In piece ostensibly about the Critical Issue of whether Billy Bush can “recover” from laughing at Donald Trump’s piggishness 11 years ago, People Magazine buries the lede, big time. Namely: the network’s original plan was to edit Bush out of the tape:

“They could have released the tape and edited him out,” the source says of the individual that leaked the footage. “That was the plan — they were trying to approve it and then someone leaked it. That’s what Access Hollywood eventually did and they played it … but it was already out,” the source says and adds, “If they wanted to protect him, they could have edited it out which they did on the final Access piece that aired on Friday, but they left it in when it was leaked.”

(According to an NBC spokesperson: “There absolutely was never a consideration by NBC News to edit the tape.”)

Yeah, right.

What is the significance of this? Journalism, not Billy Bush and his future on the awful TODAY Show. If you’d asked 9 out of 10 Americans two weeks ago who Billy Bush was, they probably would have said it’s the president’s brother — you know, the one who makes his own beer. (That’s a joke for the over-40 crowd. Sorry, youngsters.) Nobody cares about Billy Bush. But what they should care about is journalistic standards. I was furiously banging this drum the other day:

Here’s the real thing Billy Bush and NBC News should be apologizing for: holding on to this information for so long.

Think about it. Billy Bush is a host of NBC’s TODAY Show. Let me make this very clear: the TODAY show is part of NBC News. Just to drive the point home, let me quote from NBC Universal’s own Web site:

NBC News is a global leader in news across all broadcast and digital platforms. Its leading and award-winning television news broadcasts include NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, TODAY, Meet the Press and Dateline, as well as primetime specials and breaking news reports.

Got that? What this means, ladies and gentlemen, is that a host of an NBC News program had game-changing information about a major-party candidate for the U.S. presidency and said nothing. Billy Bush knew Donald Trump had talked about sexually assaulting women on a regular basis. What’s more, he had this information since 2005 — meaning he had it since June 2015, when Donald Trump got into the race.

And he said nothing.

With the People Magazine article, we have our first real evidence that the institution of NBC News was trying to hide Bush’s direct involvement in the scandal, until somebody else scooped them. Specifically, NBC News (though they deny it) was planning to cover up the role that one of the hosts of one of their news programs played — in a key bit of news that has upended a U.S. presidential race.

Oh, sure, I hear you saying: TODAY is a crap news show, and Billy Bush is a minor nothing personality on that crap show. All true. To which I say: so what? Most news shows are crap shows. Are we going to now excuse journalistic malfeasance by a “news” organization just because that organization, or one of its shows, happens to be of shoddy quality?

Why, that would be like excusing one of Donald Trump’s lies just because we know that he lies all the time.

Wait a minute . . .

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

As we all know by now, Donald Trump today quintupled down on his antagonism toward Paul Ryan. Trump is back in his element: attacking Republicans. It’s what he does best. And The Hill reports that his right-hand man, campaign CEO Steve Bannon (formerly of Breitbart.com) once called for the political destruction of Paul Ryan:

On editorial conference calls, the Breitbart chairman would often say “Paul Ryan is the enemy,” according to a source who worked with Bannon at the news organization.

In December 2015, weeks after Ryan became Speaker, Bannon wrote in an internal Breitbart email obtained by The Hill that the “long game” for his news site was for Ryan to be “gone” by the spring.

. . . .

Bannon’s disregard for Ryan has been recorded in other reports, but this is the first time emails have emerged that showed him setting a timeframe for trying to get rid of the Speaker.

Bannon is now giving Trump advice as his campaign CEO.

A brief personal note: I know how Paul Ryan feels when Steve Bannon calls him “the enemy.” Steve Bannon once used those exact words about me.

I have told this story in more detail before, but in brief, I once criticized the Breitbart Web site for attempting to paper over a mistake and pretend it had never happened, rather than forthrightly acknowledging it. The next day, one of the staffers at Breitbart told me the following. I’ll remove some letters from the curse words . . . but they were not removed in the version of the message I received:

I was told by Bannon — with Larry listening — to tell you, from them
F**k you, go f**k yourself — you’re the enemy and a backstabber
And you’re dead to them
that’s a quote — and I was told to go tell you

Bannon at the time was the executive chairman of Breitbart News, and “Larry” is Larry Solov, the site’s co-founder.

So: having been the target of a screaming Steve Bannon rant myself, I can empathize with Paul Ryan.

Getting back to the Hill piece, I think my favorite part of the article is this passage:

“Bannon has Alex Jones-level paranoia about Paul Ryan,” the source said, referring to the right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist who runs the pro-Trump website Infowars.

“He goes on these amazing rants,” the source added of Bannon. “He thinks Paul Ryan is part of a conspiracy with George Soros and Paul Singer, in which elitists want to bring one world government.”

If you don’t know who Alex Jones is, by the way, he thinks Hillary Clinton is a demon from hell. And he’s rather passionate about it, as this video attests:

Really, watch the video. I’ve watched it several times. You’ll thank me.

I wonder if that’s what Steve Bannon looks like as he screams at Trump that Paul Ryan is the enemy.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

[guest post by Dana]

On ABC’s The View, Americans were provided an instructive moment to see just how dishonest and ugly feminist hacks are toward the victims of sexual assault, if the perpetrator is named Bill Clinton. It’s a sick irony that feminists continue to defend Clinton without batting an eye.

WHOOPI: Before the debate, uh, Donald Trump held a press conference with several women who have accused Bill Clinton of inappropriate sexual behavior with them, and then invited them to sit in the audience with them in the townhall. Uh…

BEHAR: Yeah.

Okay, let’s stop this blithering idiocy right here. Whoopi is accusing these women of having willingly slept with Bill Clinton:

1) Kathy Shelton, who was raped when she was 12-years old by 41-year old Thomas Alfred Taylor. She would require stitches, and would end up unable to have children. Hillary Clinton defended the rapist, and used the ugly “little bit nutty, little bit slutty” smear against the 12-year old victim. So good was she at her job, Taylor got off on a reduced charge of fondling a minor and a mere one-year stint in country jail for raping a child. Clinton was later caught on tape laughing “when discussing the crime lab’s accidental destruction of DNA evidence that tied Taylor to the crime”.

2) Juanita Broadrrick, who had been a nursing administrator in Arkansas, and in 1999, accused Bill Clinton of raping her in a hotel room in 1978:

Then he tries to kiss me again. And the second time he tries to kiss me he starts biting my lip … He starts to, um, bite on my top lip and I tried to pull away from him. And then he forces me down on the bed. And I just was very frightened, and I tried to get away from him and I told him ‘No,’ that I didn’t want this to happen but he wouldn’t listen to me. … It was a real panicky, panicky situation. I was even to the point where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling to ‘Please stop.’ And that’s when he pressed down on my right shoulder and he would bite my lip. … When everything was over with, he got up and straightened himself, and I was crying at the moment and he walks to the door, and calmly puts on his sunglasses. And before he goes out the door he says ‘You better get some ice on that.’ And he turned and went out the door.”

When asked if there was any way Clinton could have thought it was consensual, Broaddrick said “No, not with what I told him and with how I tried to push him away. It was not consensual.”[3]

3) Katlheen Willey was a White House volunteer who, in 1998, alleged that Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted her five years earlier during his first term of the presidency. Willey described the encounter with Clinton during an interview with Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes:

BRADLEY: And what happened next?

WILLEY: Well, he — he said he would do everything that he could to — to — to help, and I turned around and — out of the — out of the office, and he followed me to — I thought he was going to open the door to the — to the Oval office, and right as we got to the door, he stopped and he gave me a big hug and said that he was very sorry that this was happening to me.

And — I had — had no problem with that, because when I saw — every time I saw him, he would hug me.

He use — just does that, is like that.

And, I remember I had — still had this coffee cup in my hand, and it was kind of in between us, and I didn’t want it to spill on him or me, and — and it just was this — it was just very strange. And he — he took the coffee cup out of my hand and he put it on a bookshelf, and — and — he — this hug lasted a little longer than I thought necessary, but at the same time — I mean, I was not concerned about it. And then he — then he — and then he kissed me on — on my mouth, and — and pulled me closer to him. And — I remember thinking — I just remember thinking, “what in the world is he doing?” I — it — I just thought, “what is he doing?” And, I — I pushed back away from him, and — he — he — he — he — he’s a big man.

And he — he had his arms — they were tight around me, and he — he — he touched me.

BRADLEY: Touched you how?

WILLEY: Well, he — he — he touched my breasts with his hand, and, I — I — I — I was — I — I was just startled.

I was — I was just…

BRADLEY: This — this wasn’t an accidental grazing touch?

WILLEY: No.

And — then he — whispered — he — he — said in — in my ears that, “I — I’ve wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.” And — I remember — I remember saying to him, “aren’t you afraid that somebody’s going to walk in here?” The — and, he said — he said, “no. No, I’m — no, I’m not.” And — and then — and — and then he took my hand, and he — and he put it on him. And, that’s when I pushed away from him and — and decided it was time to get out of there.

BRADLEY: When you say he took your hand…

WILLEY: Right.

BRADLEY: … and put it on him…

WILLEY: Hum-hum.

BRADLEY: Where on him?

WILLEY: On — on his genitals.

BRADLEY: Was he a — aroused?

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: He was.

WILLEY: Yes.

BRADLEY: What were you thinking?

WILLEY: Well, I — I was — there was — I — there were all kinds of things going through my mind.

I — I think as — when I think back on it, it was kind of like I was watching it in slow motion, and — and thinking surely this is not happening. And, at the same time, I — I wanted to — I thought, “well, maybe I ought to just give him a good slap across the face.” And then I thought, “well, I don’t think you can slap the President of the United States like that.” And — and I just decided it was just time to get out of there.

BRADLEY: Did you say anything to him, or was there anything about your behavior that invited an advance?

WILLEY: I — I — I have gone over this so many times, so very many times, because I think that your natural instinct is to wonder, “Did I bring this on? Did I send a — a — the wrong signal?” The only signals that I was sending that day, was that I was very upset, very distraught, and I needed to help my husband.

BRADLEY: Did you feel intimidated?

WILLEY: I didn’t feel intimidated.

I just felt overpowered.

4) Paula Jones, an Arkansas state employee who sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment, claiming it took place in 1991 while Clinton was the Governor of Arkansas. Jones said of Clinton:

I do not respect a man who cheats on his wife, and exposes his penis to a stranger.

So my question to Whoopi The Liar is, which of these four women willingly slept with Bill Clinton? Which one, Whoopi, because you just lied against these women.

It’s a three minute clip of irrelevant women desperate to be relevant, and because they are unable to reason and think rationally, they end up shaming themselves. So dull are they and so limited is their mental acuity, they can only resort to a junior-high level of mean girl victim-shaming. Good thing they were preoccupied with defending Bill, because no doubt fat-shaming was on the table too. This insipidness culminates with Joy Behar referring to these four victims as “tramps”. But of course. What else do empowered women in 2016 call sexual assault victims?

“This is the thing though… if a woman sleeps with your husband, you’re not going to necessarily embrace them… That’s why when he brought up these allegations, I wonder if she [Hillary] missed the opportunity to address it in a way that the public would understand…” Hostin mused.

Behar disagreed, joking that there wasn’t much Hillary Clinton could say to the women.

Behar suggested the Democratic nominee could say: “’I would like to apologize to those tramps that have slept with my husband.’ Maybe she could have said that.”

This is what victims of sexual assault are in the world of Hillary-supporting feminists. Tramps. Hillary Clinton has demonstrated how to effectively discount, trash, and lie about female victims of sexual assault. Apparently that’s what a Champion of Women does. And that’s the lead the sickly sheep follow.

But hey, on the upside, I’m just breathing a sigh of relief because what if Bill Clinton had only boasted about grabbing these women by the p**** and not assaulted them? Then Whoopi and friends might have really had to step up and scold him for crossing the line.

–Dana

Oh, man. Yesterday’s NBC/WSJ poll showing Hillary up by 11 may not have been an outlier. A PRRI/The Atlantic poll also shows Trump getting his rear end handed to him, also by double digits (49-38):

With less than a month to go until Election Day, Donald Trump’s standing has plummeted with likely voters, falling from a dead heat just two weeks ago to a double-digit deficit behind Hillary Clinton, according to a PRRI/The Atlantic poll released Tuesday.

Clinton holds a 49-38 lead over the Republican. Two weeks ago, a previous PRRI/Atlantic poll found Trump and Clinton tied at 43-43. Following the first presidential debate in Hempstead, New York, the Democrat broke out to a 47-41 lead. She has now built on that lead.

Note that Hillary has built this huge lead from a tie two weeks ago.

The poll was conducted last Wednesday through Sunday — meaning that many of the respondents had not yet heard about the “grab them by the p***y” video or seen the debate. That . . . is probably not very good for Mr. The Donald.

After the NBC/WSJ poll came out yesterday showing an 11-point Trump lead for Hillary, a friend of mine I respect wrote me to say:

Take a look at the Sample of the LV [likely voters] in the NBC/WSJ poll.

The balance of Dem to Reps is pretty reflective of final result in just looking at Sample %s. Given the affective attachment Dems have to Dems, it’s not surprising that a sample that has 43% Dem ID and 36% Rep ID splits 49 to 42.

It’s not a particularly good sample, which is why there is a +/- 4.3% swing.

It’s a fair point. So when former Trump toady Joe Scarborough says yesterday’s NBC/WSJ poll was “cooked” — well, that might be overstating things a bit, but there are arguably issues with the sample. Whether this new poll suffers from the same defect was not immediately apparent to me from the details available in the poll’s official announcement. Maybe some data maven can drill down further on this issue in the comments.

We’ll probably know soon enough whether these polls are outliers. Right now, it just seems like it’s one piece of bad news for Donald Trump after another.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

Perhaps no Trump surrogate is more infamous for sticking with Donald Trump through thick and thin than Chris Christie. Yet Christie has remained silent about Trump’s “grab them by the p***y” comments — until now. Today, Christie has called the comments “completely indefensible” and says he would have apologized differently than Trump. But, because he is Chris Christie and therefore a repulsive toadie, he is quick to say he still supports Trump (unsurprising) and that he believes Trump is truly sorry (come on):

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie still supports Donald Trump even though he finds the Republican presidential candidate’s sexually aggressive comments “completely indefensible.”

Christie on Tuesday for the first time publicly addressed what Trump has described as “locker room talk” during an appearance on New York City sports radio station WFAN-AM.

In the 2005 recording released Friday, Trump is heard saying he can grab, kiss and “do anything” with women because he is famous. He has denied that he’s ever grabbed women without their consent.

Christie says he made it clear to Trump on Friday that kind of talk, even in private, is unacceptable and the candidate had to be contrite and apologetic.

Christie says he would have apologized differently, but he believes Trump is sorry and embarrassed.

Nobody believes Trump is truly sorry. Nobody. But when you’re a potential candidate for the highest law enforcement office in the land, apparently you have to regularly exercise your lying muscles to keep them in good working order. Just ask Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch. Bug-eyed Rudy got the jump on Christie this weekend, acting as Trump’s designated spokesliar on all the Sunday shows. Christie has some catch-up to do.

If I had to give Christie some advice, I would say: don’t go half-assed on us now, Chris. The whole “dignity” ship sailed long ago. Now is the time to show full-on loyalty. Just imagine you’re standing right behind Donald Trump and let your natural instinct for supplication take over.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]