Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

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

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Let me file that under fuck it.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

No one could have predicted…

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

You are here: Home / Organizing & Resistance / Enhanced Protest Techniques / Open Thread RNC Recap, Day One: “The Weaponization of Fear”

Open Thread RNC Recap, Day One: “The Weaponization of Fear”

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Commentor Raven pointed out that’s the honest tag for the goals of the RNC opening day, aka “Make America Safe Again”. There is so much richness to choose from… like a fishpacking facility catching fire and setting off an explosion in the fertilizer factory next door…


Reader Interactions

282Comments

  3. 3.

    liberal

    @MomSense: yep.

    Our system of government is in deep, deep shit.

    Prediction: ,Rethuglicans wilWill try to prevent any of Hillary’s USSC appts from getting confirmed.

  5. 5.

    Davebo

    I know you want to make America Great Again, but could you avoid cutting holes in our flag while attempting to do so?

  6. 6.

    MomSense

    @liberal:

    They are already doing this to President Obama and the media are treating this as just politics as usual. The Seante shirking one of the few things our constitution requires it to do is a BFD.

  9. 9.

    SFAW

    @MomSense:

    The Seante shirking one of the few things our constitution requires it to do

    Not according to Sen. Thom “Wait – Am I the Crazy One, or Just a Major-League Asshole?” Tillis [T-NC*]

    *No, I’m not abbreviating Ta-Nehisi Coates. The “T” is for the “Treasonous Party.”

  12. 12.

    peach flavored shampoo

    This all leads to a very important question — is that a actual flag “shirt” that crazy woman is flashing, or did she simply cut holes in a Merkin flag and stick her stems through them? Cuz damn.

  13. 13.

    NickM

    Big deal about Melania. All the rest of the convention was cribbed from Triumph of the Will, with a dash of Chachi.

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    @Ian: True, but given the rules that the media has decided for itself, plagiarism is a “legitimate” issue to attack on and lying about terrorism is “opinions differ, so must be OK”.

  15. 15.

    gratuitous

    The reports pre-convention were that the Republicans were running way short on volunteers to work the convention. That showed up tonight. The obvious disorganization, the delays in the program, and the desertion of the venue after Melania Trump got done reading Michelle Obama’s speech off the teleprompter (is that still a thing for the whackadoos?) all point to too few people having to do too many things.

    The floor director and the program director need a steady stream of eager volunteers to do all kinds of things: Get coffee, find the next scheduled speaker, communicate on the fly with key people, etc. Yes, everyone’s got smart phones, but not everyone has time to check it for messages, especially in the moment. But someone running up and saying, “Get Chachi ready! He’s on next, and the PD doesn’t know where he is!” can get you focused in a way that a text just doesn’t.

  16. 16.

    MomSense

    @SFAW:

    It’s shocking how terrible the Republicans have been throughout Obama’s almost 8 years in office. And they got away with it thanks to an inept and corrupt media and the people who didn’t show up to vote in 2010. That was a census year for dogs sakes. You don’t forfeit the state legislatures and House when the district maps are in play. Aaaarrrggghhh.

  17. 17.

    D58826

    @liberal: Heck they will try to impeach her on Jan21. 2017.

    The plagiarism allows the talking heads to discussion something other than the fact that trump has unleashed the monsters from the ID of American society. It has always been there but now it is on full display and has been validated by one of the two political parties. It will not be easy to put this poison back in the bottle.

  18. 18.

    Keith G

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Nah…At times like this AL efforts in this regard is a service. I have a Tweeter feed that follows acknowledged reporters. Every now and then it’s fun to see what the partisan pundocracy is up to.

  19. 19.

    Punchy

    Prediction: ,Rethuglicans wilWill try to prevent any of Hillary’s USSC appts from getting confirmed.

    I’ve been saying this for months as well. After nearly a year with only 8, what’s another 4? And if Notorious RBG heads off to the Caymans, then we’re back to an odd number, so what’s the prob then?

    Even owning the Senate wont help, as they’ll just filly away the good ones.

  20. 20.

    gene108

    I watched the whole thing on CSPAN.

    Melania gave the best speech of the night. The only speech with a tinge of hope and no attempt to convince us immigrants will kill us all. She also had the discipline to say what was written and stay on script, which is more than half the speakers there.

    Too bad everyone is focusing on borrowing a few words from Michelle, in 2008.

    They are letting that little sound bite overshadow a night, when the whole theme of the night was fear mongering about immigrants, Jeff Sessions stating the next President has the power to ban all legal immigration by executive order, the immigrants, who are here (legal and illegal) are stealing your jobs and/or going to murder you in your bed, the world outside our borders is a scary place that can only be made safe by ruthlessly applying military force, and terrorists are roaming the streets of every American town looking for Americans to kill.

    Oh yeah, they also want to make Benghazi and Fast & Furious central issues in this year’s campaign, because it worked so well for Romney in 2012.

    Plus they want to throw Hillary in jail, over the e-mail server, because they’ve decided she’s guilty and they just need a show trial to give it the veneer of legality.

  21. 21.

    scav

    So long as all the chaos and Obama plagiarism and general meltdown lead to extra newspaper/media minutes, won’t Donald come out and insist he needs more compensation for driving ratings up?

  22. 22.

    MattF

    I guess it’s interesting what these guys (mostly guys) will say when they’re not restrained by the niceties of the Sunday morning talking-head drill. Pretty ugly.

  23. 23.

    Amir Khalid

    This fustercluck of a show is precisely the convention that Trump the candidate and the Republican party deserve. Neither is fit to govern, and neither can put n a four-day show that makes them look good.

  24. 24.

    liberal

    @MomSense: Agree.

    Right now they have the “excuse” that it’s Obama’s last year in office. It’s a piss-poor excuse, of course.

    Not allowing Hillary to appoint anyone is ratcheting it up at least half a notch.

    Krugman summarized their playbook best in the intro to one of his books, calling them a “revolutionary power” a la Kissinger’s analysis of the Nazis: blowing away all norms.

  25. 25.

    liberal

    @D58826:

    The plagiarism allows the talking heads to discussion something other than the fact that trump has unleashed the monsters from the ID of American society.

    Yeppers.

  26. 26.

    Jeffro

    @MomSense:

    It’s shocking how terrible the Republicans have been throughout Obama’s almost 8 years in office. And they got away with it thanks to an inept and corrupt media and the people who didn’t show up to vote in 2010. That was a census year for dogs sakes. You don’t forfeit the state legislatures and House when the district maps are in play. Aaaarrrggghhh.

    Yes it has been shocking and you name all the right ‘villains’ – but I’d have liked to see all Dems, from Obama on down to me, take a stronger stand against all of the GOP’s psychopathic behavior and the media’s both-siderism. It won’t happen again. Nor will 2010 – I have no doubt HRC will see to that.

  27. 27.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    Manafort tells reporters that model for Trump’s acceptance speech will

    Trump is hiring a model to give his acceptance speech? I know nothing he does should surprise me at this point but still.

  29. 29.

    Amir Khalid

    I have a comment in moderation because of a mistake in the email-address field. Please release me, let me go …

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @gene108: Borrowing a few words? Bollocks — she (or her speechwriters) blatantly plagiarized entire sentences from Michelle Obama’s speech, repeating the exact same phrases in the exact same sequence — stealing language about honesty and hard work, no less! It’s absolutely legit to call the campaign out on that, and I don’t know why any non-Republican would want to do the Trump scampaign’s work for them by minimizing it.

    Should the scaremongering and divisiveness be the bigger story? Yes, but we can walk and chew gum here. Plus, plagiarism resonates with the Beltway hacks, who see it as a professional hazard of their own. If this is what it takes for them to finally call out the lying, grifting, venal, evil Trump scampaign, fine. Al Capone went down on tax evasion.

  32. 32.

    Keith G

    @gene108:

    They are letting that little sound bite overshadow a night, when the whole theme of the night was fear mongering about immigrants

    Hopefully both points will get their due, but I do agree that Melania is not the problem.

    The problem, other than incipient racism, is that Team Trump seem to lack the ability to successfully plan and carry out a one person shit. That is an amazingly scary proposition for someone who might have a sound statistical chance to be our chief executive.

    Nixon had a good share of his personality given over to racism and generalized hate, but he could run the executive branch. Fuck man, Trump’s incompetence might actually be as much of as danger as is his fascism.

  34. 34.

    Gin & Tonic

    Looks like Peter Suderman is in a battle with his wife for the wrongness crown.

  35. 35.

    Shell

    When I first heard about the plagiarism, I was less than shocked. Trump stealing from someone else, oh yeah, what a shocker.\ And the lines they quoted were the same old platitudes you’ve heard a thousand times.
    Was ore tired of hearing the endless laments of Poor Melania. “Speechifying is hard.This must be so hard on her.” And then when she stumbled through reading the teleprompter it was “Wow, she hit it out of the park! What a t triumph.!” It was if a slightly backwards child had made it thru their first grade school play.

  36. 36.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    White supremacy on naked display and being celebrated up and down the RNC shit show, under all of our noses, and the broadcast media of overwhelmingly mediocre white men refuse to acknowledge it, because then the jig is up. You can’t unsee it. Melania’s been stealing black women’s words as her own for years – like Marva Collins – but the press won’t examine their own failures in crediting Barack or Michelle for anything. I just don’t know how to turn the mirror on them so that they see it.

  37. 37.

    Davey C

    I hope Clinton et al. are watching this clusterfuck of hate, lies and incompetence and saying, “Okay, we want to do the exact opposite of this.”

  38. 38.

    Bruce K

    Serious question: what happens if Trump’s campaign self-destructs in some messy, spectacular manner during the convention? The rest of the GOP field’s been discredited (I wouldn’t want to run someone who couldn’t survive a primary process against a vulgar talking yam), the rules have been locked down to cinch it for Trump, and there’s officially no time left to dredge up an alternative.

    My initial bet was that Trump would self-destruct before now; obviously that’s lost. I would have given an outside chance that he’d self-destruct during the general election campaign; that’s probably the country’s best hope, and it’s a rather straightforward scenario. But what happens if there’s nobody standing at the end of the convention?

  39. 39.

    amk

    @gene108: People who are not voting for the thug and the trump curious can chew gum and walk at the same time.

    Just a few words? Really?

    contrarian bs?

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @raven: I hate to give the credit to Steve Schmidt
    Steve Schmidt, hell, I have to admit that it looks like Nicole Wallace strung a handful of thoughts and facts into an actually relevant observation (and it looks like Mika ad-libbed a funny!):

    n MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, Republican strategist Nicole Wallace asked Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AZ) and Sen. Tom Barrasso (R-WY) how they could address the party’s flagging numbers among women and minorities.
    “We as a party are losing women by 23 points at the top of our ticket,” Wallace said. “Do you even want to win with just white men voting Republican? I’m embarrassed.”
    “George W. Bush won with 40 percent of the Hispanic vote,” she went on. “He narrowed the gender gap to a historic level that we haven’t matched since 2004. Are you proud our path to victory is just to turn out more white guys?”
    The two senators turned to each other and urged the other to speak first. Host Mika Brzezinski joked that the answer to Wallace’s question would be given by “two white guys.”

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    @Woodrowfan: Apparently not; Trump has been running a flagrantly racist, bigoted, xenophobic, quasi-fascist campaign for months, and his blatant lies and dangerous demagoguery have been mainstreamed by the Beltway hacks. I don’t I understand the argument that if only they’d stop talking about the plagiarism, the selfsame Beltway hacks would suddenly address the Brownshirt character of the campaign.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    The fear thing really is part of the conservative mindset. It’s always part of the package. I read police reports here and they’re constantly calling police on “suspicious persons”. We have a female muni prosecutor- she’s a wingnut. I don’t practice over there but our children are in the same grade so we chat quite a bit.

    If there is a possible way to ascribe bad or nefarious motives to nearly any set of events or persons she will find it. I’ll say “he forgot” and she’ll say “he didn’t ‘forget’- he knew it would set me back so he waited until the last day”. It’s all like that- all a vast web of bad actors and people who are right on the verge of criminality. I think “I would hate to live in your head” :)

  44. 44.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Woodrowfan: I don’t think the theory that were the press not talking about plagiarism they’d instead be pointing out the extremism and dangers of the scaremongering holds a lot of water.

    Demagoguery and fear-mongering has been the Republican Party MO for decades, not as extreme as right now, but it’s been there and we can see how that went. The press pointing out “they’re just trying to scare you folks” is not something the press does, see Iraq, invasion of as a good example.

  46. 46.

    Jeffro

    @Bruce K:

    what happens if there’s nobody standing at the end of the convention?

    Won’t happen…even if it all went to heck in a hand basket, the party would work through its rules (and maybe beyond its rules) to put someone up as the nominee. Even if it was Reince and two GOP interns in a back room playing rock, paper, scissors, there’d still be someone there in name.

    I’m still very interested to see what Ted Cruz says and does…would not surprise me if he really went for it, giving a full-throated defense of his brand of conservatism, and then – mic drop – walked right out of there.

  47. 47.

    dmsilev

    @Bruce K: There’s probably a mechanism in place for if Trump really truly can’t run (dies, medically incapacitated, resigns), but once the roll call vote is taken, he’s the nominee and there’s nothing the Party can do to get rid of him.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    @D58826:

    The plagiarism allows the talking heads to discussion something other than the fact that trump has unleashed the monsters from the ID of American society. It has always been there but now it is on full display and has been validated by one of the two political parties. It will not be easy to put this poison back in the bottle.

    this is who they are. plain and simple.

  49. 49.

    scav

    Large chunks of the ‘mercan public haven’t demonstrated that they’re going to soberly regard the candidate’s entire record and platform and logically come to a decision about ways and means. They seem just as likely to make up their minds based on shit stupid reasons like who’s wife looks silliest or uncool to be around or freakishly stiff when saying “who let the dogs out” after caging a dog on his car roof.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Quinerly: Clinton blamed terrorism for the attack in an email to her own daughter Chelsea Clinton, Smith said, but “when I saw Hillary Clinton at Sean’s coffin ceremony, just days later, she looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible. Since then, I have repeatedly asked Hillary Clinton to explain to me the real reason why my son is dead. I’m still waiting.”

    I feel sorry for that woman, it’s sick that they brought her up there after encouraging her rage and grief over the last four years, but I’ve never understood how mentioning “the video” is supposed to some treasonously dishonest effort to distinguish the attack from “terrorism” (or… an opportunistic act of guerrilla warfare in a civil war?). Obama called it “an act of terror” the day after it happened, which I’m guessing was before Sean Smith’s funeral.

  52. 52.

    Bill

    I know we don’t need more confirmation that Steve King is a racist piece of shit.

    But wow is Steve King a racist piece of shit.

  53. 53.

    MattF

    @Bruce K: One could argue that messy self-destruction has happened and is ongoing. There just aren’t any consequences. E.g., Chris Cillizza will write about Hilz being unlikeable and having the Worst Week in Washington regardless of what Trump and his minions do.

  55. 55.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Keith G:

    Trump’s incompetence might actually be as much of as danger as is his fascism.

    Hitler was a shitty, surprisingly lax manager.

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Joy Reid has an interesting (or at least amusing) theory that the Trump family soap opera may become a factor in the coming campaign– short version, Melania resents the elder Trump children (Ivana’s) for not letting Trump be Trump (they talked him into picking Pence against his will), and that’s why she wasn’t as the Pence roll out in IN, the excuse for which was “she’s working on her speech”

  58. 58.

    danielx

    I wholeheartedly detest David Brooks….but once every year or thereabouts, he manages to hit the note like Duane Allman and Dickey Betts:

    Does anybody else have the sense that Donald Trump is slipping off the rails? His speeches have always had a rambling, free association quality, but a couple of the recent ones have, as the Republican political consultant Mike Murphy put it, passed from the category of rant to the category of full on “drunk wedding toast.”

  60. 60.

    p.a.

    Maybe we really are approaching (in the mathematical sense) wingnut singularity. The Rethugs really are unifiers. Of teh stoopid.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Davey C:

    I hope Clinton et al. are watching this clusterfuck of hate, lies and incompetence and saying, “Okay, we want to do the exact opposite of this.”

    Me too. In 2004 in Ohio religious Republicans adopted this bumper sticker that said “Love Wins” and added a Bush sticker beneath. I have a friend who is a religious liberal and she was just outraged, because in Ohio they were running on demonizing gay people and shilling the War on Terror, among other fear-based tactics. “Keep us safe!”

    The Democratic Convention should be a love fest – singing, hugs, joyful proclamations of inclusion, whatever :)

  62. 62.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    @Bill:

    Stealing labor and natural resources to create, sustain and enforce unearned privilege is white people’s contribution to civilization. If you’re an idiotic white male with nothing going for you except your unearned privilege like Steve King’s, then what he said makes sense.

  63. 63.

    MattF

    @danielx: That’s just Trump’s style. Brooks is now actually trying to make sense of it– for the first time, apparently.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    OMFG we’d still be talking about it. Jake Tapper would be parsing every statement she made before and after, looking for the “smoking gun”.

  66. 66.

    Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill

    “I have words. The best words. Great words. Amazing, even. And I hire the best, most fantastic speechwriters to arrange those words. Topnotch, they’re the greatest. Something must be going on, though, and we gotta figure this out, so I’m investigating the long form first draft, because I have my doubts, and will let you know what I find out.”

  67. 67.

    Quinerly

    @danielx:
    I have watched way too many of his speeches/rallies than I should admit. I think something really changed with him with at that NC rally a few weeks back. Plus that breathing/snort thing has become more and more noticeable. I said then if HRC and Liz Warren keep up the pressure, he will crack. I truly believe we are heading for a very public, nasty breakdown.

  69. 69.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Matt McIrvin: Hitler wasn’t a manager at all. On domestic issues, his leadership style was to allow ministries to fight amongst themselves – – – that forced various Reichministers to spend an inordinate amount of time covering their own asses, and kept them relatively weak so they couldn’t challenge Hitler for power.

  70. 70.

    gene108

    @amk:
    @Betty Cracker:

    I do not think the MSM can walk and chew gum at the same time.

    They focus on a shiny object and that’s all they focus in on.

    Most folks still get their news from MSM headlines, which are all on the plagiarism and lite on the hate-fest.

    Edit: Most people probably do not realize how awful last night was. They probably think a bunch of stock canned speeches and “oh no” Melania plagiarizing was the worst thing to happen.

  72. 72.

    D58826

    only sort of OT given last nights events. Kurt Eichenwald has a long piece in Newsweek this week about the Chilcot report. The lede is Bush ignored numerous warnings before invading Iraq. It details the complete incompetence of the Bush administration and the god-complex that infected Bush. The most important point given the political environment today is

    The chaos of the American planning left Blair with two choices, which he detailed to his aides. He could either gamble on the U.S. effort or keep Britain out of the conflict and damage relations with America. He decided to take the risk, and he lost. His intelligence team was right. The Iraqi invasion set off a new wave of terrorism that has no end in sight. And the Americans—because of arrogance, poor planning and incompetence—were to blame.

    ttp://www.newsweek.com/2016/07/29/chilcot-report-iraq-george-bush-tony-blair-481506.html

  74. 74.

    Keith G

    @gogol’s wife:

    Right. I think Melania should be given no quarter.

    and then

    Like they would have given Michelle a pass if she’d done this.

    It seems to me that it would be a good idea to cover this bit of stupidity just enough, but not so much as to give a sympathy-driven backlash extra fuel. One of the great things about the Right attacking Michelle in 2008+ is that they went way beyond the bend. This cut down on their support and made Michelle appear even stronger and more sympathetic. Attacking a spouse only gets one so far.

    Keep all attention on the candidate and the process ….and the candidate’s explicit inability to run a convention process that is a lot less complicated than running a country.

  75. 75.

    Shell

    And who was that panicky CNN host this morning, when they were rehashing the plagiarism accusations. He seemed more upset that it would overshadow the first convention day and that it should have bee Melania s night and now its all ruined…oh dear…ohdear. He seemed more concerned that it should be resolved and forgotten as quickly as possible because’ Hillary lied…Hillary can’t be trusted!’
    He started to get just a little bit hysterical.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    I think he’s gotten worse too. In the beginning it had a quality of him watching the con while pulling the con- there was some humor in it- a distance- like he couldn’t believe he was getting away with it. Now he believes the con- it’s gotten meaner- he thinks it’s within reach and he wants it badly.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    @Quinerly:

    I think something really changed with him with at NC rally a few weeks back. Plus that breathing/snort thing has become more and more noticeable.

    I haven’t noticed this, but then again I really can’t stand to watch the guy for more than 10 seconds. What happened in NC and what’s this about breathing/snorting?

    For a guy his age who hardly sleeps, his mental processes (such as they already were) must be just about completely shot. And he looks like his BP must be astronomical.

  78. 78.

    lamh35

    oh come on… they weren’t gonna focus on the crazy anyway the headline woulda been how great Melania Trump speech was. hell folks were already raving about how it was the best if the night. if the media hand focused on the crazy of the Trump camp yet, newsflash they ain’t never gonna.

    this entire time Republicans have dogged and disrespected FLOTUS at every turn…what’s that the old folk say here in the South..GOD DON’T LIKE UGLY!!! Karma is a bitch!

  79. 79.

    hovercraft

    @Betty Cracker:
    Apparently there is a fight going on in the family, the kids pressured Trump into going with Pence, Melania expressed her displeasure about them pressuring her husband into a pick that he didn’t want and wasn’t comfortable with, by not appearing at his announcement. She was in New Jersey, and couldn’t make it back across the Hudson. Now Manafort is out on all the shows saying that she did write the speech with a little input from staff. He is putting this all on her, not taking the free pass that the media is trying to give her. So when the shit hits the fan, and it will because the media are enjoying this chew toy way too much to just let it go without a new one, I suspect Manafort’s head may be it. I guess Melania is a proponent of let Trump be Trump.

  80. 80.

    Immanentize

    @NickM: Triumph of the Will was well producd and emotionally coherent. Cleveland RNC not. Trump is a poor excuse for a genocidal fascist.

  81. 81.

    James E Powell

    @Jeffro:

    It won’t happen again. Nor will 2010 – I have no doubt HRC will see to that.

    I wish I shared your confidence. I have no experience of Democratic voters coming out in droves in non=presidential years.

  83. 83.

    Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill

    @Keith G:

    Nobody gets that Donald Trump is the shiny exemplar of all that was the white male American of the Cold War era. A chickenhawk, prone to swagger when that right was unearned, reckless, preening, pretty stupid but benefitting from a social system that always provided soft landings.

    Every lawyer who has ever dealt in commercial real estate issues or commercial collections knows what Donald Trump is – a brash talker who isn’t real bright, but who plows on and frequently gets his way because he’s a sociopath at heart, doesn’t care what or who he blows up and wants what he wants, when he wants it. If you’re born wealthy, you don’t have to be smart.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    Meanwhile, NYT finally caught up to Balloon Juice with a discussion of Trump as Nixon.

  85. 85.

    lamh35

    oh and just FYI…check out the YouTube comparison…it was more than “a few words”

  86. 86.

    Wilson Heath

    Do I just have a very short memory thinking that it is unprecedented to have invited convention speakers calling for the arrest of the opposing nominee durring their primetime slots? That seems a lot more worrisome than some plagiarized platitudes.

    (And yes, I know, a GOS blogger, both sides, yadda yadda.)

  88. 88.

    gene108

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Joy Reid has an interesting (or at least amusing) theory that the Trump family soap opera may become a factor in the coming campaign– short version, Melania resents the elder Trump children (Ivana’s) for not letting Trump be Trump (they talked him into picking Pence against his will), and that’s why she wasn’t as the Pence roll out in IN, the excuse for which was “she’s working on her speech”

    It must sting a bit to realize Trump’s oldest kids are the same age as you, give or take a year here ot there.

    Most make for a strange family dynamic.

  89. 89.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @gene108:

    Most people probably do not realize how awful last night was.

    I agree with this. I watched some of it, it was horrifying at times.

    I also think that there’s no way that the press, the New York Times, the networks, are going to tell people this. “The opening night of the RNC was a festival of scaremongering reminiscent of brown shirt rallies” is not a headline you’ll read or a broadcast opening you’ll hear, despite it being pretty accurate.

    The fact that they’re focusing on plagiarism is not surprising, and if you got them to stop doing that, or you know, stopped talking about it here, it wouldn’t mean that they’d report about the scaremongering as scaremongering. The scaremongering about WMD was reported as fact, not scaremongering. That’s how they roll.

  90. 90.

    celticdragonchick

    @gene108:

    I will say it here:

    Trump is going to go full metal Robert Mugabe n his acceptance speech and tell us all that he will prosecute and imprison Hillary Clinton when he is elected.

    The speeches last night (Hillary in stripes! Jail Hillary!) make this the logical conclusion where Trump can demonstrate his male dominance and guarantee he owns the daily news cycle.

  91. 91.

    Major Major Major Major

    @lamh35: I looked at Memeorandum for my headlines this morning, and it was 30% plagiarism (man that word’s hard to spell right), 30% human interest stories about Melania (man that word’s hard to spell right) that they’d obviously written in advance, 20% other RNC things, and 10% the axe attack in Germany.

    So you can tell that the coverage was supposed to be about Melania and how great she is.

  92. 92.

    Gin & Tonic

    @hovercraft:

    I suspect Manafort’s head may be it.

    Manafort will survive, just like the cockroaches will survive the nuclear annihilation. He is completely amoral, and knows only self-preservation.

  93. 93.

    lamh35

    via David Plouffe on Twitter:

    Wonder how Steve King will react to the “contributions” an African-American woman made to the GOP convention on night one.

  94. 94.

    Cermet

    Many people here watch in horror as if these issues aren’t caused by real problems; just that these people, unlike most of us, can’t understand the reasons driving their fears. First, the US as an industrial power went into eclipse decades ago as a result of the world recovering from WW II. Many of the white males just grew up think this is the normal state of affairs – us dominating economically was earned by, well, being white. Next, no matter what the thugs claim, many people see and sense the change in both the weather here and the world. These “foot steps” they are hearing puts fear into them that they want explained away in a manner that reconciles with their ingrained beliefs. Blacks and browns are just an obvious group to blame as the reality of the real world crosses the oceans and we discover that we are little different than the countless peoples that fell due to out-side forces beyond their control. The ride gets far worse and the grown ups that many democrats are will be needed to steer the ship into the terrible storms brewing on the horizon that we liberals have known/seen for decades but the thugs are only now really experiencing. These people have been lied to for so long they would throw away the rope given them for rescue when drowning rather than learn anything that disrupts their belief system.

  95. 95.

    gene108

    @Shell:

    No one else last night was able to read from a TelePrompTer and stay on script. That’s how bad it was.

    A speaker just being able to stay on script the entire speech was the high water mark.

  96. 96.

    Bill

    @Bruce K: That’s not likely to happen. But if it does, I predict Ryan will swoop in to save his beloved party for mythical “Reasonable Republicans” everywhere. Same way he became Speaker.

  97. 97.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Quinerly:
    Their narrative makes perfect sense, if you are willing to embrace counterfactuals. Like a lot of things that seem nonsensical in conservative thought, the discrepancy is that it’s so hard for us to accept that they could honestly mean the horrible, insane, paranoid, mean, racist shit they actually do mean. In this case, that Obama hates America, thinks Muslim terrorists are right, and deliberately refuses to identify an existential threat to America. It’s much like we rail against the media refusing to point out the hate and evil of last night’s convention.

  98. 98.

    celticdragonchick

    @Wilson Heath:

    Do I just have a very short memory thinking that it is unprecedented to have invited convention speakers calling for the arrest of the opposing nominee durring their primetime slots? That seems a lot more worrisome than some plagiarized platitudes.

    I have been watching these since 1984 and I have never seen this happen.

    I can’t think of anything like this but for the possible exception of the “fire eaters” in the 1850’s.

    This is the sort of thing that collapses constitutional government. When you escalate politics to “You win or you are prosecuted by the winner”…well, Game of Thrones was never supposed to be how we govern ourselves.

  99. 99.

    hovercraft

    @Quinerly:
    I’m not mad at Pat Smith, losing a child can devastate a person and people have different coping mechanisms, so if she needs to blame someone that’s something that her therapist and family to deal with. The shameful ones are the people who put her on TV in front of the nation to exploit her grief in front of the entire world. They know that what she believes is not true, so they should not have used her like that.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    Do police treat Black Lives Matter and ‘White Lives Matter’ differently?

    …‘No confrontation’ with White Lives Matter

    The night of Noble’s death, his friends gathered at the Chevron gas station where he was killed, and an impromptu vigil eventually morphed into a chaotic protest against police.

    According to officers and protesters, some started setting off fireworks and doing “doughnuts” and “burnouts” with their cars – driving in circles and spinning their wheels. Some shouted “fuck the police” and eventually a crowd took over the road, standing with their arms in the air blocking traffic. One protester allegedly threw a glass object at police.

    The event made national headlines after some protesters held up a Confederate flag and “White Lives Matter” sign – an appropriation of the Black Lives Matter movement that seeks to raise awareness about the high rates of police violence against African Americans.

    Friends of Noble said the protests were misunderstood and that they were only trying to draw attention to the unjustifiable and horrific killing by police.

    Police, meanwhile, were deliberately passive in their response to the protest.

    “We do everything we can to deescalate the situation,” police chief Jerry Dyer told the Guardian days after the rally. “There was absolutely no confrontation.”

    One officer even allowed a protester to use the police loudspeaker to address the crowd, which a local TV station caught on camera.

    “Tempers were flaring on both sides,” recalled Bryce Lindlahr, the protester who used the police PA system to encourage the crowd to be peaceful and focus on mourning their friend.

    There were no arrests or citations, according to police captain Andy Hall, and the gathering dissipated.

  103. 103.

    bemused

    @danielx:

    Full on drunk wedding toaster fits Trump perfectly. He reportedly doesn’t drink but even if he did, I can’t imagine he would look and sound much differently.

  106. 106.

    Mike G

    The funniest part of that NY Daily News cover is the subheadline: “Day of chaos as Rudy, Chachi join forces”
    Slyly insulting to both.

    Rudy Loves Chachi!

  107. 107.

    Rafer Janders

    @gene108:

    It must sting a bit to realize Trump’s oldest kids are the same age as you, give or take a year here ot there.

    They’re not, though. I think his oldest, Ivanka, is 34, while Melania is 47.

  108. 108.

    schrodinger's cat

    You have a much stronger stomach than I do. I don’t think I have watched a Republican convention since Sister Sarah gave her pitbull hockey mom speech. As for the MSM they are sending in the audition tapes for the information ministry under Herr Trump. They have aspirations of being his Goebbels.

  109. 109.

    hovercraft

    @gogol’s wife:
    Michelle is a grasping, scheming, ambitious, black democrat, everything she does is calculated, Melania is a kind mother and business woman who self made and is a victim.
    Now I wonder why the difference in attributes attributed to the two women. Hmm, just can’t quite put my finger on it.

  110. 110.

    Jeffro

    @Immanentize:

    Meanwhile, NYT finally caught up to Balloon Juice with a discussion of Trump as Nixon.

    That kind of talk seriously irritates @Dick_Nixon on Twitter (one of the best accounts I follow…the writer has ol’ Tricky Dick down PAT)

  111. 111.

    Iowa Old Lady

    As someone who’s taught writing, published stuff myself, and worked as a journal editor, plagiarism gives me heart failure.

    Like hell, she wrote that speech herself, and she would never have been able to recognize the word theft. At least one speech writer needs to be fired.

    Or here’s another theory. She tried to write it herself and resorted to plagiarism because she couldn’t do it.

  112. 112.

    SFAW

    @D58826:

    And the Americans—because of arrogance, poor planning and incompetence—were to blame.

    That almost seems to imply that the Bush Admin’s push for war was a sincere, but incompetent, effort. It wasn’t. It was based on whatever lie they could get the MSM to believe for some amount of time, before moving on to the next lie. (Back when it was happening, I think I counted about 27 justifications put forth.) But, above all, it was a breathtaking display of cynicism by Cheney and his sock puppets. Yeah, there was plenty of Administration incompetence to go around, but that only became an issue because of their overarching desire to take out Saddam, and screw the consequences.

  113. 113.

    Bruce K

    And here I am still trying to sort out the whole thing about the mother of Sean Smith (one of the victims of the Benghazi attack). People insist that Hillary Clinton lied to Mrs. Smith’s face about what caused the attack, and now Mrs. Smith was apparently one of the speakers at RNC Day One … at least from what I could read from Mr. Pierce.

    My problem is, I’m part of EVE Online, the gaming community that knew Sean Smith as “Vile Rat” (the name he chose for his in-game avatar), and I’ve already had to deal with people with strong opinions about the Benghazi attack and Clinton’s reactions to it. I get that things were confused in the early going, and that it’s entirely possible that she’d said one thing to some people, and another to others a little later, and both might have been true to the best of her knowledge at the different times of the different statements … but does anyone have a source for a good, reliable timeline for the mess?

    Sorry to clutter things up like this.

  114. 114.

    D58826

    @hovercraft:

    Michelle is a grasping, scheming, ambitious, black democrat, everything she does is calculated, Melania is a kind mother and business woman who self made and is a victim.
    Now I wonder why the difference in attributes attributed to the two women. Hmm, just can’t quite put my finger on it.

    Is there a pun somewhere in ‘Melanin’ vs ‘Melania’

  115. 115.

    jonas

    @Punchy: I’ve said this here and elsewhere before: Yertle and his gang in the Senate are just going to run out the clock on RBG and then declare that a 7-member SCOTUS is all you need and that there will be no further appointments.

  116. 116.

    hovercraft

    @lamh35:
    He can fall back on saying that the speech writer who wrote it is white and she used to be Hillary’s speech writer, so white people. Black people can be made to seem to make contributions, but really white people.

  117. 117.

    Quinerly

    @Jeffro:
    After awhile, all his rants run together. The NC speech, I believe was in Greensboro. I remember a change there (partly b/c I’m originally from there and “weep for my newly insane” birth state). A blogger live blogged it and we discussed it here on BJ. The blogger commented about an unusually amt of hate in the rally. Might have been right after I started commenting here after lurking for 12 plus years. Could have been the day Warren gave her first speech with HRC. Let’s just say, I noticed a visible change in him…his mannerisms with that one hand, plus that breathing/snorting thing is very pronounced when he tries to read or stay on script….especially with the teleprompter.

  118. 118.

    danielx

    @bemused:

    He reportedly doesn’t drink but even if he did, I can’t imagine he would look and sound much differently.

    I dunno, he’s quite bad enough sober. I shudder to think what he’d be like three martinis in with his inhibitions really down.

  119. 119.

    hovercraft

    @lamh35:
    And this mornings controversies are the media making a mountain out of a molehill. And Hillary attacking a strong woman.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    They did this same thing with Sarah Palin, though. They insisted she was a “natural” and she would connect and we loved her and they propped her up until her poll numbers became impossible to ignore. Palin’s speech at the GOP convention was a horror- it was all mean. I actually sat back in my chair at the barrage of sneering venom.

    Political media loved it- they were saying it was clever– “sink the stiletto in” all that. Palin didn’t wear well because people don’t actually like mean people :)

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    @hovercraft: It was really difficult for me to watch Pat Smith. As some.of you know, I represented people on death row in Texas for all of the 90’s. Some.of the side work I had the privilege to participate in was public discussions amongst murder victims’ family members. One group was called “Murder Victims for Reconviliation” and the other group was “Parents of Murdered Children.” You can guess which group shared which attitude. All of their stories were heartbreaking. But the Parents of Murdered Children women (they were all white women, it seemed) were kept in a constant state of hateful vengeance by prosecutors who needed their continuing rage for sentencing hearing and post conviction motions. It was shameful how their true pain was manipulated into self-perpetuating rage.

  123. 123.

    Steeplejack

    @danielx:

    I just read Brooks’s column, and I am not giving him a gold star for it. He is belatedly—very belatedly—doing some ass-covering, now that Trump is coming completely unglued and his insanity can no longer be ignored by the Republican dead-enders.

    “Does anybody else have the sense that Donald Trump is slipping off the rails.” Why, yes, Bobo! Just about everybody who hasn’t been in a coma for the last year and isn’t a hard-core Republican. Hoocoodanode?!

  126. 126.

    bemused

    @danielx:

    Yes, although it could take awhile longer for people to detect a Trump under the influence compared to some other random person.

  127. 127.

    Iowa Old Lady

    The plagiarism in Mrs. Trump’s speech reminds me of the 2006 case of Kaavya Viswanathan. She was still in high school when she got a big money contract to write a YA novel from a book packager, ie a company that develops what it believes will be high-sales books and hires someone to write them. Much of Viswanathan’s book was written by people at the packager, and it was shot through with plagiarism from very well known YA writers. It was an insane thing to go because the books they stole from were so well known. And it was just this kind of thing–phrases and clauses lifted with maybe one word changed. Someone I know said that Viswanathan should be treated gently because she fell among thieves. I feel the same way about Mrs. Trump.

  128. 128.

    MomSense

    @celticdragonchick:

    Oh yeah the Republicans have been building to a full on Mugabe for years now. It’s the logical conclusion to peddling hate in coded language for decades until that coded language just wouldn’t satisfy the masses anymore. They want red meat and Trump’s got the best steaks.

  129. 129.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    Looks like Melania never graduated from University, contrary to her professional bio.

    The con artistry is going to stick this time because a) general audience isn’t the same as the Republican audience and b) the conman narrative happens to be true.

  130. 130.

    rikyrah

    El pen. @lori_pen
    White privilege is when you steal a black woman’s speech, and just get a slap on the wrist for it. #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes

  131. 131.

    PAM Dirac

    @hovercraft: That’s why I wonder if it wouldn’t be more productive to take Melania at her word and emphasize that the two women’s core values are so similar they even come up with the same words to express them. The plagiarism is another example of the lazy incompetence of the Trump, but there are many, many others. I’d like to see someone forced to answer what exactly makes Michelle pure evil and Melania wonderfully good if they think a lot alike. Not someone on the convention floor, or even necessarily in the Trump campaign, but some of the VSP who maintain “both sides do it” and Trump is just “unconventional”. I don’t think there is any other sane explanation other than raw, unthinking hate and that’s the evil that most needs to be exposed.

  132. 132.

    bemused

    @MomSense:

    I don’t think Republican voters are “happy” unless they have something or several somethings to fear, hate and rage against.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    Joy Reid:

    Journey back with me to this past weekend, when Melania Trump’s unprecedented absense from the Pence family intro was explained this way:

    ‘Melania wasn’t at the speech bc she was at a resort in New Jersey working on her convention speech…’

    But really she’s mad at the Trump children for Pence. I like her more for disliking Trump’s adult children, honestly. They’re horrible. She’s sensible enough to know that.

  134. 134.

    Poopyman

    @Jeffro:

    That kind of talk seriously irritates @Dick_Nixon on Twitter (one of the best accounts I follow…the writer has ol’ Tricky Dick down PAT)

    I see what you did there.

  136. 136.

    PAM Dirac

    @PAM Dirac: I probably shouldn’t say the evil that “needs to be exposed” as it is there for anyone to see, but the evil that the VSP most need to be forced to confront.

  137. 137.

    rikyrah

    Follow

    Jeff Sharlet
    ‏@JeffSharlet
    Newt on Fox just now: “If they were Michelle’s words, Melania delivered them better than Michelle.” “Whiter,” you might say.

  138. 138.

    srv

    NBC

    Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are virtually tied in the polls as the Republican National Convention convenes in Cleveland this week. Clinton now just barely edges out Trump in a direct head-to-head match-up, 46 percent to 45 percent.
    …
    The poll also found that Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton did not have a large impact for most Democratic voters. Only about a quarter of Democratic voters said his endorsement makes them more likely to support Clinton in November, and 72 percent said his endorsement didn’t make a difference.

    and LA Times agree, horserace.

  140. 140.

    negative 1

    Realizing this is kind of juvenile, but I’m glad someone else thought that the Trump/Pence logo was extremely phallic looking.

  141. 141.

    slag

    @lamh35: Perfect. The Melania thing resonates as another example of white people capitalizing on, and taking credit for, the work of other “sub-groups”.

  142. 142.

    negative 1

    @rikyrah: “Because any speech sounds better from an immigrant to this… er… um, English with an accent is great when, er… oh fuck it.”

  144. 144.

    tarragon

    Does anyone have transcripts or even prepared remarks up yet? I’m willing to read the speeches but can’t quite get myself to watch them.

  145. 145.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah:

    Newt on Fox just now: “If they were Michelle’s words, Melania delivered them better than Michelle.”

    That’s an intriguing defense, for sure.
    “I’m just going to gloss over plagiarism with sheer, lizard-brain tribalism, if you don’t mind”

  146. 146.

    Jack

    Tuned in to Faux News to see how they are handling the Melania plagiarism.

    Crickets for about 25 minutes, til the Newt quote above…

    Oh, yeah, Karl Rove lies for the nth time:

    “Melania’s speech came off as REALLY Authenic!”

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think this is a good point

    osh Chafetz ‏@ j oshchafetz 33m33 minutes ago
    To dandrezner’s list, I’d add: 4. Continuing evidence of campaign disorganization will continue to keep donors away

    ETA: Who paid for the fog machine? Did Papa Shelly finally come through? or did Trump take another loan?

  149. 149.

    Trentrunner

    So let’s recap Trump & Co’s responses to Melania’s plagiarizing:

    – Hillary and her liberal media are ginning this up because Hillary is threatened by any strong woman who challenges her

    – Melania did write it, but it’s not plagiarism

    – Melania didn’t write it, but it’s not plagiarism

    – It’s only 7% of the speech that’s plagiarized, so it’s not real plagiarism

    – She did plagiarize, but she delivered it better than the First Negress, who isn’t really American anyway.

    Am I missing any? It’s still early…

  151. 151.

    gene108

    @Bruce K:

    I get that things were confused in the early going, and that it’s entirely possible that she’d said one thing to some people, and another to others a little later, and both might have been true to the best of her knowledge at the different times of the different statements … but does anyone have a source for a good, reliable timeline for the mess?

    The timeline, best as I can tell, is that there was an anti-Prophet Mohammed movie that came out.

    Pissed off Muslims.

    The pissed off Muslims in North Africa, Egypt and at least one other country, stormed the U.S. Embassy in their respective countries in protest.

    A day or two later, the Benghazi attack happened.

    Initial reports were about the film, because that what triggered the other events.

    But as information unfolded it turns out the Benghazi attacks were a coordinated attack on the consulate.

    Republicans immediately started politicizing it from the second Susan Rice appeared on Sunday shows, a few days after the attack, as facts were still coming in and the rest is where we are now.

  154. 154.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    wow, big news that if the election were held today by means of an NBC poll, Hillary would win. Shocking! How do we make a drudgy siren emoji?

  158. 158.

    MomSense

    Adam had such a great insight about Manafort. Watching this Melania speechgate play out, it is so clear hat Manafort is used to working with dictators who are not questioned.

  159. 159.

    Peale

    I do find it a bit much that these speakers are just ratcheting up the fear levels. Sure the week previously, the big news stories were police shootings and shootings of police, coups in Turkey and awful events in Nice. And we have Joni Ernst to proclaim that ISIS is in every state, Mexican immigrants are killing folk and stealing jobs, and Antonio Sabato Jr. claiming that a known Islamic terrorist sympathizer is actually president. And the Rudi begging the crowd to remember that rounding up anyone who so much as thinks that we might be overreacting to the fear is still an option. Whatever. The other big story of the week was that young folk are coming out of their homes in large numbers looking for Pokemon. And while there have been lots of stories about how dangerous it is out there for the kids (They could be KIDNAPPED. They could be hit by cars! They find missing dead people! They’ll be robbed!!!!!) and that they should best go back inside where adults want them, they continue to be fearless because it is actually quite safe out there. Makes me feel like a radical every time I stop to capture another weedle.

  160. 160.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    but does he get why? I truly doubt it

    Former President George W. Bush confided to his closest ex-aides that he fears Donald Trump’s nomination could hasten the downfall of the Republican Party, according to a Politico story out Tuesday.
    “I’m worried that I will be the last Republican President,” Bush told former aides and advisers at an April reunion in Dallas.

    I always thought if I could put a curse on Dumbya, it would be lucidity and a long life

  163. 163.

    LAO

    @schrodinger’s cat: She didn’t write the speech (and I’m sure she didn’t watch Michelle deliver her original speech in 2008) — the campaign F*cked up when it had her claim that she wrote the speech. Does anyone in America believe that Mrs. Trump wrote her speech?

  164. 164.

    Peale

    @LAO: And I don’t really expect her to. Jebus. The speech of a prospective first lady is one of the conventional convention moments. Frau Trump hasn’t really been at the forefront of the campaign, and that’s fine, too. No one really votes on who the first lady will be, although from time to time both parties have tried to make issues of them. (Although not equally!).

    It isn’t likely that anyone at the convention itself had heard Michelle Obama’s speech in 2008. They are republicans. Why would they watch it? That is probably what killed them. They figured that it isn’t plagiarism if the audience hadn’t read or heard it before.

  165. 165.

    MomSense

    @LAO:

    I’m starting to think Ivanka wrote the speech and there is some mega family drama going on zuhause Trump.

  166. 166.

    Trentrunner

    While we’re on the topic, can we dispense with the idea that Melania did “great” or “fantastic” last night?

    Putting plagiarism aside, the speech itself was devoid of any humanizing specifics/anecdotes about Trump (probably because “And I remember first making love while Marla kept trying to call Donald on his mobile phone. He didn’t answer. [wink]” isn’t such a great family values story). Her delivery was adequate but not especially engaging.

    What’s going on here is the soft bigotry of low intellectual expectations of conventionally attractive women. Beautiful women can’t be smart, they’re bimbos, and so if one actually doesn’t take dump on the floor, suddenly it’s “great” or “out of the park.” It’s not. She was barely adequate, and the speech did nothing to humanize her husband.

    And then there’s the plagiarism….

  169. 169.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MomSense: I looked at Ivanka’s twitter feed a couple of months ago out of curiosity and it was mostly “lifestyle” tips– how to pack without wrinkles is the one I remember. Somebody tweeted at her “Jesus, who raised you? Oh yeah” a couple of days ago to I followed it. She’d gone full-on BLM is a terrorist movement and Obama hates cops. I’d been dismissing ideas that she’ll be the Marine LePen to her father’s Jean-Marie*, but maybe she has her own plans.

    * or Cersei to his Tywin, if like me you consider yourself to be a nerd.

  170. 170.

    LAO

    @Peale: I’m enjoying the story though because its really about how amateur the Trump campaign is — so it is fun!

    @MomSense: I bet, it wasn’t done on purpose — but that rick roll that was included, too witty for Ivanka. (not sure why people keep insisting she is the smart one).

  171. 171.

    Gin & Tonic

    Several people on the Twitter machine are retweeting Melania’s tweet from October of 2012, where she wrote “Always trust yourself, think for yourself, act for yourself, speak for yourself. Be yourself!”

    Some of those people are also helpfully pointing out that this quote was also plagiarized from a black woman, Marva Collins.

  173. 173.

    srv

    Woman of the people:

    Take May, for example. Of that $4.45 million given to the Clinton effort from securities & investment, $4.15 million – 93 percent – came from just five donors. That figure includes a $2 million donation from Donald Sussman, (No. 9 on our list of megadonors) and another $1 million from Bernard Schwartz (No. 28).

    And since Clinton’s campaign began last year, 86 percent of the $39.5 million donated by the securities & investment industry to help her bid came from just 13 people.

  175. 175.

    Gin & Tonic

    @LAO: Through an odd confluence of events, my daughter and SIL have met Ivanka and Jared socially a couple of times, and say they are quite nice, if pretty reserved and careful in public.

  176. 176.

    NorthLeft12

    @celticdragonchick:
    The whole idea of calling for Ms. Clinton to be imprisoned …or worse, goes along with the right wing threat machine. They have been threatening violence to individuals and countries for quite awhile and then claiming it was hyperbole or a joke. I take physical threats seriously, but that does not seem to be the way these yahoos see it. People need to be called out on these threats and contacted by the appropriate authorities.
    Of course that will give them another reason to whine about political correctness. They make me sick.

  178. 178.

    Trentrunner

    @srv: Hey! srv! HRC could take money from Satan himself, and I’d be fine with it.

    For once, sadly, the hyperbole is real: The election is about the soul of our nation and represents an existential choice. So I’m firmly in “by an means necessary” for Hillary to win.

    Oh, and I almost forgot, go fuck your fucking self, you fucked fucker. Fuck!

  180. 180.

    LAO

    @Trentrunner: I actually laughed out loud.

    @Gin & Tonic: I believe it. But she is actively assisting her father in his quest to become Lord Emperor of the United States, so not sure it matter how nice she may be in private.

  181. 181.

    bupalos

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Trump should be outraged

    I guess? I don’t actually know why I’m responding here other than this is simply never a phrase I expected to see anywhere ever, for multiple reasons.

  182. 182.

    billcoop4

    @hovercraft:

    @Quinerly:
    I’m not mad at Pat Smith, losing a child can devastate a person and people have different coping mechanisms, so if she needs to blame someone that’s something that her therapist and family to deal with. The shameful ones are the people who put her on TV in front of the nation to exploit her grief in front of the entire world. They know that what she believes is not true, so they should not have used her like that.

    She’s willingly stepped into this, so it is entirely permissible for sympathy to be at least…strained. She has chosen to all herself to be used.

    WMC

  183. 183.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Origuy: I don’t like those hats. The take-back-Aztlán movement is real, and is not supremely helpful to the cause of electing Democrats at the moment. (I also happen to disagree with it, if you hadn’t guessed.)

    Make Mexico Spain Again.

  184. 184.

    hovercraft

    @Immanentize:
    Disgusting how we allow prosecutors to manipulate the system for the sake of “tough on crime” labels not for the benefit of society. But good on you for doing such a tough job.

  186. 186.

    NorthLeft12

    @SFAW: I gotta admit that keeping Canada out of the Iraq fiasco was one of the highlights of PM Jean Chretien’s ten year run as Prime Minister.
    The bad news was that he bumped up our involvement in the Afghanistan occupation to make up for it.

  187. 187.

    cain

    @MomSense: That kind of points to how incompetent the Democrats were for abandoning that. I would like to know who amongst our political elite was responsible for that? I like to blame them all, but with special attention to Little Debbie. Who I do not like at all. Can we please find someone else?? (I understand she leaves after this election)

  188. 188.

    hovercraft

    @rikyrah:
    Even the Mornin Shmo and Halpern were saying that this damages him. He claims to be a business man who is going to come in and run the government more efficiently, and yet he can’t even run his tiny campaign. The lack of competence on display is glaring.

  189. 189.

    billcoop4

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    The plagiarism in Mrs. Trump’s speech reminds me of the 2006 case of Kaavya Viswanathan. She was still in high school when she got a big money contract to write a YA novel from a book packager, ie a company that develops what it believes will be high-sales books and hires someone to write them. Much of Viswanathan’s book was written by people at the packager, and it was shot through with plagiarism from very well known YA writers. It was an insane thing to go because the books they stole from were so well known. And it was just this kind of thing–phrases and clauses lifted with maybe one word changed. Someone I know said that Viswanathan should be treated gently because she fell among thieves. I feel the same way about Mrs. Trump.

    I might if she had not claimed that she wrote the whole thing with little help. She took ownership; she therefore gets the bad press.

    I do think this is a three-days’ blunder. I fully expect there will be something even more horrendous said on Thursday night, leaving the Clinton Campaign with a choice between Friday and Saturday for the VP announcement–do they want to stop on the news cycle or let it ride for maximal effect.

    WMC

  190. 190.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Gin & Tonic:

    @LAO: Through an odd confluence of events, my daughter and SIL have met Ivanka and Jared socially a couple of times, and say they are quite nice, if pretty reserved and careful in public.

    Hitler liked dogs…

  191. 191.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The take-back-Aztlán movement is real

    Yes, though every Hispanic organization in America (especially if “La Raza” is in the name) also gets accused of being part of it, and that is pure paranoia.

  192. 192.

    Shell

    because Hillary is threatened by any strong woman who challenges her

    Except Melania isnt running against Hillary. That makes no sense.

    White House flag lowered for the third time out of respect for policemen. Exactly what does he have to do to prove he doesnt “hate cops.”

  193. 193.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @billcoop4: The Trump campaign is a treasure trove of horrendous.

    It wouldn’t surprise me if Melania Trump believes she wrote that speech. She thinks she wrote her ideas down and handed them to another writer who cleaned them up a little. Or she told the writer what she wanted to say, and he just wrote the words.

  194. 194.

    Quinerly

    @billcoop4:
    Kinda my point about the mom. The convention thing isn’t the mom’s first time on the stage, so to speak, about this. She has testified numerous times and goes around giving “speeches” to RWNJs. She is a willing participant. When I have time, I want to check some stuff about her daughter in law. I think she has kept her mouth shut and there are some problems/tension between the two. The mom makes a big deal about not getting some “answers” because she was told she wasn’t the next of kin. Made a big deal about that last night….the wife and his child are the next of kin. If anyone has anymore info, please pipe in.

  195. 195.

    hovercraft

    @gene108:
    Actually the embassy attacks took place on September 11th, in multiple countries, including Libya/ Benghazi that’s why the initial confusion was totally plausible, to anyone not insane.

  196. 196.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Matt McIrvin: True. But why invite the comparison? Trump can just say See, this is exactly what I’m talking about, this is what the immigrants want to do to America.

    It’s like arguing for gay rights by pointing out that the bible says you should execute people who wear cotton-poly blends or whatever. Technically true but not in the good way.

  197. 197.

    dmsilev

    @billcoop4:

    I do think this is a three-days’ blunder. I fully expect there will be something even more horrendous said on Thursday night, leaving the Clinton Campaign with a choice between Friday and Saturday for the VP announcement–do they want to stop on the news cycle or let it ride for maximal effect.

    Trump’s speech on Thursday will be the shitshow to end all shitshows, I think that much is clear. I imagine the Clinton campaign will make their Veep announcement on Friday, though presumably it won’t be via a single tweet followed by a narcissistic press event 24 hours later.

  198. 198.

    Fair Economist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I always thought if I could put a curse on Dumbya, it would be lucidity and a long life

    Based on him trying to start a line dance at the Dallas cops’ funeral, I’m pretty sure the lucidity part didn’t take.

  199. 199.

    hovercraft

    @MomSense:
    You’re right, I thought it was strange during his press briefing he took a few speech questions then decreed that was enough questions on the subject, time to move on. The stenographers went along and asked questions on other topics, until the last question. So can Josh Ernest just change the subject when he feels he’s given the answer he wants to.

  200. 200.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Quinerly: @billcoop4: Yeah, the mom has made a kitchen industry from being an aggrieved mother. Her tirades have been going on for four years—Rmoney was trying to exploit Benghazi in 2012. She isn’t an innocent victim, driven by mindless grief, and shouldn’t be treated as one.

  202. 202.

    bupalos

    @Trentrunner: Agreed. Obviously M.Trump III has every excuse for why she shouldn’t be expected to be competent at helping her husband here or really even engaged in it in any way. She honestly can barely speak the language and doesn’t have any kind of American story. I’m perfectly sensitive to that. The story to me is more structural, something about YamFace’s worldview that this is the wife he has and puts forth as a strong American woman.

  205. 205.

    hovercraft

    @Peale:
    Be AFRAID worked for them in 2004, so they are trying that play again. The problem is the joker at the top of the ticket does not inspire confidence, about his ability to keep us safe.

  208. 208.

    Peale

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Yep. Although grief is grief and everyone is different, there is a bit of a social expectation that the aggrieved will make an effort to return their lives to normalcy as much as possible. She is making no such effort and is trying to pull the entire country into her rage. So no, I don’t feel sorry for saying her grief is actually wrong.

  209. 209.

    gratuitous

    @srv: So, are you saying Trump is 50-50 to win? See, I’m trying to monetize conservative fervor (like a good capitalist and entrepreneur); are you willing to put $100 on the proposition that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States?

  211. 211.

    Peale

    @hovercraft: Yep. Seems like not only would we still have all the same troubles we have now, but he would go OUT OF HIS WAY to make more trouble in places where there isn’t any now.

  212. 212.

    SFAW

    @Shell:

    Exactly what does he have to do to prove he doesnt “hate cops.”

    Assuming the “he” is President Obama: he needs to stop being black, for starters.

  215. 215.

    coin operated

    @srv:

    Uh huh. I can see why Wall Street would want to donate to a Democrat. Traditionally, Democrats are better for the American Economy. That chart, which I’m sure you can find if you’re not too intellectually lazy, has been featured prominently on the ‘tubes. Better economy = better for the people. Wouldn’t you agree?

  216. 216.

    hovercraft

    @Shell:
    And it what way is she challenging her, she was not an attack dog last night, they sent her out there as the one bright spot. Hillary is not competing with her in any way because she’s not the candidate. RWNJ can pull all the Heidi Cruz type comparisons they want, but no one cares.

  217. 217.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @LAO:
    I believe the rick roll was put in intentionally by GOP insiders that want to humiliate the Drumpf in retaliation for the humiliation he had put on them. It is too perfect to be an accident and too silly not to be obvious. Chances are Melanoma didn’t share the thing after it was given to her and she is to unaware of all internet traditions to have caught it herself.

  218. 218.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Tamron Hall apparently left her bag of fucks at home today. Good on’er, as the late and lamented Miss Molly I used to say

    Kevin Guilfoile ‏@ kevinguilfoile 16m16 minutes ago
    Scott Baio (on MSNBC): “I wrote my speech in church on Sunday.”
    Tamron Hall: “Were you in church when you tweeted pic of HRC w/C-word?”

  219. 219.

    D58826

    @hovercraft:

    the joker at the top of the ticket does not inspire confidence, about his ability to keep us safe.

    The joker at the top of the ticket already had a track record on not keeping us safe and he was re-elected.

  220. 220.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Gin & Tonic:
    “Now it is true what they say about Boss Grisom, he was a murderer and a fiend. On the other hand he did have a lovely dinging voice.”

    Ted Bundy was charming. Al Capone was a great host.

  221. 221.

    Peter Osborn

    Just wanted to come here and drop a line in the midst of all this chaos. I started lurking here earlier this spring, though I’ve been a Dem all my political life. I was in mid-20s and utterly dissatisfied with my job as a cubicle jockey for a large multi-billion dollar financial services firm. I’m still in mid-20s, obviously, but quit the cubical gig and wanted to share that this week I start my first “political” gig. I’ll be a field organizer for Sec. Clinton in a swing-state, and despite the ~50% paycut and 14-hr/day, 7 day/wk schedule from now til Election Day, I’ve never been more excited to get to work.

    Some of this was my own seeking out a less soul-sucking career for myself, but a lot of it was coming here and absorbing the comments every day– seeing how damaging it was for passionate Dems to sit on the sidelines, seeing how important it was to not “just” vote, but to organize and do the work of getting others off the couch.

    So, thanks BJ community! I doubt I’ll have time to post much after today–but you’ve gotten at least one young Dem out of the corporate world and into a GOTV position.

  222. 222.

    Fair Economist

    Actually the point is that Wall Street as a whole despises her and only a few committed to a fair and open society support her (yes, there are some decent people everywhere, even on Wall Street.)

    It’s no surprise Walls Street hates Clinton because she wants to raise their taxes, rein in shadow banking, and put the Federal Reserve back under control of the electorate.

  223. 223.

    sherparick

    @Jeffro: Let’s all remember to vote in all off-year elections. I must admit that I am just following the story of the convention from blogs and radio while watching my Cubs make continued progress on breaking the curse. I am hoping after this week that the Democrats have a better than even chance at the Senate and chance for to win the House. Also, I need more popcorn.

  225. 225.

    hovercraft

    @D58826:
    True but the media at that point was still pretending that Iraq was going swimmingly, and he had an aircraft carrier to land on. The media have gotten past their he’s amazing an outsider, successful business man phase of the campaign. Now we have ghostwriter tellalls, lying about charitable giving, Trump U, never left behind a business partner who didn’t feel cheated or lied to. And that’s just off the top of my head from the last few days. Back in ’04 the only place the Bush f**k ups were being discussed was in the liberal blogosphere. Trump is out on center stage everyday with the crazy.

  226. 226.

    D58826

    @Peale:

    The other big story of the week was that young folk are coming out of their homes in large numbers looking for Pokemon. And while there have been lots of stories about how dangerous it is out there for the kids (They could be KIDNAPPED. They could be hit by cars! They find missing dead people! They’ll be robbed!!!!!) and that they should best go back inside where adults want them, they continue to be fearless because it is actually quite safe out there. Makes me feel like a radical every time I stop to capture another weedle.

    Well two kids were shot at by a home owner, in Fla.

  227. 227.

    trollhattan

    @srv:
    Demonstrating once again 1.They know who’s winning this and B. they trust her at the helm because above all, Wall Street values calm, steady leadership.

  229. 229.

    MattF

    Um… Twitter is showing a report of norovirus at the R convention. Everyone goes home tomorrow, I’m betting.

    ETA: Of course, it’s possible that nausea and puking is just normal.

  230. 230.

    geg6

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I agree. She’s nobody’s fool. She was a B-list model from Central Europe who saw her chance to marry a millionaire and went for it. She’s been with him for, what, 15-20 years? That’s longer than both his first two wives put together, I think. She’s as big a con as he is, always claiming to have been a super model but never having been one at all. She’s a liar and a con, just like her hubby. No quarter at all for her.

  231. 231.

    amk

    @D58826: different era, different politics. emmessem ain’t swinging votes for the rethugs any more. not that they keep trying.

  232. 232.

    Matt McIrvin

    @sherparick: Weirdly, according to Sam Wang’s models, the chance of taking back the House is greater than of taking back the Senate. I’m not sure if I actually believe that…

  234. 234.

    D58826

    Just saw a twitter from Huffinton that Roger Ailes has been told to resign. Seems the Faux princess Megan Kelly has joined in the list of women claiming sexual harassment.

  235. 235.

    Gin & Tonic

    In other shitshow news, multiple sources are reporting that Megyn Kelly has gone on record corroborating Gretchen Carlson’s accusations against Ailes, and the Murdoch spawn have given him two weeks to resign or be fired for cause.

  236. 236.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MattF: so they’ll all be getting on planes and stopping over in airports? I think we need a massive Republican quarantine.

  238. 238.

    trollhattan

    @LAO:
    Imagining the Woodstockesque PA announcer:”Stay away from the brown acid shrimp platter.”

  239. 239.

    catclub

    @James E Powell: 2006 election. years of built up outrage, plus Terri Schiavo fiasco, plus Katrina, plus Iraq war.

    Not likely to be repeated any time soon.

  240. 240.

    nominus

    Help me out here people:
    How do you manage the Chuck Todds of real life? They think they’re fooling everyone by claiming to be neutral, but everything they say or post is definitely conservative, though they claim they’re independent/neutral/unaffiliated. How do you work on the mentality of the people who are conservative but repusled by Trump? I talk to a lot of people here in Texas who rightly recognize the dumpster fire for what it is, but they still want to play the “I’m conservative but not Republican” card, or try to act like they despise both parties equally. They get touchy when you call them on it though – I’ve tried to explain to them that you can’t sling mud at both sides and claim to be neutral. All that happens is both sides see you slinging mud their way and will see you as an opponent.

  243. 243.

    trollhattan

    @Gin & Tonic:
    You KNOW there’s no way Ailes/Jabba wasn’t all over Megyn like a swarm of fire ants.

    Dearly want to know what these Fox Blondes have been getting paid to ignore/tolerate this shit. They’re not dumb, they just play that on the teevee. Also, too, whatever talk they gave Megyn informing she had to suck it up re. Trump’s bleeding comment must have been a doozy. “Triple my pay, effective last January,” “Okay, now get back out there, champ.”

  245. 245.

    rikyrah

    Gabriel ShermanVerified account
    ‏@gabrielsherman
    Megyn Kelly has told lawyers Ailes harassed her. Murdochs have told Ailes to resign by Aug. 1 or be fired for cause

  248. 248.

    sukabi

    @Bruce K: well, obviously they’ll bring back the good old days and haul Reagan’s mouldering corpse out and place that on the ticket…

  249. 249.

    Captain C

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I always thought if I could put a curse on Dumbya, it would be lucidity and a long life

    I’d like to do this to Cheney, at his current level of health, with the addition of a Gandhi- or MLK-like conscience and a very detailed memory of what he did and what he was thinking from 1999-2008.

  250. 250.

    Ian

    @srv:
    You play the political game by the rules you have, not the rules you want. Should Clinton unilaterally decide to disarm in an era where every election is more expensive than the one before? Or are you just mad that Trump can’t keep up financially?

  251. 251.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Hitler was a shitty, surprisingly lax manager.

    Go look up the “Western Front Society” on you tube for example. Historians can’t say enough about how disorganized and short sighted Hitler, the Nazis and the German Army leadership was in the 30’s and 40s. A lot of their early success can be put down to no one outside Germany at the time could believe someone could be that stupid as to want another world war twenty years after WWI.

  253. 253.

    daryljfontaine

    @LAO: Given the symptoms, I guess we can accurately say that some Repubs are no longer full of shit.

    D

  255. 255.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bruce K:

    But what happens if there’s nobody standing at the end of the convention?

    Then they bring in Alan Keyes as a last-minute placeholder. He’s done it at least twice before, including against Obama for US Senator in 2004.

  257. 257.

    sukabi

    @LAO: regulations are for p^ssies… who needs qualified food handlers?

    Was it catered by Chipotles?

  258. 258.

    Feathers

    @Quinerly: That makes sense about the mother/daughter-in-law split. One of the things I remember from the Terri Schiavo ugliness was a discussion where a woman with grown children was enraged, ugly hissing enraged about the fact that the son-in-law was the person who got to make the legal decisions for Terri, not her parents. I tried to lighten things by saying “Well, just keep your kids at home and never let them get married.” She just could not comprehend that marriage ended the parent’s legal ownership of their “babies.”

    And memory is a bitch. I lived through the “recovered memories” era. Therapists were telling women that psychological problems were invariably caused by repressed memories of childhood abuse. The day care center cases were even worse. Kids were accusing adults of physically impossible things, all at the prompting of therapists, their parents, and law enforcement. Just repeatedly asking someone fragile are you sure X didn’t happen often enough will put the memory in their head that it happened. These kids, as adults, still believe that they were horribly abused as children, even though it has been proven it never happened.

    The truly sad thing is that when something horrible happens to you, the body’s normal coping mechanisms will usually kick in and help you get through it. But if you have a secondary experience, a near miss or watching TV repeatedly, you don’t get the same level of trauma, but you also don’t have your bodily memory helping you heal, because it was all it your head. So in the longish run, you can actually end up worse off. They did a number of studies after 9/11. It turns out grief counselors can do tremendous harm.

  260. 260.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @Keith G: I honestly think it’s a greater risk, which is not to downplay the fascism.

    GWB was not a particularly competent man, and he appointed many people whose chief quality was their loyalty to him and to whatever passed for conservative ideology that week. But he did have some competent* people, especially in the higher positions, and most of them were not so willful and contrary that they couldn’t work towards a common goal part of the time.

    There’s a good reason the big-money people and the Republican insiders are running away from Trump, and it’s not because they know Trump is a fraudster and it’s not because he was rude to JEB!; it’s because they can spot a car crash in progress well enough to want no part of it, and this is going to be something like the 1990 wreck on I-75 (that link is to a really graphic account from the Chattanooga Times-Free Press, so think before you click) that involved 99 vehicles, with flaming wreckage strewn for a mile–and that’s if Trump makes it into the White House.

    There was a massive freakout among money people when Trump suggested getting rid of the national debt by paying it off for pennies on the dollar, just like a bankruptcy judgment, and the more they hear, the more worried they get, because however much they may share the base’s racism, they know just how essential basic competence in management is, and they have some idea how the world outside of East Elbow, Alabama and Willow Stump, Kansas works.

    They’re pretty sure the GOP and the financial markets can survive 4 years, or even 8 years of President Hillary Clinton; they aren’t sure they can survive even 4 years of President Trump.

    *For values of “competent” that included “Do not set fire to the house until you are outside of it”.

  262. 262.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Trentrunner:

    HRC could take money from Satan himself, and I’d be fine with it.

    To quote Jesse Unruh,

    If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them you’ve got no business being up here.

    Something a stupid Rethuglican vulture could never understand.

  263. 263.

    Paul in KY

    @NickM: It was done sooo much better in Triumph of the Will.

    The Nazis (say what you will about them) knew how to produce a fascist spectacle.

    I would assume the Romans would have done a much better job also, too.

  265. 265.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @bupalos:

    She honestly can barely speak the language

    –Now wait a minute. AFAIK no one is saying that they couldn’t understand what she was saying or that the speech itself wasn’t competent English. She speaks it with a Slavic accent. That’s not the same thing. (Although to the untutored USAn ear, such an accent is close enough to movie-villain Germanic that it might have brought a frisson of Mitteleuropa to the skinheads-in-spirit swarming the convention floor.)

  266. 266.

    Bruce K

    Might be interesting to compare The Speech to stuff that Mrs. Trump has said off-the-cuff. I suspect Slovenian has a different grammar structure from English, so with a bit of work, one could probably tell if the speechwriter spoke English or Slovenian as their first language.

    Based on the similarities noted to Michelle Obama’s speech, I’m going to guess the speechwriter’s first language was English, not Slovenian, but I’m not an accredited linguist, so don’t take that as gospel…

  268. 268.

    Paul in KY

    @Quinerly: Excellent (tents fingers)!!!

    We are going to hit that fucker every day with true nasty stuff he has done over the years (and there’s a shitton of it) & I am pretty damned sure that by the end he is going to be very, very, very sorry he ever ran for President.

  269. 269.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Bruce K:

    I suspect Slovenian has a different grammar structure from English–

    I’ve studied a bit of (Serbo-Croatian) & a bit more Czech, & there are certain differences from English that seem common to most Slavic languages. No definite article (e.g., Boris Badenov’s “Moose & squirrel”); indefinite article & pronoun verb subjects omitted unless needed for specificity; nouns heavily declined, permitting a somewhat fluid word order in sentences.

    –so with a bit of work, one could probably tell if the speechwriter spoke English or Slovenian as their first language.

    Nothing in the text of MT’s speech suggests it was not written (or at least heavily revised) by a native English speaker.

  270. 270.

    Paul in KY

    @D58826: It went just the way the people who drove it wanted it to!!!! They wanted to break Iraq. Period!

    They didn’t do that planning, cause they wanted Iraq to fail as a nation-state.

  275. 275.

    burnspbesq

    @LanceThruster:

    When I was listening to Rudy the other night, I mistook him for ‘B-1’ Bob Dornan

    If she never does another good thing for the rest of her life, Loretta Sanchez is going to Heaven for beating ol’ B-1 Bob.

  276. 276.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Paul in KY:

    The Nazis (say what you will about them) knew how to produce a fascist spectacle.

    I would assume the Romans would have done a much better job also, too.

    Well, considering the Fascists in Italy did the spectacle thing before the Nazis did, you are probably right.

  277. 277.

    Paul in KY

    @Bruce K: Hillary could have disemboweled Mr. Smith herself and due to who she is running against, I would still vote for her.

  278. 278.

    Paul in KY

    @jonas: Won’t happen. If/when Mrs. Clinton is President, they’ll have to do their job. Hopefully they’ll be in the minority, but even if the Senatortise is still majority leader, he’ll have to schedule the hearings, etc. etc.

  279. 279.

    Paul in KY

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Tywin Lannister would be soo much more competent than the Combover Caligula. Due to modern norms, we wouldn’t have to worry about him killing us all, but a Tywin Lannister campaign would be competent and a lot tougher to beat than this shitshow.

  282. 282.

    Dee Loralei

    @Peter Osborn: congrats! And way to go! We need young activists working towards a great cause. I’m seriously happy for you and I’m sure you’ll do the bj community more than proud. Take copious notes and pass them on to AnnLaurie or Adam afterwards so we can all relive it with you! You’ll make some great new friends who believe in the same things you do and you will have memories to cherish for your life. And who knows, a brand new life may await you after Nov. Congrats again! And have fun!

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