7.21 Donald Trump, in his acceptance speech at the RNC: ““I alone can fix it.”
7.21 Billionaire tech mogul Peter Thiel won loud applause at the GOP convention: “Every American has a unique identity, I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican. But, most of all, I am proud to be an American.”
7.21 Roger Ailes resigns from Fox News
7.21 John Podhoretz in the NY Post: “Ted Cruz intended to offer his challenge subtly — through a text that did not explicitly endorse Trump and instead called for “leaders who stand for principle. Unite us all behind shared values. Cast aside anger for love. That is the standard we should expect, from everybody.”
Subtle it may have been, but not subtle enough to evade the rage of the Trump campaign. Evidence suggests the Trump camp had decided it was going to punish Cruz for this impertinence.
After Cruz spoke those sentences, the New York delegation began to yell at Cruz from the floor — demanding an explicit endorsement of the candidate. It is highly unlikely such a thing happened without direction from the Trump campaign.And when Cruz continued by telling the audience to “vote your conscience [and] vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution,” the hall erupted in catcalls — something I don’t ever remember happening at any nominating convention.”
7.20 Thomas Friedman in the Times: “Anyone who has been following Turkey closely knows that Erdogan has been mounting a silent, drip-by-drip coup of his own against Turkish democracy for years — jailing reporters, hounding rivals with giant tax bills, reviving an internal war against Turkish Kurds to stoke nationalist passions to propel his efforts to grab more powers — and by generally making himself into a modern-day sultan for life. I’m glad the coup failed, especially the way it did — with many secular Turks who actually opposed Erdogan’s autocratic rule, and had been abused by it, nevertheless coming out against the plotters on the principle that Turkish democracy must be upheld. That was a truly impressive act of collective wisdom and a display of democratic sensibilities. The maturity of the Turkish people resulted in Erdogan’s getting what golfers call a mulligan, or a do-over, to demonstrate that he is committed to the universal precepts of democracy. Will he? Or will Erdogan go right back to his preferred means of staying in power: dividing Turks into his supporters and enemies of the state, weaving conspiracy theories and using the failed coup as a license for a witch hunt, not only for plotters but for anyone who has dared to cross his path?
7.20 David Brooks in the Times: “Occasionally Trump will attempt a sentence longer than eight words, but no matter what subject he starts the sentence with, by the end he has been pulled over to the subject of himself. Here’s an example from the Mike Pence announcement speech: “So one of the primary reasons I chose Mike was I looked at Indiana, and I won Indiana big.” There’s sort of a gravitational narcissistic pull that takes command whenever he attempts to utter a compound thought.
720 T.A. Frank in VF.com That Melania Trump’s big night turned into another example of the Trump campaign’s inability to hold onto on a positive news cycle seems sadder than most of the blunders that have plagued the billionaire’s ramshackle operation. Melania has openly, repeatedly said this is not a role she wanted, to stand in front of a stadium and the world talking about her private life. At times, that showed during her speech, before the controversy over her words broke out. When she stumbled over the teleprompter, for example, or when when the shade of recognition that she had mispronounced a word crept over her face, her eyes would widen from their typical smolder into a look of terror—a deer caught in front of a million headlines coming at her at full speed.”
7.20 Ben Carson at the RNC: “Now, one of the things that I have learned about Hillary Clinton is that one of her heroes, her mentors was Saul Alinsky, and her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky. This was someone she greatly admired. And let me tell you something about Saul Alinsky. So he wrote a book called Rules for Radicals. It acknowledges Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom. Now think about that. This is our nation where our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, talks about certain inalienable rights that come from our creator; a nation where our Pledge of Allegiance says we are one nation under God. This is a nation where every coin in our pockets and every bill in our wallet says ‘In God We Trust.’ So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer?”
7.19 Yasmin Yonis: “I’m not surprised Melanie plagiarized from Michelle. White women have spent centuries stealing black women’s genius, labor, babies, bodies.”
7.19 In “an impressive feat of political gymnastics”, Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort takes on the plagiarism flap by saying, “This is once again an example of when a woman threatens Hillary Clinton, how she tries, seeks out to demean her and take her down.”
How Manafort turned Melania Trump’s words, borrowed from Michelle Obama in front of tens of millions of people, into a problem for Hillary Clinton, is an impressive feat of political gymnastics.
7.19 Speaking on the opening night of the Republican convention, Melania Trump plagiarism Michelle Obama
7.14 In France, a tractor trailer plowed into a large crowd leaving a fireworks display in the French Riviera town of Nice on Bastille Day Thursday, killing at least 60.
7.14 Trump selects Indiana’s Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate.
7.14 Nicholas Kristoff in the Times: “An even bigger civil rights outrage in America than abuses by some police officers may be an education system that routinely sends the neediest black students to underfunded, third-rate schools, while directing bountiful resources to affluent white schools.’’
7.13 Justice Ruth Ginsburg: “I can’t imagine what this place would be — I can’t imagine what the country would be — with Donald Trump as our president. For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be — I don’t even want to contemplate that.”
7.13 Trump on Ginsburg: “Her mind is shot.’’
7.12 George W. Bush, at memorial for slain Dallas police officers: “Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions, and this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose.”
7.12 Bush sways during Battle Hymn of the Republic
7.12 President Obama at memorial service: “We ask the police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves. As a society, we choose to under-invest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs. We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book. And then we tell the police, “You’re a social worker; you’re the parent; you’re the teacher; you’re the drug counselor.” We tell them to keep those neighborhoods in check at all costs and do so without causing any political blowback or inconvenience; don’t make a mistake that might disturb our own peace of mind. And then we feign surprise when periodically the tensions boil over. We know those things to be true. They’ve been true for a long time. We know it. Police, you know it. Protesters, you know it. You know how dangerous some of the communities where these police officers serve are. And you pretend as if there’s no context. These things we know to be true. And if we cannot even talk about these things, if we cannot talk honestly and openly, not just in the comfort of our own circles, but with those who look different than us or bring a different perspective, then we will never break this dangerous cycle. In the end, it’s not about finding policies that work. It’s about forging consensus and fighting cynicism and finding the will to make change.
7.12 In the UK, David Cameron leaving as PM: “I have addressed 5,500 questions from this despatch box; I’ll leave it to others to work out how many I’ve answered.” Theresa May in. Boris Johnson named foreign minister
7.12 Jeb Bush on Morning Joe: “Conservatism is temporarily dead.”
7.12 Dallas police chief David Brown: “Every societal failure, we put it on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cop handle it. Not enough drug addiction funding, let’s give it to the cops. Here in Dallas we have a loose dog problem. Let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, give it to the cops. 70 percent of the African-American community is being raised by single women, let’s give it to the cops to solve as well. That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems. I just ask other parts of our democracy along with the free press to help us.’’
7.12 Richard Cohen in the Washington Post: “This is madness. Hillary Clinton may have lied about her emails, but Donald Trump lies about everything . Still, for the Justice Department to upend a presidential campaign over a matter as trivial as a violation of email policy approaches an anticipatory coup. If there were lies deserving of punishment, let the voters mete it out.
7.11 Washington Post: Young Americans, particularly millennials (ages 18 to 35), have lost their zest for buying and driving cars . . . Just recently, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published figures indicating that the number of licensed drivers 16 or younger in 2014 had dropped 37 percent since 2009 and, at 1.08 million, was “the lowest number since the 1960s.”
7.10 Protestor in Baton Rouge
7.10 Jabari Parker, NBA player, on Twitter, answering Ex-Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh, who said “Obama, Watch Out’’: ‘You Ain’t Landing a Single Finger on Obama. No body is. Chicago and myself going to make sure of that,”
7.9 Maureen Dowd in the Times: “It says a lot about our relationship with Hillary Clinton that she seems well on her way to becoming Madam President because she’s not getting indicted. If she were still at the State Department, she could be getting fired for being, as the F.B.I. director told Congress, “extremely careless” with top ¬secret information. Instead, she’s on a glide path to a big promotion. And that’s the corkscrew way things go with the Clintons, who are staying true to their reputation as the Tom and Daisy Buchanan of American politics. Their vast carelessness drags down everyone around them, but they persevere, and even thrive….. the email transgression is not a one off. It’s part of a long pattern of ethical slipping and sliding, obsessive secrecy and paranoia, and collateral damage. Comey’s verdict that Hillary was “negligent” was met with sighs rather than shock. We know who Hillary and Bill are now. We’ve been held hostage to their predilections and braided intrigues for a long time. We’re resigned to the Clintons focusing on their viability and disregarding the consequences of their heedless actions on others. They’re always offering a Faustian deal. This year’s election bargain: Put up with our iniquities or get Trump’s short fingers on the nuclear button.’’
7.8 Henry Porter on VF.com: “The similarities between the invasion of Iraq and the Brexit vote are rather striking. First, the arrogance of Britain’s decision to storm Baghdad over the protestations of leaders in France and Germany, among other nations, is in line with some 40 years of uncooperative and aloof dealings with the country’s European partners. Second, just as Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw failed to plan for the peace in Iraq, the Cameron government, which included ministers who campaigned to leave as well as remain, failed to devise a strategy for Britain’s departure from Europe. As I keep repeating with increasing astonishment, no one on either side of the debate thought to even sketch a post-conflict road map.’’
7.8 Bob Dylan at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium
7.7 “ ‘You shouldn’t have taken it down,’ ” Mr. Trump told a campaign worker. “I said, ‘Too bad, you should have left it up.’ I would have rather defended it. That’s just a star.”
7.7 After police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota, five police officers in Dallas who were protecting a protest march were shot and killed by a sniper. He late was killed by bomb-bearing police robot.
7.5 FBI Director James Comey: Mrs. Clinton and her team “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
