Tuesday Open Thread [7.19.16]
So that’s pretty blatant, right? pic.twitter.com/EPnHME7afV
— Mike Hearn (@mikehearn) July 19, 2016
I am away from my computer on business today, so this is all the open thread you are going to get unless Cassandra and others want to add to it, or you can add stuff yourself in the comments.
But, my God, that first night. Either a speech sounded better in its original German, or it sounded better when Michelle Obama first delivered it. Jail Melania Trump for theft!
And if you are looking for the brilliance of the Internets today, see the Twitter hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes
Lol she ain't the only one we're charging for copywriting. #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes pic.twitter.com/4mzjmdqkTI
— ♑HC (@lilhenry29) July 19, 2016
This one may be a photoshop, but funny still.
Idiot Congressman Steve King wondered out loud on TV last night, what non-white people ever did to contribute to civilization.
“If you’re really optimistic, you can say this was the last time that old white people would command the Republican Party’s attention, its platform, its public face,” Charles P. Pierce, a writer at large at Esquire magazine, said during the panel discussion.
In response, Mr. King said: “This whole ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired, Charlie. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
“Than white people?” Mr. Hayes asked.
Mr. King responded: “Than Western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
This is what white supremacy looks like.
538 looks past the convention and asks, “Will the GOP be able to reinvent itself as something other than the party of white grievances after Trump?
Somewhere in recent years, the GOP’s engagement with modern America and how to best project those values (prosperity, social order and patriotism) into a nation of 320 million people became dysfunctional. As the country has diversified, the party has remained monochromatic, has grayed, and rather than allowing some birch-like give on shifting cultural norms, has become an unbending oak of ideological purity. The GOP now finds itself lacking an intimate’s ability to criticize productively, given its demographic and cultural divergence from the majority of the country.
Most prominently, as has been said time and again, it is a party of breathtaking whiteness.
According to the American National Election Studies, the white percentage of the national vote overall has dropped fairly steadily from around 95 percent during the period from 1948 to 1960 to the low 80s by 1992 to 73 percent in 2012.. The Republican party did not keep pace with this change, nor did it do much to win younger voters. 2008 featured a gaping chasm between the over-65 vote and the 18- to 29-year-old vote: There was a 43-point difference between how the two groups voted, with the older crowd going for John McCain by 10 percentage points, even as he lost the overall election by a 7-point margin to Barack Obama, the country’s first black president.
Anyone seen any further word on the couple of states that walked out on the business rules portion of the convention yesterday? I’m sure they’ll be back. Apparently they took issue with having their votes suppressed by the party. How about that.
*edit: found it: “Instead, they found their apparent victory to be short-lived. Cadres of staff for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee fanned out immediately, corralling individual delegates and persuading them to remove their names from the roll-call petitions. Soon the nine states were down to six. To force a roll call, they needed seven. “Shame! Shame!” shouted some from the Virginia delegation. But the deed was done. And by the close of the first day, with visions of Melania still vivid and echoes of Giuliani still reverberating, most delegates seemed ready to move on.”
I watched last night… OMG! What a disaster. Chachi? Antonio Sabato? Are they for real?
I can’t even with Melania Trump’s plagiarism. How does something like this happen?
@p how does it happen? It’s the GOP. They’ve got nothing but fear & hate. Beyond that, they just steal other people’s words. Speaking of which, I wonder if Queen gave license to Trump’s campaign to play “We are the Champions” last night.
I wonder if Trey Goudy will convene the House Oversight committee to investigate just how Michelle Obama managed to plagiarize Melania Trump’s speech.
@Mitch, and unlock the secrets of time travel in the process!
Updated to include the link to the hilarious #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes Twitter feed.
“Either a speech sounded better in its original German…”
German? That’s not a German accent. That’s a Slovenian accent. She’s Slovenian.
BTW… Slovenia is one of my favorite countries in Europe to visit.
(Swiss beauty without the Swiss prices).
I’ve been there about a dozen times or so.
The meme going forth from the R apologists on the talk shows about the Melania speech is ‘common words’, as in ‘these are common words’.
Yes, and strung together in the exact same manner as Michele Obama did in 2008. Talk about stepping on your message.
BTW, Queen has made clear time and time again that they don’t want Donald Trump using their music:
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/18/rnc-donald-trump-we-are-champions-queen
Just witnessing the calculated development of Melania’s persona.
As she shows her admiration for Michelle Obama she will become the crying victim of attacks from bullies who have taken the bait.
In the end she will gain the sympathy that a vulnerable woman being attacked by professional politicos inevitably receives…..Good move by the Trump camp.
It looks like Melanija also faked college.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/melania-trump-college-claims_us_578dd95ce4b0c53d5cfac0dc
Do you think the Vice President will weigh in on Melania’s speech?
I hope so — and encourage Donald Trump to do what he did when caught plagiarizing: Drop Out.
I just don’t get how someone who is capable of self reflection and intellectual embarassment could support this clown show
Insider information has reportedly been obtained regarding the text of tonight’s speech by Eric Trump, at the RNC in Cleveland. It starts out ” Four score and seven years ago…………..”
So this is the one thing that makes me think I should have gone to Cleveland — Liz Winstead and friends doing “sidewalk counseling” of people going into a Phyllis Schlafly event at the RNC. I totally would have joined them on this. Totally.
https://www.facebook.com/lizzwinstead/videos/1022871831095621/
Whoops, looks like I hijacked the Idiot Steve King thing with my own post.
It’s good, your post is better and is worth a real conversation.
Andrew Sullivan is live-blogging the RNC.
“Can you imagine then-Senator Barack Obama weaponizing a 9/11 widow on stage in Denver, in 2008, to rant and rage against George Bush? I’ve never seen anything more stomach-churningly distasteful on a political stage, and I’ve attended a Sarah Palin rally.”
Oh just wait. They’re still digging to the bottom.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/19/on-melania-trumps-plagiarism-a-laid-off-journalist-watching-in-an-l-a-starbucks-scooped-everyone/
“The Trump campaign has cycled through various denials and explanations for the, um, overlap between the speeches given by Melania Trump and Michelle Obama. Perhaps the best so far came from campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, speaking to the Hill: “This concept that Michelle Obama invented the English language is absurd.””
Of course it’s absurd. She’s not white. Just ask Steve King.