and New Hulu Doc: Im Not the President, and I Got More Votes! - Vanity Fair

Hillary Clinton speaks at a panel for the Hulu documentary Hillary during the Winter TCA Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., January 17, 2020.(Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Hillary Clinton on Friday lashed out at President Trump, accusing him of taking Russian helpafter the administration forced out thedirector of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, causing alarm among the Intelligence Community.

The former secretary of states barb echoes comments she made while she and Trump were rivals on the presidential campaign trail, when she remarked that Russian President Vladimir Putin wouldrather have a puppet as president of the United States.

During a classified briefing last Thursday, Shelby Pierson, the Intelligence Community election threats executive, warned lawmakers that Russia is again interfering in the 2020 campaign and attempting to get Trump reelected, the New York Times reported, citing several people with knowledge of the briefing.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress last summer that Russia had indeed interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion, but did so without conspiring with the Trump campaign.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Friday pushed back on the reporting surrounding Maguires departure, claiming thatan intelligence source I know and trust challenged the narrative that U.S. intelligence concluded Russia is trying to help Trump again.

The reality is a step short of the conclusion that the Russians have developed a preference for Trump, Tapper quoted the anonymousnational security official on Twitter as saying.

Its more that they understand the president is someone they can work with, hes a dealmaker. But not that they prefer him over Sanders or Buttigieg or anyone else, the official said, adding that both Democrats and Republicans were challenging this at the briefing.

The source went on to explain that Trump was upset he heard about an intelligence conclusion from a House Republican rather than from the intelligence community and was out of joint with Maguire on that process.

Maguire was ousted on Thursday and replaced with U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, his sudden departure causing consternation among the Intelligence Community.

Trump himself later pushed back on the claim that he was the favorite candidate of Russia, accusing Democrats of spearheading the narrative.

Another misinformation campaign is being launched by Democrats in Congress saying that Russia prefers me to any of the Do Nothing Democrat candidates, Trump wrote on Twitter.

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Hillary Clinton Accuses Trump of Taking Russian Help, Citing Report that Trump Ousted DNI over Russia Briefing - National Review

Molly FureySenior Editor

Some artists are known for being sacred about their talents and taking pains to point out to you the untalented, that is that you just dont have the same capacity to see the world in as deeply profound a light.

Michael Bierut, the acclaimed graphic designer and creator of the once ubiquitous H logo of Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign, is not one of those artists. Its funny. Its kind of bullshit on the one hand, he declares, talking about the agency of colour and imagery to convey a message. Hes frighteningly frank on the matter. His livelihood, after all, is dependent upon this so-called bullshit.

He panders to the more reflective side of the argument: But theyre also tiny little stories, tiny little bits of narrative that help you frame up things that otherwise have no meaning. And in this sentence, with impressive brevity, Bierut gets to the crux of what weve been talking about for nearly an hour.

The idea that a political campaigns choice of a green or purple colour scheme could be the deciding factor in a voters decision is, indeed,bullshit do we really have such a lack of control over our decision-making faculties that we might decide on the future of a political system based on the difference between two shades of the rainbow?

Are we not above such trivial features of a campaign? Consider this years tight race to become Trinity College Dublin Students Union (TCDSU) communications and marketing officer, for instance will the result really be determined by the by the ideas of energy and passion supposedly evoked by Hiram Harringtons red campaign, or will Philly Holmess green colour scheme win students over by subconsciously bringing ideas of renewal and prosperity to mind?

It remains to be seen whether voters will be swayed by the design choices of communications candidates

Alex Connolly for The University Times

I want to say no. But, according to Bierut, its not so simple.

The methods by which these colours are harnessed, Bierut explains, might genuinely serve to narrativise a candidates message, and thereby add to its appeal and perceived legitimacy. The job facing Bierut and his designer counterparts then, is to identify and cohere these little stories of colour, shapes, typeface to articulate the very essence of a candidate and their vision.

It dawns on me that the work that Bierut is perhaps most famous for Hillarys H logo in 2016 ironically, was successful mostly due to the fact that it was completely untethered to any one colour scheme. People could present the right-pointing arrow across the two block parallel lines in any number of ways it could be made of food on the dinner plate, sea shells on the beach, pages of a textbook. It was everyones to own and everyones to make. It was never associated with blues, yellows or reds.

Given that Clinton did ultimately (although inconsequentially) achieve two million more votes than her opponent, could it not be said that colour schemes dont actually matter?

Hillary Clinton had 100 per cent name recognition, right? So there is virtually no one in the voting public who hadnt heard of her

Reflecting on this, Bierut explains the thought process that went into creating such a pliable image as the symbol for Clintons campaign: Our candidate had 100% name recognition, right? So there is virtually no one in the voting public who hadnt heard of her, and, moreover, most people had already made up their minds on what they thought of her. The challenge Bierut and his team at Pentagram design studio had to overcome, then, was not the same one that faced Barack Obamas campaign team in 2006 they were tasked with placing a virtually unknown figure on the map of American politics. Similarly, the team of any outsider candidate in this years TCDSU elections is required to establish their identity and reputation and to legitimate their intentions and reasoning behind running for the position.

The advantage of this, however, is that outsider candidates dont have perceptions or myths to debunk. Neither Harry Williams nor Eoin Hand, who are up against one another in the race to become TCDSU president, for example, have any experience with TCDSU and, therefore, do not have a hack image to deconstruct. Their opponent Ryan Carey, the unions current gender equality officer, however, has been forced into a position in which he has had to fight against the idea that he is the institutional, or conventional, candidate. This was the challenge facing Clinton in 2016.

Neither Eoin Hand nor Harry Williams had to deconstruct preconceived ideas of themselves, while Ryan Carey has fought the idea that hes an insitutional candidate

Alex Connolly for The University Times

Indeed, Bieruts design had to weather the preconceived notions of large swathes of the voting public and, somehow, shed the weight of a reputation that had been accumulated over some 30 years in politics. One of the things we wanted to do was destabilise those decisions, he explains. We wanted to make her presentation have the capacity to surprise people, to be changeable, to be participatory. The design may not have been attached to any one colour scheme, but this non-use of colour served to convey the principle message of Clintons campaign that she would make for a dynamic and inclusive president.

Working within these parameters of public opinion or indeed, the parameters of any design brief, or intended demographic or intended message Beirut says, is what distinguishes the designer from the artist. Art is like fiction, while design is like non-fiction. We [designers] are starting from a set of facts and trying to figure out a way to make them coherent, he explains. Bierut says that a campaigns creative director is tasked with producing an image that shapes, arrays and communicates already-known facts in a more engaging or digestible way. This is what excites Bierut about his job he isnt required to create a fantastical world, but to operate within the one we live in and create designs that will escort ideas through it.

Designers are planners, Bierut says. The images, colours, slogans and themes that a campaign wraps itself around are each selected with a view to fulfilling a carefully conceived strategy to grasp the voting publics attention and, ultimately, their vote. Consider the race for editor of The University Times, for instance. Both Susie Crawford and Cormac Watson have produced undoubtedly appealing campaign visuals in their opposing bids for the position. Crawfords candy pink is fun and eye catching, while Watsons turquoise green is slick and professional, reflective of both candidates central campaign messages.

In the race for editor of The University Times, Susie Crawford and Cormac Watsons design choices have mirrored the themes of their campaign

Alex Connolly for The University Times

But you cant plan your way to victory, Bierut warns, lamenting Clintons loss in 2016. There has to be some sort of passion, but also the agility to marshall this passion through it all. Bierut is all too aware of the fact that images and design alone cannot dictate the outcome of an election: following Clintons disappointment in 2016, he remains unconvinced of the independent and determinant power of campaign visuals.

At the end of the day, logos and typefaces and colours dont do the communication for you they frame that communication, they put your team in uniform so that they understand who to pass to and who to tackle, he says, resorting to a football analogy that takes me by surprise. The colours and the uniforms dont control where the ball goes, right?, he explains. Its the ingenuity of people that does that.

Early sketches of Michael Bieruts design of Hillary Clintons famous H logo

And so weve come full circle. The imagery of a political campaign is meant to concentrate the essence of a candidates message into visual form. But in a world in which the agency of social media and inescapable capitalism is relentlessly explored if not repeatedly bemoaned, there is a tendency to overestimate and indulge the notion that humans are wholly at the behest of optic appeal and satisfaction.

When people come across a block capital H with an arrow running through the middle, many of them will be reminded of Hillary. But, according to Bierut, it was her ability to expand upon her vision, articulate its intricacies and harness these visuals to further her appeal that ultimately won her the popular vote.

In reality, Bieruts symbolic H is an arbitrary organisation of shapes that dont actually have anything to do with the tenets that govern the principles of the Democratic Party. Unsurprisingly, Bierut encourages candidates to make use of the evocative power of design, colour and imagery. In saying this, however, he eagerly underlines the fact that this alone wont win them the race after all, it is kind of bullshit.

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How to Win a TCDSU Election From the Designer of Hillary Clinton's 'H' - The University Times

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Irans government said Monday that 12 people had died nationwide from the new coronavirus, rejecting claims of a much higher death toll by a lawmaker from the city of Qom that has been at the epicenter of the virus in the country.

The conflicting reports raised questions about the Iranian governments transparency concerning the scale of the outbreak.

Five neighboring countries reported their first cases of the virus, with those infected all having links to Iran, including direct travel from a city where authorities have not even reported a confirmed case.

Irans Health Ministry said the total number of infections have risen to 61 while deaths stood at 12. But a lawmaker from Qom, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, was quoted by the semi-official ILNA news agency as saying that the death toll was 50.

Even with the lower toll of 12, the number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.

The World Health Organization said last week that in 2% of infected cases, the virus has been fatal. In Iran, according to the Health Ministrys figures, the death toll represents nearly 20% of total infections.

There are concerns that clusters of the new coronavirus in Iran, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread.

Authorities in Iraq and Afghanistan, which closed their borders with Iran, announced their first confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday. Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman also announced their first cases. In all five countries, the infected patients had links with Iran.

Farahani, the lawmaker, said the 50 deaths in Qom date back to Feb. 13. Iran first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on Feb. 19.

He did not provide supporting evidence but said more than 250 people are quarantined in Qom, which is known for its Shiite seminaries that attract students from across Iran and other countries. Schools there have been closed.

I think the performance of the administration in controlling the virus has not been successful, Farahani said, referring to the government of President Hassan Rouhani. His comments represent the most public criticism levied yet against the government for its handling of the virus, which originated in China in December.

None of the nurses have access to proper protective gear, Farahani said, adding that some health care specialists had left the city. So far, I have not seen any particular action to confront corona by the administration.

He spoke following a session in parliament in Tehran. His comments, first published by ILNA, were later carried by other news agencies in Iran.

While such harsh criticism is rare in the country, it reflects deep public mistrust of the government, particularly since a Ukrainian passenger jet was shot down by Iran on Jan. 8, killing 176 on board amid heightened tensions with the U.S. Iranian government officials at first tried to conceal the cause of the crash before acknowledging that Revolutionary Guard forces had shot it down, mistaking it for an enemy target.

Health Ministry spokesman Iraj Harirchi rejected the lawmakers comments, but said about 900 other suspected cases are being tested.

No one is qualified to discuss this sort of news at all, Harirchi said, adding that lawmakers have no access to coronavirus statistics and could be mixing figures on deaths related to other diseases like the flu with the new virus.

Mohammad Tavakoli, a representative of the health minister in Qom, said 320 people suspected to have the infection have been hospitalized, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. He added that 21 people who had been infected had recovered and were released from hospitals.

Asked about the spike in cases in Iran, WHOs emergencies program director Michael Ryan cautioned that in the first wave reported from a country, only the deaths may be being picked up and therefore are over-represented.

The virus may have been there for longer than we had previously suspected, Ryan said. Sometimes when you see an acceleration of cases and a spread from that, it doesnt necessarily represent the natural transmission dynamics of the virus.

He added that it is very much driven by the context, such as whether theres been a religious gathering.

The virus, which causes the COVID-19 illness, has infected more than 79,000 people globally, and caused more than 2,600 deaths, most of them in China.

Ian Mackay, who studies viruses at Australias University of Queensland said the latest figures reported mean that Iran could become the hot spot for seeding countries that have travel with Iran ... a source outside of China.

Travelers from Iran with the virus have been confirmed in Canada, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.

The outbreak of the virus in Iran comes as its economy buckles under pressure from U.S. economic sanctions. The virus threatens to isolate Iran even further as several countries began halting flights and barring Iranians from entry.

The head of the WHO expressed concern over the virus spread in Iran, as well as in Italy where more than 200 have tested positive and five have died.

The past few weeks has demonstrated just how quickly a new virus can spread around the world and cause widespread fear and disruption, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

Ryan said a team from WHO would arrive in Iran on Tuesday.

The outbreak in Iran has centered mostly in the city of Qom, but spread rapidly in recent days as Iranians voted Friday in a parliamentary election. Many people wore masks and stocked up on hand sanitizer.

Iranian health officials have not said whether health workers in Qom who first came in contact with infected people had taken precautions. Iran also has not said how many people are quarantined overall.

To prevent the spread of the virus, schools across much of the country were closed for a second day. Soccer matches and movie screenings have been suspended. Tehrans metro, which is used by about 3 million people in the capital, and public buses are being sanitized daily.

Iran has confirmed cases in five cities, including Tehran. A local mayor in Tehran is among those quarantined.

While Iran has not reported any cases in its northeastern city of Mashhad, authorities in Kuwait on Monday said three travelers returning from there had tested positive for the virus, raising more questions about the Iranian government response.

Iraq said the virus was confirmed in a 22-year-old Iranian student in Najaf, home to Shiite seminaries and shrines. Separately, a person in Afghanistans western province of Herat who had returned from Iran tested positive for the virus.

Bahrains Health Ministry said an infected citizen who returned Friday from Iran had transited through the worlds busiest international airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The ministry said the person is a school bus driver, and that students are being checked and related schools will be closed for two weeks.

Oman said two of its citizens returning from Iran have the virus and are in quarantine.

Armenia also closed its border with Iran for two weeks and suspended flights between the two countries. Azerbaijan temporarily closed two border checkpoints with Iran. Georgia restricted movement of individuals to and from Iran and halted direct flights.

___

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Rahim Faiez and Tameem Akhgar in Kabul, Afghanistan; Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad; Frank Jordans in Berlin; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi, India; and Sophiko Megrelidze in Tbilisi, Georgia, contributed.

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Iran says 12 dead from new virus, rejects higher death toll - The Associated Press

On Friday Iran held its 11th parliamentary elections since the foundation of the Islamic Republic in 1979, and the first since the Trump administration renewed sanctions on Iran and battered its economy.

The voting turnout 42.5 percent was the lowest since 1979, and a loose alliance of conservative candidates won. In Tehran, the capital, where about 75 percent of the voters chose not to vote, all 30 seats were won by the conservative candidates loyal to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Iranian electorate faces a perpetual dilemma on whether to participate or boycott the elections as the choice of candidates is limited and the Guardian Council a constitutional committee made up of six clerics and six jurists that vets the electoral candidates bars those seen as critical of the regime or deviating from its positions.

More than 7,000 candidates, most of them reformists and moderates, including 90 members of the current Iranian Parliament, were disqualified from Fridays elections by the Guardian Council for having insufficient ideological loyalty, a move that reduced voter participation.

The turnout was higher than Tehran in smaller cities, where citizens have more incentive to vote if the candidates promise better schools and hospitals, improved roads, faster internet, more ethnic inclusion and even individual patronage. As the American sanctions have debilitated the Iranian economy, greater participation in parliamentary elections offers the provinces an opportunity to bargain for a better share of the shrinking pie from Tehran.

In Tehran and other major cities, the parliamentary elections signal not only the citizens preferences for particular factions within the regime but also its legitimacy as a whole. Participation rates in the major cities fluctuate more often and reflect the political diversity of the candidates.

In the 2016 parliamentary elections, a high turnout enabled moderate reformist candidates to secure Tehrans 30 seats in the Parliament. The conservative winners in Tehran, this weekend, were led by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air force wing, who is expected to be the speaker of the incoming Parliament. Victories like Mr. Qalibafs demonstrate that the Revolutionary Guard is ensuring its presence and domination of the Parliament as well.

Iranians who refused to vote expressed their anger and their disappointment with the Revolutionary Guards bloody crackdown on protesters in November, and its cover-up of the accidental shooting of a civilian airplane near Tehran in January. But the trouble with boycotting the elections is that it opens the doors of the Parliament for the most conservative wing of the political system.

Iranian society stands at an uncharted crossroad and the regime is bringing the apparatus of the state under the control of what it considers to be its most loyal elites, one election at a time. In a politically, economically and regionally tumultuous environment, doing so would allow an orderly transition to the next supreme leader.

The brutal response to the November protests across the country showed the will and the capacity of the security apparatus to put down unrest. And a multinational army of proxies under the banner of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force operating from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen, have demonstrated Tehrans will and effectiveness in defending its sphere of influence and fighting threats from hostile states to nonstate participants.

Irans constitutional design places the Islamic Republic in a win-win position. High voter participation helps legitimize the regime and a boycott invariably leads to a conservative victory. Elections also serve as a convenient device for the state to learn about and manage popular sentiments before they turn into a mass revolt.

Despite these institutional constraints, Iranian citizens have often outmaneuvered their leaders and stunned the world by using elections as a tool to coordinate nationwide social and political movements.

After the 1989 death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, and with the gradual decline of revolutionary fervor, competition among Mr. Khomeinis followers provided a narrow political opportunity for Iranian citizens.

By choosing candidates who appeared furthest from the establishment, Iranians revealed their preference for radical change not only to the ruling elites but also to each other. Far from strengthening the regime, elections often turned into national protests, deepening the gap between the state and the society and further polarizing factional politics.

The student uprising in 1999 over the governments crackdown on the media and the Green Movement against what millions viewed as a rigged re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 were direct results of electoral politics and popular frustrations with the regimes suppression of the peoples struggle for civil rights.

The ruling elites managed this 30-year cycle of elections and protests through a sequence of crackdowns, concessions and more crackdowns. Disillusioned citizens sometimes boycotted elections only to return to the ballot box with vehemence.

Parliamentary elections in Iran have become a consistent predictor of relations between the state and the society. The low turnout in the 2004 parliamentary elections signaled popular disillusionment after the failure of the reform movement that started in the 1997 presidential election to protect civic rights, which led to the 2005 election of Mr. Ahmadinejad to the presidency.

The high turnout in the 2016 parliamentary elections confirmed the high approval rate of President Hassan Rouhani and the nuclear agreement he signed with the United States and other world powers, predicting his landslide re-election the following year.

The conservative victory in the recent parliamentary elections indicates that the Iranian people are disenchanted with electoral politics that deliver nothing. It sets the stage for the ascendance of a hard-line president in the 2021 election if the populations apathy persists. And the absence of public pressure and elite bargaining will determine the appointment of a possibly even more hawkish supreme leader after Ayatollah Khamenei.

Yet after this electoral cycle, Iranian voters may not easily return to the ballot box. Fridays election could be the beginning of the death of Irans limited electoral politics.

Frustrations against the political system run deep in the country. So do anxieties over external threats to the nations security and territorial integrity. It is unclear which direction Iranian society will take.

Elections in the past have laid the ground for cultural exchanges, diplomatic negotiations and a nuclear agreement between Iran and the United States. After the starkly low turnout and the conservative victory, we might be inching toward a more turbulent phase between the two countries.

Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar is an associate professor of international affairs at Texas A&M Universitys Bush School of Government and Public Service and a fellow at Rice Universitys Baker Institute for Public Policy.

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What Does the Iranian Election Tell Us? - The New York Times