Victor Davis Hanson: The Tenth Life of Donald Trump

"By seizing control of Sunday night’s debate, he steadied his faltering candidacy — a bit."

National Review  "The Sunday debate recalibrated the moribund Trump candidacy. It will not end this week. The stampede and groupthink calls for his resignation will ease. Trump might have lost the debate on points of detail, but by the end of hour one, he had won it on energy level and audacity. 

"No one has ever spoken so bluntly to Hillary Clinton in her 30 years in politics. The confrontation was long overdue. In an either/or race, Trump at least reminded the audience that he is running as a refutation of the status quo. Hillary still bores with the idea that Obama’s record is fine and her continuance of it will make things even better.

" Trump, as the teenage delinquent, was at times, as expected, repetitive and brash. Hillary, as playground monitor, was characteristically off-putting, sanctimonious and disingenuous. At one point she foolishly explained her advocacy of being duplicitous by comparing herself to a supposed two-faced Abe Lincoln. Pulling Old Abe down to pull yourself up is not a good idea." . . .

Nowadays in pictures

The Old Jarhead

Photobombed!

Clinton Campaign, White House Coordinated Pro-Iran Deal Talking Points

Washington Free Beacon

Leaked emails show effort to mislead public about Iran deal

 

Clinton’s vice presidential running mate Time Kaine claimed in a recent debate that Clinton helped “eliminate the Iranian nuclear weapons program,” a remark that ABC News dubbed as “false.”
Clinton Press Secretary Brian Fallon, who is included in the leaked emails, later went on Fox News to reiterate this claim, maintaining that “there is no question” the deal halted Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"Senior Clinton campaign officials were in direct contact with the White House to coordinate pro-Iran talking points in an effort to boost last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement, according to leaked emails that show the Obama administration and top figures in Clinton’s campaign played a role in promulgating information about the deal that later turned out to be factually inaccurate.

"The emails, released late on Friday in a massive document dump by the hacker website WikiLeaks, show coordination between Hillary Clinton’s team and the White House, which spearheaded a massive effort to create what senior officials described as a pro-Iran “echo chamber” to mislead Congress and Americans about the nature of the agreement.

"The director of national intelligence and Department of Homeland Security have accused “Russia’s senior-most officials” of hacking and leaking emails posted to WikiLeaks and other sites to influence and interfere with the 2016 election.

"An April 2, 2015, communication sent from top White House press liaison Eric Shultz to Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri includes several pages of pro-Iran talking points that were later discovered to contain misleading information." . . .

"The Clintons have been damaging young women (and about everybody else) for decades."

Kevin Jackson/ The Blacksphere

. . . "So when I ran across an article written by friends of mine, the damage to one young lady really hit hard. It’s one thing to be the butt of a joke. However when you’re the penis of a joke, it’s really no joking matter.  As 100 Percent Fed Up wrote:

“In 1998, I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost everything and I almost lost my life…” -Monica Lewinsky, 2015

Here is Monica Lewinsky, now a 41 year old woman who is actually being paid to address audiences about how her affair with then President Bill Clinton destroyed her life. What price did Bill Clinton pay for destroying this young girl’s life? What price did Hillary pay for enabling his behavior (that bordered on pedophilia given the age difference between Bill and Monica)? This young girl was “slut shamed” by the entire world while Bill and Hillary, unconcerned with her well-being, huddled together to work out the details of how they would deceive the world with lies and save their political careers and ambitions. Hillary even went so far as to call Monica a “narcissistic looney tune.”

"And the feminist agenda apparently centered around Hillary Clinton.

. . . "So when the Monica Lewinsky incident erupted, the feminists rallied around their disingenuous duo. Who cares Clinton had been using and abusing women for decades? And finally what if Hillary Clinton knew of each and every “bimbo,” and acted as an enabler? The Clinton were needed to further the feminists’ version of the greater good.

"Imagine being any of these women the Clintons maligned after sexually abusing them. The mental rape to go along with the physical devastation."

Podesta on Hillary: "I KNOW SHE HAS BEGUN TO HATE EVERY DAY AMERICANS, BUT ..."

Wikileaks Blowout: Hillary Campaign Guru Admits- Hillary Hates “everyday Americans”   "For years Hillary Clinton’s critics have openly mused that she holds a deep disdain for common, working-class Americans.

"Now, thanks to an email from campaign manager John Podesta released by Wikileaks, we have definitive proof from Clinton’s right hand man through the years as well as her 2016 campaign guru." . . .

Infidel Bloggers Alliance

"The source is PBS."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: National anthem protest is 'dumb and disrespectful'

USA Today  . . . "Colin Kaepernick began to kneel during the national anthem earlier this season to protest police misconduct and racial inequality. He has been joined in his protest by a number of other NFL players, USWNT player Megan Rapinoe and a number of high school football players. Though there have been wide measures of support across the sports world, Ginsburg is certainly not the first to argue the protest is disrespectful.

“ 'If they want to be stupid, there’s no law that should be preventive,” Ginsburg said. “If they want to be arrogant, there’s no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.' ”

Video Source.

Tim Kaine “Opposes Death Penalty”—But Embraces Theology that Idolizes Mass-Murderers Fidel Castro and Che Guevara!

Humberto Fontova  . . . "OK, so this imbecile of a pro football quarterback, while condemning oppression against “people of color,” promotes a Stalinist dictator who jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin himself during the Great Terror—including the most black political prisoners in the modern history of the Western Hemisphere. So what?

"A “moronic rap­singer” seems pretty standard. So when Jay­Z sports his Che Guevara t­shirt and croons, “I’m like Che Guevara with a bling on!” we snicker, face­palm and move on. So what if Mr Beyonce idolizes a Stalinist who declares that: “The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and drink, whereas the European is forward­looking, organized and intelligent…The Negro has maintained his racial purity by his well known habit of avoiding baths.” Big deal?

"Tim Kaine, on the other hand, graduated from Harvard Law School and is running for Vice President of the United States. So when he claims to oppose the death penalty while concurrently claiming that the “Liberation Theology” he imbibed from Castroite priests in Honduras “turned his life around” the standard snicker and face­palm won’t suffice. Instead, Tim Kaine’s useful idiocy strikes some of us as a more serious issue than the standard useful idiocy espoused by so many celebrities."

Trump Sexual Assault Accuser On ‘Pussy Grab’ Tape: ‘See? This Is What I Was Saying!’

The Clinton machine fights back:

Law Nuze  "Jill Harth, who has accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in the past, including during an interview with LawNewz, has resurfaced with her thoughts on the tape of Trump talking about how he can “grab” a woman’s genitals without consequences. After the recording surfaced on Friday, a good bit of the response on social media pointed out that Harth had accused Trump of just that, arguing that this confirmed her story. Harth agrees, telling “Inside Edition” in a new interview airing Monday and Tuesday that this vindicates her."

It Wasn’t a Town Hall Meeting, It Was a Town Hall Ambush

Todd Starnes



A portion of the debate here:

3. This wasn’t a town hall debate. It was a town hall ambush. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Martha Raddatz, disgraced themselves and their networks by ganging up on Donald Trump. When the audience cheered for Trump, they were told to be quiet. But when they cheered for Hillary, the moderators were silent. “One on three” is how Trump described it.

4. Hillary got rattled.  Donald Trump knocked Hillary off her talking points and she was clearly rattled by his political punches. Off stage, one of her campaign staffers tweeted a profane message to Trump, “F*** you.” Not a bad job for a candidate who was also fielding attacks from Clinton spokesman Anderson Cooper and Clinton’s designated debater, Martha Raddatz.

5. There was no pre-debate handshake. It clearly demonstrated the level of anger and hatred between the candidates. But it’s probably best they skipped the handshake. The Mainstream Media would’ve accused Trump of inappropriate behavior.

6. Clinton won’t say Radical Islam. “We are not at war with Islam and it is a mistake and it plays into the hands of terrorists to act as though we are.” Well, trying telling that to the folks who were blown up, stabbed and gunned down in places like Orlando, San Bernardino, New Jersey, St. Cloud, Minnesota, Chattanooga, Chelsea, New York and September 11th, 2001. 

7. Trump needs to stay focused on the issues. This presidential election was supposed to be about jobs and securing the border and protecting us from radical Islam - not repugnant locker room banter, overweight beauty queens or litigating the past. Don't get distracted by Hillary and her minions in the Mainstream Media."

. . . 

Wikileaks memo shows Hillary promoted Trump

Remember Wikileaks?

Conservative Firing Line  "Lost amid the furor over Donald Trump’s sexually charged hot mic recording was another email dump by Wikileaks. The new document dump contains emails purportedly hacked from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

"One of the documents leaked and subsequently tweeted by Wikileaks allegedly shows that the Clinton campaign worked with the media in “elevating” Republican primary candidates that were more extreme. The Clinton strategy was to make these “Pied Piper” candidates seem to “represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.” The document mentions three candidates by name: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

“ 'We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them [sic] seriously,” the document says.

"The Wikileaks tweet does not present the entire document. The portion available is not dated although Wikileaks says that it was “two months before he [Trump] declared his candidacy.” The tweet does not provide a way to identify or find the document within the trove of emails posted on the Wikileaks website.

"If genuine, the document indicates that Hillary Clinton not only interfered with the Republican primary, but also conspired with the media to do so. There were numerous reports that Donald Trump spoke with Bill Clinton prior to declaring his candidacy last year. It is possible that the Clintons set up Donald Trump to run as a Republican, knowing that they could destroy his reputation if he won the nomination.

"At present, the authenticity of the document and Wikileaks claims have not been independently verified.

Read the full story on The Resurgent

Commentary on the Trump-Clinton debate, 10/09/2016

American Thinker:
Will America Wake Up and Smell the Coffee with Trump’s Blunt Truths?  . . . "All that was required after the disaster (others say miscalculation) of Iraq, was a simple continued Status Of Forces Agreement that was already in place at the time, a resolution was not even necessary.  It was already there.  And there would have been no regional cave in and neither any other falling dominoes, even what's happening in Europe.  But no, it was early withdrawal, just like in Viet Nam where there were consequently millions of casualties there as well, due to the same populism then as now." . . .

Oops! Hillary Forgets the Constitution . . . "Without going over the entire debate, the  question about the Supreme Court  provided the answer that mattered.  Hillary did not mention the Constitution; it never occurred to her because she has been party to its shredding throughout the Obama administration." . . .

It was a do or die debate for Trump  . . . "He had pounded his smarmy, pre-packaged, self-righteous opponent and his critics into the ground. He left the stage having turned the tide."

Legal Insurrection:
Mika Rips Republicans Who Dumped Trump: ‘Pathetic, Weak, Spineless’ MSNBC?

Debate No. 2 Quick Reaction – Trump won  . . . "And he didn’t immediately counterattack on Bill Clinton’s sexual abuse and harassment and Hillary’s complicity. He waited, whether deliberately or not, until Hillary repeatedly attacked him on the tape and the moderators seemed to have to pull it out of him.

"But when he did attack, because he didn’t do it immediately, laid out the case against Bill and Hillary quite well." . . .

National Review

Andrew C. McCarthy: Trump’s Special-Prosecutor Promise Is Not a Criminalization of Politics

"The Obama Justice Department’s ‘investigation’ of Hillary Clinton was the real banana-republic event."

. . . "This is manifestly not a case of banana-republic criminalization of politics. Trump was not threatening to go after Clinton because she has the temerity to oppose him politically. He was committing to have a special prosecutor investigate Clinton for mishandling classified information, destroying government files, and obstruction of justice — criminal misconduct that has nothing to do with being a political adversary of Trump’s, and for which others who commit similar felonies go to jail." . . .
On a Bizarre Night, Trump Comes Through Okay  . . . "Moderator Martha Raddatz detests Donald Trump, didn’t hide it much at all, and she seemed to want to debate Trump herself. That was an exceptionally unwise approach to the role of moderator, in part because it validated his complaint from earlier in the evening that it would be “three on one." . . .

David French: Donald Trump Lives to Lose Another Day


Daily Caller:  An Aggressive Donald Trump Uses Debate To Show Critics He Isn’t Leaving Race  " . . .Sessions added. “I’d say the choice couldn’t be clearer. And I believe the Republican voters are going to see that, and I believe he’s going to see a big surge in his support among Republicans after this night.' ”

Here’s Who Won The Debate, According To The Internet  "The pollster Frank Luntz tweeted that 16 members of his focus group determined Trump the winner, while six of them thought Clinton was."

Trump Big Winner Over Three Opponents (Updates)

We are assembling more articles on the debate, but this one on Trump and the media should suffice for the moment. As always, cartoons added. TD

Update: Media Bias is Real: Docs Reveal Relationships Between Team Hillary and “Journalists” "In an exclusive report, The Intercept
 has published a series of documents that show how Hillary and her team worked closely with the media in order to coordinate messaging and showing Hillary in a positive light." . . .

"Hillary’s “reliable surrogates” in the media and in the Obama administration.  The Intercept reveals a list of those in the media and other “good progressive helpers”:  The list is here.

"Glitzy messaging parties for “friendly journalists” and “good progressive helpers' ”  "The Clinton campaign likes to use glitzy, intimate, completely off-the-recordparties between top campaign aides and leading media personalities. One of the most elaborately planned get-togethers was described in an April, 2015, memo — produced, according to the document metadata, by deputy press secretary Jesse Ferguson — to take place shortly before Clinton’s official announcement of her candidacy. The event was an April 10 cocktail party for leading news figures and top-level Clinton staff at the Upper East Side home of Clinton strategist Joel Benenson, a fully-off-the-record gathering designed to impart the campaign’s messaging:" . . .

Martha Raddatz called "worst moderator ever" by social media
"Martha Raddatz, who attended Obama’s wedding was a blatant pro-Hillary plant who made a complete fool of herself with her blatant bias and taking the place of Hillary on occasion and debating Trump herself."

federalistpapers

American Thinker  "Trump was smart to trust his instinct to fight and not follow the advice of all the pundits who said he had to grovel and not bring up the Bubba card. Trump brought four of Bill’s victims who were attacked and smeared by Hillary as part of the cover-up of “bimbo eruptions”. Trump also brought the woman who was the 12-year-old rape victim of a 41-year-old man represented by Hillary, who laughed about how she got the rape charge reduced.

"The presence of the women victims forced Hillary’s cheerleaders, the MSM, to acknowledge that these were victims of rape and sexual harassment, not “infidelities”, and that these were real people, not abstractions.

"It also forced Hillary to hesitate and act defensively. Bill did not look too well. The MSM wanted to talk about the Billy Bush (cousin of Jeb and GWB) tape but Trump took control by bringing Clinton’s victims to the debate, and by going on the attack about Hillary’s record. It was clear that Hillary is not used to being challenged vigorously.

"Trump apologized, but then went on the attack about Bill abusing women and Hillary abusing the women victims. This shook Hillary. She turned defensive and repeated her canned lines. Trump got to her when he said he would appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate her emails scandal, and that she would be in jail if he was in charge.

"Finally, we saw a Republican nominee who fights to win, and trusted his instincts instead of the advice of those who were never in the ring. We had Romney, who refused to challenge Candy Crowley when she stepped in to help Obama on Benghazi. We had McCain, who refused to use the Reverend Wright issue and even attacked his own supporters for using the name Barack Hussein Obama.

"The moderators were the usual MSM types that interrupted and argued with Trump. Trump did not back off, challenging both Raddatz and Cooper about why they interrupted him but not Hillary, and asking them why they did not ask Hillary about the emails.

"The bottom line is that Trump took control by bringing Clinton’s victims to the debate so that everyone could see that there are actual victims of Bill and Hillary.

"Trump apologized for his crude language, but did not grovel.  He set the tone and tempo, and clearly won against his three opponents."

fellowshipoftheminds