Sleepy Donald closes out the RNC

Damon Linker
August 28, 2020, 12:20 AM EDT

After four nights of scalding and often shouted slash-and-burn attacks directed at Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, it was quite a shock on Thursday night when Donald Trump nearly lulled America to sleep with his Republican National Convention speech on the south lawn of the White House.

It's not that Trump delivered a soothing address filled with warmth and good feeling. During long passages he savaged Biden as a Trojan Horse who would deliver America-hating socialists and anarchists to power. Those were the more lively sections of the speech. The trouble is that the charges against Biden had been made at the convention by many others before Trump, sometimes in identical language.

But even when the precise words weren't recycled, they still felt like retreads because the speech was mind-numbingly repetitive. How many times did Trump say that if Biden is elected the Democrats would come for America's guns? That it was time to bring jobs back from China? That the stakes in the election couldn't be higher? It's as if the authors of the address thought everything in it was so important it needed to be reiterated two or three times.

And then there were the lists. Lists of personages and events from American history at the beginning of the speech, and then again at the end of the speech. Lists, sprinkled throughout, of all the ways America is gloriously exceptional. Lists of Trump's wonderful, stupendous accomplishments. Lists of the wonderful, stupendous things he will accomplish if he's re-elected. The last of these lists made the latter half of the speech sound more like an interminable State of the Union address than a nomination acceptance.

And all of it was delivered in the slurring, monotonous drone that Trump adopts whenever he's reined in by written remarks on a teleprompter. Throughout the second half of the address, you feel him breaking away from the script for a word here, a phrase there, like he was dying to turn the occasion into one of his vulgarity- and mockery-infused campaign rallies where he riffs for 90 minutes about his enemies.

Or maybe he was just trying to keep himself awake. I know the feeling.

https://news.yahoo.com/sleepy-donald-closes-rnc-042027339.html

"Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s sex life is really none of our business"

Give it up, Eric.

Tweeting just isn’t your thing.

https://twitter.com/JohnBentlegs/status/1296546103513493505

LMAO

"Love your bus."

Ted Nugent compares himself to Oscar Schindler.

NRA board member Ted Nugent responds to anti-fraud lawsuit: “I’m Schindler but I got a whole bunch of more Jews that I’m saving”

Nugent and Alex Jones team up to give away 100 NRA memberships

TED NUGENT (NRA BOARD MEMBER): I believe that the attacks on the NRA are the attacks on freedom by freedom-haters and we all see and know who they are. Right now is the time to give away NRA memberships to everybody you know because if it drives the freedom haters that batty, let’s make them go crazy by getting more NRA--

ALEX JONES (HOST): And how do I do that? I am gonna buy 100 memberships today. I pledge 100 memberships today. How do I call? Do I call? How does the NRA do that?

NUGENT: I’ll tell you what, go to my website. There is a direct link to “Join the NRA” and a discount. Go to TedNugent.com and there's NRA memberships and remember, the NRA is a civil rights organization. It’s about your right to self-defense. How more pure can you get?

JONES: And it’s 140 years old. And I know how nonprofits work, this is one of the beautifulest, best ones ever. If somebody in there did wrong, we were talking during the break, which you’re not saying they did, there’s no evidence of that, then they step down. You don’t get rid of the organization. She let everybody know, I’m going to abolish it because I’m going to take care of the members. That’s like saying I’m going to burn your house down because grandpa ate too many cupcakes.

...

NUGENT: We know this New York attorney general hates gun owners--

JONES: I was about to say, how can you have Hitler investigate, say, Jews?

NUGENT: It’s unbelievable. You know why they hate me, because I’m Schindler but I got a whole bunch of more Jews that I’m saving and the Nazis hate me for that.

https://www.mediamatters.org/national-rifle-association/nra-board-member-ted-nugent-responds-anti-fraud-lawsuit-im-schindler-i

Michigan official defends using racist slur while refusing to wear a mask.

A local road commission meeting in northern Michigan on Monday started with one commissioner asking another why he wasn’t wearing a mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The unmasked official responded with a racist slur and an angry rant against the Black Lives Matter movement.

“Well, this whole thing is because of them n-----s in Detroit,” Tom Eckerle, who was elected to his position on the Leelanau County Road Commission in 2018, told his colleague at the start of the public meeting.
The commission chairman, Bob Joyce, immediately rebuked his colleague, but Eckerle continued his diatribe.

“I can say anything I want,” Eckerle said at the meeting, which the public could listen to via a dial-in number, the Leelanau Enterprise first reported. “Black Lives Matter has everything to do with taking the country away from us.”

The racist remark spurred widespread
condemnation of Eckerle, who is Republican, and calls to resign from party officials. Despite the backlash, Eckerle doubled down on his comments on Thursday, defending his position and using the slur repeatedly in an interview with the local public radio station.

“I don’t regret calling it an n----r,” Eckerle told Interlochen Public Radio. “A n----r is a n----r is a n----r. That’s not a person whatsoever.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/07/michigan-mask-racist-slur/#click=https://t.co/DxRMoJFdc

Man lights hundreds of candles to propose to girlfriend, burns apartment.

A man who was planning to propose to his girlfriend ended up setting his Sheffield flat on fire after lighting hundreds of tealight candles.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said the fire started on Abbeydale Road on Monday after the man left to pick up his girlfriend for the "big moment".

But when the couple returned they found the flat engulfed in flames.

A spokesperson said fortunately no-one was injured and "she still said yes".

Posting about the incident on social media, the fire service said the man, who they would not be naming to spare his blushes, had "really gone to town", with candles, wine and balloons.

However, it added: "After going round the corner to collect his girlfriend ready for the romantic moment, he came back to find the flat on fire and three fire engines on the way."

"As romantic as they are, and as much as we all love 'em, candles can be so dangerous."



https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-south-yorkshire-53648742?__twitter_impression=true

Better change your mind honey, it’s an omen.

Where is Frorida?

'The Swamp' Exposes Just How Much Republican Matt Gaetz Kisses Trump's Butt

Spoiler alert: Contrary to his stated intentions, President Donald Trump has not “drained the swamp,” but has in fact amplified D.C. corruption and special-interest power—currently, more than 300 lobbyists have seats in his administration—unseen in modern times. The Swamp understands and exposes this fact, and yet Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme’s HBO documentary (premiering August 4) nonetheless tackles the issue of politics and money via a decidedly wishy-washy look at three of Trump’s staunchest faux-“renegade” GOP congressional acolytes: Colorado’s Ken Buck, Kentucky’s Thomas Massie and Florida’s perpetually sycophantic Matt Gaetz.

It’s Gaetz who’ll likely be best known to viewers, thanks to a series of headline-making (and social media-inflaming) stunts, including tweeting out a not-so-veiled threat to congressional witness (and former Trump attorney) Michael Cohen, and leading a group of rabble-rousing Republicans on a raid of a closed-door impeachment hearing deposition. A perpetual fixture on Fox News, where he parrots Trump talking points in the most extremist fashion imaginable, he’s a young, eager go-getter who’s hitched his post to the current commander-in-chief. That’s certainly the figure depicted by DiMauro and Pehme’s film, which captures him articulating his staunch support in personal phone calls to the president (and is told, in return, “You’re doing fantastic…you’re tough and smart and you have the look”), as well as stating outright “I love him so much.” Throughout the film, Gaetz is repeatedly seen fawning all over Trump, receiving marching orders from the president and delivering near-daily progress reports. When Trump calls him “handsome,” the congressman acts like he’s won the lottery.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/hbos-the-swamp-exposes-just-how-much-republican-matt-gaetz-kisses-trumps-butt?ref=home?ref=home

Don’t have HBO so I hope anyone who does checks it out.