Political conventions are inevitably boring, because the campaigns turn them into a four-night free commercial for their candidates. They’re meant to show unity in the party and to brag about accomplishments and make promises for the future. 
Everything is safe, planned, and approved, and nobody wants any surprises.
Surprise!
The rules are once again being rewritten as we see the further destruction of the Republican party at the hands of the egomanic Trump monster.
My wife and I watched a little and came up with a great new drinking game: Spot the non-white delegate! Every once in a while, we thought we found one but it always turned out to just be a reporter. We remained sober all night.
Anyway, let’s summarize the first night:
Before it began, the Cleveland police asked that open carry not be allowed in the area even though Ohio law permits it. This makes absolute sense but of course would expose the Republicans as complete hypocrites. As it was, the law is still there and people are walking around outside of the convention guns in hand — while the police nervously stand by. We’ll see if it remains peaceful but it’s generally not the image you want for your convention.
Then the convention opens and absolutely none of the previous Republican Presidents are in attendance, nor are a huge percentage of Republican Senators and representatives.
It starts with a huge floor fight where some of the states walked out in protest while trying to keep Trump from being nominated. Yeah, that looks good on television. Unity!
Republican Steve King — the guy from Ohio who has a Confederate flag on his desk — then talked about how all civilization is thanks to white people. I am not making this up.
Some old TV star gets up on stage after calling Hillary Clinton a “cunt” and another one explains how Obama is a Muslim. Hey, come on, don’t criticize them for being TV stars. They’re just as qualified to be President as the Republican nominee.
Trump walks out surrounded by dry ice smoke, like he’s a professional wrestler about to enter the ring, and to the tune of “We Are the Champions” — a song by a gay man that the party would like to remove all rights from.
Then Trump’s wife gives a speech that copies almost word-for-word the speech Michelle Obama gave eight years previously, and that’s what makes the news.
Republicans are thrilled. Better to have that as the headline than all of the terrible things that preceded it. Maybe that was the plan all along?
Nah. That implies Trump has a plan.
“Why are most of the animals in ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ male?” asked a female reviewer.
I thought that was a good question. It’s not like there was a plot reason to have the characters male. 
So I posted that article on a page devoted to animation, and immediately was attacked. “Oh, here go the feminists again!” they said. “This woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about” and so on.
All from men, of course.
I expected one to scream “All cartoons matter!”
I always try to listen to the experts. When the vast majority of scientists are telling me that climate change is real and vaccinations are good, I tend to listen. I don’t have any experience in that area.
Similarly, it is tremendously frustrating for me as a lawyer who once taught Constitutional Law to be lectured by some high school dropout about the meaning of the second amendment.
Everyone reading this is an expert in something. Your job, your hobbies, your life — how do you like it when someone tries to tell you you’re wrong about something you know better than anyone else?
So when women tell you that the lack of representation in a film is important to them, don’t go tell them they shouldn’t feel that way. If black people are telling you that they fear the police and are targeted by them often, don’t go saying that they are wrong.
Let’s assume they’re the experts here.
Donald Trump announced that his running mate would be Mike Pence. We’ll discuss Pence’s neanderthal positions on creationism, religion, and logic later, but for now, let’s look at what happened when they rolled out their logo. It was immediately satirized in great ways:
Comments include:
“When you turn the Trump/Pence logo upside down, it literally looks like a handjob.”
“When a T and a P love each other very much and want to start a campaign…”
“I guarantee you there’s no problem with the size of the T.”
“This logo is not allowed in certain Indiana pizzerias.”
Thanks to the internet, it only took one day for them to remove the logo from their web page and scrap its use. What a well-run campaign this is!*
*that was sarcasm
When Bernie Sanders announced his long-shot candidacy last year, he made it clear that he wanted to emphasize issues that the other Democrats were ignoring: income inequality, universal health care, increasing the minimum wage, campaign finance reform…
He may not have gotten the nomination, but I think he has done much better than even he expected.
He’s shown you can call yourself a socialist and move to the left and still get votes; you don’t have to suck up to Wall Street to raise enough money to run a campaign; and it is possible to energize a large portion of the American voting populace even if you don’t have a typical candidate profile. (Honestly, I think if Bernie looked and sounded like George Clooney, he’d have the nomination. Charisma does matter.)
But some of Bernie’s more idealistic (and naive) supporters can’t take it, which was to be expected. After all, they had shown in the past that they didn’t understand how primaries work, didn’t understand election laws, didn’t understand how fundraising worked, and otherwise made the rest of us Bernie supporters look bad.
“He’s sold out!” they claim. “He is betraying everything he stood for by endorsing Hillary. He lied to us!”
Well, no. He said from day one that he would endorse Hillary if she won the nomination. Had he not done so, then he would be be a liar.
Then they post dishonest memes like this one. 
Talk about being a liar! Bernie never said any of those things. Those kind of quotes come from radical Bernie followers. Oh, and also from Trump supporters, who love the “useful idiots” on the left doing their work for them.
“He’s just another politician!” the Bernie Bots scream. Yes, of course. That’s how he became a Senator. That’s how he has been able to get stuff done. That’s how any politician gets stuff done, since the ancient days of Rome and Greece. Bernie, like any good politician, has made deals. He’s voted for bills he didn’t like that much because it was the best he could accomplish at the time. He’s supporting the candidate who is the best even if she is not perfect. That’s how you accomplish things in politics. He knows how to play the game.
And if you don’t play the game, you can’t win.
Politics without principles is always bad. But principles without politics gets you nowhere.
The Bernie Bots just don’t get it. Playing the game is how he got his issues into the Democratic platform. It’s why he waited so long before endorsing Hillary — because he wanted to force her to embrace these positions.
The Bots should be happy. He won. He broke down walls, opened doors, and set the stage for future accomplishments.
Bernie supporters: You may not have won the war, but you won some major battles. And that is something to celebrate.
So much for the First Law.
Many civil libertarians are upset about the robot that was used to blow up the Dallas sniper. And I can kind of understand the concerns. We don’t want police blowing up people using robots, acting as judge, jury and executioner; we want people captured so they can face justice.
But you know, sometimes you can’t capture people.
Micah Johnson killed cops. He wanted to kill more. He knew he was surrounded and knew that if he surrendered, he’d be getting the death penalty (This is Texas, after all). What would a few more cop deaths matter? His goal was to lure the cops in and hopefully take a few more down before he died.
So if I have the choice between risking the life of a cop (hell, of any human being) and that of a robot, then bye-bye, Daneel Olivaw*.
The robot is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good things and for evil things. I don’t disagree with the police’s use of the robot here.
*go ahead and google it
