The Other Team Sounds Off

Bill O'Reilly yesterday, on Michelle Obama's 7/25 speech. While some say goose-bumps and tears followed the First Lady's, "I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves," O'Reilly harrumphed—

"Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in 1802."

Etc., in the patented tones of bluster and dismissiveness, from "History's Greatest Reporter".

Don Loves Vlad

Josh Marshall reports.

Pierce provides the gist—

In brief: In his business dealings, He, Trump seems increasingly dependent on money from Russia and from the former Soviet republics within its increasingly active sphere of influence. This is because most of the big banks on this side of the pond won't go near him without HazMat suits. (Gee, could it be that his sudden emergence as a Warren-esque crusader against the "rigged system" of the banksters is less of a principled opposition and simply pure animal vengeance? Unpossible!)

And Pierce concludes—

This should be the only story about the Trump campaign until he comes clean. It should be the only question anybody asks him. Frankly, even beyond the threat to this election, it's a measure of the pure arrogance of He, Trump. And if Trump thinks his ability to game the American real-estate market, and his success at swindling the rubes who signed up for Trump University, makes him ready to deal with a guy who managed to survive a career at the top-level of the KGB only to make himself the presiding autocrat of the world's leading kleptocracy, I'd like to be there when he finds out how wrong he is.

Choice

I'm becoming impressed...

As a senator, Kaine has been rated by NARAL and Planned Parenthood at 100%.

Some good takes on Clinton's pick, and the good chemistry between them, here and here.

Reality Show: The Finale

This week's installment ends; "reviews are in". Among Trump's fans is one David Duke, who announced a new run for Congress.

Pivoting... Trump reportedly stayed with the script last night; today he's back in form, and threatening to end the political careers of Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

Roy Edroso sums up last night—

There are all kinds of things you can say about Trump's speech last night, and pundits are busy saying them. What I will say is that in terms of policy it was perfectly consonant with 50 years of American conservatism -- by which I mean, there was no policy, except to scare voters out of their wits and then offer to let Daddy take care of them. This has been the traditional appeal of even the more avuncular GOP candidates like Reagan, whose celebrated sunniness was only powerful in contrast to the dark Democratic dystopia he and his henchmen were constantly portraying as the only alternative to himself. If Trump is more frightening to some people than Reagan or any of the others, it's mainly because when he does this routine, he indulges very few of the fake pieties I talked about yesterday with which conservatives traditionally try to make their bait-and-switch look socially acceptable. That's his main innovation. But just because you're scared doesn't mean other people don't find it attractive. Just like Reagan, Trump has a sunny shtick -- those goofy faces he pulls, the snarl-smile with thumbs up, seem wolfish and creepy to me. But then I didn't buy what Reagan was selling either, and I bet a lot of whatever customers of his are still alive are voting for Trump.

What I'm saying is, make sure your passport's renewed.

In Other News

Ailes out.

More thoughts on the coming shakeup.

Psychological Profile

Some details filled in, by Jane Mayer's interview with Tony Schwartz, Trump's "Art of the Deal" ghostwriter—

Schwartz thought that "The Art of the Deal" would be an easy project....For research, he planned to interview Trump on a series of Saturday mornings.... But the discussion was soon hobbled by what Schwartz regards as one of Trump's most essential characteristics: "He has no attention span."

...."Trump has been written about a thousand ways from Sunday, but this fundamental aspect of who he is doesn’t seem to be fully understood," Schwartz told me. "It's implicit in a lot of what people write, but it's never explicit—or, at least, I haven't seen it. And that is that it's impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then . . ." Schwartz trailed off, shaking his head in amazement.

If Schwartz was responsible for building Trump's image as America's CEO, he now regrets it. And tries to make amends by ... this...

Details, details... More that are not particularly shocking, but useful to have confirmed. Charles Pierce—

We learn from this week's New York Times Magazine that the brain trust of the nominee's campaign went for one of the Grandest of Grand Bargains. We also learn that, at least in its pitch to John Kasich, He, Trump considers his role as president to be not far distant from his role as chancellor of Trump University. Namely, he's the midnight-movie TV pitchman while Kasich is the guy who does the actual job, hides the dough, shreds the documents, and accepts all subpoenas.

From the Times Magazine's report:

... according to the Kasich adviser (who spoke only under the condition that he not be named), Donald Jr. wanted to make him an offer nonetheless: Did he have any interest in being the most powerful vice president in history? When Kasich's adviser asked how this would be the case, Donald Jr. explained that his father's vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy. Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of? "Making America great again" was the casual reply.

Death March 2

Last night, among a would-be lynch mob. Which had to settle for a mock witch trial.

Charles Pierce saw Christie's performance as feature in "the Volksgerichtshof portion of the festivities." The part in which—

One after another, the establishment pols came rolling out to pledge their undying fealty to the new boss. I'm surprised that He, Trump let them keep their belts on so their pants wouldn't fall down.

The Morning After...

Night One of the freak show.

The GOPvention opened with ... a prayer...

This shows how weak Trump's political instincts really are. His team exploited a grieving mother, but instead of milking the exploitation, Trump called Fox during her speech, earning a cut away to himself. It would seem a clumsy W-style hug for this woman was called for, but Trump's sociopathy is accompanied by a germ phobia.

Of all people for Melania's speechwriter to plagiarize...

It is pretty astounding, considering how this team has spent the last eight years demonizing the First Lady.

The twitterverse soon contributed more, #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes.

And tonight...

It would be hard for Wingnuttia to top Monday's Make America Safe Again festivities, but they seem to be up for the challenge of riding their high horse on a low road. Tonight’s theme is Make America Work Again.

tengrain adds Brian Beutler's tweet of last night:

Will be hard for tomorrow night's theme of "a minority will take your job" to top tonight's theme of "a minority is going to kill you."

Influences

In Baton Rouge, post-police shooting of Alton Sterling: three police killed, others wounded,  in ambush on July 16.

As the Noise Machine publicizes suspect Gavin Long's one-time membership in the Nation of Islam, Steve M. offers some more telling details on Long's path to planning a massacre—

... he got there by a circuitous route. He spent a long time obsessed with self-help and self-improvement, and wanted -- in an almost Trump-like way -- to sell his alleged greatness to other seekers of human perfection...

It's a story of someone with a military background—and mental instability—who gravitated to Afrocentric versions of sovereign citizenship, along with self-improvement. He also came under the influence of the "Men's Rights" movement. In other words, he had multiple crank ideas that, had he been a white supremacist cop-killer, would have made him "a lone wolf" whose actions were unfathomable and thus of no greater social significance.

Readying The Show

Republican convention preparations, appropriately underway.

Back, By No Popular Demand

The public spectacle returns.

Drunken swaggering, or just his usual lack of impulse control?
Sam's take.