Author: craigcrawford

Just after Trump played God on the GOP convention stage to a Queen soundtrack, his wife turned out to be his feet of clay, delivering a speech she claimed to have mostly written herself, but which turned out to be partly stolen, and serving to divert media coverage of the gathering’s first night.

The Hill: Melania Trump speech appears to plagiarize Michelle Obama

Melania to NBC before the speech: “I wrote it, with as little help as possible.”

Before that dustup even protesters seemed bored by the GOP Convention’s first night (see Barry below), despite Trump the showman appearing on stage silhouetted by a flood of bright white lights aimed from below. There was some gall in Trump walking to the podium with gay icon Freddie Mercury’s “We Are The Champions” ringing out, considering his party’s anti-LGBT platform and how his wife Melania’s headliner speech left out gays in a litany of all the different types of Americans he would represent.

The Weekly Standard — RNC Speakers: Trump is ‘Sent From God’ and Compared With ‘Messiah’

Dave Barry on lackluster protests: “They were mostly young people carrying signs expressing their opposition to racism, sexism, fascism and of course capitalism, and they were shouting slogans that only they were listening to. They were far outnumbered by the news media and the police, who were busy closing streets so the protesters could pass through, to the annoyance of the actual public.”

Hillary counter-programs on Charlie Rose: “Trump is ‘Most Dangerous Man Ever To Run For President'”

Your live thread here for tonight’s Trump appearance at GOP convention to introduce his wife, Melania. Rebellious Renee serving the popcorn. Jace hasn’t set up TV in his new home, relying on us for the real story. Enjoy (or not).

For my GOP convention news I’ll be reading Dave Barry. Even when he makes it up, he gets more truth out than most:

“Oops! I allowed my mask of professional-journalism objectivity to slip there. We professional journalists are freaking out over the fact that no matter how hard we try to explain to the public that Trump is unqualified, a lot of the public keeps right on liking him and his bold vision for America consisting of whatever happens to cross his mind at a given moment. We journalists are like, ‘What is WRONG with you people? Why aren’t you LISTENING to us?!? We’re PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS WITH VERIFIED TWITTER ACCOUNTS!!!’ … So it’s going to be an exciting convention, and you can look to me this week for objective, fact-filled reports. You will be seriously disappointed, but you can look.” — Dave Barry (Miami Herald)

Pence defends anti-gay law he signed..

Robert James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence, on CNN about the insane truck killer in France:

“We are not going to win just by getting more and more vigilant, or even improving our intelligence, and so forth. We’ve got to destroy ISIS. Bin Laden said it very well once, oddly enough, he said people see a strong horse and a weak horse, and I like the strong horse better. We’ve got to be the strong horse. We’ve got to win not only in Syria and Iraq, we’ve got to crush ISIS in the West.”