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Highlights from the 3rd Day of the Republican Convention

Get out the popcorn. This just keeps getting better. Let’s look at the third day of the GOP Hatefest. I swear, if I were writing a satire of the extremism of the party, it would be less ridiculous than this.

Republicans spent much of their time seriously debating Hillary Clinton, with the two options being “Should we jail her, or just kill her?” ingraham21n-1-web

Apologists for Melania Trump’s stolen speech continued to ignore the obvious theft, with one Brony even arguing with a straight face that since a character on My Little Pony has said similar things, then clearly there was nothing wrong with plagiarism.  But hey, you have to admit that Melania’s speech certainly made her sound like a First Lady — That First Lady being  Michelle Obama.

Trump, whose catch-phrase is “You’re fired,” did not fire Meredith McIver, the woman who wrote Melania’s speech. What is interesting though is that the writer works for Trump in his business, meaning that it is illegal for him to be paying her with his business’ money to to work for the campaign. But is anyone surprised at that? What makes this story even better is that some media outlets are claiming that Meredith McIver is not a real person but another alias Trump uses, like “John Miller.”

Ted Cruz got most of the attention last night when he spoke and refused to endorse Trump, telling people instead to “vote their conscience.” Who would have thought that the tons of insults Trump threw at Cruz during the primaries would cause Cruz to think that maybe this guy wasn’t fit to be President?

Apparently Ted, unlike Chris Christie, survived the primary season with his balls intact. Christie, meanwhile, is having a fit over the fact that he wasn’t picked for Vice President. (Insert Nelson laugh)

But my favorite part of the convention was when right-wing nutcase Laura Ingraham ended her speech with the nazi salute. Seriously, this actually happened.  “Have you seen my friend Kyle? He’s about this tall. We need to seek Kyle. Seek Kyle!  Seek Kyle!”

 

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Editorial cartoon: Make America Hate Again

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Steve Sack

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Highlights from the 2nd Day of the Republican Convention

Highlights from day two of the Republican convention:

Republicans one by one helped keep the Melania plagiarism scandal afloat by insisting that it never happened instead of taking responsibility and moving on. That’s the current Republican way of dealing with things, of course — deny facts over and over again and hope people don’t notice. The press certainly did, with Chuck Todd being amazed at how incompetent the Trump campaign was at handling this.trump

The band Third Eye Blind trolled the GOP by accepting an invitation to play at some party and then refusing to play any of their hits — except the one about the gay kid who commits suicide because he’s bullied. They then ended their set with a plea for acceptance which, of course, was met with boos from the bigots in the audience. When one fan there tweeted that she had never been so disappointed, the band tweeted back “Good.”

The Republican platform is being celebrated, and it includes a passage that calls for the reversal of environmental standards, and calls coal a “clean” energy. Coming soon from the GOP:  War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.

At the actual convention, speakers spent most of their time trying to paint Hillary as the most evil person in the world because, hey, the alternative would be trying to come up with something nice to say about Trump.

Chris Christie claimed that Hillary helped Boko Haram kidnap girls because you know, anything that happens in other parts of the world while a Democrat is President is entirely their fault, as opposed to say when the largest attack in history to happen on American soil occurs in the middle of New York City — that’s totally not the fault of Republicans in charge.

Trump’s top adviser for veteran’s affairs called for Hillary Clinton to be executed for treason, and of course, the GOP cheered him on.

The RNC co-chair got up and called President Bill Clinton a rapist. Yeah, good, set the standard for class, people.

Donald Trump Jr. then rattled off a bunch of lies which everyone cheered, the strangest of which was that Hillary Clinton wanted to get rid of medicare. The Washington Post fact-checker politely reported that this “appears to have no factual basis” — which is a nice way of saying “liar, liar, pants on fire.”

Seriously, which party has spent 50 years trying to get rid of medicare?  Let’s see, was it the Greens?  No… I’m sure it will come to me.

 

 

 

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GOP Convention Embarassments

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. TRUMP_CONVENTION_LOGOEverything 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.

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Bernie Won!

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…bernie ok fine

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. lieTalk 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.

 

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Police shootings and guns everywhere

Why do police seem to shoot so many more people in America than in other countries?

Might I suggest it’s because of guns?

Let’s face it — being a cop isn’t an easy job, and you never know if some lunatic is going to take a pot shot at you. It’s not like that hasn’t happened before. Even the most enlightened, best trained officer worries about that.

But maybe what makes America different from other countries is that lots of people have guns. We have politicians who, instead of trying to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the insane and terrorists, make it easier for them to get these guns.

So when an officer makes a stop, they never know if the person theythcajdgcpz pull over is carrying. The officer has to be on his or her guard. Sometime they’re just not trained in how to handle these things. And sometimes, of course, the cops really are the bad guys.

This, of course, does not in the slightest explain why the victims of these police shootings are overwhelmingly not white people. Many of these shootings can easily be attributed to a combination of blatant racism and poorly trained officers.

But I can’t help but wonder if our gun culture also has a lot to do with it. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t police stops and crime in other civilized countries. What they don’t have are guns everywhere — and maybe that explains the difference.

 

 

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Please explain to me Hillary’s “crime”

I am serious here. I am willing to examine evidence and will certainly base an opinion on that evidence. What is this terrible crime that Hillary committed (this time)?

At first it was Whitewater (where she and Bill lost a lot of money in an investment). No one could exactly explain to me what the terrible crime was there. Then there was Vince Foster’s suicide (who was a friend of the Clintons). Once more, no one could tell me exactly why Hillary was to blame for that. Then there were the millions spent investigating Benghazi (which, while tragic, seems to have been caused by the GOP’s cutting of the embassy’s security budget). hillary-clintons-little-email-fussI begged over and over for someone to tell me what the crime was there as well, and after many investigations, even the Republicans in Congress had to admit there was nothing.

Now there’s the email “scandal.”

Seriously, explain it to me. I’m a lawyer; I can understand big words.

And if you can, please explain why these emails, which were not distributed, stolen, or leaked, make a scandal while the 22 million emails deleted by the Bush administration while on a Republican server is not.

Apparently, from what I have read, Hillary had a private server for her emails, in the same way the previous (Republican) Secretaries of State did, and actually did better than they did, because hers were all on a personal server she controlled to prevent leaks. The policy changed after she left the position and apparently the GOP wants to hold her to the new standards that didn’t apply to her, hoping to entrap her in a loophole.  The Republican head of the FBI did an investigation and concluded that there was no crime here.

Again.

So please, seriously, those of you Hillary haters out there (because it always seems to come from people who didn’t like her anyway and never from anyone neutral): Explain it to me.

Remember that I supported Bernie in the primaries. I didn’t want Hillary as my candidate — I don’t like political dynasties (whether Bushes or Clintons), I don’t really trust what she says, and with the exception of women’s issues (on which she is great) I don’t think she really stands for anything given how she changes her position based on the polls.  I’m no “Hillary lover” so don’t call me that.

I am a facts lover. I like truth. Sometimes that means the politicians I support do bad things and I admit it, and sometimes that means the politicians I don’t like do good things and I admit it.

So. Give me some facts. Tell me why I am wrong.

 

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Electoral college predictions and voodoo

Predicting who will win the election based on the Electoral College is a bit like predicting who will win the Super Bowl six months prior — there is a bit of guesswork involved because things could change dramatically by the final day, but, at the same time, there are statistics you can use to make your prediction as accurate as possible. Depending on the source, a prediction may be as scientifically perfect as possible or it may be complete voodoo.

I hate the Electoral College, but we’re stuck with it. That’s how we pick Presidents. Suck it up and deal. Let’s move on.

In previous years, I enjoyed using Electoral-Vote.com that takes the map and updates it daily based on the most recent polls. The problem with that approach is that it treats each poll separately, and sometimes they may vary wildly.

More accurate this year is Nate Silver’s 538 map. This website is run by a bunch of math nerds. They don’t just take the most recent poll; they take them all and average them together based on a number of factors including the previous accuracy of that particular pollster, whether it was a poll of all voters or likely voters, how old the poll is, and a bunch of other things I don’t completely understand because math.

According to Silver, Hillary has around an 80% chance of winning the election, which isn’t completely surprising. The problem is that this election has already broken all the rules. Silver had also predicted in the past (like every other “expert”*) that Trump would never be the nominee.


This map is from 270toWin.com and matches Nate Silver’s current prediction

Seriously, Trump’s campaign is a classic example of what not do to in a campaign. The whole thing has gone against everything I ever learned as a Political Science major, a campaign manager, a lobbyist, and a campaign worker. It goes against everything I ever taught when I was a Political Science professor. He’s done everything wrong.

Of course, that could also be why he’s only given a 20% chance of winning.

But hey, the conventions haven’t even happened yet. For all we know, the GOP will find a way to nominate someone else and then we’re back to square one. Hillary, after all, is popular only in relation to Trump. If they nominate someone else, that 80% chance of winning would drop quickly.

*including me

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Editorial cartoon: Undue Burdens

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Nick Anderson