Donald Trump is frantically scrubbing his speech for plagiarism.

Donald Trump is frantically scrubbing his speech for plagiarism.

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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.

Holy &#*$!

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Via Slate: "Conservative radio personality Laura Ingraham closed her Republican National Convention speech this way."  I have no words.

Thursday Open Thread [7.21.16]

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I'd never thought I would be ... proud... of Ted Cruz. He one upped Trump in dominance politics last night, refusing to endorse in a prime time speech and telling conservatives to vote their conscience instead of voting for Trump, ruining the night for VP nominee Mike Pence and Trump's other son, Eric. He cast himself as the leader of the true conservative resistance while other Republican leaders, save John Kasich, cowered like cowards before the Fascist. He is now a leading contender for 2020, and will be able to say he was right.

The GOP is Now Officially Your Angry (Dead or Dying) Racist Grandpa’s Party

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Former football coach and Donald Trump booster Lou Holtz dumbs it down and sums it all up. He is angry and he is not going to learn your language or make pretend that your religion is real. Nobody, of course, is trying to make Lou Holtz learn Pashtun, or even Spanish, or even reasonably decent English. Nobody is trying to get Lou Holtz to celebrate Ramadan. But the idea that he has to choose "English" at the ATM is exactly the same thing as being forced to study the Koran. It fills him with a righteous rage. And Soccer...? Jesus Christ, why is there so much soccer on Lou Holtz' goddam TV?!?!?

Wednesday Open Thread [7.20.16]

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Reports are, from NBC, that two Republican contract speechwriters drafted a speech, and gave it to Melania and the campaign, and the speech she ended up delivering bared no resemblance to that speech. Paul Manafort continues to insist, as does Melania, that it was Melania that wrote the speech. If that is really true, it means two things: 1) the Trump campaign is more amateurish and incompetent than we could ever possibly imagine, and 2) Melania Trump is a liar and a plagiarist. Perhaps we should jail her immediately for theft, since that seems to be the Republican answer for everything these days.
Iowa’s Steve King Wants to Know What Non-Whites Have Contributed to Society

Iowa’s Steve King Wants to Know What Non-Whites Have Contributed to Society

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I hope the NY Times doesn't mind me borrowing their quote. Because I really couldn't write a better excerpt than this: 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?” - Rep. Steve King, R-IA