Normally I start thinking about this intro section right after I finish writing my previous roundup. This time I waited until after Colbert did his live recap of the opening night of the republican convention. I watched them live from 9 to 11, followed up with Colbert and went to sleep. I wanted to let my impressions circulate in my subconscious before putting fingers to keyboard. It’s now 4:30 in the morning and I’m a bit bleary eyed. These are my impressions.
It struck me that most of the speakers’ emotions were feigned, especially when engaged in the over-the-top praise of tRump.
I heard a lot of flat out lies, recycled untruths, distortions, false accusations and other dubious statements. In it’s first pass, Politifact was not kind to their presentations. CNN’s Facts First ran with this headline: Fact check: First night of the Republican National Convention features more dishonesty than four nights of DNC.
There was a good deal of whining about Democrats wanting to take away Freedom of Speech while almost simultaneously moaning about the need to control fake news journalists. They must give out advanced degrees in hypocrisy with membership in the RNC.
Kimberly Guilfoyle earned her stripes as a nutjob first class, eligible for the whackadoodle cluster. Mother Jones already put her rant North Korean martial music. Colbert described her as a screaming banshee. I personally think she sees the writing on the wall (or Junior’s bedsheets?) and was auditioning for a post tRump role as a one-dimensional devoted ranting loon in the no-budget remake of They Saved Hitler’s Brain. The memes will flow freely from some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen.
What else? Well, I was surprised to find out I am a radical Islamic terrorist who wants to burn down the suburbs while instituting socialist Sharia law and giving huge tax breaks to rich liberal coastal elites. Who knew?
The whole thing was directed at the base. I didn’t see anything designing to draw in skeptical voters. If they keep on in this vein, they may actually lose some support.
In Conclusion,
Republicans have nothing to say.
They’ve made that quite clear.
It was embarrassing to watch.
GOTV Get Out The Vote GOTV
Up the Resistance!
And it’s on to the news,
The Disgraced Fixer Bites Back
Somebody’s cheeks are sure to be chapped about this. I wonder how soon we’ll see the tweets or hear the rants?
CNN: Michael Cohen to attack former boss Trump in ads for Democratic group
(CNN)President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen will appear in a series of ads for the Democratic group American Bridge in the coming days, telling voters that Trump "can't be trusted" and that they "shouldn't believe a word he utters" during the Republican National Convention this week.
"For more than a decade, I was President Trump's right-hand man, fixer and confidant. I was complicit in helping conceal the real Donald Trump. In essence, I was part of creating an illusion," Cohen says in the roughly
90-second long video recorded for the group that will be cut down into shorter ads. "Later this week, he's going to stand up at the White House and blatantly lie to you."
Cohen adds: "I'm here to tell you he can't be trusted -- and you shouldn't believe a word he utters. So, when you watch the President this week, remember this: If he says something is huge, it's probably small. If he says something will work, it probably won't. And if he says he cares about you and your family, he certainly does not."
General Letitia James Just Lobbed a Mortar Shell Over the Front Lines
11:30AM, Monday. This is a thread unroll from Letitia James announcement yesterday. Holy smokes! Co-defendants include the law firm Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius - listed in 2016 Chambers Europe guide as Russia Law Firm of the Year.
I took action to force the Trump Organization, and specifically EVP Eric Trump, to comply with my office’s ongoing investigation into its financial dealings.
For months, the Trump Organization has failed to fully comply with our subpoenas in this investigation.
Our investigation began after Michael Cohen testified before Congress that Trump’s annual financial statements inflated the values of his assets to obtain favorable terms for loans & insurance coverage, while also deflating the value of other assets to reduce real estate taxes.
We are seeking thousands of documents and testimony from multiple witnesses regarding several Trump Organization properties and transactions, including from Eric Trump, who was intimately involved in one or more transactions under review.
The Trump Organization has stalled, withheld documents, and instructed witnesses, including Eric Trump, to refuse to answer questions under oath.
That's why we filed a motion to compel the Trump Organization to comply with our lawful subpoenas for documents and testimony.
Nothing will stop us from following the facts and the law, wherever they may lead.
These questions will be answered and the truth will be uncovered, because no one is above the law.
The Twitter Police Act
Donnie can whine all he wants, but he’s getting fact checked and the results are not looking good for him.
Mother Jones: Twitter Calls Out Trump’s Bogus Claim of Voter Fraud and Flags His Tweet
Twitter just flagged another Donald Trump tweet for making “misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.”
At 7:25 a.m. Sunday, Trump tweeted the bogus claim that “Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster.” He questioned their security and wrongfully said they make it possible for people to vote multiple times. “Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas? They’re not Covid sanitized,” Trump wrote. “A big fraud!”
Hours later Twitter placed a “public interest notice” on his tweet.
Looks Like I Wasn’t Alone
As the reviews are starting to come in. This is fairly typical.
Daily Beast: GOP Diversity Night Was All Tip and No Iceberg
The Republican party has been headed down the wrong path on inclusion and diversity for decades and on Monday night America saw the results as a lineup intended to highlight the party’s diversity instead exposed how little of it there is.
The night opened with Charlie Kirk, the 26-year-old white founder of Turning Point USA and one of the most divisive, and angriest figures in America. As the night went on, the party trotted out regular, everyday citizens to spotlight its supposed diversity, but they lost me when they spotlighted the man and woman who pulled loaded weapons on peaceful Black and brown protesters marching outside of their home.
In the end, Diversity Night turned out to be the biggest joke since Infrastructure Week, as an overwhelmingly white, male party tried to put its best foot forward with former South Carolina Governor and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who’s Indian-American, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the party’s only black senator. It was all tip, no iceberg.
Exposing the Fox Lies
The anger I feel at Murdoch and Fox is deep and abiding. Propaganda should now masquerade as news. I hope that reporting like this will hasten their demise as a part of our media landscape.
Rolling Stone: Killing the Truth: The murder of Seth Rich was a family tragedy. Fox News helped make it a national spectacle that has haunted his loved ones for years
This is the true story of an untrue story. It’s the story of how Fox News took a conspiracy theory from the online fringes and mainstreamed it into global news. It’s the story of how a Fox News staff writer, a Fox News paid contributor, and a Fox News unpaid commentator worked together to win the trust of a family wracked by grief and then used their imprimatur to publish a “sham story” that would become an article of faith in MAGA culture. It’s the story of how Fox News and some of its biggest stars have so far escaped any accountability for actions whose consequences continue to haunt the Rich family.
This story draws on tens of thousands of pages of court documents and interviews with dozens of key figures, including people close to the Rich family. (The family declined to be interviewed for this story.) The court records include newly revealed text messages, emails, voicemails, and sworn testimony that show how Fox ignored journalistic norms and basic human decency to publish and promote a fiction that could “solve” the problem of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s welcoming of Russia’s help. “The most generous way to look at it is Fox News didn’t do their job,” says Kelly McBride, a senior vice president and journalism ethics expert at the Poynter Institute. “The less generous way to look at it would be they didn’t even try to do their job. And if they didn’t even try, the obvious question is ‘Why?’ ”
...
Three years later, Fox’s Seth Rich story and the conspiracy theory it was based on and amplified have been widely discredited by findings of the U.S. government, including Trump’s Justice Department and two Republican-led congressional investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence agents for the cyberattacks on the DNC and the Clinton campaign, and his final report accuses Assange and WikiLeaks of making statements “designed to obscure” the source of the DNC leaks and of having “implied falsely” that Rich was his source. More recently, the FBI’s section chief in charge of records testified in court that the bureau had searched for any records about Seth Rich or his murder and found nothing.
…
But the people who assembled Fox’s Rich-WikiLeaks story, and the network that published and broadcast it, have escaped accountability — so far. After the retraction, Jay Wallace, the network’s president of news, said the story was “being investigated internally.” (He also said it was “completely erroneous” that Fox published Zimmerman’s story to “help detract” from the alleged Trump collusion with Russia.) Yahoo News last year cited a source “knowledgeable about the inquiry” who said Zimmerman’s responses about the federal investigator “caused some editors at the network to question whether the source was in fact who she said he was, or even whether he existed.” But the findings of Fox’s investigation have never been released, and a Fox spokeswoman would only say that Zimmerman’s story “was published to the website without review by or permission from senior management.”
Love Me Some Andy Borowitz
Parody is not dead, it’s just harder than it used to be.
The New Yorker: The Borowitz Report: Bannon Selling Ten-Thousand-Dollar Passes to View Live Stream of Republican Convention
CHARLOTTE (The Borowitz Report)—In what he is calling “the opportunity of a lifetime,” Steve Bannon is offering an exclusive ten-thousand-dollar pass to view a live stream of the 2020 Republican National Convention.
The pass, which Bannon is marketing as the MAGAViewPass™, will offer customers “a one-of-a-kind chance to see the R.N.C. live, as it happens,” according to his promotional Web site.
“With the MAGAViewPass™, you’ll be able to bring the excitement of the R.N.C. into your own home, as you experience the pageantry of the Republican National Convention on your TV, tablet, or phone,” the Web site promises.
I Just Couldn’t Resist
They had me with the headline.
Good News Network: One Way To Protect Cattle From Predators? Paint Eyes On Their Butts. Really.
It’s not easy being a cow living among African lions in Botswana. After all, there’s always the threat you could soon be a big cat’s meal.
UNSW conservationists have found an effective, low-cost way to protect cattle from their predators and help lions coexist with livestock and farmers.
In a piece of “psychological trickery,” scientists have trialled painting eyes on local cattle butts.
Musical Interlude
WineRev’s History Lesson
Every day fellow Gnusie WineRev shares stories about the day in history. I think they deserve promotion from the comment section.
Take it away, WineRev
>>>>>A new AP/NORC poll is out; by all accounts a good pollster. Back in March they asked about Trump’s job approval rating and got 43% for a number, very much in line with other pollsters and stuck at that maddening level for those of us expecting movement.
Well the movement has caught up to us. In this DIARY they report 45’s approval has (rightly) cratered to 35%. Now, a few months ago a stats geek took a look at 80 years of polling in Presidential races, and specifically when an incumbent is running for a second term (like 2020). The finding showed a close connection between job approval and final vote percentage: an incumbent President’s job approval + 2 percentage points = the cap for the November vote.
Meaning up until recently, all those 43’s for the Mango Menace implied a possible November vote percentage of 45%, just off of his 46% from 2016. (Which, including 3rd party chipping away and Putin’s sabotage, was enough to capture the White House.) But NOW, if 35% is ANYWHERE close to right (and I look forward to more polls here in September on the job approval number) that would cap Bunker Boy at 37-38%. The worst number for an incumbent running for a 2nd term in the last 90 years was Hoover in 1932 at 39.7% (and you have to figure job approval at the bottom of Year 3 of the Great Depression was pretty lousy.) But all this means Donnie boy as a chance, just a chance, of setting a new record for the bigly-est loss EVAH. We’ll find out in 71 days or so.
August 25ths that have come, been Good, been Goofy, and then dissolved into the mists of time, that are worth recalling on THIS August 25th
325 (A three digit date!) Nicaea, Byzantium (now Turkey) The Council of Nicaea among Christian leaders was called at their request by the Emperor Constantine. While several of those attending were later elevated to “saints” of the church, we also have reports that the Nicaean tavern keepers (doubling as the hotel industry) petitioned Constantine (who was in attendance for the opening weeks) for Roman soldiers to be assigned to their taverns. It seemed the delegates would get all liquored up in the evenings and get into fistfights with other delegates (in Christian love, of course) and the brawls were hurting local business. We also know all the delegates were assigned little kneeling benches (a couple feet wide, 4-6 inches high, with some padding for the knees during prayers---which were long.) Some of the debates in the Council got so heated delegates threw kneelers at each other( ….in Christian love, of course.) Today the end the Council with the adoption of the Nicene Creed establishing the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and becoming the litmus test for orthodox faith to this day.
1649 Island of Majorca, Spain Birth of Francisco Gureau, composer. From a family that was Basque on one side and Spanish on the other, and then growing up on Majorca, added a third strand to his life. At age 10 his voice was good enough to get him admitted to the Royal College in Madrid as a singer. At age 20 began composing for both the medieval lute and for the rising instrument in Spain, the guitar. Became a priest but the church allowed him to compose and publish secular pieces. A collection, La Poema Harmonica, is celebrated to this day.
1718 Delta of the Mississippi River. Hundreds of French colonists arrived by several ships in Louisiana, which is a French colony stretching from Mobile Bay (present Alabama), through the lands of the Biloxi tribe, to the western side of the Mississippi Delta on the Gulf of Mexico. This area is down to about 100 Europeans, with settlers dying of diseases and afflicted by floods. The arrivals this day in essence re-starts the French colonizing effort, and several dozen settlers go upstream from the delta to the area of Lake Pontchartrain, cut down canes and reeds, and lay out streets for Nouvelle Orleans.
1830 Amsterdam, Holland and Brussels, Belgium. After decades, even centuries of being batted back and forth by the larger countries of Europe, Holland (frequently Spanish) and Belgium (often French) have been plopped together as one country on the east shore of the English Channel after the 1815 peace following Napoleon. On this day the Belgians revolt against Holland. While the American colonies revolted partly against a tax on tea, the Belgians rose in part because of heavy taxes on beer. (Yeah, the Dutch were mostly Protestant and the Belgians Catholic, but BEER!) They succeeded, and beer lovers and chocolate lovers around the world have been grateful ever since. You really should at least once try one of those Belgian beers in the tall bottle and with the name of a monastery on the label. A whole new flavor frontier with a 600 year old recipe for the stuff.
1862 Beaufort, South Carolina Port Royal Sound (Hilton Head area, 60 miles from both Savannah and Charleston) was occupied by the Union Navy already in November of 1861 as a naval base for the Navy to keep up the blockade on Southern ports. In mere weeks back then, over 10,000 slaves ran away to the enclave, manned by 10,000 Union soldiers (the beginning of the Port Royal Experiment; WineRev’s Personal Opus). Even though Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was not to be until January 1 of 1863, with Lincoln’s permission Secretary of War Stanton this day gave local commander General Rufus Saxton permission to arm and drill up to 5000 slaves as possible recruits for the Union army. (The famous 54th Mass. was composed of mostly black soldiers born and raised free; this began a military experiment to show doubting bigots that men who had been slaves all their lives would make good soldiers. A successful experiment.)
1930 Fountainbridge, Scotland Birth of Thomas Sean Connery, actor. Just too young for World War II, he still joined the Royal Navy at age 16 (1946), already 6 feet tall. Trained as a gunner and in anti-aircraft and was aboard ship for two years. Given a medical discharge at age 19. Had a string of jobs Edinburgh: milkman, pool lifeguard, lorry driver, an artistic model, and, for a few months, a coffin polisher. Started as a stagehand in a theater, got a small part in a touring troupe doing South Pacific, and met and was befriended by Michael Caine. A bit later met Shelley Winters and started getting smaller, then larger parts on TV shows. In 1962 was spotted by Albert Broccoli’s wife, who thought he would be fine for the lead James Bond in Dr. No. She was right. Later in life became Harrison Ford’s father while searching for the Holy Grail.
1940 New York City. The earlier World’s Fair is still on (even though there’s a lot of war happening around the world). One lovely couple wanted their wedding to be memorable, to be married at the World’s Fair. Rev. Homer Tomlinson was agreeable, and a best man and a maid of honor would be the legal witnesses. Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward also hired four musicians. But who needs a chapel, or flower girls, or ushers, or even an aisle? Everybody does that, and they wanted something different, but just getting married at a World’s Fair was still too tame. So the minister, bride, groom, witnesses and musicians, the nine of them, had the first ever parachute wedding ceremony, with everyone suspended from parachutes. (Apparently there was a sort of static parachute ride you could take instead of a roller coaster. If I’d been there I know I would never forget THAT wedding…).
1944 Paris. Under German occupation since June 1940, the city was formally liberated today as the Allied Armies who landed at Normandy back in June, arrived in force. General Eisenhower issued a set of orders that halted certain units so others could pass them, and General Jacques LeClerc and his Free French 2nd Tank Division was in the front rank, greeted by delirious Parisians. (When Rommel lost in Egypt at El-Alamein he retreated west along the Mediterranean coast. The British under Montgomery took up the chase to see if they could finally drive the Germans out of Africa. As both forces neared the Tunisian border with Libya, one night British sentries spotted lights to the south, from the Sahara, and alerted command about a possible incoming night attack. Instead, then came word the lights were from a Free French force. LeClerc astounded everyone by crossing the Sahara from French Chad to the north, a trek even the Bedouin considered dangerous, and bringing several thousand troops with him to reinforce the British. He and his men earned that front rank in Paris.)
1972 London Thorn-EMI was a conglomerate merger in the ‘60s. EMI was a record company and Thorn did research in physics. They merged over sound and audio commonalities, then branched out. Some ‘outside the box’ thinking led Godfrey Hounsfield (now Sir) to connect an x-ray machine to one of those early, half-room-sized computers. After 5 years work, on this day, he and Thorn-EMI introduced computerized axial tomography, the CAT scan, giving doctors a much refined tool for peering inside the body.
May all your News be Good, comforting and inspiring.
Shalom.
On the Lighter Side
Quote(s) of the Day
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 19th, 1785
Lies don't fix things. They don't even make things easier, at least not in the long run. Best to tell the truth and then clean up an honest mess. — P C Cast, Kristin Cast, Chosen
Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight. — Proverbs 12:22
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him. — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool. — William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
Required Pet Photo
Pressley sez, “Them republicans iz all wet.”
Closing Notes
To all of our fellow resisters, rounderuppers and gnusies recovering from illness or injury lots of hugs, including {{{{oldhippiedude}}}}, {{{{Msdude}}}}, our Tuesday partner {{{{niftywriter}}}}, {{{{karij}}}}, {{{{ElizabethinNYC}}}}, {{{{Arel1}}}}, {{{{Crankylib}}}} and to our entire {{{{Gnuville}}}} community during this time of uncertainty.
Yosef 52’s latest guide to how to help get rid of republicans. Share this far and wide: Hey You! Wanna Win? CHECK THIS INFO OUT! (With Yosef’s Twitter Treasure Trove and Quick Hits!)
The last-ever concert at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium happened on July 7, 1989. I think I was there (things are a bit hazy).
Disclaimer: No authors were damaged during the production of this roundup.
