SHE DOESN’T LIE BECAUSE IT’S IN HER INTEREST, SHE LIES BECAUSE IT’S IN HER NATURE: Ron Fournier in The Atlantic: Why Can’t Hillary Stop Lying?

On Sunday, the former secretary of state told FOX News’ Chris Wallace that FBI Director James Comey cleared her of misleading the public about her rogue email server at the state department: “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain of the emails.”

That’s wrong and she knows it, which makes it a lie.

When someone goes for decades without consequences, they lose the ability to distinguish between lies and reality. It’s just, whatever works.

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MORE HUMILIATION FOR THE FBI: John Schindler on the FBI’s Chinese-Mole Problem.

It can’t be said that the FBI, which is already reeling from its dismal performance in the Hillary Clinton EmailGate scandal, looks good in any of this. Moles happen—they’re part of the SpyWar—but the rising pattern of betrayal by Chinese immigrants indicates that the Bureau got hit badly by a longtime employee who managed to act as Beijing’s mole for a half-decade. . . .

The FBI, like all of our intelligence agencies, employs numerous naturalized immigrants, some in very sensitive positions. In many cases, for instance language support, immigrants are invaluable to our intelligence efforts. However, immigrants also pose counterintelligence risks, particularly when they come from countries that actively seek to recruit their nationals abroad as spies. China is far from the only country to do this, but it heads that list, as the Chun case demonstrates yet again.

Political correctness is a factor too, and nobody wants to be accused of ethnic bias—or worse “racial profiling”—over molehunts. As with counterterrorism in the age of Obama, it’s worse for your counterespionage career to be accused of racism than to miss the mole right in your midst.

Disgraceful.

DEMOCRATS, STOP CHORTLING ABOUT YOUR UNEARNED MORAL SUPERIORITY: HILLARY’S AS BAD AS TRUMP.

DAN MARKEL UPDATE: Documents Reveal Wendi Adelson’s Odd Behavior After Murder Of Dan Markel.

METAPHOR ALERT: Hillary Clinton Swimsuit Mural Gets Burqa Makeover After Govt Claims It’s ‘Offensive.’

GEE, I WONDER WHAT THE COMMON ELEMENT IS FOR THE MEDIA? Our On-Again, Off-Again Respect for Grieving Parents in Politics.

THE HILL: GOP Confidence In Senate Majority Builds.

That makes sense, but it’s 2016, which means that the weirdest thing that can happen, is probably the thing that will happen.

BRAD TEMPLETON WORRIES ABOUT what comes after Trump.

If both parties do what they should have done already — address the reasons for Trump’s rise in terms of economic disadvantage and cultural contempt — there won’t be one. But then, they seem to have doubled down on both.

RED LINE REDUX: Rescuers say toxic gas dropped on Syrian town where Russian helicopter shot down.

A spokesman for Syria Civil Defence said 33 people, mostly women and children, were affected by the gas in Saraqeb, in rebel-held Idlib province.

The group, which describes itself as a neutral band of search and rescue volunteers, posted a video on YouTube apparently showing a number of men struggling to breathe and being given oxygen masks by people in civil defence uniforms.

Syria Civil Defence workers, who went to the scene of the attack, said they suspected the gas was chlorine but could not verify that.

“Medium-sized barrels fell containing toxic gasses. The Syrian Civil Defence was not able to determine the type of the gas,” said the spokesman.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies were not immediately available for comment.

Another “strong verbal response” may follow from the White House.

NOBODY TELL DONALD TRUMP ABOUT THIS: France Shuts Down Radical Mosques.

YES, THAT’S USUALLY HOW THESE THINGS END UP, SOONER OR LATER: In Venezuela’s Socialist Paradise, Workers Report To Labor Camps.

See also: 1917, 1933, 1949, 1975, etc.

JOHN HINDERAKER: How to Make Democrats Pay For Weak Foreign Policy. “The foreign policies pursued by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been disastrous, and yet both malefactors seem largely to have skated. That doesn’t mean, however, that Americans are happy with the dangerous policies they have pursued–and which have been resisted by essentially zero Democrats in Congress. This ad by Stewart Mills, a friend of mine who is running in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District against pedestrian incumbent Rick Nolan, beautifully illustrates how Democrats can be made to pay a price for Obama/Clinton fecklessness on foreign policy and immigration. The ad is titled ‘Syrians,’ but the Iran deal also figures.”

JOHN MCGINNIS: Progressives Mislead Because Their Coalition Is Fragile.

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YOU KNOW, MY MILITARY COUPS PAPER IS LOOKING MORE AND MORE TIMELY: Ret. Gen. John Allen Says Donald Trump Could Cause ‘Civil Military Crisis.’

UPDATE: From the comments: “Boy, that Trump sure is stoking fear!”

UH OH: Report: Leaked text messages demonstrate Mosby’s bad faith.

A SMALL BLOW FOR EQUALITY: Former Ivy League athlete suspended for alleged sexual assault wins important — and surprising — court victory.

Can a male student held responsible by a university for an alleged sexual assault successfully make the case that his fate was the result of sex discrimination against him?

Many have tried and many have failed. Indeed, some have been all but laughed out of court.

But now the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has opened the door to just such a scenario. Reversing a U.S. District Court decision, the panel ruled Friday that a former athlete’s suit against Columbia University, which suspended him for a year for “sexual assault: nonconsensual sexual intercourse,” may go forward based on his claim that university officials acted with anti-male bias, in violation of Title IX, the federal education law that bars discrimination by schools receiving federal funds.

It’s not a decision on the merits — the court did not say the student was a victim of gender bias. It simply ruled that he made a sufficiently plausible case that he may now go forward with a claim the district court judge in the case called “overwrought” and tossed out.

This surprising ruling could have major repercussions in other cases, most prominently the suit brought by former Yale University basketball player Jack Montague, who was expelled from Yale just shy of graduation for sexual misconduct. Montague is making the same argument, among others, in the same circuit.

“The courts are beginning to realize that they should not give the back of their hands to these kinds of cases,” Montague’s lawyer, Max Stern, told the Post. Will the ruling help his client’s claim? “Yes.”

Good.

JOURNALISM: Richmond Times-Dispatch fires food critic after plagiarism spree.

UPDATE: A reader emails: “Too bad about the plagiarizing food critic losing her job. Elizabeth Warren plagiarized a crab dip recipe for ‘Powwow Chow’ and ended up as a Harvard Law prof. and a United States Senator. Ethics are for the little people.”

REASON: Is SCOTUS a Good Reason to Support Trump? Libertarian and Conservative Legal Experts Weigh In. My contribution: “The future of the Supreme Court under Hillary is clearly dreadful: appointees would be to the left of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and probably corrupt to boot. Under Trump it’s unclear: His list of potential appointees actually looked pretty good, but with Trump you never know what he’ll actually do. So I’d say it’s a choice between certainly awful, and possibly awful.”

2016 in a nutshell!

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Hugh Hewitt: “In short, there is too much at stake to spend August fanning yourself and the fall fuming about foiled plans for a better nominee. It is Trump or Clinton. The choice is easy. If you have any doubts at all, take a course in Con Law. If Hillary wins, the casebook you use to do so will simply be a history book, not a guide to how the Supreme Court should decide things based on precedent.”

NATIONAL SECURITY RISK? It’s her.

JEFF GREENFIELD: Doubts Start Creeping In for Democrats: Outwardly confident about their numbers, party veterans admit that all bets may be off this year.

It’s 2016. The weirder something seems, the more likely it is to happen.

ELIMINATING THE MIDDLE MAN: This rare disease brews beer in your stomach.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Via Sebastian Thrun on Facebook.

I don’t think you’ll see many traditional universities making this offer.

MARYLAND PROSECUTOR CONFRONTS BLOWBACK: Baltimore’s Marilyn Mosby “failed in her bid to put six cops in prison in connection with the racially-charged death of Freddie Gray.” Hmmm. Who added the racial charging, Marilyn? And don’t call me names for asking that, madam. The question’s totally fair, especially with your 0 for six bomb out. And don’t you spew the word “privilege.” You were the prosecutor — you had the power and the privilege. Did one of your political buddies provide the racial charging, Marilyn? Listen to me, Marilyn. Here’s a chance for you to grow up and get sane. Like, no decent person ever said black lives don’t matter, Marilyn. That’s gospel. All lives matter, Marilyn. Are you down with that now?… OK, everybody else, read the entire article. This George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf fellow seems to be a very astute gadfly — and a gadfly that gets good results…An additional good result would be bye bye Marilyn Mosby in Maryland politics.