Zeke Miller has a nice rundown of what happened on the floor of the convention this afternoon. I refer you to his piece since it’s fully adequate and he’s more tapped into what is going on than I am.
It’s not actually very interesting, but the way that Trump swatted away a procedural challenge was crude and heavy-handed enough to cause some press excitement and plenty of early negative publicity that highlights the dissension in the Republicans’ ranks.
I am going to poke around a little more to see what I think the potential is for this wildfire to peter out or grow into an embarrassing blaze.
My hunch is that the Never Trump people don’t have much ammo left, but it’s true that they’re now more pissed off than ever, so I can’t be sure that they won’t make more and better trouble for the convention.
The problem is, I am not sure what avenues they have other than being noisy and obnoxious.
Trump’s primary tactic:
The old line applies:
Like dat.
It’s worked so far…
AG
It’s worked thus far with bigots who are tired of having to self-censor their bigotry.
We’ll see how well it sells for the rest of the country.
I fear that they are “the rest of the country,” n1cholas.
The silent majority of undecideds.
We shall see…
AG
heh
How can any group succeed in competing with Trump and the Trumpsters on being noisy and obnoxious?
From POU:
From what I can tell, Trump side ignored the reality and used procedure to justify doing what they wanted. In otherwords what anyone who has ever held power over rules does when they can.
I’d give you more than one “excellent” rating if I could, rikyrah. In fact, I’m going to post your comment to facebook with attribution to some anonymous person on the internet who calls himself or herself rikyrah.
Nice but a good job approval is no substitute for all the good Obama legislation and federal judges that were blocked by the Goopers. The Repub leadership did have those victories and the crushing 2010 midterms they can crow about.
And Donald is in a position to avenge his embarrassing night at the mercy of Obama. He could still win the presidency ferchrissakes, the early polls suggest.
I don’t believe in karma.
What early polls suggest that?
HRC
+3
+3
+2
Tied
-7 (Rasmussen … otherwise known as Republican bag)
+7
+5
+4
+2
The early polls suggest an HRC win by a fairly good margin.
You can read all sorts of doom and gloom into polls
You can chicken little about the bazillion angry white men who have never voted but will come out this time
You can use personal, anecdotal evidence to vent your fears
…
but you CANNOT use those polls to say: The early polls suggest Trump will win.
and by no means am I saying these polls definitively state the HRC will win. Its JULY. These polls are good for commenting on and playing what if games. Whether or not they are predictive will be seen in 3 months.
I am addressing the assumption that the early polls (whatever that means) indicate Trump is/might be winning.
Now now. I just said they suggest he could win , not will win. What they really suggest is even with a supposed divided party and Donald Trump of all people about to lead them into the fall, the numbers that favor Hillary are not exactly of landslide proportions.
Yes still July , and she now has a clear opening to announce a dynamic progressive running mate to counter the dull deadweight Trump-Pence ticket.
For Trump to be a contender, he needs to be either leading at the end of the R convention or close. If HRC is still ahead, that will be a strong signal.
Honest question: Normally, the convention party gets a short term “bump” in the polls that usually is dissipated within a few weeks. Has there ever been a case where the LOSING party’s presidential vote was higher than the bounce?
Do you mean that the polled pct after the convention was lower than the pct of actual votes? That does sound unlikely, but I don’t know for sure. I am not a student of elections to that depth of detail.
Paul Manafort attacks Ohio Gov Kasich for not attending and meanwhile ex Speaker John Boehner is absent from the fray.
21st Century Fox responds to report that Roger Ailes is out at Fox News
07/18/16 01:06 PM EDT
New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman is reporting that Rupert Murdoch and his sons Lachlan and James have decided to remove Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, following a sexual harassment lawsuit by former anchor Gretchen Carlson.Sherman reports, citing anonymous sources, that the three are in agreement that Ailes needs to step down, but that there is disagreement over timing–namely whether it happens during or after the Republican National Convention.
A spokesperson for 21st Century Fox told POLITICO, “This matter is not yet resolved and the review is not concluded.”
Fox failed to deliver Romney in 2012 and delivered Trump in 2016; Rupert blames Ailes for the whole long, sordid Tea Party astro-turfed mess since 2010 that basically wrestled GOP power out of the hands of the elite and into the willing hands of their unsteady mob.
From king-maker Rupert’s point of view this constitutes a huge miscalculation and abject failure irrespective of ratings and he consequently let his progeny off the leash. Wouldn’t be surprised to find Gretchen Carlson’s suit was quietly promoted, enabled or facilitated by others.
Get to Know Mike Pence and All of the Very Bad Legislation He’s Signed
Stassa Edwards
Friday 12:20pm
… Pence is a bit of a darling among anti-choice groups. As a member of Congress, Pence sponsored a 2007 bill to defund Planned Parenthood, the first of its kind, the legislation set off a now nearly decade old congressional battle to defund the organization. Pence reintroduced the legislation multiple times until he left the House in 2011. “Let the abortion providers provide for themselves,” Pence told Politico in 2007. “I’d like to continue to be a persistent, respectful voice for the sanctity of life.”
It was a template and an indicator of how he would treat women’s health as governor of Indiana. As governor, Pence signed virtually every anti-choice bill that was put on his desk, including HB 1337, an omnibus abortion bill that a federal court blocked from taking effect in June of this year.
Pence described the law “a comprehensive pro-life measure that affirms the value of all human life.” In reality, it is a deeply invasive law lacking both empathy and reason (unsurprising, perhaps, from the state that jailed Purvi Patel). HB 1337 bans women from seeking abortions based on race, gender or fetal anomaly; it also mandates that women be required to bury or cremate the fetus post-termination. In addition, it required that abortion doctors have admitting privileges in order to practice, a restriction that the Supreme Court recently struck down in Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt…
In 2015, Pence also signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The controversial law prohibits the passage of state laws that “substantially burden” the religious beliefs of individuals. According to the Associated Press, the definition of an “individual” originally included churches and religious institutions, as well as businesses and other entities (RIP Memories Pizza who played themselves all the way to closing).
The law and its passage were a mess. LGBTQ activists argued that the bill would effectively allow business owners to discriminate and deny customers service if they were LGBTQ (or merely if the owner of the business perceived them to be). After numerous companies and organizations, including Angie’s List and the NCAA, announced that they would boycott the state, the Indiana legislature amended the bill, clarifying that it could not be used to discriminate against LGTBQ people.
Pence handled the passage of the bill poorly. He acknowledged that the bill was discriminatory, yet signed it anyway and, in the process, lost quite a bit of cash for Indiana businesses…
What a ticket,eh? The Orange Tart meets Pencil Head.
Appears as if the inmates have taken over the asylum. The country club Republicans have lost their Party. Deservedly so for the decades they’ve manipulated the rubes. If only an FDR were in the running, they would really have to eat crow.
Team Trump ghost speechwriters have yet to take English 101. Politico
Melania Trump – 2016 RNC convention:
Michelle Obama – 2008 DNC convention:
David V Johnson:
Suppose it depends on the definition of “write.” Low standard for politicians and celebrities. Are they quick to blame the ghostwriter when plagiarism is documented?
Trump/Pence:
“fragments of her own thinking” — how inspiring. How Trumpish, the king of thought fragments.
C&L:
Based on the responses to his “93%” defense, this could hurt him more than Melania’s speechwriter’s plagiarism.
Honestly, it doesn’t look like plagiarism to me. There are only so many ways to say the same political platitudes.
It’s clearly been lifted – putting those platitudes in the speech in the first place is a conscious choice, and the language is too similar to be accidental. The minor cosmetic differences look like something a high school student that thinks s/he’s smarter than s/he actually is would do to cover-up the copy job.
Please. Get real.
Much of it verbatim and the remainder only slightly paraphrased to fit Melania as the speaker. Way — way — beyond a question of plagiarism.
Wouldn’t be surprised if her speechwriters borrowed a bit from other convention speeches by the spouse of a nominee.
Apparently for a “16 word match” there’s less than a one in a trillion chance that it’s coincidental. Trump’s speech had 23 words matching — in a row.
plagiarism
noun
the sincerest form of flattery.
Rickroll:
Wow.
* goggles *
Bwa-hahahahahahahahahaha!
Thanks. Now I have that song stuck in my head. :-/
wow. that’s not English 101 it’s university/ college policy
Late Night Newsflash:
It got uglier … LOL
“He will never, ever give up and most importantly he will never ever let you down.” – His third wife
*well, up until I force myself to pause for considering potential consequences. That puts a pretty quick kibosh on the guffaws.
Fortunately, I still see “President Trump” as a very long longshot of an outcome.
But I could be wrong . . . it could happen! A quite sobering prospect in this case.
Plagiarism stepped on some decent things from a GOP perspective.
The speech from the mother of one of the Benghazi victims was pretty good. It it is true that Clinton lied to her, it strikes me as pretty terrible.
All of that gets lost in the overblown attempts to blame Clinton for the deaths. This is something that the Clinton’s have benefited from consistently. Their opponents overreach, and destroy their own argument.
Didn’t see the Benghazi mother last night but have in the past and her arrogant stupidity infuriates me. She wasn’t her son’s next of kin, and therefore, no USG official owed her any statement as to his death. Also doubt the veracity of many of her statements. Transcript
I’m so weary of the GOP “overreach” wrt the Clintons and my seemingly natural response to defend a Clinton when Republicans and rightwingers concoct stupid and/or false charges. Four years on they continue to fret over a non-scandal wrt Hillary and ignore her real culpability in destabilizing Libya. That was related to the attack on the Benghazi mission, but Amb Stevens was on the front line of having built that operation.
All of the corporate media, all the time…pretty much (say 90+%)…are and have been “Never trump.”
And yet Trump won the nomination. “Going away, as the horse racers say. He left the rest of them in the dust.
Hmmmm….
Not only that, the harder the media NeverTrumped, the faster his lead grew.
HMMMmmmm…
Nevermind “Trump”…what does that say about the relationship between a great swath of the American public and the media?
It quite plainly says that a large proportion of the American public not only no longer believes what the media says, it actively goes in the opposite direction from the one that the fix media is promoting!!!
HMMMMMMMmmmm…!!!
It says that the controllers’ heretofore main control mechanism is breaking down.
What next?
How can they mantain control?
There is only one way.
The old way.
Fear.
The visceral fear of death and destruction.
If Trump continues to grow in popularity? (He is now essentially tied w/HRC according to most polls, a result that even the control media cannot hide.)
Watch.
There’ll be a scare the likes of which we have not seen since 9/11.
Soon.
Probably after the DemRat convention if HRC continues to plummet. Maybe even before.
Watch.
AG