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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Tom Cotton Starts His 2020 Presidential Campaign

Tom Cotton Starts His 2020 Presidential Campaign

by Anne Laurie|  July 19, 20162:25 pm| 98 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Republican Venality, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

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Shorter Tom Cotton: I am pretty great. #RNCinCLE

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) July 19, 2016

As I’ve said before, the reason Ted Cruz couldn’t do the sensible thing and wait to run for president in 2016 2020, after he’d finished at least one term in the Senate, is that there are even younger crazier Ivy-educated Talibangelicals breathing down his neck. On the first day of the 2016 RNC convention, Senator Tom Cotton staked out his claim to 2020. Mr. Charles P. Pierce explicates:

What better way to begin coverage of the 2016 Republican National Convention than to give you a preview of the 2020 Republican nominating process?… Senator Tom Cotton, the bobble-throated nuisance from Arkansas and onetime pen-pal of the Iranian mullahs… stopped by for breakfast with the delegation from South Carolina, where we learned what the euphemism du jour is for the candidate that this year’s process produced.

“I’m sure,” Cotton told the crowd, “that we’re all looking forward to a great Republican victory in November.”…

The theme of the breakfast was renewing American foreign policy and having the country re-engage with the world, which made it even more inconvenient to mention that the party is preparing to nominate a guy who has mused about chloroforming NATO. This is the territory that Cotton staked out for himself. He is the world’s youngest neocon, a Richard Perle starter kit. He has a reedy, unpracticed public speaking style that he’ll have to work on before he hits the cornfields of Iowa, which ought to be about 11 minutes after the results are announced in November. But he has his theme–namely, that we are all going to die.

“The world has grown more dangerous over the last eight years,” Cotton said. “And the reason for that is that Barack Obama’s foreign policy is…impotent.”

A frisson ran through the applause that greeted this remark–although whether this was because of Cotton’s argument, or because he said “impotent” in public, is hard to say…

TIME has the transcript of Cotton’s thoroughly anodyne-edging-into-dishonest speech, if you must read it. [Warning: autoplay]

Lauren Fox, at TPM:

… “Frankly, I think a lot of political leaders need to stop fanning the flames of racial division,” Cotton said Monday in Cleveland at an event hosted by The Atlantic. “Because there is a police shooting does not mean the police are racist or that police officer did anything wrong. You cannot know that until there is an investigation that takes place.”

But Cotton also hinted that the GOP needs to be doing more than it is to expand its base.

“Party unity is not enough. We cannot just be a unified party, we have to be a growing party,” Cotton said. “Let’s just face the facts we’ve lost two [presidential elections],” Cotton said. “We have to grow our parties and reach voters who haven’t been voting for us in presidential elections.”…

…[T]he dissatisfaction within the party is also opening up the opportunity for a new generation of leaders to make their mark. As the party struggles to coalesce around Trump, Cotton is making his ambitions known, acting as a foil to a nominee who many view as inconsistent on conservative ideology and short on specifics…

Seema Mehta, at the LA Times:

… Politicians who appear at delegation events, particularly those hosted by the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, are trying to raise their national profile and are often eyeing higher office. And no politician is working the delegation breakfast circuit harder this year than Cotton, a combat veteran who, at the age of 39, is the youngest member of the Senate and is widely believed to be considering a 2020 presidential run.

He also spoke to the Ohio delegation on Monday, and will speak to Iowa, New Hampshire and California later this week…

Cotton declined to take questions from reporters after his 15-minute remarks, saying “gotta go” as he rushed down an escalator.

Wolf Blitzer:Tom Cotton "very impressive guy." Said in his campaign ISIS was in league w/Mexican drug lords to cross border &kill Arkansans

— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) July 19, 2016

@NormOrnstein to me, he'll always be that nutjob who wrote the Iran letter.

— Suzanne Kelleher (@SuzanneKelleher) July 19, 2016

In order to cause the president personal pain, Tom Cotton blocked Casaandra Butts' nomination until she died.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 19, 2016

How many times will Tom Cotton mention Donald Trump in his speech? I'm going to go with 0.

— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 19, 2016

Technically he said "Trump/Pence administration." That's 0.5 mentions. https://t.co/NbCrOXl7NR

— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) July 19, 2016

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Previous Post: « A LITERAL Shitshow
Next Post: Open Thread: Melania’s Big Speech »

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    danielx

    July 19, 2016 at 2:34 pm

    I was about to write about my continued mystification over why people vote for such utter douche canoes, but then I remembered. Generally speaking, most Republicans simply do not view the world the same way as me – or you, probably.

  2. 2.

    germy

    July 19, 2016 at 2:35 pm

    “Party unity is not enough. We cannot just be a unified party, we have to be a growing party,” Cotton said. “Let’s just face the facts we’ve lost two [presidential elections],” Cotton said. “We have to grow our parties and reach voters who haven’t been voting for us in presidential elections….. Aw, fuck it. Let’s just expand voting restrictions”…

  3. 3.

    lollipopguild

    July 19, 2016 at 2:44 pm

    @germy: Sen. Cotton is correct-The GOP must expand the number of Americans who will vote for it. Gee, I wonder which group of voters they will demonize/insult/attack next? This time around they have gone after everyone who is not a White Male.

  4. 4.

    low-tech cyclist

    July 19, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    @lollipopguild:

    I wonder which group of voters they will demonize/insult/attack next? This time around they have gone after everyone who is not a White Male.

    They’ll go after the college-educated next (nominating Trump has been a good start on that already), and the millennials after that. That’ll narrow the base down to old, uneducated white guys.

  5. 5.

    hovercraft

    July 19, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    Sorry this is O/T but it needs to be seen.
    The My Little Pony defense. There’s no plagiarism here.

    Republicans have used nearly every excuse in the book to defend Melania Trump’s plagiarism of Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech, but one of the GOP’s top strategists came up with a particularly creative explanation by way of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”

    Appearing Tuesday on MSNBC, Republican National Committee communications director Sean Spicer quoted the children’s television show, as well as singers Akon and John Legend, to explain why portions of Trump’s convention speech lined up so closely with Obama’s words, arguing that an online search for any line in the speech would turn up similar phrases.

    “Melania Trump said, ‘You work hard for what you want in life.’ Akon said, ‘Work hard for what you get in life.’ John Legend said, ‘Work hard.’”

    “You’re quoting Akon and John Legend?” asked MSNBC’s Craig Melvin.

    “Hold on, it’s getting better,” said Spicer. “Melania Trump said, ‘The strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.’ Twilight Sparkle from ‘My Little Pony’ said, ‘This is your dream, anything you can do in your dreams.”

    “So the RNC isn’t taking this seriously?” Melvin interjected.

    “A simple Google search of three phrases comes up with everything from Sparkle Pony to John Legend to Akon,” Spicer said.

    Unlike the phrases Trump lifted from Obama, none of Spicer’s examples are word-for-word matches.

  6. 6.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 19, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    I finally watched this and it’s just too surreal. Like they hired a Michelle Obama impersonator but got one who did it as a combination of Charo and Natasha Fatale.

  7. 7.

    ShadeTail

    July 19, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    OK, seriously, why do the “read more” links not work right? Clicking them puts my browser window at the top of the article instead of at the below-the-fold point.

  8. 8.

    nonynony

    July 19, 2016 at 2:58 pm

    @hovercraft: I’m trying to figure out whether this helps or hurts them with the all important “Brony” vote…

  9. 9.

    Enhanced Voting Techinques

    July 19, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    The Republicans are like a stack of turtles with each one dumber and more inside the Conservative information bubble than the one above.

  10. 10.

    schrodinger's cat

    July 19, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    Plagiarism is bad but why is it getting more play than all the other haterade spewed yesterday? Because MSM has decided it OK to talk about?

  11. 11.

    Miss Bianca

    July 19, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    @nonynony:

    I’m trying to figure out whether this helps or hurts them with the all important “Brony” vote…

    I bet Applejinx would be willing to give us a big ol’ “nope” on that one. ; )

  12. 12.

    ShadeTail

    July 19, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    @nonynony: I wish I was a brony, because then I would enjoy the show when my niece makes me watch some during my visits to my sister’s house. (She’s not so bad anymore, but two years ago? OMG.)

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    July 19, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    Haven’t seen much commented on yet about the vituperative benediction yesterday, so a link is in order.

        RNC breaks precedent with explicitly partisan prayer

  14. 14.

    kindness

    July 19, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    It still isn’t too late for some good soul to come forward and frag Cotton. Just harder to find a grenade here.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    I want to know how this shitstain managed to NOT leave Iraq in a wall locker that had been thrown down a flight of stairs, because he has Douglas C. Niedermeyer tattooed all over him.

  16. 16.

    Laertes

    July 19, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    As I’ve said before, the reason Ted Cruz couldn’t do the sensible thing and wait to run for president in 2016, after he’d finished at least one term in the Senate,

    Tiny bit confused here. At the risk of quibbling, did you perhaps mean 2020?

  17. 17.

    Mike J

    July 19, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    @danielx:

    Generally speaking, most Republicans simply do not view the world the same way as me – or you, probably.

    Interesting poll. Generally speaking, Republicans think that Republicans believe in the same stuff Trump does. Democrats think Republicans must be faking it and can;t really be that crazy.

    Democrats give the benefit of the doubt to people who have shown over and over again that they don’t deserve it.

  18. 18.

    Tokyokie

    July 19, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim: LOL. +2 for the Rocky and Bullwinkle reference.

  19. 19.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 19, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: They never call them out on fear mongering and propaganda. If they had plagiarized something while telling lies about WMD the press might have jumped on that and pointed it out, but the fear mongering gets passed along verbatim. “Bush and Cheney seem to be making most of this up to scare people” would have been seen as not bipartisan enough.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: Easier to talk about plagiarism than the haterade, which is just normal Rethuglican behavior.

  21. 21.

    danielx

    July 19, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    @kindness:

    The M67 fragmentation grenade: when “fuck you” just won’t get it done.

  22. 22.

    dmsilev

    July 19, 2016 at 3:09 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: It’s easy to talk about, especially for a media that believes that openly taking sides in anything even vaguely within shouting distance of policy is unpossible.

  23. 23.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    @Mike J:
    Talking supposed human on my radio this morning said he’s a Trump supporter because, “Everything he does turns to gold.” Funny, since reality is 1/that.

  24. 24.

    rikyrah

    July 19, 2016 at 3:11 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:
    Because the plagiarism is easy. They stole from the First Lady. Now, if they had stolen from Laura Bush, this would not be a story. But, they stole from the first Black First Lady. A woman that the entire GOP has spent the last 7 years denigrating and disrespecting. Coming from a party peddling in open WHITE SUPREMACY. A party that had peddled openly that the President and First Lady weren’t REAL Americans.

    Quite honestly, the fact that this was not caught by the MSM, also embarrasses them , and the legions of FLOTUS Stans were not going to allow them to sweep it under the carpet.

    Naw Son….not even close.

  25. 25.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    Am just now become aware of the meme “Log Off, Donald”

  26. 26.

    dmsilev

    July 19, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    @nonynony: Well, since Clinton’s campaign is going after Pokemon players, Trump had to do something in response.

    (Her campaign is using hotspots in the game as targeting info for voter registration drives)

  27. 27.

    John

    July 19, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    a combination of Charo and Natasha Fatale

    Lol. That’s Trump’s wife, Charo Fatale.

    I guess the Reps have no choice but to try to laugh off the plagiarism. After Manafort’s remarks, they can’t treat the situation with the gravity it requires. They know they’re not convincing anyone with cognitive reasoning skills.

    The thing about the plagiarism is not just the unattributed use of Michelle Obama’s exact words. Charo Fatale also repeated Obama’s sentences in the exact order that they were originally spoken. I haven’t seen anyone mention that yet.

    Finally, this:

    “Hold on, it’s getting better,” said Spicer. “Melania Trump said, ‘The strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.’ Twilight Sparkle from ‘My Little Pony’ said, ‘This is your dream, anything you can do in your dreams.”

    WTF is that? The only thing the MLP quote has in common with Charo’s is the words “your dreams”. Has everyone associated with Donald Trump had a stroke?

  28. 28.

    rikyrah

    July 19, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    @Mike J:
    They definitely don’t deserve it. They are every inch as repulsive as Trump.

  29. 29.

    Barbara

    July 19, 2016 at 3:13 pm

    @hovercraft: I am going with what someone ventured on TPM, that the reason why they can’t admit it is because the copying was done by someone they can’t fire, like Melania Trump, who said that she wrote her own speech. I would be shocked if she hadn’t read prior speeches in the same genre and there certainly aren’t many contenders. Maybe someone should check to see whether she cribbed from Laura Bush or Theresa Kerry as well. The fault still lies with the campaign, which should have vetted the speech and done an artful rewrite to avoid plagiarizing. Not everyone has a good understanding of what crosses the line when it comes to plagiarism, especially someone who lied about being a college graduate.

  30. 30.

    Mike in NC

    July 19, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    Looks like a Cruz/Cotton knife fight to be the next nominee come 2020. Rooting for injuries.

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    July 19, 2016 at 3:15 pm

    @Laertes: Thanks, fixed.

    (I plead three hours’ sleep in the last 24. Stayed up way past my normal 6am bedtime, and now the neurotic little rescue dogs are punishing me for that break in their routine… )

  32. 32.

    Keith P.

    July 19, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I’m disappointed at the lack of rickroll coverage. That someone slipped that in there is a pretty amazing bit of sabotage for a convention speech by the candidate’s wife.

  33. 33.

    boatboy_srq

    July 19, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    @hovercraft: I begin to think that there’s some serious money to be made playing apologist for wingnuts or applying Google-fu to support their crackpotted public statements: no need for heavy gritting, just a little webcrawling for background. Trouble is that my stomach probably wouldn’t survive more than a week doing the work.

  34. 34.

    cintibud

    July 19, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    One thing I was just thinking about in regards to the 2020 race. I wonder what the chances are that if the convention ends up being as much of a Trumptser file as we expected if John Kasich – who has been catching a lot of sh!t from the Trump campaign, decides to go “maverick” and not only refuse to endorse Trump but attack him as unqualified. If the GOP loss is as big as we hope he might be well positioned for the 2020 run, being Nixon after Trump’s Goldwater disaster. Hard to say if the GOP will turn away from the batsh!t insane, but Kasich is still crazy and canny enough to hide it under a facade of reasonableness.

    Plus the media would eat it up as a maverick “reformer”. Let’s see if Kasich builds a BBQ pit with a tire swing nearby

  35. 35.

    Cacti

    July 19, 2016 at 3:19 pm

    To be, or not to be: that is the question:
    Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them?

    -Melania Trump

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    @John: And the words were all about hard work and honesty.

    Irony doesn’t get more ironic than this.

  37. 37.

    Doug R

    July 19, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EKYz2M6zoII
    Shorter Tom Cotton:

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    July 19, 2016 at 3:23 pm

    @nonynony:

    I’m trying to figure out whether this helps or hurts them with the all important “Brony” vote…

    Calling Twilight Sparkle “Sparkle Pony” is not going to win friends and influence bronies.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    July 19, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    @Barbara:

    Not everyone has a good understanding of what crosses the line when it comes to plagiarism, especially someone who lied about being a college graduate.

    I find it hard to believe that lazy professional speechwriters are not the real culprits. And I don’t want or need to dump all over Mrs Trump, but most people learn about the joys and risks of plagiarizing in middle school. There is no reason to cut her slack because she is not a college graduate.

  40. 40.

    Mike J

    July 19, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    @danielx: @kindness: Can we back off the killing people is a good idea comments? We all would, and have been, rightly sickened when Republicans call for killing Democrats.

    Decent human beings don’t kill humans. Don’t even joke about it.

  41. 41.

    The Dangerman

    July 19, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    Don’t know if this has already been posted or not but….

    ….Jarrett Hill, Hero…

    …and likely former unemployed Dude. I assume he’s fielding job offers before the sun sets.

  42. 42.

    dmsilev

    July 19, 2016 at 3:26 pm

    @boatboy_srq: There’s software that does that sort of thing. Originally written for teachers to help catch cheating students.

  43. 43.

    Gin & Tonic

    July 19, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Here’s something she tweeted in 2012: “Always trust yourself, think for yourself, act for yourself, speak for yourself. Be yourself!”

    That was plagiarized from Marva Collins.

  44. 44.

    Mike J

    July 19, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    @dmsilev:

    There’s software that does that sort of thing. Originally written for teachers to help catch cheating students.

    Grammarly ‏@Grammarly 3 hours ago
    Many have asked whether Grammarly Premium would have checked #MelaniaSpeech. Our answer:

  45. 45.

    AnonPhenom

    July 19, 2016 at 3:31 pm

    Given Trump’s well known propensity for stiffing the contractors he has hired, and that the speech written for the candidates spouse is one of the handful given during the conventions where outside speechwriters will be brought in to help out the in house hacks, consider;
    1) You are the hired writer. You’ve negotiated your fee. You’re told to sign the standard Trump non-disclosure crap. “Fine” you say, “but include the fee amount and the proviso that I am to be paid in full before I submit the final draft”. You tell Trump; “I will be paid for my work”. It is agreed.
    2) You suspect that should TrumpCo seek to do you wrong, it will be to use one of the prior drafts in lieu of the final product and inform you to ‘call my lawyers sucker’. So you insert the ‘poison pill’ in earlier drafts, verbatim outtakes from the FLOTUS’s ’08 convention speech with the intention, should a check arrive and clear, of a quick cut and paste correction/substitution of the offending passage.

    We all know how it ended, except for the conversation you had with Trump this morning, where, after he had demonstrated that his limited vocabulary also applies to curses, threats and insults you remind him that the day he hired you, you told him that you would be paid for your work and that because he was unwilling to give you your fee you have settled for his embarrassment. “Call my lawyer, sucker. I’ve got a contract.”

  46. 46.

    Citizen_X

    July 19, 2016 at 3:32 pm

    @ShadeTail:

    why do the “read more” links not work right? Clicking them puts my browser window at the top of the article instead of at the below-the-fold point.

    I would like to submit a complaint about that, too.

  47. 47.

    boatboy_srq

    July 19, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @dmsilev: @Mike J: You’re assuming that the GOTea either has personnel with the ability to run the software or the education to know that it exists and works.

  48. 48.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    @AnonPhenom: Instead of “sucker” which is far too gentle, substitute “shitstain” which is accurate.

  49. 49.

    SteveinSC

    July 19, 2016 at 3:34 pm

    A frisson ran through the applause that greeted this remark–although whether this was because of Cotton’s argument, or because he said “impotent” in public, is hard to say

    …

    Wrong, the frisson that ran through that crowd of old white country club roués was that the word impotent caused them to reach in their pockets to make sure the bottle of Cialis was still there.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2016 at 3:35 pm

    @Roger Moore: What it’s going to do is have bronies laughing at you. Of course, Spicer is probably used to the laughter, but he’s deluded enough to think the laughter is with him, not at him.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    July 19, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    @The Dangerman:

    Don’t know if this has already been posted or not but….

    ….Jarrett Hill, Hero…

    Wait, you mean that Hillary Clinton is not responsible for this, as the Trump camp shamefully tried to imply?

    Yes, great work on Mr Hill’s part.

  52. 52.

    Villago Delenda Est

    July 19, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    @NotMax: They are aware that Hezbollah translates as “Party of God” are they not?

  53. 53.

    Mike J

    July 19, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    @boatboy_srq:

    You’re assuming that the GOTea either has personnel with the ability to run the software or the education to know that it exists and works.

    If you’re dealing with professional speechwriters you shouldn’t need to check it for plagiarism.

  54. 54.

    Patricia Kayden

    July 19, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim: There are so many hilarious tweets going out about Melania’s plagiarism scandal. This mess up may actually stick to the Donald.
    https://twitter.com/harikondabolu/status/755295998335778816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

  55. 55.

    inventor

    July 19, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    VP announcement in Tampa on Friday.

    It will be Kaine or Becerra in my opinion. Kaine is the safer choice as a white guy and may help retain some white votes, Becerra maximizes the “turnout your base” strategy and may help with voter registration.

    I believe national campaigns have become less instruments of persuasion and more marketing vehicles to gin up excitement and turnout base voters. Therefore, I think Xavier Becerra would be the better choice.

  56. 56.

    dmsilev

    July 19, 2016 at 3:40 pm

    @Mike J:

    If you’re dealing with professional speechwriters you shouldn’t need to check it for plagiarism.

    That ‘if’ is doing a lot of work there. As is ‘professional’.

  57. 57.

    patrick II

    July 19, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    . “Because there is a police shooting does not mean the police are racist or that police officer did anything wrong. You cannot know that until there is an investigation that takes place.”

    Like all of those investigations that work so hard to find truth and justice about officer shootings. Evidently police can shoot a black man in the back in a Walmart for buying a BB gun for his son — and the “investigation” says its ok. Or drive up to and shoot a black boy in one second, also with a BB gun, and the “investigation” says its ok. Or choke a man to death on the streets of New York and the investigation says its ok. The kicker on that is that the officer didn’t even get disciplined for using a “choke hold” against police policy because an official choke hold presses the victim’s neck between two forearms and the officer squeezed the victims neck between his forearm and chest — so that’s different. Or you can have twelve bullets put into you while running down the middle of the street in Chicago and all of the cop witnesses lie during the initial investigation and had turned their video cameras away. One cop made a mistake and pointed it at the victim so only after a year when the video was forced into the open is the officer who fired his entire sixteen bullets at the boy (he missed four times) charged with a crime.

    Yeah, “investigations” and “justice” we can count on.

  58. 58.

    dmsilev

    July 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm

    John Scalzi coins the phrase ‘Trump’s Razor’, after a principle described by Josh Marshall:

    Early on I realized that when it came to Trump if I figured out the stupidest possible scenario that could be reconciled with the available facts and went with it, that almost always turned out to be right. The stupider, the righter.

    We may very well look back on this campaign season and use this as our Rosetta Stone.

  59. 59.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    Evidently the Colorado delegation chose to walk out at 4:20 yesterday, which is several kinds of awesome.

  60. 60.

    Barbara

    July 19, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    @Brachiator: I’m not cutting her slack but I have known too many people who really did not seem to understand what crossed the line into plagiarism. And the point about college is that is when many people start doing the kind of work where attribution of sources and plagiarism are discussed in earnest.

  61. 61.

    Cat48

    July 19, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    Cotton, the man who committed Treason in my mind? The author of the Letter to Iran, informing them they should ignore our president trying to make a nuclear deal. He stated that it would be ignored when he was no longer president.

    Israel Firsters are still trying to unravel that Deal bc AIPAC never loses, but they did this time. They really want to bomb Iran. This is the reason I don’t want Schumer for Majority Leader. He always does what AIPAC wants. That makes him ineligible to me. He voted against the Iran Deal.

  62. 62.

    Geoduck

    July 19, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    @Keith P.: It’s probably because 90% of the audience would have no idea what you are talking about when you mention rickrolling.

  63. 63.

    tinare

    July 19, 2016 at 3:49 pm

    I have seen the theory that someone who can’t be fired, either Melania or one of the Trump kids, were responsible for the speech. Do the kids like Melania? Would that be too juvenile to try to embarrass the step-mother? I mean, with this crowd I don’t think maturity is necessary a given.

  64. 64.

    boatboy_srq

    July 19, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    @Mike J: I’m with AnonPhenom here – or at least of the opinion that the GOTea in general and the tRump machine in particular is too cheap/ignorant to obtain the necessary skills

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    July 19, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    The bigger question will be, now that they’ve worked themselves into a froth with “Hillary for prison” last night, where is left for them to go? I don’t know how you’d calculate the odds, but I wouldn’t be surprised that by Trump’s speech on Thursday night the crowd isn’t chanting “kill the bitch, kill the bitch!” or “hang her, hang her!” in response to his accusations that she’s a crook, liar, murderer, and an incompetent. And that he’d likely smile, point to the crowd, and perhaps even do a golf clap. The accounts of what the fire eaters said at the 1860 Democratic convention were well beyond the pale in that time, but chants at a political convention or rally in the US for the opposing candidate to be imprisoned are something we only see in states with stalled/incomplete transitions to democracy and various forms of dictatorship, tyranny, and authoritarianism. This is new(ish), different, and dangerous territory for the US.

  66. 66.

    Keith P.

    July 19, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    @Geoduck: All the more reason to play the video as much as possible!

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    July 19, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @inventor: I’m hoping to be there! Maybe I’ll live blog it!

  68. 68.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    @inventor:
    You made me look him up. Becerra can’t be a very high-profile choice, given he’s from my state (albeit the southern bit) and I didn’t know who he was, but he does seem like a strong option. Would be fun to watch Pence try and out-morals a “total Eagle Scout.”

  69. 69.

    jacy

    July 19, 2016 at 3:51 pm

    First of all, I keep hearing talking heads on TV claiming that Melania is “smart.” Is there evidence of this? She runs her own business, but would she run her own business if she wasn’t Mrs. Trump? Seems to me the one thing she did was marry a rich dude. She could be a total ditz, and have no idea that plagerism is a thing.

    Second — all the Trumps live in a world where the rules don’t apply to them. They pretty much have carte blanch to do anything they want and people either don’t call them on it, or if they do call them on it, there’s some sort of retribution. Why isn’t it possible that Melania did just plagerize on her own, and she just lives in a world where no matter what she does, NO ONE WILL EVER CALL HER ON IT. The fact that someone would say something just never entered her mind, because the Trumps live in a world where there are no consequences.

    Although, with the RickRoll inserted in there, I am not discounting the distant possibility that somebody somewhere did this on purpose. Which would be hilarious.

  70. 70.

    dmsilev

    July 19, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @jacy: You almost have to wonder about the sabotage idea. I mean, the GOP establishment, such as it is, doesn’t like Trump (mainly because they see all the collateral damage likely to result from his run), and when Trump starts to hire speechwriters and such, where is he going to get a list of possible names from? Establishment folks, campaign consultants and the like. There could be a whole cadre of moles in the Trump campaign competing with each other to see who can get the candidate or his close surrogates to say the most damaging and stupid things possible.

    Of course, what would be even more amusing would be if there aren’t any such moles, but that the Trump campaign comes to believe that there are. Let the purges, denunciations, and show trials begin!

  71. 71.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    July 19, 2016 at 3:57 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I think the answer to that is “Because they can slide the plagiarism thing over to the public without setting off their corporate lords and masters.” All the other things are too likely to set off the frantic yelpers who go off like bottle rockets every time a conservative is (correctly) accused of being racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted. So it’s a safe way to express disapproval.

  72. 72.

    boatboy_srq

    July 19, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    @patrick II: Shorter Cotton: white people (white cops in particular) are Good People® and never, EVER racist – and besides those shootings were the uppity niCLANGs’ fault anyway.

  73. 73.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    @jacy:

    Although, with the RickRoll inserted in there, I am not discounting the distant possibility that somebody somewhere did this on purpose. Which would be hilarious.

    The whole thing has taken on the characteristics of an extended episode of “Veep.” Which night is Jonah speaking?

  74. 74.

    Kay

    July 19, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    Good news from the voting rights front:

    Hi,
    I’m working with the voter protection efforts for Hillary Clinton and the Ohio Democratic Party this year. I know that you’ve been helping to lead the effort to protect the vote here in Ohio and I want to engage with you about how we can work together again this cycle.

    These are the county-level voter protection teams in each of the 88 counties that we have had since the 2004 Ohio voting debacle. They get a set of local people in each county and train them. For a small county it would be one or two and for a larger urban county it would be “many”. It takes a long time to plan, so I’m glad Clinton is on it.

  75. 75.

    Felonius Monk

    July 19, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    “Log Off, Donald”

    Best one is: T. R. U. M. P. (Terrible Racist Underground Mole Person)

    /logging off

  76. 76.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    @Trollhattan:
    This seemed worthy of snipping from the NYT Becerra piece.

    One national Spanish-language television journalist framed the choices in the context of the entertainers Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. “J.Lo has been able to cross the borders of language because of her fame, but Marc Anthony is much more famous in Spanish communities than she is, because he sings in Spanish,” said the journalist, who asked not to be identified to safeguard his professional objectivity.

    “Then you have Xavier Becerra, who speaks perfect Spanish, who is a company guy, who is a Hillary guy, who is a Nancy Pelosi, i.e. leadership guy, and who has a long career serving the Hispanic community in our language, in our medium,” the journalist said.

    “If you want to bring in the real Hispanics,” the journalist added, “the 12 or 14 million who are going to vote know who he is. There’s no question about it.”

  77. 77.

    Fair Economist

    July 19, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    You made me look him up. Becerra can’t be a very high-profile choice, given he’s from my state (albeit the southern bit) and I didn’t know who he was, but he does seem like a strong option. Would be fun to watch Pence try and out-morals a “total Eagle Scout.”

    In my book bilingualism and a long, strong, elective record make him a much better choice than either Perez or Castro.

  78. 78.

    hovercraft

    July 19, 2016 at 4:12 pm

    @jacy:
    She speaks 5 languages, is a business woman, is said to be well educated, but there are rumors swirling today that she does not have the degree(s), she claims to have. That’s the basis of the smart claims.

  79. 79.

    boatboy_srq

    July 19, 2016 at 4:12 pm

    @jacy: @dmsilev: The Trumps’ carte blanche stems more from the 0.1% desire for a court jester: one who can ape the “manners” of the Truly Elect but whose buffoonery is far more amusing. They’re allowed to behave as they do for the same reason the Kardashians are allowed: they’re amusing to the truly wealthy and they’re distracting to the rubes. As for sabotage, between the NeverTrump crowd, the remainder.of the GOTea establishment, any private sector Trump competitor, plus anyone else with half a brain, the potential is probably somewhere around one in three candidates for speechwriter will be a plant.

  80. 80.

    Trollhattan

    July 19, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    @Fair Economist:
    His ranking in the House alone is a significant positive. I’d love to watch former multi-term Congressman Pence accuse him of being “an insider.” Hilarity ensues.

  81. 81.

    Ian

    July 19, 2016 at 4:15 pm

    @John:
    Anyone with an ounce of sanity left jumped ship. There is no one left to come up with better ideas. I for one await the reaction on wonkette to this.

  82. 82.

    catclub

    July 19, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    @Miss Bianca: more likely a neigh.

  83. 83.

    Miss Bianca

    July 19, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    chants at a political convention or rally in the US for the opposing candidate to be imprisoned are something we only see in states with stalled/incomplete transitions to democracy and various forms of dictatorship, tyranny, and authoritarianism. This is new(ish), different, and dangerous territory for the US.

    But…but…but…PLAGIARISM! That’s the *most* serious, newsworthy thing that happened last night at the RNC!

    @catclub: Great Epona, I loped right into that one, didn’t I?

  84. 84.

    K488

    July 19, 2016 at 4:17 pm

    @Trollhattan: All of them.

  85. 85.

    Cacti

    July 19, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    @hovercraft:

    She speaks 5 languages, is a business woman, is said to be well educated, but there are rumors swirling today that she does not have the degree(s), she claims to have. That’s the basis of the smart claims.

    She lied about having an architecture degree from the University of Slovenia. She dropped out after a year.

  86. 86.

    robert thompson

    July 19, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    Arkansas the land of contrast. The “Natural State”. Only Arkansas could produce Tom Cotton and Douglas MacArthur, Bill Clinton and Senator Fullbright. It is both the natural state in Arkansas to produce titanic egos and effective politicians. Just wish they would weed out the former.

  87. 87.

    hovercraft

    July 19, 2016 at 4:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Trump lacks impulse control, if the convention hall is rapturous he could get carried away and start ad libing crazy shit. At this point anything can happen, he promised us the most exciting convention, the most reality tv- esque ever, and they are delivering the crazy. I know they say it will be a Nixon type of speech, but I think it may be Pat Buchanan’s pitchfork speech.

  88. 88.

    Anne Laurie

    July 19, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    @jacy:

    First of all, I keep hearing talking heads on TV claiming that Melania is “smart.” Is there evidence of this? She runs her own business, but would she run her own business if she wasn’t Mrs. Trump? Seems to me the one thing she did was marry a rich dude.

    She was smart enough to peel Donald away from Wife #2 — and that cost him actual money — and she’s been smart enough to keep younger, fresher Wife #4 aspirants away for more than a decade.

    That’s not a skill set you or I would aspire to, but it demonstrates a certain level of intelligent planning, at least!

  89. 89.

    robert thompson

    July 19, 2016 at 4:27 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: During my recent incarceration I made just that point to my minders, trapped with me as they were. I explained it gently that it was like Weimar in 1932 just before the apocalypse and it was pleasing but sad to see the comprehension glide from their forehead to their chins. Many have yet to see it so.

  90. 90.

    Yutsano

    July 19, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: And we are. Brony Twitter even got her voice actress involved. She’s…amused.

  91. 91.

    SoupCatcher

    July 19, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    @Trollhattan:

    You made me look him up. Becerra can’t be a very high-profile choice, given he’s from my state (albeit the southern bit) and I didn’t know who he was, but he does seem like a strong option. Would be fun to watch Pence try and out-morals a “total Eagle Scout.”

    *spit take*

    Wow. Becerra is my parent’s congressman. That’s where I grew up. After my time, though. Districts have changed a lot recently, so I’m not sure if he’s always represented Glassell Park, but he has for a while now.

  92. 92.

    Dog Dawg Damn

    July 19, 2016 at 4:48 pm

    @jacy: it’s been reports that she didn’t graduate from University despite her professional bios claim to the opposite. Guessing that is the shoe that will drop tomorrow when Trump triple downs.

  93. 93.

    starscream

    July 19, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    Isn’t there some huge scandal in Becerra’s past?

  94. 94.

    Shell

    July 19, 2016 at 5:31 pm

    Ive never seen a more humorless wingnut, and thats saying something.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    July 19, 2016 at 7:38 pm

    @low-tech cyclist:

    They’ll go after the college-educated next (nominating Trump has been a good start on that already), and the millennials after that. That’ll narrow the base down to old, uneducated white guys.

    I wish that were true, but I don’t think it’ll happen…people like Cruz and Ernst and Cotton are smart, or perhaps sly is a better term. They will lose all the anti-brown hate, talk endlessly about creating an “opportunity society”, and even paper over the religious nonsense with a whole lotta ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ wink-wink talk.

    Trust me on this, they’ll be back in 2020 and every cycle afterwards. Sometimes they lag a cycle or two before they catch on, but they’ll be back, retooled, ready to lie their way into office once again

  96. 96.

    Jeffro

    July 19, 2016 at 7:42 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    Looks like a Cruz/Cotton knife fight to be the next nominee come 2020. Rooting for injuries.

    Should be exciting…there’s less daylight between the two of those clowns’ positions than, um, a rock right next to a rock. As in, no daylight. The difference is Cruz has a brain and Cotton is kind of a moron. Not sure which is more of an asset in the GOP come 2019, 2020, but I’m willing to stock up on popcorn and see how it goes.

  97. 97.

    Lurking Canadian

    July 19, 2016 at 7:48 pm

    @Jeffro: It sounds like Cotton might be better able to pass for human, though. That should count for something

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    July 19, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    @Lurking Canadian:

    It sounds like Cotton might be better able to pass for human, though. That should count for something

    Maybe, but I dunno…Cruz is clearly smarter/slyer/more evil, but yeah, Cotton does probably have a shred of humanity.

    Wait…aren’t we just defining deviancy down here? Both of these guys are slime, Cruz with just a little hint of strategy and Cotton with just a hint of being able to carry on an actual human conversation (and maybe slightly less punchable face). Let’s get us a Prez HRC, a Dem Senate, and an amendment to overturn CU first, and then we’ll see if we need to worry so much about this particular Insane Clown Posse.

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