Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Fight them, without becoming them!

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: We Knew It Was Too Good to Last…

Open Thread: We Knew It Was Too Good to Last…

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Yesterday:

Today:

*Sniff*

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210Comments

  2. 2.

    Trentrunner

    Pence still requires a funeral for whatever comes out of the P in the next few months.

  7. 7.

    Corner Stone

    One of the best parts of the logo fiasco was John Harwood on twitter scolding everyone to get their minds out of the gutter.

  8. 8.

    Redshift

    I suspect the story of the original logo is that Trump is too cheap to pay a graphic designer, and had an intern do it with Microsoft Shapes.

    (I don’t know if Microsoft Shapes is even a real thing, but it was one of their excuses for the Start of David debacle.)

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    Instead of, “Netflix and chill.” in Cleveland this week it could be, “How’s about a little T & P?”

  12. 12.

    pseudonymous in nc

    The T and P may no longer be fucking, but the leading and tracking is still fucked.

  13. 13.

    median

    OT: You froods saying Erdogan would consolidate power were absolutely right. BBC reports:

    Some 2,745 Turkish judges have also been dismissed in the wake of the coup, state media say.

    I mean, how can you have a small, failed military coup without the support of close to 3,000 judges? You’d need those judges because there weren’t enough soldiers — only 2,839 soldiers have been arrested.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36813924

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    Filing this one under blind-dog-finds-acorn, but back when the Orlando shooter was identified as a gym rat and body-builder I pondered whether he might have had ‘roid rage. Hmmmm.

  15. 15.

    The Thin Black Duke

    The Trump campaign is the Big Black Empty; a cold, remorseless void where creativity, nuance, empathy and intelligence goes to die.

  18. 18.

    Corner Stone

    For Floridians and others who have traveled to South Florida recently – are the algae blooms in the area of Key Largo or Islamadora?
    I see there are at least 44 blooms being reported but wanted to see if anyone actually nearby knew anything.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    After yesterday’s force 5 gales of laughter, even someone as blockheaded as Teh Donald knew that the logo had to change.

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    @The Thin Black Duke:
    How do we send them back to Mordor? Pence is the bloodless empty suit straight from central casting. Romney without the sparkling wit and billion dollars.

    Wonder if it’s occurred to Trump that he’s the second-richest Republican presidential nominee?

  21. 21.

    Glennis

    He wanted us to know how he was humbled by the shitstorm of internet hilarity that met that logo!

  23. 23.

    James E Powell

    Heading to my beloved hometown of Cleveland Ohio to be a Witness to Whatever. Based on recent Facebook posts, quite a few people I went to high school with are committed Trump or at least Trump curious. The most commonly cited reason is that they cannot vote for Hillary.

    Cannot understand the Hillary Hate, but it is flaming red in the suburbs. They tell me it’s Benghazi & emails, but I can show that they already hated her years before that.

  24. 24.

    Felonius Monk

    It was a one night stand for the T in the P

    That’s about par for Trump, isn’t it?

  25. 25.

    Jay S

    @Corner Stone: I suspect the logo was meant to troll the scolds so he could claim they had dirty minds. The real-racist smelt-it-dealt-it defense.

    Apparently it played well with Harwood?

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @James E Powell: They’ve been thoroughly propagandized by the Village who hated Bill and Hilz from the start for usurping the White House from Poppy, the man who issued pardons to IranContra figures to avoid them being flipped and fingering HIM. The Village has NEVER gotten over that.

    Wipe them out. All of them.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    @debbie:
    Once worked at an engineering firm with nearly a billion in annual sales and a corporate logo that simply had to have been done by a secretary with a Letraset sheet of rub-on Helvetica–the first letters of the two-word name, and just that. “Martha, after you type this dictation I want you to do us some letterhead and business cards.” Sad!

    They paid a design firm to refresh it for the 50-year anniversary and ended up approving a slightly shifted version of the same logo. Same color. Resistance to change is endemic.

  28. 28.

    Keith P.

    Did Trump intersperse his speech with periodic blurting out “I’m totally not gay.” I expected it

  30. 30.

    raven

    Gravity Research Foundation

    Self-made millionaire Roger Babson was a busy man. On top of predicting the stock market crash, running for president as a Prohibition Party candidate, and founding Babson College, he was also fighting a ceaseless battle to rid the Earth of the scourge of gravity.

  32. 32.

    gindy51

    @James E Powell: Learned behavior. They’ve been told she is dishonest and shady for 30 years. After hearing something like that for so long with out any opposing message, they’ve internalized it 100%.

  37. 37.

    hellslittlestangel

    Now it just looks more like an eye chart. Would it really kill Trump to have Pence’s name a little bigger? (Yes, probably.)

  38. 38.

    germy

    I haven’t smoked a cigarette in 28 years. But Pence said there’s no connection between smoking and cancer. I’m thinking of buying a carton and taking up the habit again.

    Why would he lie?

  41. 41.

    MattF

    @germy: Well, he pointed out that only a third of heavy smokers die of respiratory diseases, so it’s totally safe.

  42. 42.

    sigaba

    @trollhattan: I think every company my dad worked for in the 80s had a Letraset logo, either with bars above and below the name or a circle one side. To be hones though I’d prefer that sort of Paul Rand simplicity to the 3-D rendered abominations big corps have been sticking on their letterheads of late (viz. Xerox).

  43. 43.

    Corner Stone

    @MattF: Not always a big fan of EK but that write up was about 90% of how I saw Trump’s announcement today.

  45. 45.

    Redshift

    @James E Powell: A couple of days ago, Trump’s VP pick came up as a lunchtime topic of conversation among my 30-ish work friends (male, techies.) One of them, who was from New Jersey, was saying he hoped Trump wouldn’t pick Christie, because then he’d have to vote for Clinton. Otherwise he wasn’t going to vote for either (he probably doesn’t care enough to vote third-party.) The other talked about how Palin was so bad that he voted for Obama, once. (But I already knew he’s a libertarian, and votes that way.)

    I really wanted to ask them what the hell they think is so bad about Hillary that not even Donald Trump is enough to get them to vote for her. I don’t think I’d convince them to change their minds, but I’d kind of like to know. As an activist, I probably should, but I’m too non-confrontational, especially at work.

  46. 46.

    sigaba

    @Corner Stone: This whole business with having to compromise, pick one guy and then stick with it, and this guy isn’t totally under his thumb, has probably shaken Trump into the reality of what he’s gotten himself into.

    Like, this was one decision, where he didn’t have total control over everything, and he couldn’t just blow it off as a joke afterward, and now he realizes if he becomes president every day’s going to be full of nothing but that.

  48. 48.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @efgoldman: Thing is, being “high” implies that, at very the least, you’re enjoying the experience. Nobody at Trump HQ looks like they’re having any fun at all. Poor things.

  49. 49.

    germy

    ABC News reports that the Clinton campaign and the DNC will be hosting a “joint counter convention” during the same week. And based on past social media exchanges, the Clinton team will win, handily (Remember “Delete your account”?).

    The Clinton camp is sending “a full staff to Cleveland to troll the Republicans and fight back against every attack made against them throughout the week” ABC reports, and they will be using the hashtag #BetterThanThis, which already pops up on Twitter if you start to type it in.

    In addition to social media and fact checking, they will also be holding daily press conferences and press calls. Oh, and they have enlisted a long list of celebrities to help get the word out too, which, quite frankly, is a significantly better list than the actual RNC speaker list and guest list combined.

    ABC reports that some of the celebrities already slated to attend include: Sen. Al Franken, Rep. Tim Ryan, Rep. Marcia Fudge, Rep. Joyce Beatty, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, Rep. Xavier Becerra, Rep. Ruben Gallego, Rep. Joe Crowley, Rep. Bennie Thompson and former senior economic policy adviser to President Obama, Austan Goolsbee. I expect that this list will grow substantially by Monday.

  53. 53.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    @germy: they should send John Single with a couple of huge bodyguards so no Republican POS will mess with him(he does look a little frail.)

  55. 55.

    Shalimar

    There is no gold in either the original or circumcised logo. Does the intern who designed it have any idea who Donald Trump is?

  56. 56.

    germy

    @Baud: What… you don’t have a poster of Austan Goolsbee hanging in your room? I do!
    Right next to the All Things Must Past George Harrison poster.

  58. 58.

    hovercraft

    @germy:
    Trolling the gop convention is something that DWS and her team did well last time, I think she plopped herself in Tampa last time and just the shows all day. I doubt it changed minds but it kept the dems in the conversation during the convention.

  59. 59.

    Mai.naem.mobile

    The real reason Trump picked Pence is to get a product endorsement deal from the Koch brothers for one of their paper products : TP of course.

  63. 63.

    germy

    @hovercraft: Is DWS involved this time? Or have they put her in a room somewhere to lick envelopes?

    Trump refused to address the NAACP. He turned down their invitation. I suppose he feels the Blacks love him so much his appearance would be redundant.

  65. 65.

    aimai

    Can anyone tell me how to watch the Trump convention ONLY with serious democratic and comedic support? I simply can’t tolerate the regular news coverage anymore–haven’t seen anything our President or Hillary have done or said in years except on youtube or twitter links to brief things. I can’t take the talking heads. But I would like to see coverage of the Republican convention, and later I’d like to actually watch the DNC without having to deal with the morons “explaining” and talking over the people I want to see. How do I do that? Should I just watch Cspann? I wish the Democrats could just live stream the entire thing the way they want to show it. I’d watch that.

  66. 66.

    trollhattan

    @germy:
    I’ll be happy to bring out the good governor to Washington state, where we can disinter my father and discuss all the other possible causes of the massive tumors in his lungs and brain. Those cigarette rations they provided our fighting men sure paid off.

  68. 68.

    hovercraft

    @Major Major Major Major:
    An AIDS / HIV epidemic is Gods way of telling them they should have just said no. I’m sure the moral superiority will be worth the additional cost of managing the healthcare costs of the epidemic.

  70. 70.

    germy

    @trollhattan: And Boehner worked tirelessly for the tobacco lobby as well.
    Pence, Boehner… People like them shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near government.
    And yet here we are.

  72. 72.

    hovercraft

    @germy:
    Well he is polling at 0 yes that’s zero in two states with blacks, it’s love on the down low, but we’ll come out of the closet in November.
    As to DWS I assume that now that Bernie has endorsed she’ll be let out of her broom closet.

  73. 73.

    germy

    @aimai: I expect Samantha Bee will be showing highlights from the R convention (with appropriate commentary).

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    This is what Driving While Black looks like.
    ……………………………………

    The Driving Life And Death Of Philando Castile
    July 15, 20164:51 AM ET
    Heard on Morning Edition

    Philando Castile’s trouble with traffic stops began when he still had his learner’s permit. He was stopped a day before his 19th birthday.

    From there, he descended into a seemingly endless cycle of traffic stops, fines, court appearances, late fees, revocations and reinstatements in various jurisdictions.

    Court records raise big questions: Was Castile targeted by police? Or was he just a careless or unlucky driver?

    An NPR analysis of those records shows that the 32-year-old cafeteria worker who was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb, was stopped by police 46 times and racked up more than $6,000 in fines. Another curious statistic: Of all of the stops, only six of them were things a police officer would notice from outside a car — things like speeding or having a broken muffler.

    The records show that Castile spent most of his driving life fighting tickets. Three months after that first stop, for example, his license was suspended and he went into his first spiral: Police stopped him on Jan. 8, 2003. They stopped him on Feb. 3 and on Feb. 12 and Feb. 26 and on March 4.

  76. 76.

    Corner Stone

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I heard that Jon Stewart is covering the convention for Colbert

    I’d be just as happy if Jon Stewart stayed not on any media outlet, anywhere. I tried to watch some of the interview he did with Axelrod after Stewart retired. It was garbage. The man is a complete garbage compactor for political sense.

  77. 77.

    hovercraft

    @aimai:
    c-span for the coverage sans the talking heads, and the guardians live blog of events, they often post funny tweets along the way. Also I saw that twitter itself will be covering both conventions, so that mat be interesting.

  78. 78.

    Jeffro

    @Corner Stone:

    Instead of, “Netflix and chill.” in Cleveland this week it could be, “How’s about a little T & P?”

    I’m dyin’

    Leave it to the Repubs, they’re always good for a new dirty euphemism: a little ‘wide stance’, a bit of a ‘hike on the Appalachian Trail’, some ‘T in P’, a ‘triple decker’…

    …wait, that last one was Christie consoling himself at lunch today…

    …still, they’re just outstanding with this stuff. Family values and all that.

  79. 79.

    Corner Stone

    @hovercraft:

    Well he is polling at 0 yes that’s zero in two states with blacks, it’s love on the down low, but we’ll come out of the closet in November.

    I don’t know if you may have seen the black man with Diversity for Trump on MSNBC? He was asked by Alex Witt how could Trump be polling at zero? And the man actually said, he actually said, “Probably because they aren’t asking actual black folks.”
    And I was like…isn’t that the fucking definition of “polling”?
    His eyes shifted to his left every time he started speaking so I can only surmise as a body language expert that he knows how hard he is lying.

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    What it’s like to be black in Naperville, America

    Editor’s note: Brian Crooks moved to Naperville when he was in the 5th grade; his parents still reside here. On Saturday, he wrote a Facebook post about his experiences being an African-American living in America that has since gone viral and has elicited hundreds of comments from people around the world. Because of its length, we’re publishing excerpts here. To read the entire post, go here.

    The first time I was acutely aware of my Blackness, I was probably 6 or 7 years old. Like, before then obviously I knew I was Black, but I hadn’t really had it put in my face like this until I was about 6 or 7. I used to go to daycare back then, and we went on a field trip to a water park one time. One of the other boys from the daycare came up to me and told me he was surprised I was going on the trip because his dad told him all colored people were afraid of the water since we sink to the bottom. He didn’t know he was being offensive. He was just curious why someone who would sink to the bottom would want to go to a water park.

    •••

    From elementary school through middle school, I can’t remember how many times the White kids asked if they could touch my hair. I’m not kidding when I say it happened pretty much once a week at least. At first, it didn’t bother me. But eventually I felt like an exhibit in a petting zoo. And I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain to them that it was really weird that they kept asking to touch my hair all the time. See, I was a pretty shy kid. I was the only Black one, I was overweight, and I’d moved three times before I turned 10. So, rather than tell the White kids that no, they couldn’t rummage through my hair, I just said yes and sat there quietly while they marveled at how my hair felt.

    ………………………………………………..

    I got pulled over a lot in high school. Like, a lot a lot. By this point, I was no longer driving the Dodge. I had a Mazda of my own. It was flashy and loud, but this was 2002 and everybody with a Japanese car was doing a Vin Diesel impression, so it’s not like mine stood out that much more than anyone else’s. I spent a ton of money on my car and was especially aware of its appearance. You can understand, then, why it was weird that I was routinely pulled over for a busted taillight. After all, that’s the kind of thing I would’ve noticed and gotten fixed, especially if that taillight tended to burn out once a week or so. My parents had told me how to act when pulled over by the police, so of course I was all “Yes sir, no sir” every time it happened. That didn’t stop them from asking me to step out of the car so they could pat me down or search for drugs, though. I didn’t have a drop of alcohol until I was 21, but by that point I was an expert at breathalyzers and field sobriety tests. On occasion, the officer was polite. But usually, they walked up with their hand on their gun and talked to me like I’d been found guilty of a grisly homicide earlier in the day. A handful of times, they’d tell me to turn off the car, drop the keys out the window, and keep my hands outside the vehicle before even approaching.

    ……………………………

    I’ve never had a Black boss. I played football from middle school through senior year of high school and only had one Black coach in that whole time. Not just head coaches, I’m talking about assistants and position coaches. I’ve had two Black teachers in my entire life. One was for my Harlem Renaissance class, and one was for my sign language class. I’ve never been to a Black doctor, or a Black dentist. I’ve never been pulled over by a Black police officer. What I’m trying to explain is that, in 31 years, I’ve seen three Black people in a position of authority. Think about what that does to the psyche of a growing young man. I remember being excited just a few years ago when we started to see Black people in commercials without there being gospel or hip hop music in the background (remember that McDonald’s commercial where the little kid was pop-locking with the chicken McNuggets?).

    •••

    When we say “Black Lives Matter,” understand what that actually means. We aren’t saying that ONLY Black lives matter. We’re saying “Black lives matter TOO.” For the entirety of the history of this country, Black lives have not mattered. At a minimum, they haven’t mattered nearly as much as White lives. If a Black person kills another Black person, and we have it on tape, the killer goes to jail. If a White police officer kills a Black person and we have it on tape, the entire judicial system steps up to make sure that officer doesn’t go to jail.

    That is why Black people are in such pain right now. The deaths are bad enough. But having the feeling that nobody will ever actually be held accountable for the deaths is so much worse. And then watching as the police union, the media, and conservative politicians team up to imagine scenarios where the officer did nothing wrong, and then tell those of us who are in pain that our pain is wrong, unjustified, and all in our heads just serves to twist the knife.

    If you read all this, I really, really want to say thank you. I know it was a lot to get through. But this is real. This is me. This is what my life is and has been. And I’m not alone.

  81. 81.

    jacy

    Still looks like a freaking eye chart. One from a cut-rate, fly-by-night optometry joint. Perhaps one run by Rand Paul…..

  83. 83.

    hovercraft

    @Corner Stone:
    I just saw that, it cracked me up. The republicans keep making the mistake of thinking that if we see a black person supporting him, we will too.
    Ari and his guests were making fun of the logo, consensus that Trump’s campaign is staffed by B-listers. I think that’s an insult to the B-listers, these are F-listers.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    The right to bear arms has mostly been for white people
    Gun laws, historically, weren’t colorblind.
    July 15

    When Philando Castile, a black man legally carrying a concealed weapon, was shot dead by police during a traffic stop in Minnesota this month for no apparent reason other than that he was armed, it might have seemed odd that the National Rifle Association failed to rally behind the case. The Second Amendment protects everyone’s right to bear arms, not just white people’s, right?

    By the light of the law, the answer is easy: The Constitution prohibits racial discrimination in all rights, including the right to bear arms. By the light of history, however, the answer is far more complicated. From America’s earliest days, the right to bear arms has been profoundly shaped by race. Indeed, for much of our history, the right’s protections extended almost exclusively to whites.

  87. 87.

    dmsilev

    @hovercraft:

    The republicans keep making the mistake of thinking that if we see a black person supporting him, we will too.

    Wasn’t that the theory behind the “Alan Keyes for Senate” comedy tour of 2004?

  88. 88.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Here’s a “Separated At Birth?” entry for ya: Mike Pence & this bozo, whose only real claim to national office was that he looked like what voters expected a President to look like..96 years ago.

    e.e. cummings penned one of the nastiest epitaphs in recorded history in that earlier nimrod’s (dis)honor:

    the only man woman or child who wrote
    a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical
    errors “is dead”
    beautiful Warren Gamaliel Harding
    “is” dead
    he’s
    “dead”

    (from W [ViVa] (1931) XVII)

    Um, yeah…”He’s dead, Jim.”

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    @jacy:

    I heard that piece yesterday. Heartbreaking. Just. no. words.

    It adds even more context to the traffic stop that cost him his life.
    There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that I believe that Mr. Castile did ANYTHING other than what the cop told him to do.

    And, he murdered him anyway.

  91. 91.

    Major Major Major Major

    @rikyrah:

    stopped by police 46 times and racked up more than $6,000 in fines. Another curious statistic: Of all of the stops, only six of them were things a police officer would notice from outside a car

    Well. I can think of one thing a police officer could notice from outside a car that they might be leaving out.

  92. 92.

    Keith P.

    If they were really clever, they’d drape the P over the T so that the loop in the P acts as Trump’s combover.

  93. 93.

    Shalimar

    Do they really think circumcising the original logo is going to make the T stop thinking about sex? I do not think that is how that works.

  94. 94.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @trollhattan: Many commenters mention ‘Roid Rage when cops-shooting-people-for-apparently-no-good-reason comes up, but I don’t recall seeing it discussed in the press. But it does make one wonder … :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    Yalini Dream has been writing about MIA and her comments on BLM. This is from her FB page:

    Black peoples have been showing solidarity with me as a person of Sri Lankan Tamil descent without even having to know a damn thing about Sri Lanka since I was a child. From teaching me to ignore racist bullies and recognize the beauty of my beautiful brown skin. From embracing me when I was outcast from Tamil communities for being too feminist & Queer. To the Black peoples on all the dance floors whose vibrations saved my life, who gave my body a language to articulate what I felt before my mind learned the language.

    To the Black artists who nurtured my poetic voice when racist professors broke my heart saying I was a bad writer. To the brothers on the corner who stopped calling me India and started calling me Sri Lanka. From the Black political thought that liberated me from my own self-hatred. To the Black Arts Movements that gave me space to write, stages to perform on, unlocked my ancestral wisdom and granted me access to a rich Black Arts legacy of shifting humanity.

    To the Black healers who taught me the remedies of genocide and intergenerational trauma, to every Black person who facilitated me connecting the dots, who taught me what solidarity looked like & felt like, who taught me the mechanics of base building, who told me to keep my head up when I was spiraling down, to the Black peoples who made me relevant when I finally went back to my war ravaged homelands in the north & east of Sri Lanka equipped with the tools & wisdom of a young woman schooled by Black America, to the Black entrepreneurs who employed me after years of barely living above broke.

    So yes I am in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Yes I will sweat and work and fight and love and heal and rage for this movement. As a feminist/Queer artist of Sri Lankan Tamil Descent raised in empire, it’s the least I could do.

  98. 98.

    NR

    Well the Pence pick has gone over like a lead balloon with the hard-core Sanders supporters on Reddit. Several of them who were previously strongly considering voting for Trump have now said there is absolutely no way they will vote for him now. They’re going third-party instead. Make of it what you will.

  101. 101.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:
    Ain’t that the truth, it’s important that posts like this and the number of stops of Philando Castile go viral and generate discussion. Driving while black and stop and frisk are two of the leading causes of police interaction, and it is often during these interactions that things go terribly wrong.
    Stop pulling us over for no reason and you will have fewer instances of dealing with an ‘angry black person’. This shit gets old fast, and sometimes despite having heard the “talk” our whole lives, we’re just not in the mood to deal with the shit. Unfortunately for us that may be reason enough to end our lives.

    When I say angry, I mean irate, annoyed, not at their most pleasant, anything that is not ones most pleasant deferential demeanor can be construed as ‘angry black’.

  103. 103.

    NR

    @efgoldman: Laugh all you want, but the Pence pick is definitely going to make it considerably harder for Trump to pick up disaffected Sanders supporters. Whether it will help him enough with the Republican base to offset that remains to be seen. I don’t think it will. I think the CW about the pick is wrong. I think it’s a bad pick.

  108. 108.

    MattF

    @NR: Given that the other choices were Noot and Christie… Some people just aren’t paying attention.

  109. 109.

    hovercraft

    @dmsilev:
    And Micheal Steele as head of the RNC, and Sarah Palin, and Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott, Susanah Martinez, and Brian Sandoval, and Cruz and Rubio, if they just put one of those people on the ticket or in front of us we will ignore their principles and just vote for the figurehead who still holds the same abhorrent views but looks like us. For some reason it has yet to work despite the talking heads telling us that we will be swayed.

  110. 110.

    rikyrah

    GOP convention organizers apologize to Sheldon Adelson

    A letter to the billionaire donor misrepresented how many corporations had bailed on pledge donations because of Trump.
    07/15/16 04:50 PM EDT

    CLEVELAND — The last-minute plea for $6 million from Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson to rescue the Republican convention has erupted in controversy, as four of the five signatories to the letter from party organizers never saw it before it was sent and major donors flagged serious errors that forced the convention hosts to apologize to one of the GOP’s most influential financiers.

    The episode has opened a window into a host committee that is scrambling and still millions shy of its fundraising target, only days before tens of thousands of Republicans arrive in Cleveland, as it acknowledges for the first time that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has put a damper on donations.

    The letter, obtained by POLITICO on Thursday, outlined two dozen major corporations — Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Duke Energy and Apple, among them — that it claimed had backed out a combined more than $8.1 million in pledged donations in recent months.

    But on Friday, Emily Lauer, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland 2016 Host Committee, acknowledged to POLITICO that the list of lost donors in the letter to Adelson was inaccurate — and that the committee has now reached out to Adelson’s aides to apologize.

    “Some of what were referred to as pledges were actually expectations based on pledges made to previous conventions, while a handful had been withdrawn,” David Gilbert, the CEO of the host committee, said in a prepared statement.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    @hovercraft:

    Cruz and Rubio

    They had two perfectly odious Latinos to choose from and they went with the odious white guy.

    @NR: They’re right about that.

  113. 113.

    NR

    @Baud: Which is why I don’t understand the pick. Out of all the GOP base groups that Trump has been having problems with, evangelicals weren’t one of them. It’s bizarre.

    The only thing I can think is that he did it to quell a delegate revolt.

  114. 114.

    Baud

    @efgoldman: Well, sure. But they weren’t in the running. I suppose Newt and Christie would have been seem as less focused on social issues than Pense.

  115. 115.

    Baud

    @NR: It’s possible since Cruz was leading the revolt. He’s also getting lauded in the media over this pick, so there’s that.

  119. 119.

    NR

    @Baud: True. On the other hand, the Hillary camp has been pretty good about getting in front of the race to define Pence. I saw someone say yesterday that the first thing they ever heard about Pence was that he said cigarettes don’t kill people. Not exactly a great introduction.

  123. 123.

    MattF

    @efgoldman: Y’know… I said that once– I was in a group that had just exited a miserably badly done seminar in a basement classroom. The elevator had just arrived at the basement floor, and someone cheerfully said “Going up?” It was not a positive experience.

  124. 124.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Baud: immunity for cigarette manufacturers!

    The law saying you can’t advertise cigarettes on tv is unconstitutional!
    What about my God-given right to candy-flavored cigarettes like the founders intended?

  126. 126.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @rikyrah: When you give two totally contradictory orders in immediate succession: “Don’t Move” and “Show your ID” there was no way Castile could win.

  128. 128.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: Well, I guess I’m guilty of “identity politics” in that I identify with the more intelligent candidate.

  130. 130.

    hovercraft

    @MattF: @efgoldman:
    I’m pretty sure that this is kind of like Trump and his base, but in reverse, we know all about him and have for a long time. It’s one of those things that people know about through osmosis or something, he like an urban myth, over the years when his name came up people would say he’s a racist, people just know it even if they don’t know the details. So his upside is pretty low, I would not be surprised to see Hillary match Obama’s numbers with the black vote. HUD and Central Park 5 don’t need to be explained to black people.

  132. 132.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    From the Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste file, Erdogan fired 2700 judges today:

    Summary

    Turkish government begins crackdown on those suspected of involvement in the attempted coup

    President’s bureau puts total death toll at 265, including 161 civilians and 104 coup “plotters”

    Nearly 3,000 soldiers are under arrest and some 2,700 judges are fired for alleged links to the coup

    Turkey’s PM Binali Yildirim says the action was a “black stain on Turkish democracy”

    Cross-party politicians condemn the plot at an emergency session of parliament

    Mass arrests after failed Turkey coup

    This is a disaster for any pluralistic future for Turkey.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    There are yet officially uncommitted delegates. You could still show up on the final tally.

    Springboard (springbaud?) for future elections!

  134. 134.

    Emma

    OK, I just started to read the Ezra Klein article someone linked to upthread. Just a few paragraphs in and I had to come back here for verification. For real? For real,they were playing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”?!

  137. 137.

    pseudonymous in nc

    @sigaba:

    This whole business with having to compromise, pick one guy and then stick with it, and this guy isn’t totally under his thumb, has probably shaken Trump into the reality of what he’s gotten himself into.

    Tr*mp doesn’t like to settle. And that’s going to niggle throughout, and it’s why they’re not going to campaign together much. “Hey, Donald, what’s it like having to settle?” “Hey, Mike, what’s it like being the ‘do I have to?’ choice?” But Pence is going to be asked about every time Tr*mp goes off script and makes a pledge to, say, appoint the current Miss Universe as UN Ambassador.

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    Only thing I can immediately figure from the Pence pick is that it might be an attempt (however clumsy) to assuage Mormon disaffection with Trump.

  142. 142.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    :)

    With a brightly colored and prominent placard on the lectern spelling out BJ’s URL, one would hope.

  144. 144.

    MattF

    @NotMax: But… y’see… there’s a pretty specific reason for Mormon unhappiness with Trump– his attitude to religious minorities. They’re a bit sensitive about that.

  145. 145.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:
    Could move the needle with them, time will tell but for now he may well lose Utah, which is some kind of Trump-size achievement right there.

    We (you lot and me) need to chill the fvck out the next three weeks. Republicans will get some kind of post-convention bounce, as Jesus commands, then it’s the Dem’s turn. Watch no polls until after all that. I mean it, people! [brandishes canned ham menacingly]

  146. 146.

    NotMax

    @efgoldman

    99% sure the campaign received a cease and desist demand from the Stones some time back. If so, they’re now wide open to being sued.

  147. 147.

    Timurid

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    Because letting 2,700 random civilian officials in on your cunning plan is the way to maintain the element of surprise… then again, considering how badly they dicked this up… who knows?

  149. 149.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Emma:

    Royalties are for the little people.

    I’m sure Mick and Keef’s lawyers don’t think so.

  150. 150.

    trollhattan

    @efgoldman:
    Today’s Wait…Wait had a music bumper following a question about an artificial butt being used to train colonoscopy techs: the first few bars of the Doors’ version of “Back Door Man.” My family thought I’d lost it during my reaction.

  151. 151.

    NotMax

    @trollhattan

    No panic at all. There are always post-convention bumps. Then the Olympics in August will fill the doldrums of that month. Polling post-Olympics is when more interest to polling trends should be paid (but not any conclusion that they are ipso facto definitive, of course).

  153. 153.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Baud: During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Mr. Stevenson “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!” Stevenson called back “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”

  155. 155.

    D58826

    Turkey’s leader Endogan is demanding that this cleric up in the Pocono’s be extradited back to Turkey. In the meantime the power has been shut off at Incirlik airbase.

    Given this and all of the other things that have happened over the past few years one would think that the Bush family would be backing ‘old littler hands’ for President. After all if ‘old little hands’ by some miracle is elected it would mean that W would no long be the worst president in the history of the universe.

  156. 156.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax:
    Speaking if Zika, the US just reported our first known case of female-to-male transmission. NOW congress will pay attention–just you watch.

  157. 157.

    MattF

    @D58826: Note that the cleric in question is an American citizen and is considered a moderate by the various intel agencies.

  160. 160.

    D58826

    @MattF: (sigh). every time you think it can’t get any worse. Even though ‘old little hands’ is certainly establishing a base line that will be pretty hard to beat.

  161. 161.

    Redshift

    @Baud: Or disagree with him publicly. Trump only hires yes-men. Newt and Christie are suck-ups, but they have opinions of their own, and since they have fans in the political media, they’re going to be asked about stuff. Nobody thinks Pence is interesting enough.

    The “party unity” remark was interesting, though. To me, that along with some other leaks conveyed that Trump was seriously pressured by the professional campaign types to pick Pence (though he couldn’t have had a very strong preference for someone else, or he would have ignored them. Or fired them.)

  163. 163.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I don’t quite believe this was a false-flag operation, but I do think it’s quite possible that it was the equivalent of entrapment: Prod dissenting younger officers into plotting a coup, encourage them with supposed support from other power centers, then pull the plug when they think the time has come. I certainly wouldn’t put it past that motherfucker Erdogan.

  164. 164.

    Redshift

    I also suspect that even Trump was capable of seeing that Newt and Christie were the latest in a long line angling for “Trump’s gonna flame out sooner or later, and then I’ll be the winner!”

  166. 166.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @D58826:

    In the meantime the power has been shut off at Incirlik airbase.

    Wait, what?

  167. 167.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @NotMax: By selecting someone who once described himself as “a born-again, evangelical Catholic–?? How in the billyblueblazes is that supposed to reassure Mormons??

    Just another gem of whizdumb from Trump the Stumpfingered…

  168. 168.

    MattF

    American top brass is unhappy with Trump:

    At the Pentagon, interviews with more than a dozen top generals revealed alarm over many of Mr. Trump’s proposals for the use of American power, even among officers who said privately that they lean Republican. While no serving officer interviewed was willing to speak publicly about Mr. Trump — reasons ranged from wanting to maintain a distance between the military and politics to not wanting to criticize a potential commander in chief — a number of top-ranking admirals and generals said the military is governed by laws and rules of engagement that are far stricter than politicians may realize.

    And justifications that troops would be “following orders” are unlikely to sway war-crimes courts, they said.

    “We remember the Nuremberg trials,” said Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, now retired, who was in charge of training the Iraqi Army in 2003. “Just following orders is not going to cut it.”

    Quoted from an NYT article.

  169. 169.

    D58826

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:

    WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) – The United States is working with Turkish officials to resume air operations at Incirlik Air Base “as soon as possible” after the Turkish government closed its airspace to military aircraft after a coup attempt, the Pentagon said on Saturday.

    “In the meantime, U.S. Central Command is adjusting flight operations in the counter-ISIL campaign to minimize any effects on the campaign,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

    “U.S. facilities at Incirlik are operating on internal power sources and a loss of commercial power to the base has not affected base operations,” he said.

    from huffington

    And there are supposed to be tactical nukes at the base.

  170. 170.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @trollhattan: It’s the clumsy, brain-dead missteps like this from Trump, Inc. that make me cautiously optimistic about our chances in November. Although the news media is going to do it’s damnest to put their thumb on the scale, it won’t be able to hide the ugly reality that Trump really isn’t very good at this. As much of a fuck-up as Dubya was, he knew the things he needed to do win a political campaign. Trump is the idiotic Emperor with No Clothes who just pissed on himself.

  171. 171.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Uncle Cosmo: It’s a pretty good play. Cajole dissenters to move too quickly without adequate support, then cut them off and flush all the potential troublemakers into the open.

    Edrogan is high if he thinks he’s going to get the US to extradite Gulen for “being mildly anti-Edrogan”. Last time I checked there is no law in this country that falls in that general area.

  173. 173.

    Tazj

    @Uncle Cosmo: This is my feeling, and Putin is also involved. Granted this is based on what little I’ve read about Turkey, I’m certainly not well informed about the subject. I’ve just seen pictures showing men beating up young soldiers. I feel like the young soldiers were between a rock and a hard place. Maybe the men felt like they were protecting their country and family. Just a horrible situation all around.

  174. 174.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MattF: US Flag Officers, most appropriately, will not openly speak about these things. The fact that they have done so even under conditions of anonymity is remarkable.

    The officer corps is inculcated with this attitude from very early on, as Omnes can confirm. Even inside the clubhouse, it’s not considered to be wise to voice political preferences and something of a breach of etiquette to do so.

  175. 175.

    TriassicSands

    Trump finally said something I agree with.

    Talking about his winning the GOP’s nomination he said, “Our (meaning his) message is unbelievable.”

    Yes, Donald your message is unbelievable. Or is that unbelievabull?

    Do you know that Trump got more votes in the primaries in 2016 than Ike got in 1956 (when the population of the US was 168.9 million compared with 322 million today)? Again, incredibull.

  177. 177.

    Suzanne

    @MattF: Mormons don’t like Trump for lots of reasons. Multiple marriages and cheating, uncouth and offensive public behavior, etc. There’s a reason there aren’t that many LDS New York and New Jersey—the cultural propensity for “real talk” and the kind of aggressiveness that are just more common and accepted there are absolutely Not Okay for Mormons. Mormons are often conflict-avoidant to an extreme level and have a high cultural value on cheer and placidness that Mittens clearly epitomized.

  178. 178.

    Rob

    @D58826 4:17 pm:

    I read that electricity was cut off to Incirlik Air Base at one point today. For any people there in the 95 degree weather (and I think people live there) that would be pretty rough.

  180. 180.

    Ninedragonspot

    For what it’s worth, there’s a colorful, rather appropriate, anagram for “Trump/Pence”. It is, however, extremely vulgar – so I will leave it as an exercise for the interested reader. First word is “Mr.”, second word begins with “P” and ends in “T”. The result is mildly Dickensian.

  182. 182.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    Are they officially in recess, or are they continuing with that farcical piece of theatre that has someone go in each day for two minutes to prevent Obama from making recess appointments?

  183. 183.

    Gelfling 545

    @Baud: I wondered about that. It’s not like there were any reasonable, moderate, statesman-like candidates for Trump to choose from.

  187. 187.

    Carl W

    @NotMax: Here’s an interesting WaPo article on whether the Rolling Stones can legally stop Trump from using their songs at rallies.

    IANAL (and probably neither is the reporter), but it looks like the answer is “maybe not” (because licensing would go through ASCAP or BMI, so the artist has less control). (On the other hand, they could stop the campaign from using their songs in ads… that licensing is handled differently.)

    Of course, that says nothing about the court of public opinion.

  188. 188.

    Brachiator

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Saw an interesting article about Hillary hate this morning.

    Great links, including the “Hating Hillary” piece by Henry Louis Gates. He’s right that no one person could possibly embody all the traits of villainy that hard core Hillary haters ascribe to her.

    Of course, Bill and Hillary are twin stars and one can launch a probe of hate towards one and attach the plume of antipathy that is kicked up to the other. It doesn’t matter that the antipathy is unearned or overstated. It’s always there waiting to be tapped into.

    Even so, I think there may be limits to the power of this stuff. Despite all the bashing of Berniebros, much of the polling I’ve seen indicates that younger people are less inclined to be influenced than older folks.

  189. 189.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @D58826:

    And there are supposed to be tactical nukes at the base.

    Not supposed to be. Are. B61 gravity bombs.

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Key mission critical systems will have generator backup.

    Yeah. I’m not nearly as worried about the base itself as the fact that this is happening. My first thought was that it’s an attempt to pressure us to turn over Gülen, but it looks like a couple of TuAF planes took off from Incirlik and participated in the revolt?

  190. 190.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Rob: See #151 supra–base is on internal power, operations not affected.

    I gather this is some sort of power play (all hail inadvertent puns!) by Erdogan to try & force the USA to hand over PA resident Fethullah Gülen so he can be murdered under a figleaf of due process. Our response may have been delayed while they dig up someone at Foggy Bottom who knows the Turkish equivalent to “Go pound sand.”

  191. 191.

    Luthe

    @trollhattan: I once laughed til I cried (while driving!) at a Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me story. It was about a spa in Iceland where men kept scorching their scrota in the hand dryers trying to get their dangly bits dry and the music tag was “Great Balls of Fire.”

  192. 192.

    Brachiator

    @NR:

    Laugh all you want, but the Pence pick is definitely going to make it considerably harder for Trump to pick up disaffected Sanders supporters.

    Trump was never going to pick up a significant number of Sanders supporters.

    Pence is there to mollify conservatives, especially evangelicals.

  193. 193.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    Explosions/gunfire at Incirlik?

    Looking for something more certain than “reports”….

  195. 195.

    NR

    @Brachiator: I disagree. A lot of Sanders’ supporters are not Democrats and have no particular loyalty to the Democratic party. Trump’s anti-establishment message had a shot with some of them–and he just shot himself in the foot big-time with the Pence pick.

  196. 196.

    Brachiator

    @NR:

    A lot of Sanders’ supporters are not Democrats and have no particular loyalty to the Democratic party. Trump’s anti-establishment message had a shot with some of them

    I think that a core of Trump supporters are anti-establishment. They just want to shake things up, and they don’t much care happens afterwards. I don’t think this was the case with Sanders supporters.

  197. 197.

    Marc McKenzie

    @The Thin Black Duke: Good point, TBD.

    So far, Hillary is doing everything right when it comes to the campaign. She’s doing a helluva lot better than she did in 2008, and even then she ended up not too far behind Obama. This time, she was way ahead of Sanders and she’s certainly taking the right shots with Trump.

    Of course, the MSM will try to make this a horse race, and the unrepentant BBs will do everything to prove what a bunch of clueless f*#ks they are by attacking Hillary (H.A. Goodman, I’m looking at you).

    But Hillary can handle it. Hell, she’s handled 25+ years of GOP slime attacks and backstabs from the Left, and yet she’s still standing.

  198. 198.

    Matt McIrvin

    @trollhattan: Professional design firms often produce simple, bold designs that are frequently nothing but a logotype–the company’s name or initials in a simple font, laid out more or less attractively. Simple designs make good logos: they’re instantly recognizable and reproduce well in many contexts.

    But one of the biggest problems they have is the “we paid you all that money for that?” reaction. Somebody pays you a lot of money, they want a lot of logo: something elaborate and busy. But they’re really paying for the knowledge not to do that.

  199. 199.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Brachiator:

    Trump was never going to pick up a significant number of Sanders supporters.

    It depends on what you define as Sanders supporters. A lot of Sanders’ voters in the late primaries were Trump supporters all along.

  200. 200.

    trollhattan

    @Matt McIrvin:
    The redo was certainly from an outside firm; the original simply couldn’t have been, it was that ham-handed (having had graphic design training and application myself, albeit never a fulltime gig). Fit the company though. My first two years we didn’t have a voice mail system because one of the VPs “didn’t believe in it.” So in a project office of more than a hundred every call was announced by the receptionist over the intercom and everybody’s written messages went into a multi-tiered lazy Susan on her desk. But hey, we were known for our low bids, so….

  201. 201.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Brachiator: My feeling is that a lot of Sanders supporters are/were primarily anti-Hillary, and not really pro-Sanders.

    You can note that as soon as Warren or Sanders endorsed Hillary, there was a substantial group of Sanders voters who just went fucking nuts and proclaiming their previous idols as horrible people who were selling out. In Bernie’s case, *they attacked their own candidate* because he endorsed his opponent, something he’d been saying he’d do for quite some time.

  202. 202.

    Tom Q

    @Matt McIrvin: And some of them all along were disappointed Paul-ites (HA Goodman among them), so they might opt for Trump — if not, Johnson.

    The question is, how many among Sanders’ Revolution — the people whose sole problem with Hillary is her insufficient leftiness — are still enough in the air that the Pence pick matters? I’d lean toward the sense that most of those are either already supporting Clinton or are irretrievably Stein-ers — I doubt many more will be swayed by this particular development.

  203. 203.

    Carl W

    @trollhattan:

    The redo was certainly from an outside firm; the original simply couldn’t have been, it was that ham-handed.

    Since (as Citizen_X pointed out earlier in the thread) the “redo” simply consists of the original logo without the salacious flag part, it seems unlikely to have been done by an outside firm…

  204. 204.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It depends on what you define as Sanders supporters. A lot of Sanders’ voters in the late primaries were Trump supporters all along.

    A Trump supporter is a Trump supporter, even if they voted for Sanders in an attempt to skew the primaries to benefit Donald.

  205. 205.

    Brachiator

    @MisterForkbeard:

    My feeling is that a lot of Sanders supporters are/were primarily anti-Hillary, and not really pro-Sanders.

    The lunatic fringe of this group are like the Nader purists in 2000. The relatively sane will support Hillary. But even the fringe will not vote for Trump.

  206. 206.

    Amir Khalid

    @efgoldman:
    The Rolling Stones are all Britons. In five and a half decades, they have avoided any public involvement in partisan politics, and they don’t let British politicians use their music in campaigns. They’ve been disapproving of Trump using it without asking permission, which would not have been given had he asked.

  210. 210.

    Margo

    Do you use web 2.0 sites for inbound links? I was told they are useful
    but can’t tell if they have any benefitpost panda
    Added this to Twitter, very useful!

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