It’s important to note during Sheriff Clarke’s speech that in fact crime of all sorts is at its lowest levels in almost half a century.
Ken Cuccinelli, a prominent stop-Trumper, told reporters tonight that the Trump campaign went as far as to threaten to take away Iowa’s first in the nation caucus if they didn’t back don’t on the rules vote on the convention floor.
Let’s just say it: the theme of tonight’s program is death and devastating loss caused by national outsiders and made possible by the betrayals of political enemies.
The ‘stand down order’ the two guys on stage keeping talking about is the same one the GOP led House investigation say never happened.
8:14 PM: Main takeaway from Baio’s speech was explaining our no moocher policy to new immigrant voters. Now Perry.
8:16 PM: One thing I’m watching tonight is whether any speaker refers to Trump as “Donald Trump” rather than “Mr Trump.”
8:27 PM: The loss Patricia Smith has suffered is unfathomable. And I would grant her anything to emerge from that grief. But it’s one thing to feel and express what emerges from that grief and anger, quite another for others to orchestrate and milk it for political ends. It’s difficult to fathom the sheer level of exploitation and titillation of the GOP rage organ that is contained in this speech. It’s just the most craven level of exploitation.
I’ve never experienced something like Patricia Smith did. But I did experience the closest person to me in my life die a sudden death from catastrophic physical trauma. I can tell you from experience that you look for some thing or person to blame. It’s the closest thing you can grasp on to, not to give meaning to what happened, but simply something to anchor yourself because there’s nothing more horrifying than the anchor-lessness and untethered pain of that experience. Most of us have people to help us work through the mind-deforming pain. They don’t have an echo chamber confirming us and goading us on in our anger for their own political or monetary purposes. The exploitation is beyond belief.
Here’s your cheat sheet for tonight’s primetime lineup at the GOP convention, which is dedicated to the theme “Make America Safe Again.” Hence, the Scott Baio appearance, of course. You can watch along with us here, and follow Tierney Sneed and Lauren Fox on Twitter as they report from Cleveland. Away we go!
Rep. Steve King asks: what minority group has contributed more to civilization than white people? Watch.
We’ve made a solid start with our annual Prime subscription drive. Thank You. But we need a lot more people to become subscribers to meet our goal. Here’s my pitch on why you’ll love Prime and why it’s important. If you’re ready to take the plunge right now, click here.
I’m a pretty healthy guy. But I had a bad sinus headache this afternoon and went to rest in the TPM nap room. I left with boring speakers droning on the platform in Cleveland. I come back and all hell’s broken loose. If you’re just tuning in, anti-Trump delegates seemed to have enough signatures to force a roll call vote on the convention rules. This is miles aways from denying Trump the nomination. But it would be an embarrassing demonstration of anti-Trump strength and the kind of disruption no convention planner ever wants. (You can see video of chanting on the floor which TPM’s Tierney Sneed took on the floor as it was all happening.)
We’re at the start of the first of two national party nominating conventions which will dominate the second half of July. We’re also just coming off Donald Trump’s choice of Mike Pence as his running mate and only days away from Hillary Clinton’s choice. All of which means we’re in a period both of intense media focus on the campaign, a series of key decisions from the nominees and what is often a period of substantial flux and instability in the poll numbers. Conventional wisdom suggests we won’t know how all of this shakes out until the first week or two of August. With that said, it’s a good time to look at the polls and see what they’re telling us.