Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

The world has changed, and neither one recognizes it.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

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

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

This fight is for everything.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

All hail the time of the bunny!

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Hail to the Hairpiece / Open Thread: Melania’s Big Speech

Open Thread: Melania’s Big Speech

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But seriously, folks… Did anything in Melania’s speech seem to be describing Donald Trump?

Olivia Nuzzi, at the Daily Beast, before the scandal broke:

… The purpose of this speech—the purpose of any appearance by a political spouse, but especially Melania—was the show us a kinder, softer side of Trump, the sort of side that only the woman who ostensibly sleeps next to him at night could know. But we did not learn anything new about Donald Trump on Monday night…

“He’s tough when he has to be,” she said, “but he’s also kind and fair and caring. This kindness is not always noted, but it’s there for all to see. That is one reason I fell in love with him.”

Her talk of compassion and loving your neighbor was, of course, divorced from the reality of her husband’s campaign which has been an exercise in flouting the conventions of basic politeness and human decency…

She promised the “values Donald and I will bring to the White House” are “kindness, love, and compassion,” which makes you wonder if they’ve ever talked to each other…

For Politico, Julia Ioffe — who has had her differences with Mrs. Trump before — wrote an excellent pre-speech analysis of “Melania’s Big Audition”:

… The political job in front of Melania would be a challenge even for an agile and willing campaign surrogate, and so far she has been neither. Trump has said that Melania will use the speech to talk about “women’s issues,” which, if a strange fit with today’s convention theme of national safety, is a crucial one for the candidate. Since the rollout of Trump’s bomb-throwing campaign, he’s struggled to win over female voters, and it has been Melania’s occasional job to prove, as the woman who is actually married to and living with Trump, that the Republican nominee is not a monster.

The problem though is that, so far, she hasn’t been very effective at it—and tonight’s appearance should give a signal of whether she’s likely to be an asset in one of his biggest weak spots, or remain another part of Trump’s strange coterie to be deftly managed…

Going into the convention, Trump is still faring so badly with women (a poll last month found that 77 percent of women have a negative view of him), that the Ivanka and Melania guns have to come out again. And as Trump told the New York Times, he’s going to deal with this head-on by having Melania talk about “women’s issues” and Ivanka about “her passion for gender equality.” He also says he’s planning to edit their remarks himself and add “ideas, jokes, points about Trump.”…

My emphasis. There’s been some discussion today as to whether the plagiarized passages were inserted by “someone too close to Trump himself to be fired” — usually followed by speculation about Ivanka’s possible involvement. But it was such a clumsy, obvious, ill-fitting theft, I could certainly see it coming from the very (tiny, shriveled) heart of the Trump campaign…

Let us savor:

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  2. 2.

    Mike J

    Good news, everyone!

    AP Stylebook Verified account @APStylebook AP Stylebook
    We now lowercase dumpster, so you could write dumpster fire. #APStyleChat

  4. 4.

    Punchy

    Still on the speech thing, eh? Yawn. Wake me when even ONE Trump supporter changes their mind because of it. Same goes for if Trump shits himself onstage, stabs a person in the thigh, snorts a line of coke on the dias in the middle of his speech, or punches 37 women in a row while stomping on beagle puppies and fingering Christie’s ass-crack.

  6. 6.

    dmsilev

    @Punchy: Trump supporters, no, but please do consider that a good 25 or so percent of the electorate is still undecided/weakly in favor of one candidate or the other/is third-party curious. A week of chaos at the GOP convention won’t sway any of those, and may well repel a good sized chunk.

  8. 8.

    jon

    @jon: I’m not even going to try to figure out which button I mis-pushed to make that mishmash, but the link works.

  9. 9.

    Chyron HR

    She’s not a fucking PRINCESS, okay? You can’t just stick wings on a fucking UNICORN, and call it a PRINCESS!

  11. 11.

    Fester Addams

    Yea, it’s a shiny object, but… it’s so shiny. How did this happen? Did the campaign assign a speechwriter so lame he or she Googled up some words and copy-pasted them without noticing who’s words they were? If not, then inside job rat-f*cking?

  12. 12.

    Poopyman

    I got to be honest, I kind of wish the guy Melania Trump was describing was running for president …

    — Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) July 19, 2016

    Yeah, well it turns out he was running for President when that speech was given.

    And that’s probably the funniest think of Ewick’s I’ve seen quoted. Dunno if it’s the funniest he’s written, because I’ll never go read his stuff firsthand.

  13. 13.

    Trollhattan

    @jon:
    OMG, I hadn’t seen the interview. Trump literally claiming, “I think I’m much more humble than you understand.”

    That’s the Trumpiest Trump thing I’ve ever heard Trump say.

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    @Punchy:

    stabs a person in the thigh,

    Well, to be fair, he might lose votes for that, especially if the stabbee were insufficiently wingnutty — the Trumpenlumpen would have been hoping for a knife in the throat, or decapitation, or perhaps Trump practicing his seppuku cut on a liberal, and Trump couldn’t get it right. The thigh? If he doesn’t hit the femoral, then wake me when some REAL blood starts spurting

  15. 15.

    jacy

    Why does anybody think Melania would be good for outreach to women, anyway? She’s a textbook definition of a trophy wife. Speaking from personal experience, women also don’t appreciate women who have affairs with other women’s husbands.

    And the thing that struck me this morning, listening to on-air people talking about what a great speech people thought it was before the plagerism became evident, was how fucking low of a bar did she have? The speech didn’t really say anything more than Lil’ Donnie says about himself every time he opens his yap. It was just empty generic platitudes about how great he is proved by how great he says he is. Good gravy, but the biggest problem I see in the political world right now is a fucking lack of discernment. Nothing means anything. I really need to go back to not paying any attention to this shit.

  18. 18.

    MattF

    Honestly, I have nothing against Melania. But if she keeps rattling on about her daughters, I’m gonna get irritated.

  20. 20.

    The Dangerman

    @Trollhattan:

    That’s the Trumpiest Trump thing I’ve ever heard Trump say.

    Only topped by Trump saying yesterday that going to Cleveland for the convention was his idea. The man is pathological…

    …which makes me wonder if there was a little sabotage going on. OK, I get copying Michelle Obama, that only makes sense, but the Rick Roll thing, too? Feels like a cry for help.

  21. 21.

    SFAW

    @Betsy:

    “Now, little missy, don’t you worry yore purty li’l head over stuff like that. You jes’ let the men-folk take care of things. ”

    — Spoken by any wingnut, any time, any place

  23. 23.

    Mike J

    I know we don’t need a serious rebuttal of the MLP angle, but:
    He searched for four words and found similar phrases all over. Try searching for 23 words in a row. 23 identical words is not coincidence.

  24. 24.

    Face

    @Trollhattan: Shut the hell up, libtard. I know for a fact that it snowed in December and January wasn’t warm, so screw your hippy warming shit. It’s supposed to be warm in June, and sunspots and solar cycles and faculas and 3 guys in the Dept. of Climate from Chevron’s HQ said it’s always cold inside buildings, so shut up because stupid reasons.

  27. 27.

    Brachiator

    @Punchy:

    Still on the speech thing, eh? Yawn.

    It allows for fun and easy mockery, but it does distract from the divisiveness of the main speeches. The GOP is definitely throwing down the challenge in the social civil war that is now upon us.

    OT: Turkey’s purge of plotters is widening to an alarming degree (from BBC news):

    More than 15,000 education staff in Turkey have been suspended after last week’s failed coup, as a purge of state officials widens still further.

    The ministry of education accused them of links to Fethullah Gulen, a US-based cleric the Turkish government says was behind Friday’s uprising.

    More than 1,500 university deans have also been ordered to resign and the licences of 21,000 teachers working at private institutions revoked.

    What a mess. With allies like these, who needs enemies?

  28. 28.

    LAO

    @Miss Bianca: Miss B! I’m sorry to report that Ammon and Ryan Bundy were denied release today in Oregon. I know that you are disappointed. //

    @MattF: once again — I actually chortled out loud.

  29. 29.

    aarrgghh

    via freeperville, the land of “heads, you lose — tails, we’re so full of winning”:

    gspurlock: “My guess would be that Melania wrote her speech from her own life, while Michelle’s speech was written by professionals who know what people wanted to hear. If it was the same story, it’s because Michelle was pretending to be what Melania actually is. We’re tired of phonies. We’re ready for the real deal and we can tell the difference.”

    Seeing More Clearly Now: “It’s pretty funny, actually. The Democrats can’t very well criticize the contents of Melania’s speech, if it sounds like Michelle’s Obama’s! By putting the one sentence in that’s the same, they assure that everyone will go back and listen to Michelle Obama’s speech for reinforcement of its words and content and will sound foolish in the extreme if they consider criticizing the very same platitude-filled speech from Melania.”

  30. 30.

    burnspbesq

    Don J. Coyote, Super Genius: the plaigiarism issue turned out to be today’s shiny object, shifting focus away from the truly awful stuff that is being peddled in Cleveland.

    Or maybe not.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jacy: The bar was set by the fact that everyone else on that stage had been screaming for blood and demanding the jailing of the other party nominee.

  34. 34.

    Ian

    Erick Erickson
    ✔ @EWErickson

    I think I may have to move to Colorado to become a pot farmer and eat at Arby’s because nothing matters

    May you find peace and serenity Erik son of Erik. Avoid the Arby’s tho. May the rest of your days in a hemp field prevent you from blogging again.

  35. 35.

    LAO

    @burnspbesq: IDK — I think this is about the Trump campaign’s inability to admit a mistake and their awesome ability to turn so-so story into a dumpster fire/train wreck that never dies. But, yeah Lou Holtz was horrible today. Who knew he could bring the anti-immigrant crazy so well. The media should pay attention to the rancid shit being spewed at the RNC.

  36. 36.

    dmsilev

    @Miss Bianca: You should scan through the rest of Erik son of Erik of the House of Erik’s Twitter feed. For one, he seems to seriously think that there was a mole or saboteur of some sort responsible for the speech debacle. Secondly, he hates Trump with the passion of a thousand burning suns, and the schadenfreude of reading his reactions to the convention is just wonderful.

  37. 37.

    aarrgghh

    the dangerman @ 20:

    “…which makes me wonder if there was a little sabotage going on.”

    via a commenter @ talkingpointsmemo:

    “Sabotaging Trump’s campaign. Actually not sure how one would go about doing that in a noticeable way.”

  38. 38.

    dmsilev

    I wonder whether Trump’s speech on Thursday is being frantically rewritten Right Now as the closest thing available to a crack team of researchers (“they’re on crack. Is that good enough?”) in the Trump campaign starts checking for …overlaps with existing material.

  41. 41.

    Miss Bianca

    @Trollhattan: You know, Colorado pot farmers are a *lot* more likely to be eating goat burgers than Arby’s roast beef. That’s what made me wonder.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @Miss Bianca:

    Is that tweet from Erick son of Erick *for real*?

    Yep — both of them! That little blue checkmark next to his name is Twitter’s way of “verifying” that the person writing the tweet has registered that account under his real name & address.

    (Obviously, lots of genuine tweeters don’t bother with the extra step, but it’s important to people who use Twitter as part of their job, who need to protect their “brand”.)

  43. 43.

    Fester Addams

    Ok, new theory. As originally written the speech included “As Michelle Obama said: …” and a moron who’s name rhymes with dump crossed that part out.

  44. 44.

    Dork

    @LAO: Wha wha whaaaaat? Lou Fuckin Holtz gave a speech today? Did they have to stop midway and wipe off the mike? Could anyone outside of Chris Fowler or Mark May have any fuckin clue what he garbled out?

  46. 46.

    Miss Bianca

    @LAO: Oh, noes!! And they’re such *nice* boys!

    Incidentally, when I went to Subway today to pick up a salad I saw a guy open-carrying. I guess he noticed me (side) eyeing his piece, because he tried to strike up a conversation later. Of course, since I was wearing one of my stretchy yoga tees, it might have been because of something else. Like, the Sanskrit texts, yeah, that would have been it…right?

  48. 48.

    Trollhattan

    @Miss Bianca:
    “I’m up here, Doc Holiday.”

    Thank you, Black Panthers and Ronny Reagan’s bedwetting corpse. No open carry here.

  49. 49.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Miss Bianca: I used to have a shirt that said “Om sanskrtam sunišitam asčariavat” (loosely) that I got at linguistics school. It means (also loosely) “Sanskrit is totally awesome”, which is not the sort of answer to the question “what’s that mean?” that people were expecting.

  50. 50.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    OT: Turkey’s purge of plotters is widening to an alarming degree (from BBC news)

    @Brachiator: I have the sinking feeling we’re about to see a NATO ally go full Nazi, with theocracy. Hooray.

  51. 51.

    Anne Laurie

    @Miss Bianca:

    You know, Colorado pot farmers are a *lot* more likely to be eating goat burgers than Arby’s roast beef. That’s what made me wonder.

    All Erick Infinite Ericks knows about pot farmers and/or Colorado is Dirty hippies har har garbage eaters!!! That’s part of his “charm” for his fans: they’re the sort of morans who think looking down on Arby’s from the heights of Applebee’s salad bar is witty.

    Remember, EE is the guy who first came to wide notice telling his Red State Trike Farce Strike Force to send bags of rock salt to Olympia Snowe for some imagined ‘treason’ against True Conservatism. And he weaponized his grift by getting the rubes to order those little bags of salt through Erick’s Amazon link, thereby ensuring his commission with every purchase.

  54. 54.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Erick Erickson ✔ @EWErickson
    I think I may have to move to Colorado to become a pot farmer and eat at Arby’s because nothing matters.
    10:26 PM – 18 Jul 2016

    WE DON’T WANT YOU. KTHNX

  57. 57.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Con artists, the whole lot:

    Melania Trump never earned a university degree in architecture ― she dropped out of college after her freshman year, according to her biographers. Still, she claims to have a degree from “university in Slovenia.”

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    It allows for fun and easy mockery, but it does distract from the divisiveness of the main speeches.

    It also puts the Republicans on the defensive at a time when they’re supposed to be on the move. They’re getting 4 days of free live TV coverage, plus all the after-show stuff on the news. Now instead of talking about the points they were trying to make, they’re defending against charges of plagiarism. That’s not how you maximize the return on your free TV time.

  60. 60.

    Steve in the ATL

    @LAO: I get busy in real life for a spell, miss a couple of roll calls, and now I’m no longer part of the Bundy gang? That hurts.

  61. 61.

    Keith P.

    Just to add to the pile-on, Trump did not get permission from Sony/Queen to play “We Are The Champions” last night. Given how high profile that performance of it was, it should be pretty expensive.

  62. 62.

    Trollhattan

    @Roger Moore: Last weekend I predicted the predictable post-convention poll bounce for the Rs. I’m now predicting a post-convention hole-creation. And increased ammo sales, because Hillary’s Totally Taking Away All the Guns.

  65. 65.

    hovercraft

    @jacy:
    Unfortunately the gop has degenerated to the point that Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley and Scott Walker are seen as rising stars, but they are all as deep as a frying pan. These stars know nothing but their talking points, so with our current media who know just as little and are more interested in gossip and trivia than actually putting politicians through their paces to test their knowledge, getting up on stage and delivering meaningless talking points is an accomplishment. Remember Rubio was ready, and a foreign policy expert, it wasn’t till the end of his campaign that the media realized that all his answers were excerpts from his stump speech verbatim. Republicans mock Obama’s use of teleprompters because they know that many of their hotshots would be lost without them, and they want to project the same limitation to Obama. Palin got rave reviews for her speech proving that anyone can do it, but the media still insists on pretending that reading competently is worthy of praise.

  66. 66.

    Dadadadadadada

    @dmsilev: This will be a true test of Trump’s trollitude. If he’s a true troll, his convention speech will be identical, word for word and perfectly matching the rhythm, to some earlier speech from someone else. John Kerry’s 2004 acceptance speech, maybe. Or something from Hitler or some other foreign dictator (in a poorly-worded translation, for extra troll points). Or maybe (for extra extra troll points) a totally unknown speech from a fully-forgotten minor labor agitator from the 1930s, just to make the plagiarism police work extra hard. Something along those lines would make for an exquisite troll, worthy of the slowest of slow claps.
    I’m pretty sure Trump doesn’t have it in him, though. I’m fair sure he’ll just give an “original” speech and thus give further evidence that he’s just a loser with no creativity.

  67. 67.

    sukabi

    Just putting ths out there, because why not? What are the odds that Melonia herself decided “Fuck it, I just want my life back.” And put in the Obama quote, and the rickroll herself….she did have that other “America is already great” moment before the nom was locked up.

  69. 69.

    goblue72

    This distraction will all go away tonight when Trump is nominated and he walks out on stage with fireworks exploding behind him and a laser show inside the convention with Pink Floyd’s The Wall being played (the derps won’t realize the song is about authoritarianism & stifling conformity; they’ll just hear the refrain about bricks in a the wall and go nuts)

    Just wait until his nomination speech. He’s gonna go full Nixon law-and-order with a dash of nativism, and the delegates on the convention floor will go apeshit in ecstasy. He’s offering up freebase coke to the GOP base. A few of them might even pee their pants right there.

  71. 71.

    Trollhattan

    @sukabi:
    Am guessing Malania is not aware of all internet traditions, but who the heck knows? I’d love it if it were true.

  73. 73.

    rikyrah

    Robert CostaVerified account
    ‏@costareports
    WaPo has been shown today’s internal surrogate memo from the Trump campaign- Christie likely got his 7% line directly from this document…

    Robert CostaVerified account
    ‏@costareports
    Memo calls Melania controversy “silly” and urged allies to argue that attacks are because Melania was “too good” and scared Democrats

    Robert CostaVerified account
    ‏@costareports
    With regard to plagiarism Qs, memo says to note how only 7% of the speech is under scrutiny (a point taken up by Christie on TV Tues)

    Robert CostaVerified account
    ‏@costareports
    Memo also recommends saying the Clintons are “back at it” regarding attacks on Melania and to frame that criticism as an attack on women

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    @Dog Dawg Damn:

    Melania Trump never earned a university degree in architecture ― she dropped out of college after her freshman year, according to her biographers. Still, she claims to have a degree from “university in Slovenia.”

    This really sounds like Rocky and Bullwinkle “Moose und Squirrel” stuff.

    But a New Yorker profile correctly noted that “Her Web site states that she obtained a degree in architecture and design from the University of Ljubljana when in fact she dropped out in her first year.”

    Still, I keep hearing stuff from conservative radio coverage that she is beautiful and intelligent and much more a model First Lady than a pretender like Michelle Obama. And of course, a white woman who dropped out of college is far more intellectually accomplished than a black woman who graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School because … reasons.

    Also, Melania would officially be the First Third Wife First Lady. Family Values.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    Rep. Steve King Clarifies Remarks About ‘White People’ Doing More for Civilization
    Jul 19, 2016, 8:43 AM ET

    Rep. Steve King clarified his controversial comments about “white people” doing more for civilization than any other “subgroup,” explaining that he was actually referring to “Western civilization.”

    The Iowa Republican had said Monday afternoon on an MSNBC panel, “This whole white people business, though, does get a little tired. … I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about. Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”

    He didn’t back away from his comments in an interview with ABC News Monday night, but said he meant to refer to “Western civilization” as the “superior culture” when he said “the whole white peoples business” line.

    “It’s pretty close [to what I said]. What I really said was ‘Western civilization’ and when you describe Western civilization that can mean much of Western civilization happens to be Caucasians. But we should not apologize for our culture or our civilization,” King told ABC News.

  78. 78.

    Barbara

    @Roger Moore: What it does, in my view, is crystallize how essentially fraudulent the whole enterprise is. The theft is so casual, and so brazen, and it’s stealing the words of the very people they have been demeaning and insulting for more than a year. Through and through, they either don’t mean what they say or don’t care whether they mean what they say. It’s all fakery and illusion, all the time. And the people who are defending them keep leaning further and further out the window.

  81. 81.

    Brachiator

    @Roger Moore:

    The classic is Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur, which means “anything said in Latin sounds profound”.

    Also, most stuff said with a British accent.

    It also puts the Republicans on the defensive at a time when they’re supposed to be on the move. They’re getting 4 days of free live TV coverage, plus all the after-show stuff on the news. Now instead of talking about the points they were trying to make, they’re defending against charges of plagiarism.

    Actually, the Republicans are probably doing OK with this. Most of their supporters don’t care or look for an opportunity to defend their side, and the mini controversy brought some publicity to a convention that most folks who are not political junkies pretty much ignore.

  83. 83.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:
    And he expects people to buy that? The verbatim quote was “white people”, not “Western civilisation”. Even if you give him a pass on altering his words after the fact, to suggest that people of colour have not contributed to Western civilisation over the centuries is both factually wrong and racist.

  91. 91.

    Barb2

    Patricia Smith – ugly person – perpetual bad hair day lady.

    Enough is enough, Pat dear.

    We get it that you need, crave, must have attemtion. We get it that you will lie and use your dead son to get attention.

    Go back to your trailer, make a loop from your special night – where you got so much attention. And maybe a dozen drunk GOP were listening to you. Stay there and never put your ugly face, and immatation skunk hair dodo on display again.

    Women like her are far too common. Especially the ones who trash other women in order to gain attention from high value males.

    What is it with the female speakers wearing white? Mrs Trump and whiny Pat?

  92. 92.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Chyron HR:
    Oh, it is SO on. The show may have jumped the shark when Megan McCarthy came on board, but yes, she is a princess by any standard. She has authority, official rank, and the goddesslike power of being an alicorn, which she earned in an ongoing plot that started with the very first episode. For pity’s sake, you have the sun, the moon… and the twilight princesses. Oh, and she’s not *just* a unicorn with wings. Her proportions changed when she transformed. She’s taller than her friends, and has wider wings – a young alicorn, but clearly no longer a regular pony. Once you stick on the wings AND the horn, you have a whole different pony that embodies all three races and is beyond them, and for ponies princess = goddess.

  93. 93.

    LAC

    @rikyrah: Someone needs to tell “Triumph of the Will” to stop digging that hole. He is going to need chopsticks when he is through.

  96. 96.

    vtr

    Breitbart and its ilk are saying that Michelle Obama cribbed 2008 convention speech from Saul Alinsky.

  97. 97.

    randy khan

    @Keith P.:

    Sadly, probably it won’t cost him a dime. Most likely the RNC purchased a license from ASCAP or BMI for all the music being used at the convention, and those licenses don’t allow for individual groups or artists to deny the right to use their music.

  100. 100.

    LAC

    @Roger Moore: hee-hee.. will King be handing out the brown shirts and black armbands the night of Trump’s speech? To make everything pretty that night?

  101. 101.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @aarrgghh:

    it’s because Michelle was pretending to be what Melania actually is. We’re tired of phonies.

    Michelle Obama; pretend trophy wife for Mr. O. ROFL

  107. 107.

    Jean

    Watched part of an interview on MSNBC with some Republican who, when asked about Melania’s plagiarism, said, “Let’s talk about plagiarism. Hillary Clinton copied Obama’s policies.” I could not stop laughing!

  108. 108.

    Barbara

    @randy khan: This is undoubtedly a complicated subject, but I believe that if you use it for commercial purposes or in a performance for over a certain number of people, or as part of a visual performance, a blanket license is not sufficient. For instance, Nike no doubt tendered a lot of additional compensation for the right to use Revolution in its advertising. I had a client that wanted to use a certain U2 song in a marketing video and found out that they would need to cough up several million dollars for the privilege. Needless to say, they dropped the idea.

  109. 109.

    MazeDancer

    Brian May and Roger Taylor were already on record to Donald with “Never Trump!” and Queen’s music.

    Last time Donald played Queen, Twitter became incensed, and alerted a sleeping Dr. May what was happening. Brian May is very active on Twitter, especially with his animal rights and anti-Badger cull issues, so his inbox was more than full when he woke. And he was furious.

    Brian stood on his blog’s “Soap Box” and said “NO!”. Point blank: do not use our music. That Queen never allows music for political purposes. But most especially never, ever, ever Trump. Rolling Stone, People, all kinds of publication duly covered the “Queen says No to Trump”.

    Generally, that sort of NO! makes politicians stop. Because no one wants the bad publicity. But not Trump.

    The legal ways to make someone stop playing a song in public are unclear. Licensing for a commercial – a clear legal necessity – is different than playing in public. ASCAP has a pdf on the subject.

    It’s another Trump is scum moment. Nothing stops him. Narcissist with no morals. In everything he does.

  110. 110.

    Trollhattan

    @MazeDancer:
    Brian May is vewwy, vewwy smart and probably has as many re$ources as Trump. Bring it!

    Even better would be zombie Freddie gay-haunting Donald. “Donald, what did you catch over at Studio 54, hmmmm?”

  111. 111.

    ArgumentativeAtlantan

    It was earlier reported that Mrs. Trump was trying to echo themes expressed publicly by prominent women including Laura Bush and Elizabeth Dole. But in an attempt to stay true to the root sense of her name Melania (from Greek μελαινα (Melaina) meaning “black, dark“), Mrs. Trump picked the first black First Lady to borrow themes from! What’s wrong with that?

    It is all her parents fault for naming her Melania! :-)

  112. 112.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Dadadadadadada:

    a totally unknown speech from a fully-forgotten minor labor agitator from the 1930s,

    Perfection would be Trump quoting Emma Goldman to the applase of the GOP.

  113. 113.

    Original Lee

    @Barbara: There are days when I think Trump really just wants the $10B to walk away, so he’s moved on from screwing minorities, immigrants, women, and the poor to screwing over the GOP. Today is one of them.

  114. 114.

    Original Lee

    @Leto: Well, they’ve also brought back all the Duval Patrick stuff, as well. Obama is a class act, though, and totally admitted he should have given Patrick credit, but that’s not the part they’re all talking about.

  115. 115.

    PurpleGirl

    @Brachiator: And who also has posed nearly topless on a number of magazine covers, example — UK GQ magazine. Yes, family values alrightly. Trump Family values, that is.

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