Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

I really should read my own blog.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

This fight is for everything.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Not all heroes wear capes.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

We’re not going back!

Bark louder, little dog.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You are here: Home / Climate Change / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Better Than Trump

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Better Than Trump

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stinger ThreeDogNight

From commentor Stinger:

Memento of the day all my nights became three dog nights. Murray (L) and Josie (C) were joined by Oliver (R). Among the lessons learned: Never have more dogs than you have hands, because when you start to pet one, the others all come running and elbowing each other aside and then no one has any fun. But otherwise, they’re a pretty tight little pack.

Better together!

Another maize byproduct to deplore — “corn sweat“:

… “Corn sweat” is an extremely simple way of referring to evapotranspiration, the process by which moisture in plant leaves evaporates into the air. Plants draw water out of the ground through their roots for photosynthesis, and the water in the plant cells is exposed to the air once it gets above the ground. It evaporates off the leaves just as sweat evaporates off our skin — although it doesn’t take place to keep the plant cool, like it does for us.

So evapotranspiration is not making things hotter. But it is making things more humid — which can certainly be just as bad.

In regions where there are vast swaths of any plant, corn in particular, humidity can be notably higher than it otherwise would be. And the Midwest is covered in corn. Over 94 million acres of corn was planted in 2016, the USDA reported last month, up 7 percent from 2015 and the third-highest corn acreage in the United States since 1944.

These regions are where the humidity is more likely to be higher because of evapotranspiration. During big heat waves, this translates into a higher heat index — or what the temperature feels like to our living bodies. When it’s 90 degrees out but the relative humidity is 40 percent, it pretty much feels like 90 degrees. When it’s 90 degrees and the relative humidity is 95 percent, it feels like an oppressive 117 degrees…

Charts’n’graphs at the link.

Apart from trying not to drown in the RNC schadenfreude, what’s on the agenda for the day?
.

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  2. 2.

    David ?▶️Hillary/Harley Quinn 2016▶️? Koch

    Thou shalt have no other gods before me

    Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image

    Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain

    Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy

    Honour thy father and thy mother

    Thou shalt not kill

    Thou shalt not commit adultery

    Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife

    Congratulations “evangelicals”

    You’re supporting someone who has broken all of the one-zero commandments.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    Maybe it’s time to seriously consider the possibility that the Trump scampaign is the most epic and elaborate mass trolling event in human history.

  9. 9.

    TriassicSands

    MYSTERY SOLVED!!!

    From Melania Trump’s convention speech:
    From a young age my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise. That you treat people with respect.

    Now, I finally understand why Melania was attracted to Donald. He would never consider lying or going back on a promise, and he treats everyone with such respect. How could she resist falling for the guy.

    (Or more likely, she was sick and tired of hearing her parents drone on about character and honesty and respect and went for the guy who was the antithesis of what mom and dad wanted. Rebellion against the parents. After that, DT’s checkbook has kept the parents in line.)

    I have yet to watch or listen to R. Giuliani’s rant, but from what I’ve read about it I guess if he were given a title after that speech it would be something like The Glowering Inferno.

  16. 16.

    TriassicSands

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I may pass altogether. I’ve seen him in the past and that should do for my own lifetime.

    How do people like that get elected? (Rhetorical question.)

  20. 20.

    Hillary Rettig

    the faces on those pups! so cute and yet so demanding! little monkeys, I want you all. :-)

  24. 24.

    Mustang Bobby

    I love the explanation of “corn sweat,” and having spent many summers in Northwest Ohio, which has a lot of agriculture, that explains the stultifying humidity. It’s probably also why we get it here in South Florida, except ours comes from the lush planting, the constant lawn watering, and the proximity of the Everglades.

    Re; Melania ripping off Michelle: hey, if you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In a pretrial hearing on Monday in court in Portland, federal officials accused Ryan of attempting to escape Multnomah county jail, disclosing that deputies found the inmate on 8 April with torn sheets braided together under his mattress, the Oregonian reported.

    Prosecutors said that deputies also found two strips of torn sheets, extra pillowcases, towels and unauthorized food containers.

    Bundy responded that he was a “rancher trying to practice braiding rope,” adding: “It’s self-serving speculation and simply not true, your honor,” according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

    Steve Alexander, spokesman for the Multnomah County sheriff’s office, confirmed to the Guardian that deputies had found “12ft to 15ft of rope made out of some torn sheet”, along with other contraband.

    Heh. That’s a new one.

  28. 28.

    qwerty42

    I was just reading the comments, not listening to the speeches. But finally turned a broadcast on in time for Giuliani and decided that was too much, so turned it off and went to bed. Did it get worse?

  30. 30.

    JPL

    What a great start to the Convention. Melania said she wrote the speech herself, so it will be difficult to blame it on a speechwriter. Michelle should have just delivered the speech for Melania.
    I also heard that Trump came out of a smoke machine. wtf

  31. 31.

    JPL

    The Trump camp is saying that they didn’t plagiarize the speech, it was just a coincidence, that there were similarities in the speech.

  32. 32.

    bystander

    Plagiarism is a touchy subject on Moanin’ Joe with Mike Barnicle sitting there. Can’t wait to see them tiptoe around that.

    There was zero commentary about the screed from that “bereaved” mother calling Clinton a murderer, other than how powerful she was. She looked and sounded like a wackadoodle on mood altering drugs.

  33. 33.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @JPL:

    I also heard that Trump came out of a smoke machine.

    I just saw that on Morning Joe, apparently to Queen singing ‘We are the Champions'(which I doubt they paid for the rights to use).

  34. 34.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @bystander: They did mention that while she was speaking, Trump called into Fox so they didn’t cover her speech live.

  37. 37.

    Keith G

    Nice ad. Hope it gets exposure on more than the net.

    I have gotten out of the habit of watching television except for watching rebroadcasts of programs like Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, Real Time and Last Week Tonight by taking advantage of HBO on demand. Thus, I am not watching the events in Cleveland as they occur. During is this convention, I am plowing through a stack of genre fiction books I bought awhile back.

    I have a separate Twitter account is that serves as a news feed where I follow about two dozen reporters and news services. During breaks from my book, it was interesting watching the Melania speech controversy unfold from the very first Tweet and on through time as more and more sources picked up the story.

    We are only beginning day two, but Donald Trump may have been absolutely correct. This just might be the best convention ever.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    Every town has a family like this- an entire multi-generational group of grifters who either do or don’t have “a lot” of money. They say they have a lot of money, people ‘in the know’ say they don’t have a lot of money- it’s debatable.

    The Trumps just happened to go national.

    The grifter family we have here are slumlords- they also pick up extra cash selling the belongings of the people they evict at auction and they run real estate investment seminars at nursing homes. For a while they had a sideline selling cheap replacement windows along with a financing plan. That was a double scam because once the windows are installed and people can’t make the payments they can put a lien on the property and eventually seize it for the slumlord business. Like the Trumps, they inherited the original real estate.

  43. 43.

    Keith G

    @Baud: oh no. I am not sure there has never been a time in the last hundred years where the future of our republic is so intimately tied to the health and safety of one particular person.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I missed the big shindig last night. Anybody make a new call for “2nd Amendment solutions”?

  46. 46.

    Waldo

    Can you imagine if Michelle had cribbed her convention speech from Laura Bush? Yeah, me neither.

  51. 51.

    Patricia Kayden

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I watched the RNC via Sam Seder’s live podcast so I could laugh along to the foolishness. Rudy’s speech was exactly what you would expect it to be — bombastic and loud and angry. I was semi-shocked when he said that cops who do bad things should be punished (or words to that effect). I’m surprised that the bloodthirsty crowd didn’t boo him off the stage just for that one sensible comment.

  52. 52.

    dm

    I hesitate to mention this — it might ruin someone’s day to even invoke the name — but after years of reading Andrew Sullivan’s deranged anti-Clintonism, it’s a real pleasure to read his liveblog of the first night of the Republicant convention.

    No link, it’s readily googleable (that’s how I found it).

  53. 53.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The patriarch lived across the street from me. Retired to Florida. His idiot son in law runs the grift now. This nice physician and her husband from out of town bought the patriarch’s house. It was on the market for 2 years because, well, don’t buy from them. For a year I couldn’t look her in the eye because I felt bad. There is a service truck parked in her driveway once a week- electricians, plumbers, heating and air- that poor lady.

  54. 54.

    billcoop4

    Thank you for the pictures of the dogses.

    A picture of that floor without dogses would “better than Trump”. As a wargamer, I see hexagonal patterns, and I go into terrain-analysis mode :)

    The joy of teaching a summer on-line course: grading on nice warm days. Ah well.

    WMC

  55. 55.

    debbie

    I didn’t see all of Melania’s speech, but it seemed that when she wasn’t plagiarizing Michelle Obama, she was lifting from Zoolander.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @JPL: Brazen it out, Trumpies! That’s the ticket!

    @bystander: I thought it was sickening the way they used that woman. She’s obviously not rational, at least on that topic.

  57. 57.

    Keith P.

    So last night, I watched a few minutes of Willie Robertson and Chachi, then I watched a vid of Antonio Sabato strangely disputing the fact that Obama attends a Christian church, but other than that I crashed out early and didn’t know much more about how Day 1 went. Holy shit I woke up to a mess LOL. I mean, the Melania plagiarism story is EVERYWHERE. This is too damn funny, but I shouldn’t laugh until the Dem convention is over.

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    @OzarkHillbilly: No, but plenty of calls for Mrs. Clinton’s arrest and imprisonment and plenty of blaming her personally for the tragedy of Benghazi. Disgusting.

  59. 59.

    Patricia Kayden

    @dm: I enjoyed Sullivan’s relentless exposure of Palin’s lies but have to acknowledge that he can be as silly as other conservatives at times. It’s strange that he likes President Obama given his other anti-Black commentary, i.e., support for the Bell Curve theory.

  61. 61.

    billcoop4

    @Betty Cracker:

    @bystander: I thought it was sickening the way they used that woman. She’s obviously not rational, at least on that topic.

    What little of her speech that I have seen/heard reminded me of the interviews with victims of crime (or family members of victims). They provide no information except emotional impact (maybe), and are really of no use in understanding any violent act. And while I’m hesitant at all times in telling people how to grieve, this seems excessive.

    WMC

  62. 62.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Patricia Kayden:

    plenty of blaming her personally for the tragedy of Benghazi.

    I had no idea she led the attack. The things I learn here.

    ETA: Did they play the video of her jumping out of the plane just before it hit the World Trade Center?

  63. 63.

    JPL

    IMO, Tomorrow the Melania story will not be news, because as Betty said they are the Trumpies. Trump is allowed to diz the President and Hillary for using a teleprompter, while using a teleprompter.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @bystander:

    I don’t mean to be unkind and the mother can of course mourn and blame anyone she wants, but this had CIA involvement, did it not? That’s a dangerous job. If you follow this logic isn’t every soldier’s death a preventable tragedy? I’m not clear why this is a more important or particularly egregious tragedy. Are all US deaths in these places we go “preventable”? I’m having trouble with the logic of this particular fuck up being discussed for years and years as if it’s unimaginable that people who work in these places are in perhaps more danger than someone in an office building in DC. Andrea Mitchell should be opining on every service-related death overseas and assigning responsibility, maybe. I’m not getting why one set of deaths is brushed off and the other is an automatic outrage.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @JPL: I disagree. The Trump brain trust has managed to commit the one offense even Beltway hacks recognize as serious since plagiarism is a potential career-ender for them. And the Trumpies have compounded the error by adopting the very worst strategy they could attempt — brazening it out. They’ve given the story legs, bless their hearts.

  71. 71.

    Keith G

    In the best news of the day, a teaser is up promoting Michelle Obama’s appearance in a car karaoke bit with James Corden.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    In the spring of 2008, AT&T was racing to roll out a new cell phone network to deliver music, video and online games at faster speeds.
    The network, known as 3G, was crucial to the company’s fortunes. AT&T’s cell service had been criticized by customers for its propensity to drop calls, a problem compounded when the company became the sole carrier for the iPhone.
    Jay Guilford was a tiny but vital cog in the carrier’s plans.
    On a clear evening in May, Guilford was dangling, 150 feet in the air, from a cell tower in southwest Indiana. He had been sent aloft to take pictures of AT&T antennas soon to be replaced by 3G equipment.
    Work complete, Guilford sped his descent by rappelling on a rope. Safety standards required him to step down the metal pole, peg by peg, using a special line that would catch automatically if he fell. But tower climbing is a field in which such rules are routinely ignored.
    “Bouncy, bouncy,” Guilford, 25, called jovially to men on the ground.
    Then, in an instant, the hook attaching the rope to the tower – broken and missing its safety latch – came loose. Guilford plummeted to the gravel below, landing feet first. The impact shattered his legs and burst his aorta. He bled to death in minutes.

    They make 10 dollars an hour and one of the contractors is General Dynamics.

  73. 73.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Kay:

    I’m not getting why one set of deaths is brushed off and the other is an automatic outrage.

    Because one set of deaths can be twisted and turned against our current President and Secretary Clinton. That’s the only explanation. Under Bush, how many thousands of American military members were sent to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many came back maimed and disabled? How many committed suicide based on the horrors they experienced in battle fields? How much money was siphoned off to fight a lie we were lied into?

    This is nasty, partisan politics. Nothing else.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: It’s the lead story right now on all the hack media sites (CNN, Fox News, etc.) with headlines in big bold type. If Trump could just admit they fucked up, maybe they could make it go away. But I don’t think he can.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I actually see them, the disabled veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. They’re around. It’s a small town so there aren’t a lot of them but they’re tragic to me, I don’t know- none of those injuries were due to fuck ups or poor planning- “preventable” by higher-ups? Seems unlikely, especially since we had tons of coverage of the inadequate equipment to prevent injuries from IED’s. Why would State Department or CIA people be more important than them?

  79. 79.

    Hal

    I’m still confused as to what the main benghazi conspiracy actually is supposed to be. Obama and Clinton let these people die for shits and giggles? Obama didn’t assemble the Avengers to swoop in and rescue the embassy? Or do we go back to the pastor who burned Qurans and who was partially blamed? Mitt Romney’s only line of attack seemed to be that Obama didn’t call it terrorism. I’m guessing the GOP just decided to go with all of the above.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    One day of the Make America Hate Again convention down. Still three days for someone to take the stage to rail against the mud people.

  83. 83.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: There’s a sort of a discovery inherent in this: utter shamelessness imposes certain limits. Specialists in ethics should be taking notes.

  84. 84.

    Keith P.

    @Hal: I’ve been baffled by it as well. On one hand, security was reduced there, so there’s a legitimate beef (although Congress had cut security; I remember when this happened thinking thatGOP is playing politics with security duh), but they seem to focus on Hillary et al. initially claiming the riot was started by a youtube video. It seems largely irrelevant how it started, but her staff corrected themselves later when more info came out. It is really weird how focused they are on that part of it. Hell, I had a co-worker tell me maybe 6 months ago that Hillary should be in prison because of Benghazi. I asked why, and she said “Because people died.” That logic permeates the right wing.

  86. 86.

    Gin & Tonic

    Curiouser and curiouser. The two Turkish air force pilots who shot down the Russian MiG last year have been arrested for involvement in the “coup attempt.” Erdogan recently made up with Putin over that incident.

  87. 87.

    Quinerly

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Several months ago, Brian May of Queen asked the campaign not to use their music. The campaign continues to do so. The same with the Rolling Stones.

  88. 88.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Keith P.: My memory isn’t what it used to be. Who went to prison, and for how long, after the Marines were killed in Beirut in 1983?

  89. 89.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Hal:

    Obama and Clinton let these people die for shits and giggles?

    Yes. Or at least, close. Obama let them die because he thinks Muslims who hate America are right. Hillary did it because she’s a murderous bitch who is happy to help America’s enemies. That’s also why they’re so obsessed with with whether he uses phrases like ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ The idea is that Obama is deliberately downplaying Islam’s inherent evil and giving terrorist’s cover.

  90. 90.

    TS

    @Baud:

    The media this morning seems to be trying to sweep it under the rug.

    Not on MorningJoe. They are saying – poor poor Melania – she was so brave to give a speech, it was a wonderful speech, she did it to support her man & this happens – but they are not sweeping it under the rug. 90% of the discussion is about the speech. Manafort has put out a press release denying it was plagiarism & Donald is still asleep – had a busy night – imagine that in the White House.

  93. 93.

    JPL

    Stinger, I love the pups. Finch enjoys when my son’s Maltese come’s to play, but he also enjoys when my son’s Maltese goes home.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: I think it will go away because of the “first wives factor”, to which I am actually pretty sympathetic to. Melania is not political in any way shape or form, and I for one don’t buy for a second that she wrote this, so I can see the press letting it slide. Of course, these days the FWF only applies to GOP wives.

  95. 95.

    Quinerly

    @Baud:
    I looked at some right wing blogs late last night. Many were blaming Michelle. They were enraged and couldn’t understand why Liberals were jumping so quickly to blame Melania.

  97. 97.

    JPL

    This

    To sum up Trump camp response: 1. No plagiarism. 2. Nobody is getting fired. 3. Clinton’s fault this is a thing. 4. Melania has writing team

    SopanDeb tweet link
    All roads lead to Clinton

  100. 100.

    JPL

    @OzarkHillbilly: Betty might be correct, because when Melania steps on stage with her husband Thursday night, to accept the nomination, it will still be fresh in the minds of many.

  101. 101.

    Punchy

    So Murray’s a Libertarian and Ollie is a Republican? Who knew? Ollie’s got a hippy vibe. Maybe he’s Log Cabin….

  102. 102.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: yes–they honestly think that Obama and Clinton are both enemy agents in league with al Qaeda, ISIS, whoever you care to name. Because that sounds completely crazy, most of the time there’s a veneer of euphemism on top of it that makes it hard to figure out precisely what they’re driving at. But they do literally think that Democratic politicians are in league with the enemy and actively trying to kill Americans. That’s why they keep talking about having people hanged for treason, as well.

  103. 103.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Mrs. Trump either wrote the speech herself and plagiarized it, or she lied to Matt Lauer about writing the speech herself. Michelle Obama wouldn’t get a pass if she’d plagiarized Laura Bush. She was hounded relentlessly for things she said during the campaign (“For the first time in my life…”). Hillary Clinton was blamed for things she said on the campaign trail in the 90s and is evidently responsible for everything her husband did during his presidency. So I don’t see the logic in Mrs. Trump getting a pass, other than IOKIYAR. She made herself political when she walked out on that stage and gave a speech at a political convention.

  104. 104.

    Trentrunner

    Good God, I’ve never seen Morning Joe before.

    Is Mika truly stupid? I mean, like just, fucking stupid?

  106. 106.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:
    As I recall, her son was CIA. Computer guy but still CIA. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.

  107. 107.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Keith P.: It’s the Kitchen Sink theory of politics. It doesn’t matter if the claims are contradictory or impossible or just plain stupid. “It’s out there, people are talking about it, it’s shows how she can’t be trusted because people are asking questions….”

    Point and laugh seems to be the only reasonable response, until there’s a vaccine against stupid memes anyway…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  109. 109.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    Many were blaming Michelle.

    There’s a whole subset of wingers who hate Michelle Obama. The vitriol directed at her is amazing, and to my mind proves the point that it doesn’t matter what liberals do- they will be demonized. She’s a very traditional First Lady, Michelle Obama. Her issues are “kids should move around occasionally and eat healthy food” and her personal conduct as First Lady is just impeccable. There is nothing objectionable about this person- it’s all admirable. They HATE her.

  110. 110.

    Poopyman

    @Baud: ??

    Here are two contiguous sentences from the CNN article:

    “To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd,” Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day.”

    At least one passage in Trump’s speech Monday night plagiarized from Obama’s address to the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

    That there’s a simple declarative sentence.

    They also pointed out the “Never gonna let you down” part.

  112. 112.

    FlipYrWhig

    Regarding Benghazi, can you even IMAGINE the volcanic shitstorm that would have resulted from a speech at the 2004 DNC blaming Bush for a loved one’s death on 9/11?

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @Quinerly:

    I’m not directing it at her. I’m just wondering why THIS group of people in a dangerous place were supposed to be safe as houses and everyone is outraged that something unexpected happened. Isn’t that the nature of work in unstable places? Seems like “CIA involvement” almost means “there’s a possibility this could go very wrong”.

  115. 115.

    Quinerly

    @raven:
    When it first broke in real time, both Tweety and Lawrence O’Donnell were saying that it was a deliberate act of sabotage. They eased away from that about 30 minutes into the discussion. Melania is getting a pass. I’m beginning to think she really did write it….or perhaps Ivanka or her husband. I recall a press release a few weeks back saying Ivanka had written one of Trump’s teleprompter speeches.

  119. 119.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Obama let them die because he thinks Muslims who hate America are right. Hillary did it because she’s a murderous bitch who is happy to help America’s enemies.

    I thought it was something else, actually — I thought it was supposed to be that Democrats are such “politically correct” püssies that when The Bad People actually do bad things, Democrats can’t deal with the truth or fight back properly, so instead they decide they have to cover it up.

  120. 120.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:
    Agreed. That’s why their narrative never has made sense. If I recall, her son’s wife has kept her mouth shut. The ambassador’s family has supported HRC.

  122. 122.

    raven

    @FlipYrWhig:

    As Democrats and Republicans have used the imagery of September 11 – and both parties brought relatives of the dead on stage at their conventions – the attacks have become an increasingly divisive issue in America.

    Until yesterday, Ms Breitweiser and the other widows claimed to use their moral authority on behalf of all Americans. However, they have become strongly identified as critics of the Bush administration. They have been targeted by conservative commentators who call them “rock stars of grief”.

    Earlier this year, they were savaged by conservative commentators for criticising Mr Bush’s use of imagery from the rubble of the World Trade Centre during his re-election campaign.

  124. 124.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: I didn’t say it was fair, or logical…

    First wives have been making speeches since the days of Dolly Madison.** I suspect Melania said what she was told to say. As First Lady Hillary broke the mold. She was a very big part of Bill’s White House, so in my view attacking her (in some cases at least) was fair game. Michelle played the much more traditional role of FL, staking out a few non-controversial issues to try and make a difference on. As such, the attacks on her were despicable and beyond the pale. I see Melania taking even less of a public presence should Dog forbid the world ends on Nov 8. I find this whole episode to be merely amusing.

    Besides all of which, in an election where misogyny is such a big issue, do we really want to attack Trump’s completely harmless waif of a wife?

    **hyperbole

  126. 126.

    Anne Laurie

    @Betty Cracker:

    I thought it was sickening the way they used that woman. She’s obviously not rational, at least on that topic.

    Grief can make you crazy, at least temporarily. I’m old enough to appreciate why so many societies have coded in “mourning rituals” where the ones left behind are kept under gentle surveillance & not allowed to (pretend to) act as though nothing has changed.

    Shame on the monsters who used this poor woman’s grief as a club to gin up hatred.

  128. 128.

    Quinerly

    @Kay:
    The hate Michelle…we know that. I guess they also hate her secret time machine that allows her to fast forward 8 years and steal immigrant, “super model” convention speeches.

  129. 129.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven: From what little I’ve seen, I think the poor woman is caught in a psychic feedback loop — there’s a glitch where people start to think that if they let themselves heal they’ll be disloyal to the memory of their loved one. I had one person tell me that if they stopped spending all their energy & most of their income pursuing a pointless vendetta against someone who they blamed for their kid’s death, it would be “just the same” as if they’d murdered the kid themselves.

  130. 130.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Maybe you should ask Paul Manafort that question; he just invoked the CAT FIGHT angle to blame Hillary Clinton for Melania Trump’s plagiarism problem. And not for nothing, but calling Michelle Obama “Stokely Carmichael in a dress” for saying she was proud of America for getting behind Barrack Obama’s hope and change message is an “attack.” Pointing out that Melania Trump blatantly plagiarized a speech is…calling attention to a fact.

  131. 131.

    hovercraft

    Mornin Ho says that the reason Melania was not there for the Pence rollout, was because she was mad that the kids had pressured her husband into picking Pence who he did not want and was not comfortable with. Inside sources say that Manafort and his people are trying to throw Melania under the bus and are saying that she added the Michelle lines to her speech, which she was helped with by a Manafort assistant. Apparently Trump is still asleep because he was up late. Melania is upset and disillusioned by the campaign. So basically it’s a clusterfluck, and it will get worse once he wakes up and tries to create a distraction.

  132. 132.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    There’s a whole subset of wingers who hate Michelle Obama. The vitriol directed at her is amazing, and to my mind proves the point that it doesn’t matter what liberals do- they will be demonized.

    In Michelle’s case a lot of it is just nakedly racist, a lot of “monkey” bullshit. Just as Hillary was a focus for wingers’ sexual anxieties in a way that Bill wasn’t, I think that to white racists Michelle Obama codes much more strongly as African-American than Barack does. And she’s a formidable, successful career woman too, so she gets all of that hate as well. Add to that that the Obama family are obviously the best-looking, most glamorous inhabitants of the White House since at least Jack and Jackie, and it adds insult to injury; the rage is just incandescent.

  133. 133.

    Quinerly

    @hovercraft:
    Thanks. I was tempted to turn on MSNBC. Now I don’t have to. My stomach was feeling a little queasy this morning anyway.

  135. 135.

    hovercraft

    @Kay:
    That’s why they are so mad, of all the people in the world to be accused of cribbing from, that he-she, angry black woman, America hating, uppity, fat, ugly, whitey calling white people hating, cow, Mooochelle. The hate is beyond irrational.

  136. 136.

    Matt McIrvin

    @FlipYrWhig: The wingnut line on Benghazi varies, but many versions of the story involve some sort of defense force getting deliberately called back on orders from the White House and Hillary, which implies malice.

  138. 138.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Kay:

    There is nothing objectionable about this person- it’s all admirable.

    There is that little problem with excess of melanin…

  142. 142.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @TS:

    & Donald is still asleep – had a busy night – imagine that in the White House.

    No one old enough to remember Sanctus Ronaldus has to “imagine that”–we lived (barely) through it.

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