Archive for July, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Tampa Rally

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 22 Comments
Hillary Clinton’s Tampa Rally

Since it is widely expected that the VP announcement will be today, perhaps this is the event where it will happen. I have no idea, of course, but this rally is being live-streamed (starts at 4:30 EDT) so if you want to see it as it happens, here you go:

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Trump Can’t Help Himself

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 6 Comments
Trump Can’t Help Himself

Trump goes after Cruz because… well… we knew he would. Via TPM (go read the whole thing!): “Somebody got booed the hell out of a place by thousands and thousands of people,” Trump said. “There wasn’t one person in the room — not one. And then they said there may not be unity. Unity? There […]

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Can You Spot The Difference?

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 13 Comments
Can You Spot The Difference?

Can You Spot The Difference?

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This is a tell….

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 10 Comments

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What the floor of the DNC looks like

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 0 Comments

WF

More inside…

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He Comes Home

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 3 Comments
He Comes Home

An old friend stops by to chat about the election, Roger Ailes, and Fox News.

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Friday Open Thread [7.22.16]

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 12 Comments
Friday Open Thread [7.22.16]

Andrew Sullivan, like myself, read Trump’s draft speech around dinner time, after it was leaked by a Republican to Hillary’s campaign (which by itself should strike panic into the hearts of the Trump campaign). Here is his take before seeing it:

It’s a remarkable piece of oratory, cannily crafted, framed by massive lies and distortions, crammed with incoherence, and yet, I’m afraid to say, scarily potent. It invents a reality – that the U.S. is in a state of chaos, lawlessness and soaring crime; that the world is careening toward catastrophe – and then makes a classic argument for a strongman to set things straight.

This is a very new departure for politics in a liberal democracy. We’ve never heard an appeal from a major party platform to junk traditional democratic norms, and cede power to a new tyrant, whose magical powers will somehow cause almost every problem in the country to disappear. In this election, the very basis of liberal democracy is on the ballot. The fears I expressed last May about the popularity of tyranny in a late-democracy have, I’m afraid, only been fanned by events since.

The speech is entirely about fear, to be somehow vanquished by a single man’s will to power. Its core message is what America was founded to resist. Its success would be an abolition of the core promise of this country for two centuries – that self-government is incompatible with the rule by the whims and prejudices and impulses of a man on a white horse.

It can happen here. It is happening here. No election has been more important in my lifetime.

His reaction after delivery:

I have to say I’m relieved. This was a terrible presentation of what read like a powerful speech. It seems screechy, unmodulated, and yet also plodding. Mussolini never had a Teleprompter.

I agree completely. During the hours between reading it and 10:30, I drank. Heavily. It read like a fascist masterpiece determined to take what existing fear there is and stoke it so as to change America beyond any democratic (small d) recognition.

But it was delivered like a 75 minute primal scream. If one piece of shit complains about Hillary’s voice ever again, I will punch them directly in the face, and then continue the pummeling on the ground.

However, it was still a dark, dystopian, fascist speech. It will do more to unify those who believe in liberalism or progressivism than anything Clinton, Sanders or Obama could do alone.

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Angry Trump Accepts RNC’s Commission to Flush America’s Toilet in 75 Minute Rant

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 1 Comment
Angry Trump Accepts RNC’s Commission to Flush America’s Toilet in 75 Minute Rant

With a steady diet of this doom and gloom misanthropy, is it any wonder Donald Trump thinks (in spite of all evidence to the contrary) that America is a fucking shit hole? There is no pretense of objectivity. There is only wall to wall hate and fear mongering. Pickled in this hatred and myopic gloom, Donald Trump is ready to give birth to a new age in America. An age of “LAW AND ORDER” and an age completely unburdened by the debilitating effects of “political correctness.” In short an age of one man, one vote. His vote.

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It Looks Like Kaine.

Filed in Featured, National by on July 22, 2016 136 Comments
It Looks Like Kaine.

According to the NY Times, Hillary Clinton is expected to name US Senator from Virginia Tim Kaine as her Vice Presidential nominee. Of all the candidates under consideration, with the possible exception of the General, she appears to have chosen the nominee with the least progressive record. Pro-TPP, pro-bank deregulation, squishy on women’s rights.

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Friday Daily Delawhere [7.22.2016]

Filed in National by on July 22, 2016 0 Comments

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DSEA and NEA Endorses Townsend [Update]

Filed in National by on July 21, 2016 6 Comments
DSEA and NEA Endorses Townsend [Update]

I have just learned that the Delaware State Education Association, a union representing approximately 12,000 hard working classroom teachers, specialists, and education support professionals working in Delaware public schools, will be endorsing State Senator Bryan Townsend in the Democratic Primary for our lone congressional seat. Townsend is running against former Markell and Carper advisor and 2014 Treasurer candidate Sean Barney and former state Labor Secretary Lisa Blunt Rochester.

The release is inside.

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Trump endorses Hillary

Filed in National by on July 21, 2016 3 Comments

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Donald Trump is frantically scrubbing his speech for plagiarism.

Filed in National by on July 21, 2016 12 Comments
Donald Trump is frantically scrubbing his speech for plagiarism.

From Talking Points Memo:

Donald Trump’s campaign team is reportedly checking and rechecking the speech he will give Thursday at the Republican National Convention to make sure it isn’t plagiarized, The New York Times reported. […] Trump’s chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller, told others on the campaign that the speech was original, two anonymous campaign staffers told the Times. Miller declined an interview with the Times. Despite this, at least one staffer reportedly downloaded plagiarism software to screen the text. The search came up empty, according to the Times.

Original, as in either written by Trump himself or Miller. So why would then have to scrub the speech for plagiarism, unless Trump wrote a lot of it, just as, I am convinced, he wrote Melania’s speech. Yeah, I doubt Meredith McIver is either a real person or, if actually a human, responsible for the plagiarism in Melania’s speech.

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