UPDATED: Democrats can apologize their way out of any situation they can’t squirm out of. Republicans are guilty forever.

Joe Biden, ‘Bill Clinton’s PAST Shouldn’t Matter’ (But Trump’s Should?!) 
"Straight from their playbook. Democrats can apologize their way out of any situation they can’t squirm out of. Republicans are guilty forever." . . .

CHUCK TODD: As you know, Donald Trump is bringing up everything Bill Clinton– right now. Should that matter?VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: No, it shouldn’t matter. Look, I can’t make any excuse for Bill Clinton’s conduct. I– I– I– and I wouldn’t attempt to make any excuses for the conduct. But he paid a price for it. He paid a price. He was impeached. And he was– he expressed his deep sorrow and acknowledged what he did. This guy, as I said, has acknowledged that he has been a sexual predator. He’s acknowledged that he’s abused his power. And the– as I said, the textbook definition of what constitutes sexual assault.It isn’t just Biden. If a quick search of that phrase online is any indication — even filtering out Biden’s name — this phrase is popping up everywhere.There has been a conscious decision somewhere to rehabilitate Bill. It’s their strategy.

. . . "But the same people that insist a kiss from Trump is assault are lining up to dismiss their hero.

"Hardly surprising, really. We remember them doing the same thing with [child molester] Roman Polanski.

"Whoopi, for instance:" 

Liberals want the presumption of innocence for THEIR side while operating from a presumption of GUILT for their opponents.
“ 'If there’s evidence Trump’s done it, sure, hang him from the post, but I was there, I was in a position to know that what she said was wrong, wrong, wrong,” he said."

Update:  "Why I am still voting for Trump" 

"She is also known for her hysterics, which include yelling and screaming, throwing objects, abusing underlings verbally, and using language that would make a trooper blush.  How presidential is that?"

  . . . "For the sake of argument, I would assume that the allegations were true but would still vote for him.

"Donald Trump is against political correctness, globalization, open borders, unrestricted immigration, trashing the Constitution, crony capitalism, and corruption.  Hillary Clinton, the opposite.  She wallows in the last two.

"Donald Trump wants to achieve “peace through strength” as President Reagan did.  He wants to cancel the Iran deal, support our friends and allies, stop the growing hegemony of Iran, and defeat ISIS.  Hillary Clinton, not so much.

"Donald Trump names the enemy as “radical Islam” whereas Hillary Clinton refuses to do so.  I, on the other hand, see Islam as the enemy.  The adjective “radical” adds nothing.  There is only one Islam, and it is radical.  Donald Trump wants to be free to be critical of Islam.  Hillary Clinton wants to impose a gag order on criticism of Islam and even make it a crime." . . .

Chelsea Agonistes*: Wikileaks reveals the moment a daughter starts to realize her parents are corrupt

"It looks to me as if Chelsea gave it a try and lost out to the capos in the organization. "

Thomas Lifson  "The biggest human interest story so far of the Wikileaks hack is the story of Chelsea Clinton’s discovery in 2011 that her parents’ nonprofit was full of conflicts of interest.  They had set up a charity that allowed donors to get their way.  At first, she tried reform, only to lose out to the entenched cronies.  What emerges, in the context of Chelsea’s actions in the next few years, shows us how she reconciled herself to the realities of the Clinton Organization.

"A tranche of the Wikileaks revelations released Tuesday revealed, as Richard Pollock of the Daily Caller put it:

Chelsea Clinton’s bold decision in 2011 to launch an “internal investigation” into the finances of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative…. (snip)

Two emails — one dated Nov. 12, 2011 and another dated Jan. 4, 2012 — show Chelsea was aggressively looking into the foundation’s money flows and talking to others about it.

Sandra Rose

*Agonistes: "a person enduring an inner struggle"

Bill Clinton and Donald Trump treated differently by women's rights groups

McClatchyDC via Drudge. Video at the link.

At a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Manchester, NH, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a blistering speech about the latest sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump. In his speech in West Palm, Fla. Trump called the accusations "outright lies." 

 . . . “ 'Feminism sort of died in that period,” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd told Yahoo recently. “Because the feminists had to come along with Bill Clinton’s retrogressive behavior with women in order to protect the progressive policies for women that Bill Clinton had as president.”

Clinton’s female supporters stood by him, especially as he denied allegations of misconduct, as has Trump. Later, after Clinton admitted to some of the allegations of consensual sex, they did criticize him but still supported him.

 "They were called hypocrites at the time, particularly when they were among the first to blast conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and former Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., for allegations of sexual misconduct.

"Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, said Clinton’s situation was entirely different because it came as Republicans were attacking him and his pro-women agenda, including fighting against the Equal Rights Amendment and a law banning discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs.

“ 'For people like me, it was a totally different story and origin,” Smeal told McClatchy this week. “It was a right-wing attack. We saw it as a right-wing effort to draw out of office a president for ideological reasons.' ”

If The Trump Tape Surprised You, You Fell For The Left’s Favorite Trick

Matthew Cochran

"It astounds me that so many conservatives who made peace with the idea of voting for Donald Trump are suddenly walking the other way over the his 'Access Hollywood' tape."

. . . "It no doubt strikes most women as odd that anyone would consent to that kind of sexual aggression, but a subset of women do throw themselves at celebrities in such a manner. Back in the day, people called them “groupies,” and it makes no sense to pretend they don’t exist or that Trump was talking about women in general (especially when he gives a counter-example of an uninterested woman in the very same conversation).

"Naturally, accounts from women who claim to be on the receiving end of such treatment from Trump are subsequently beginning to emerge, and just as naturally, the details are disgusting. Unfortunately, the fact that these stories seem timed for maximum political effect rather than maximum truth-telling forces critical thinkers to ask whether the specific details that were revealed were likewise contrived.  Do we have the whole story from any of these alleged incidents?

"Unfortunately, three weeks before the election is better suited for reflexive disgust than reflective analysis of the facts, and that hardly seems coincidental." . . .

Is America Losing ‘The Iran Wars’?

The Federalist

With 'The Iran Wars,' the Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon has produced a compelling—and alarming—book recounting America's inept attempts to contain Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

 

. . . "Despite these rare off-key moments, “The Iran Wars” is a compelling read. For those who find the labyrinthine turns of Middle Eastern politics nearly incomprehensible—which is to say, almost everyone—this book is indispensable. Solomon provides enough of an overview to get a general reader up to speed without drowning in detail, but he also provides enough of the tick-tock of detailed negotiations that specialists in foreign policy will have a plenty to consider. It is an excellent example of how journalists can report and educate at the same time, with a fluency difficult to find in books on such complex subjects.

"In the end, Solomon repeats the comments of an Israeli official whose views serve to sum up “The Iran Wars”: “The [Obama] White House has bet the farm on reaching an accommodation with the Iranians. But they never truly seemed to understand who were they were dealing with.” This could well be said of almost every American administration that has gone up against the Islamic autocrats in Tehran, and Solomon closes the book by warning that “the Iran wars could just be entering a new chapter.”

"We can only hope that it is not actually the prologue to World War III."

Today Julian Assange and his team have begun to release a new series of leaks that prove, unequivocally, the connection between the State Department’s actions and the nuclear arming of Soviet military powers.

US Politic Today  . . . "Part 1 of this release includes over 2,000 emails and 170 attachments. Even worse, over 1,200 of the emails center around nuclear interests. In April of 2015 the New York Times published a story that outted(sp) the Uranium One deal where Hillary’s State Department sold U.S. nuclear rights to Russia. Now, 20% of all US nuclear production belongs to Russia.

"The deal had to be approved by a special committee of appointed representatives from insider US government agencies. The State Department, the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Committee on Foreign Investment In the United States (CFIUS) all signed off on the deal.

"And, just like clockwork, as Russian interests began to assume control of the newly gifted nuclear rights, Millions of dollars were funneled into the Clinton Foundation between 2009 and 2013 from people with direct ties to the deal, including the Chairman of Uranium One himself, Mr. Ian Telfer. Obama’s White House put a “restriction” on the Clinton Foundation that required Bill and Hillary to report all contributions. Unsurprisingly, contributions from Mr. Telfer werenot disclosed.

"The story gets even dirtier; when the original article broke, the New York Times completely rejected the possibility of foul play and dismissed any questions regarding the crooked deal as “baseless.' ” . . .

. . . "Everyone got exactly what they wanted. In the end, Mr. Podesta went on to recommend Fernandez for a spot on the Center for American Progress board of trustees. Hillary Clinton would walk away unscathed, having profited millions by the deal. She didn’t forget Podesta’s hard work though; he’s currently a key figure in developing foreign, economic, and energy policies atop the throne of his illegally-funded think tank.

"Julian Assange promises additional waves of email leaks as the month continues."  Via Tina Andres

Interesting anti-Hillary ad

Weasel Zippers

"Via Townhall:"

An anti-Hillary Clinton super pac released a 30-second television ad on Tuesday in Ohio and Pennsylvania showing a young African-American actress struggling with promoting Hillary Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness to millennial and minority voters.

“There is so much at stake in this election, and that’s why I’m supporting Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy and… Can we cut?” she says as she interrupts the shoot.

“What’s the problem?” the director asks.

“I can’t say these words,” the woman says. “I just don’t believe what I’m saying.”

The director says, “but you’re an actress.”

“I’m not that good of an actress,” the woman says before walking off the set. “Honest and trustworthy… give me a break.”

It’s not the ‘locker room’ talk. It’s the ‘Lock her up’ talk.

Charles Krauthammer  . . . "That Trump crashed because of a sex­talk tape is odd. It should have been a surprise to no one. His views on women have been on open display for years. And he’d offered a dazzling array of other reasons for disqualification: habitual mendacity, pathological narcissism, profound ignorance and an astonishing dearth of basic human empathy.

"To which list Trump added in the second debate, and it had nothing to do with sex. It was his threat, if elected, to put Hillary Clinton in jail.

" After appointing a special prosecutor, of course. The niceties must be observed. First, a fair trial, then a proper hanging. The day after the debate at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump responded to chants of “lock her up,” with “Lock her up is right.” Two days later, he told a rally in Lakeland, Florida, “She has to go to jail.”

"Such incendiary talk is an affront to elementary democratic decency and a breach of the boundaries of American political discourse. In democracies, the electoral process is a subtle and elaborate substitute for combat, the age-­old way of settling struggles for power. But that sublimation only works if there is mutual agreement to accept both the legitimacy of the result (which Trump keeps undermining with charges that the very process is “rigged”) and the boundaries of the contest. The prize for the winner is temporary accession to limited political power, not the satisfaction of vendettas. Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez and a cavalcade of two­bit caudillos lock up their opponents. American leaders don’t." . . .

First to open the door to third-world politics must be the Obama regime in wanting Bush anti-terrorist interrogators to be tried for their actions.

Free the FBI 100!

First this: Andrew C. McCarthy; Fact-Checking: Hillary's 'The FBI Has Exonerated Me' Claim

Roger L. Simon  "For those concerned above all with what's left of the rule of law in our republic, the most important dispatch of this nauseating campaign season has been Fox News' "FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider."

"Many of you may have read the first few  paragraphs of this article before, but they're worth reading again for purposes of discussion:

The decision to let Hillary Clinton off the hook for mishandling classified information has roiled the FBI and Department of Justice, with one person closely involved in the year-long probe telling FoxNews.com that career agents and attorneys on the case unanimously believed the Democratic presidential nominee should have been charged.

. . .
 "So one anonymous insider said it was unanimous that Hillary should be prosecuted and a "high-ranking official" said the "vast majority" felt that way. Whichever is accurate, there were more than a hundred agents and analysts working with six lawyers on the case, but let's round that off to an even 100.

"What're we to do about all those agents, analysts and lawyers who are not allowed to speak their minds and tell the American public they serve what they think about what happened?

"It's not the Chicago 7 who need to be freed this time.  The situation has flipped.  It's the forces of law and order --  the FBI 100."

Dueling scandals and the press

Another Trump Accuser Coming Forward  "Prominent feminist attorney Gloria Allred announced she will hold a press conference Friday afternoon with a new accuser who claims Donald Trump had inappropriate sexual conduct toward her." . . . 

Thomas Lifson: Michael Issikoff says NBC is sitting on devastating tape of Juanita Broaddrick  "The NBC subsidiary of Comcast is reportedly combing its archives for material damaging to Donald Trump but ignoring requests to air the full interview with Juanita Broaddrick by Lisa Myers 17 years ago."

. . . Michael Isikoff, who was a leading reporter during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, said in a Thursday discussion that NBC should release a 17-year-old tape of an interview that it conducted with Broaddrick. Broaddrick has long claimed that the interview that NBC aired edited out her claim that Hillary Clinton was involved in quashing Broaddrick’s rape claims. . .

Wall Street Journal Finally Lashes Out "The Press Is Burying Hillary Clinton's Sins"  "Even the Wall Street Journal is now fed up with the biased media coverage of the 2016 Presidential election as revealed by a scathing article written by Kimberly Strassel, a member of their editorial board.  As Strassel points out, it's almost impossible to turn on the TV without hearing about Trump's "lewd" comments while coverage of Hillary "uniformly ignores the flurry of bombshells" inherent in the various WikiLeaks, FOIA releases and FBI interviews." . . .

What To Expect From A Hillary Presidency

Under President Hillary Clinton, would we ever be able to believe any word of an Oval Office or a State of the Union address?

"Corruption will continue under Hillary, she will sell the White House just like she put the State Department up for sale. Donald Trump said it best, he made his money building a business, Hillary never built anything, never created one job, never produced a product yet she is worth over 140 million dollars, how did that happen?"

Conservative Blogs Central  . . . "How can anyone deny that Hillary is a compulsive liar, she is corrupt, she is dishonest and a hypocrite. It also seems she has a memory problem, when asked about her private server by the FBI, she said 21 times I don’t remember. This woman would not know the truth if it sat on her lap.

Now that we have seen the WikiLeaks papers, we have a better insight of what is really going on in the mind of Hillary.

"We can expect the war on religious freedom to continue. Ever since the 2012 Democratic Convention when they tried to eliminate God from their platform it was obvious their goal is to have a Godless society. Now that we see that they want a revolution to overthrow Catholics because of their beliefs, you can see what direction they want society to go." . . .

Here’s the script for the video defense of her emails that Hillary never delivered

Hot Air  . . . "Buried within the mountains of emails from the Clinton campaign release by WikiLeaks this week was a little gem with the subject heading “Script.”. . . 

"The script appears to be for a produced video address that the Clinton campaign contemplated producing to address the ongoing political turmoil surrounding the email scandal. Two days before the “Script” was circulated,Politico reported a federal judge had made a decision regarding Clinton’s email scheme that caused more damage and undermined many of her original talking points:" . . .