CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”
Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday,leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued intoWednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~
To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.
Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>
OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.
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Thank you to everyone who has been contributing links to articles & other content in the Comments section of each day's "Conversation." If you're missing the comments, you're missing some vital links.
Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:
~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.
CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~
~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play.
New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.
Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.
New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~
~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”
NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL ishttps://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
Contributor Ken W. sees the link between these two stories, both currently appearing in today's top Reuters reports:
"Erdogan targets more than 50,000 in purge after failed Turkish coup" and
"Trump could seek new law to purge government of Obama appointees."
In her lede, Reuters' Emily Flitter has that "could" as a "would":
If he wins the presidency, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would seek to purge the federal government of officials appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama and could ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire public workers, Trump ally, Chris Christie, said on Tuesday.
Christie, who ... leads Trump's White House transition team, said the campaign was drawing up a list of federal government employees to fire....
'As you know from his other career, Donald likes to fire people,' Christie told a closed-door meeting with dozens of donors at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, according to an audio recording obtained by Reuters and two participants in the meeting.
Trump's transition advisers fear that Obama may convert these [political] appointees to civil servants, who have more job security than officials who have been politically appointed. This would allow officials to keep their jobs in a new, possibly Republican, administration, Christie said.
'It’s called burrowing,' Christie said. 'You take them from the political appointee side into the civil service side, in order to try to set up ... roadblocks for your successor, kind of like when all the Clinton people took all the Ws off the keyboard when George Bush was coming into the White House.'
We're not Turkey -- yet. While Christie's proposed purge does not rise to the level of Ergodan's purges, it is alarming nonetheless. As Christie says, there is a tradition of "burrowing" some political appointees into the civil service. However, those who are transitioned into civil service jobs are hardly Cabinet-level appointees or undersecretaries. Rather, they're functionaries who do the gruntwork of government. Moreover, the Office of Personnel Management routinely sets guidelines and reviews the suitability of each political appointee the administration proposes to convert to a civil servant. So there are strict limits on the extent of the "problem" Christie plans to "fix."
Christie himself is the King of Cronies (which is why we got "Bridgegate" and related indictments) in a state infamous for its tradition of political corruption. Christie's purpose would seem to be to ensure that he & Trump don't miss a single chance to give some useful hack a desk in Washington.
In addition, Christie "justifies" his proposed with a false equivalency. (I'm sure that surprises you.) He claims his purge will prevent minor vandalism/sabotage "kind of like when all the Clinton people took all the Ws off the keyboard." First, "all the Clinton people" did not take "all the Ws" off the keyboards. An initial GAO investigation found no evidence of widespread pranking and concluded that "the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy." Only when confederate then-Rep. Bob Barr (Georgia) demanded a more thorough investigation did a subsequent GAO investigation turn up the Ws-off-the-keyboards claim. (No doubt much of the GAO's "evidence" was based on testimony by Bush appointees.) The second GAO report also considered the problem minor & said it occurred mostly in the Executive Office Building, not in the White House.
But here's the thing. It is most likely that the Clinton pranksters, whoever they were, were political appointees who lost their jobs -- that is, ones whom the Clinton administration had not "burrowed" in. If you still had a job _here you had to type reports & memos, etc., _ould you remove the '_' from your keyboard? I didn't think so.
So here we have bully-in-charge Chris Christie, evidently with the approval of Donald Trump, planning to urge Congress to write new law with the purpose of making it easier for a Trump administration to purge experienced federal employees and replace them with Trump loyalists. To that end, Christie is "drawing up a list," which well may remind you of Richard Nixon's dark-side "enemies list." And Christie's team has begun this effort months before the election. Should Trump win, one has to wonder how long the list of Trump "enemies" would be by the time of the inauguration.
Should Americans be worried about this pre-emptive, authoritarian urge-to-purge? I think so.
Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "... the gap between Mr. Trump and the party he now aims to lead yawned as wide as ever across the convention. At times, the only unifying appeals -- the only themes truly capable of rallying the Republican Party, even briefly -- were ominous denunciations of Hillary Clinton.... In the roll call vote that began the night, formally marking Mr. Trump's capture of the Republican nomination, 721 delegates cast their votes for candidates other than Mr. Trump -- the most significant expression of party dissent since 1976, when Republicans had a contested convention.... For the second consecutive night, long stretches of the program were desultory, and the convention floor emptied out well before the speeches ended." (See Adam Nagourney's illustration below.) -- CW ...
He's a Regular Guy -- He Hangs with Mobsters! He didn't hide out behind a desk in an executive suite. He spent his career with regular Americans. He hung out with the guys at construction sites ... pouring concrete and hanging sheetrock. -- Donald Trump, Jr., on his humble sheetrocker Dad
Maybe Junior shouldn't have mentioned the concrete-pouring inasmuch as Donald Sr. got that done only because he let mobsters do the work. -- Constant Weader
... Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The convention's second-day program was choreographed to promote party unity under the banner, 'Make America Work Again,' but there were sparse references to economic policies. Instead, convention viewers were served scattered messages, underscoring the party's discomfort with Donald Trump.... The case for Trump is increasingly being framed as little more than an opportunity to fend off [Hillary] Clinton...." -- CW ...
...Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian: "We now know how Donald Trump will take on Hillary Clinton this autumn -- by framing her as a criminal who should be sent not to the White House, but to jail. Trump had already signalled as much via the two-word label he likes to hang around the neck of his Democratic opponent: Crooked Hillary. But the Republican convention in Cleveland, which on Tuesday formally nominated Trump as its presidential candidate, has given colour and shape to that strategy. Now we know how it will look and sound." --safari
... Unable to eschew the spotlight, Donald Trump beamed himself into the convention via the Jumbotron:
Michael Shear & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: Donald Trump "formally took control of the Republican Party on Tuesday as delegates to the convention here officially chose him as their nominee.... The State of New York cast its delegates for Mr. Trump just after 7 p.m. Tuesday, giving him the majority of delegates and crushing, once and for all, the panicked efforts of the 'Never Trump' movement inside the Republican Party establishment." -- CW ...
... Karen Tumulty, et al., of the Washington Post: "Trump's clinching votes were cast by his own son, Donald Trump Jr., who spoke for the New York delegation. 'It is my honor to be able to throw Donald Trump over the top in the delegate count tonight,' he said. 'Congratulations, Dad, we love you!'... At about 8:10 p.m., after Alaska's votes had been sorted out, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wisc.) announced the official results. Trump, he said, 'has been selected as the Republican Party nominee for president of the United States.' Shortly afterward, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was named the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee...." ...
... A Chip off the Old Blockhead, Junior "throws Dad over the top":
... The Post has live updates here. This is the lede to the entry at 9:55 pm ET: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie briefly tried to turn the Republican National Convention into a courtroom as he delivered a scathing attack on Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state. The former prosecutor ... argue[d] that Clinton had failed badly in her handling of Libya, China, Syria, Iran and other places across the globe. He enlisted the participation of the crowd, repeatedly asking them: 'Guilty or not guilty?' 'Guilty!' the audience screamed back. They also broke into chants of 'Lock her up! Lock her up!' several times." -- CW ...
... Charles Pierce: "The [Trump] campaign was inevitable. The ground has been prepared for it for almost five decades. The ground was prepared when the Republican Party married itself to the flotsam of American apartheid. The ground was prepared when the Republican Party married itself to a politicized form of American Protestantism.... The ground was prepared when the Republican Party divorced itself from the proudest elements of its historical identity..., most critically, the party's dedication to some form of racial equality that was its founding purpose in the first place.... Sooner or later, as Mary Shelley warned the world, the monster always breaks the chains." -- CW
Donald's Coalition. Brad Reed of Raw Story: "You can live stream the Republican National Convention on the RNC's official YouTube page, but you can't chat about it live anymore.... The Republicans have now disabled the live chat window on the page after it got overrun by anti-Semitic Trump supporters. As former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle gave a speech promoting inroads that Republicans have made with Jewish voters, as well as ripping the Democrats for allegedly being more hostile to Israel, Trump's alt-right followers flooded the page with anti-Semitic vitriol." --safari (Also linked yesterday.) ...
Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time-Players Get Caught Plagiarizing Rival. Hilarity Ensues. Louis Nelson of Politico: "Trump campaign does damage control after Melania plagiarism charges." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: Make that "damage control." The campaign put out several conflicting stories; e.g., Melania said she wrote the speech; the campaign said she didn't. Corey Lewandowski -- still being paid by the Trump campaign but also working for CNN -- shadowboxed with rival & current campaign mismanager Paul Manafort. Manafort, for his part, mounted a baldly ludicrous defense: "This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down." That is, when numerous reporters & some Republicans, including the RNC chair, point out that Mrs. Trump copied Mrs. Obama's speech, somehow Hillary Clinton masterminded the whole thing. Wow! Hillary would be a powerful president! Here's another funny defense: "Manafort said the similarities between the two speeches were limited to just three sections and 'fragments of words.'" Fragments of words? Like Michelle said "family" & Melania said "fam"? Or what? ...
... ** Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "The possibility that Ms. Trump's remarks had been plagiarized cast a cloud over the second day of the Republican National Convention and laid bare lingering tensions within the party surrounding the nomination of Donald J. Trump, whose campaign continues to be plagued by stumbles and infighting despite several reboots. The disarray was evident as Mr. Trump's campaign and senior Republicans offered conflicting explanations for the similarities in the speeches, with some officials conceding that the passages were lifted and demanding accountability, and others arguing that nothing untoward had occurred. Among Mr. Trump's aides, there was a palpable sense of frustration that Ms. Trump's speech, which they considered a highlight of the evening, had become a cause for embarrassment." CW: This is a straight news report. ...
... ** It Was Melania's Fault. Maggie Haberman & Michael Barbaro: The Trump campaign hired two former George W. Bush "speechwriters, Matthew Scully and John McConnell, [to write Melania Trump's speech. They] sent Ms. Trump a draft last month.... Ms. Trump ... began tearing it apart, leaving a small fraction of the original. Her quiet plan to wrest the speech away and make it her own [CW: or rather, Michelle Obama's] set in motion the most embarrassing moment of the convention.... It was, by all accounts, an entirely preventable blunder.... [It] reinforces dominant themes of Mr. Trump's campaign...: a deliberately bare-bones campaign structure, a slapdash style and a reliance on the instincts of the candidate over the judgments of experienced political experts, like Mr. Scully and Mr. McConnell." CW: It seems Melania & a ballet-dancer friend did "research for the speech" by reviewing [make that copying & pasting] "previous convention speeches delivered by candidates' spouses." ...
... Rebecca Traister of New York: "... the words that came out of [Melania's] mouth were empty, meaningless. If she had really paid attention to Michelle's speech from 2008, what she should have taken from it was a lesson about the power of narrative specificity: Michelle told detailed, intimate stories of her life as a young person and her life as a wife and mother, details that shed light on her life, her personality, the nature of her relationship with her husband." -- CW ...
... The Speech That Keeps on Giving. David Frum in the Atlantic: "The incident throws a harpoon into the heart of the Trump campaign's racial politics. Trump's message: Non-white people are ripping off hard-working white Americans who play by the rules. 'They' cheat; 'we' lose. Could there be a sharper reversal of that racialized complaint than Melania Trump in her designer dress stealing Michelle Obama's heartfelt words?" And ..."In 2008, Michelle Obama summed up the values that she had learned from her parents and that she and Barack Obama now tried to instill in their children: work hard; tell the truth; keep your promises; treat others with dignity and respect. Donald Trump epically does not tell the truth, does not keep his promises, and does not treat others with dignity and respect. A plagiarized speech (and the failure to detect the plagiarism) pretty strongly confirms that the Trumps do not much care about hard work, either." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: As with another seemingly innocuous blunder years ago when a group of clowns were nabbed trying to break into a room at the Watergate Hotel, the Plagiarized Speech could have long-lasting--and historic--ramifications. At least we hope so. ...
... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "... whoever wrote/copy-pasted Trump's speech figured the journalists covering the convention wouldn't notice. That turned out to be true. But the aide responsible for the speech didn't account for the out-of-work reporter [31-year-old Jarrett Hill, who was watching] in an L.A. Starbucks" and tweeted out reports of the plagiarism. -- CW
Robert Draper, in the New York Times Magazine, on how Trump whittled down his vice-presidential list -- with a lot of help from potential candidates who begged off. -- CW
The Amazing Donaldo. He Don't Need No Stinkin' Money! Jay Newton-Small of Time reports: "On a bright sunny Tuesday morning, the Trump Leadership Council gathered at FirstEnergy Stadium for their second official meeting. The group of 40 CEOs and top executives had flown to Cleveland to attend the Republican National Convention and meet with the nominee presumptive, billionaire businessman Donald Trump...and Trump never showed..., [underlining] to at least a few council members that he doesn't view meeting with them as a priority." -- Akhilleus (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Other News & Views
** MEANWHILE, in Today's Other Train Wreck. John Koblin & Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: Roger "Ailes and 21st Century Fox, Fox News's parent company, are in the advanced stages of discussions that would lead to his departure as chairman, Susan Estrich, one of Mr. Ailes's lawyers, said in an interview on Tuesday.... Rupert Murdoch, who was on vacation with his wife, Jerry Hall, on the French Riviera, had been in constant telephone contact with his sons, James and Lachlan, on the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions." -- CW ...
... Gabriel Sherman of New York: "As a chorus of prominent Fox News women have gone public defending Roger Ailes against the wave of sexual-harassment allegations sparked by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit, the network's biggest star, Megyn Kelly, has been conspicuously silent.... According to two sources briefed on parent company 21st Century Fox's outside probe of the Fox News executive..., Kelly has told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances toward her about ten years ago when she was a young correspondent at Fox. Kelly, according to the sources, has described her harassment by Ailes in detail." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Roxanna Hegeman of the Washington Post: "The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block a two-tiered election system that would require Kansas election officials to throw out thousands of votes in state and local races from people who registered at motor vehicle offices or used a federal form without providing documents proving U.S. citizenship.... The rule, sought by Secretary of State Kris Kobach, would remain in effect through Nov. 8, the date of the general election. If that action is allowed to stand, thousands of Kansas voters will be denied their right to vote in state and local elections in a year when all 165 seats of the Kansas Legislature are up for election, the ACLU argued." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Akhilleus: All the hoopla surrounding the Daily Donaldo foibles conveniently draws attention from the fact that Republicans have been winding up their election rigging machine once again. Who needs money if you can screw with voters and deny them the chance to vote against your guy? Or in the case of Kansas, all your guys.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- John, Baron Acton ...
... Worser & Worser. Ceylan Yeginsu of the New York Times: "The Turkish authorities extended their purge of state institutions on Tuesday, suspending more than 15,000 employees of the education ministry for suspected links to a failed military coup last week. Shortly after the suspensions were announced, the High Education Board ordered the resignation of more than 1,500 deans from universities across the country and revoked the licenses of 21,000 teachers, Turkish officials said." -- CW
News Lede
New York Times: "If one were to count up the number of times any American -- or maybe anyone anywhere -- laughed in the last half-century, the person responsible for more of those laughs than anyone else might well be Garry Marshall, who died on Tuesday in Burbank, Calif. He was 81.... It would be difficult to overstate Mr. Marshall's effect on American entertainment. His work in network television and Hollywood movies fattened the archive of romantic, family and buddy comedies and consistently found the sweet spot in the middle of the mainstream." -- CW
Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time-Players Get Caught Plagiarizing Rival. Hilarity Ensues. Louis Nelson of Politico: "Trump campaign does damage control after Melania plagiarism charges." CW: Make that "damage control." The campaign put out several conflicting stories; e.g., Melania said she wrote the speech; the campaign said she didn't. Corey Lewandowski -- still being paid by the Trump campaign but also working for CNN -- shadowboxed with rival & current campaign mismanager Paul Manafort. Manafort, for his part, mounted a baldly ludicrous defense: "This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she seeks out to demean her and take her down." That is, when numerous reporters & some Republicans, including the RNC chair, point out that Mrs. Trump copied Mrs. Obama's speech, somehow Hillary Clinton masterminded the whole thing. Wow! Hillary would be a powerful president! Here's another funny defense: "Manafort said the similarities between the two speeches were limited to just three sections and 'fragments of words.'" Fragments of words? Like Michelle said "family" & Melania said "fam"? Or what?
MEANWHILE, in Today's Other Train Wreck. Gabriel Sherman of New York: "As a chorus of prominent Fox News women have gone public defending Roger Ailes against the wave of sexual-harassment allegations sparked by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson's lawsuit, the network's biggest star, Megyn Kelly, has been conspicuously silent.... According to two sources briefed on parent company 21st Century Fox's outside probe of the Fox News executive..., Kelly has told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances toward her about ten years ago when she was a young correspondent at Fox. Kelly, according to the sources, has described her harassment by Ailes in detail." -- CW
CW: Following Marvin S.'s lead, I read David Brooks' column today. And, yes, Brooks asserts Trump appears to be going crazier & crazier. It does seem possible that this season's "October surprise" may be a brief series of incoherent Trump tweets, followed by the campaign's announcement that Mr. Trump is resting quietly in an undisclosed location.
Donald's Coalition. Brad Reed of Raw Story: "You can live stream the Republican National Convention on the RNC's official YouTube page, but you can't chat about it live anymore.... The Republicans have now disabled the live chat window on the page after it got overrun by anti-Semitic Trump supporters. As former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle gave a speech promoting inroads that Republicans have made with Jewish voters, as well as ripping the Democrats for allegedly being more hostile to Israel, Trump's alt-right followers flooded the page with anti-Semitic vitriol." --safari
The Amazing Donaldo. He don't need no stinkin' money! Jay Newton-Small of Time reports: "On a bright sunny Tuesday morning, the Trump Leadership Council gathered at FirstEnergy Stadium for their second official meeting. The group of 40 CEOs and top executives had flown to Cleveland to attend the Republican National Convention and meet with ... Donald Trump...and Trump never showed...[underlining] to at least a few council members that he doesn't view meeting with them as a priority." -- Akhilleus
But who needs money if you can steal the election? Roxanna Hegeman of the Washington Post: "The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block a two-tiered election system that would require Kansas election officials to throw out thousands of votes in state and local races from people who registered at motor vehicle offices or used a federal form without providing documents proving U.S. citizenship...The rule, sought by Secretary of State Kris Kobach, would remain in effect through Nov. 8, the date of the general election. If that action is allowed to stand, thousands of Kansas voters will be denied their right to vote in state and local elections in a year when all 165 seats of the Kansas Legislature are up for election, the ACLU argued."
...Akhilleus: All the hoopla surrounding the Daily Donaldo foibles conveniently draws attention from the fact that Republicans have been winding up their election rigging machine once again. Who needs money if you can screw with voters and deny them the chance to vote against your guy? Or in the case of Kansas, all your guys.
The speech that keeps on giving. David Frum in the Atlantic: "The incident throws a harpoon into the heart of the Trump campaign's racial politics. Trump's message: Non-white people are ripping off hard-working white Americans who play by the rules. 'They' cheat; 'we' lose. Could there be a sharper reversal of that racialized complaint than Melania Trump in her designer dress stealing Michelle Obama's heartfelt words?" And..."In 2008, Michelle Obama summed up the values that she had learned from her parents and that she and Barack Obama now tried to instill in their children: work hard; tell the truth; keep your promises; treat others with dignity and respect. Donald Trump epically does not tell the truth, does not keep his promises, and does not treat others with dignity and respect. A plagiarized speech (and the failure to detect the plagiarism) pretty strongly confirms that the Trumps do not much care about hard work, either."
...Akhilleus: As with another seemingly innocuous blunder years ago when a group of clowns were nabbed trying to break into a room at the Watergate Hotel, the Plagiarized Speech could have long-lasting--and historic--ramifications. At least we hope so.
*****
GOP Convention & Presidential Race
Jonathan Martin & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Rancor and hard-edged attacks dominated the start of the Republican National Convention on Monday as speakers branded Hillary Clinton as a liar who deserved to be in prison and two African-American Republicans ridiculed the Black Lives Matter movement.... Unusual jousting among Republicans at their own convention gave way to more traditional, fiery speeches aimed at Democratic leaders, Mrs. Clinton and President Obama. The most impassioned remarks came from former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York...." -- CW ...
... Here's the Times' highlights video:
... Commenters can't decide whether Donald Trump's entrance was a hat-tip to alien films or Wrestlemania. CW: I think it was more of an end-times thing. I expect full-on classical deus ex machina Thursday night. ...
... Politico, apparently unmoved by the fog machine, call the whole event "Trump's Disastrous Day One." -- CW ...
... Nancy LeTourneau of the Washington Monthly on how last night's convention mirroredTrump & his campaign. -- CW ...
... Be Afraid. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "... the first night of Donald J. Trump's coronation struck a dark and foreboding tone unmatched by any convention in recent history.... The lineup of speakers presented a United States in danger, threatened from abroad and from within, a once-proud nation on the very brink of chaos and dystopia.... [Mr. Trump] phoned in to Fox to attack Ohio's popular governor, John Kasich, for skipping the convention in Cleveland. Mr. Trump's tirade pre-empted the network's coverage from the convention stage, where two American survivors of the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, were recounting their experience." -- CW ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "Rather than inviting the uncommitted on this first night of four, the G.O.P. presented to the nation a dystopian mélange of grieving parents, furious cops, lower-tier celebrities, and the former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who delivered a blistering speech, during which, several times, he worked his face into a furious snarl that about encapsulated the evening." -- CW ...
... Stephen Stromberg of the Washington Post: "The first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention ... was about portraying liberalism as an ideology of national betrayal. Speaker after speaker intimated that President Obama, Hillary Clinton or both are directly responsible for a variety of American deaths because they value the lives of foreigners over those of their countrymen.... In case you thought that Republicans were merely accusing Obama and Clinton of incompetence, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) encouraged the audience to see national tragedies as at least partially intentional." -- CW
... Where Have I Heard That Before? Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Melania Trump's speechwriter(s) cribbed her speech from Michelle Obama's 2008 convention speech. But, the campaign asserted, "Melania's team of writers ... in some instances included fragments that reflected her own thinking." -- CW ...
... Gregory Krieg & Eugene Scott of CNN: "At least one passage in Trump's speech Monday night plagiarized fromObama's address to the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Side-by-side comparisons of the transcripts show the text in Trump's address following, nearly to the word, the would-be future first lady's own from the first night of the Democratic convention in Denver nearly eight years ago." -- CW ...
... Brian Beutler: "Whether Melania knew she was reading plagiarized text or not (and I think it's quite likely she did not) it's just devastating to see a campaign premised on the imagined notion of Obama incompetence get caught stealing from Obama's own operation.... The plagiarized lines] amplify one (actually more than one) of the main knocks on Trump himself: That he's sloppy, erratic, in so many ways the opposite of the virtues he claims to embody. And, let's not gloss over it, this is a depiction of a campaign -- a campaign that nurtures white grievance and resentment -- trying to profit off the work of a black woman, from an African American family that Trump and his supporters regularly belittle. The fact that the plagiarized text in question was about the value of hard work just makes matters worse. A mortifying, calamitous, self-immolating moment." -- CW ...
... Greg Sargent: "What's galling about this is that Donald Trump's political career has been propelled to no small degree by an effort to deny the very legitimacy of those values and aspirations on the part of the Obamas, in service of the idea that they are basically imposters, or frauds, who don't actually harbor the values they claim and don't really deserve the success they've attained." -- CW ...
... CW: One of the strongest messages of the night was that women should STFU. Whether it was Donald Trumpcalling into Fox "News" to complain that John Kasich was mean to him while Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who was killed in Benghazi, was making her heartrending, fact-averse accusations that Hillary Clinton killed her son, or Melania Trump's speechwriters stealing Michelle Obama's lines, or the unrelenting attacks on Hillary Clinton as a murderous, careless criminal, (or cunt, as convention speaker Scott Baio had put it in a recent tweet), the takeaway is that women's views are either inconsequential or so heinous they must be quashed & the speaker jailed. This is not a white people's convention. ...
... Wait! Wait!More, previously unreported plagiarism by Melania & the Ghostwriters. (And, yeah, if you click on the link, you've been rickrolled. Thanks, Patrick, for rickrolling me. -- CW)
This feed claims to be the Convention's official livestream:
Yoo-Ess-Ay! Yoo-Ess-Ay! Jeremy Peters & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times are covering the GOP convention, & it appears they are updating the story as events unfold. At 5:45 pm ET Monday, this was the lede: "The convention floor momentarily turned into a scene discord and boisterous dissent on Monday. Those who were opposing Donald J. Trump broke into booming jeers and chants of 'Roll call vote! Roll call vote!' in an attempt to demand a vote by all 2,472 delegates on a procedural motion that is required before the convention can formally get underway.... Delegates who opposed them ... responded with their own noisy shouts of 'U.S.A.! U.S.A.!' But after several minutes of confusion, and a couple of musical interludes by the band to kill time, the anti-Trump delegates appeared to have been stymied. When the chairman called for a voice vote on whether to have a roll-call vote, he ruled that the 'no' votes prevailed." -- CW ...
... The Washington Post is running live updates here. ...
... Here the pro-Trump & anti-Trump Republicans clash. Trump wins:
... Thomas Burr of the Salt Lake Tribune: "A Utah woman says she was threatened by Donald Trump supporters after a floor fight over the rules at the Republican National Convention. 'They said: "You should die. They should pull the protection from the Utah delegation. You should all die,'" at-large delegate Kera Birkeland said Monday night." -- CW ...
... AND former winger Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.), a leader of one of the anti-Trump factions, said after the rules fight, "This is not a meeting of the Republican National Committee. This is a meeting of brownshirts." -- CW ...
... Jamelle Bouie of Slate: "But in forcing the question -- in generating enough heat to disrupt the proceedings, if only for a moment -- the anti-Trump delegates emphasized the degree to which this a Potemkin convention for a party that's torn and divided over its nominee. Look at the schedule of events here in Cleveland. If the speakers aren't from Trump's immediate family, they're third- and fourth-string Republican politicians.... The Republican Party is ... sick, worn down by its own pathologies and contradictions. And in its sickness, it's been overtaken by Donald Trump." -- CW ...
... Norm Ornstein & Thomas Mann in Vox: "Trumpism may have parallels in populist, nativist movements abroad, but it is also the culmination of a proud political party's steady descent into a deeply destructive and dysfunctional state.... The safe haven of false equivalence led the press to ignore one of the most consequential developments in contemporary American politics: the radicalization of the Republican Party." -- CW ...
... MEANWHILE, Michael Cavna of the Washington Post demonstrates how Garry Trudeauhas been predicting & foreshadowing a Trump presidential candidacy for nearly 30 years. With "Doonesbury" strips. -- CW
Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: Paul Manafort, "Donald J. Trump's chief adviser, used the first day of the Republican National Convention on Monday to excoriate Gov. John R. Kasich for not endorsing Mr. Trump, touching off a remarkably bitter exchange between the campaign of the presumptive Republican nominee and advisers to Ohio's popular Republican governor.... Asked about the criticism, [Kasich strategist John] Weaver ... not only mocked Mr. Trump's rambling and at-times awkward introduction of Mike Pence as his running mate on Saturday, but also pointedly brought up Mr. Manafort's history of working with contentious foreign leaders." CW: Contentious? Weaver accurately called Manafort's clients "thugs and autocrats."
Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A Donald Trump supporter with a primetime speaking slot at the Republican national convention, who is billed as a small business owner employing more than 100,000 people, is actually a 'multi-level marketer' [CW: i.e., Ponzi scheme] who does not employ anyone.... Michelle Van Etten... , 42, works on her own as an independent retailer of products supplied by Youngevity.... The Daily Beast first reported Van Etten's link to Youngevity on Monday, noting that some of the firm's nutritional products are sold by the conspiracy theorist and radio presenter Alex Jones...." --safari note: Donald Trump has the greatest connections to the greatest minds, and all he could do on the biggest stage was pull in a pyramid scheme artist who employs exactly zero people. Sounds appropriate.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. CW: Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post's media columnist, who was formerly the NYT's public editor, must have read my Krugman comment on Lesley Stahl's interview of Trumpence, because Sullivan calls out Stahl for exactly the same things I did (although I was constrained to 1,500 characters so I couldn't include specific fact-checks). (See my comment at the top of "Reader Picks.") ...
... CW: Steve Benen makes some of the same criticisms, but he concentrates on Trump's lies, he uses his own words & it's clear these are his own thoughts. Sullivan's critique is so close to mine, I wouldn't be surprised if she cribbed it.
CW: Here is an absolutely brilliant ad by Hillary Clinton's campaign:
... AND what makes it absolutely brilliant is this: Tyler Pager of Politico: "The ad, called 'Confessions of a Republican,' replicates an ad from the 1964 election with the same name in which a life-long Republican says he will vote for the Democratic nominee. In 1964, it was for Lyndon B. Johnson, and now the same actor, Bill Bogert, says in Monday's ad he will vote for Clinton in November." I ran the original ad some time back. In both cases, Bogert, though an actor, reportedly used his own words & sentiments. From the LBJ Library:
Other News & Views
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Gabriel Sherman of New York: "Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James -- co-chairmen and CEO, respectively, of parent company 21st Century Fox -- have settled on removing [Fox 'News' chiefRoger Ailes]..., say two sources briefed on a sexual-harassment investigation of Ailes being conducted by New York law firm Paul, Weiss. After reviewing the initial findings of the probe, James Murdoch is said to be arguing that Ailes should be presented with a choice this week to resign or face being fired. Lachlan is more aligned with their father, who thinks that no action should be taken until after the GOP convention this week. Another source confirms that all three are in agreement that Ailes needs to go." CW: Yeah, & I'm pretty sure Fox "News" will become way more "fair and balanced" when Ailes leaves. Ha! ...
... Rebecca Traister of New York: "Over the course of a year, culminating one day -- [Mon]day -- we have seen the protective skin, the veneer of inclusivity and equality, being peeled back from the bones of both the modern Republican party and its media channel." -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Ceylan Yeginsu of the New York Times: "Turkish authorities moved to widen their purge of perceived opponents on Monday by removing thousands of police officers from their posts, part of the crackdown that followed a failed military coup that was aimed at toppling the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Interior Ministry fired nearly 9,000 police officers on Monday, Turkish officials said. That followed the arrests of 6,000 military personnel and 103 generals and admirals, and the suspensions of nearly 3,000 judges over the weekend." -- CW
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