User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
Meet Toby, a 32lb 5yr-old(ish) stray “Bassador” (Labrador/Basset Hound Mix) who came home, wore herself out chasing critters, had a snack, took a nap, chased more critters, and took another nap.
When it came time to tune in the GOP convention, she feel asleep during Cruz, left the room for Gingrich, and wouldn’t return until Pence was finished. So she might be a progressive. We’ll see what happens for the Dem convention.
Thinking about a pet? Consider adoption, not shopping.
“Making America Work Again” was supposedly the theme of last night’s GOP convention. I suppose that to some extent that referred to creating jobs, not too sure. But, absent a jobs plan for anyone other than Donald Trump himself (who was officially nominated), the real theme on the second night was more like “Make Hillary Bleed” — fueled by a parade of speakers who blamed her for everything except perhaps Melania’s plagiarism (oh wait, the Trump campaign manager had already done that during the day).
Only Don Trump Jr’s eloquent speech avoided explicit Hillary bashing, touching on a handful of policy items but still — on the jobs front — only offered assurances that his Dad would put Americans to work because he built lots of buildings.
The preponderance of the evening’s remarks seemed more aimed at driving up Hillary’s negatives, rather than building up their nominee. Toward the end of Chris Christie’s frenzied attacks on Clinton, the crowd repeatedly chanted “Lock her up! Lock her up!” So, it seems that hiring prison guards for HRC was about as specific as it got last night for an actual GOP jobs agenda.
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'”
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)
