Lyin’ Melania still has the false claim of having a university degree on her website:
Lyin’ Melania’s website has other entertaining stuff. Her “research laboratory” figured out that the secret to stopping aging is smearing expensive caviar on your face. Of course, it is not any old caviar but caviar from the South of France where all the chic fish hang out.
{Sorry. Forgot this is the RNC thread.}
I’m sure that Wolf Blitzer was masturbating under the table when showing Tiffany Trump giving her speech. I’m surprised the girl could open her eyes with that much makeup on. Gotta give the Trumpster credit for marrying women with incredible cheekbones.
This story about Ben Carson’s speech is pretty funny–not least the photo:
Mark Shields was kind of sputtering about it being a “new low” afterwards, so it’s interesting to know he went off script there.
I agree with you, but there’s some irony there given the audience. And for that reason (among several others), I doubt this speech would have had the intended effect even without “PlagiarismGate”.
Well, hold on. It’s not my only problem by a long shot–but just earlier that day Melania said pretty emphatically that she personally “wrote it, and with as little help as possible”. And she just volunteered this, without being asked. I don’t think that kind of dishonesty is just a complete nothingburger. (Note too that at that link, Christie is still trying to insist that he thinks Melania “worked hard” on the speech, and that it sounds just like her.)
I am a staunch Democrat and consider myself solidly on the left (though some might disagree), but I think I have also established that I will call out left wing social media types when they make a big fuss over basically nothing. And I can easily imagine an alternate universe version of this brouhaha in which the similarities are not as uncanny, with just a few vague platitudes in common. But to have this much overlap, in the same order, is just too great a coincidence to be believed. In fact, I would love for someone like Nate Silver to calculate exactly how unlikely it would be to happen by coincidence. I’ve got to think it’s astronomical.
Monday - Make America Afraid Again!
Tuesday - Make America Angry Again!
Given Trump’s xenophobic treatment of journalist Jorge Ramos, who has US citizenship, I think it is fair game to turn the tables on team Trump. Remember Donald telling Jorge “Go back to Univision!” and then his people throwing Jorge out of the auditorium.
Nah…
“They did it first” is never a good idea…
Wait, wasn’t this jobs night? Make America Work Again or something like that? Where were the jobs? Are we all going to be baying jurors in show trials or something?
The number I’m hearing is 1 in 87 billion.
It’s not a question of who did what first. The major appeal of his campaign is telling uneducated voters that “illegals” are ruining the country. Foreign people are bad. Of course, he overlooks his prejudices if they are hot models or business people he can swindle.
Xenophobia, racism, and religious intolerance are cornerstones of his appeal. I happen to think it is fair game throwing that back at Team Trump. YMMV.
Kettle Logic: “Melania wrote it herself. And there was no plagiarism. Only 3% was plagiarized. But the speechwriters did it. Ergo, it’s all Hillary’s fault.”
“So never mind Manafort’s claim that there are a limited number of words in the English language. For Melania Trump to have gotten all 14 of those phrases, in the same order as Michelle Obama did at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, is a chance of 1 in 87 billion.” McGill University astrophysicist, Robert Rutledge
Raventhief and **Robot Arm, **thanks for those. Interestingly, those two analyses look at different aspects of the speeches. One is about the likelihood of a single sixteen word match (one in a trillion; a 23 word match as we see in just one section must be many orders of magnitude higher). The other says, never mind the likelihood of individual phrases matching: what about the fact that the 14 matching phrases are in precisely the same order?
So I’m now thinking the true number is even higher than I would have guessed. A trillion squared at the very least.
The beautiful thing about this, is that Trump is well known for disdaining advice from “experts”, who of course would have spotted this and prevented it. Meanwhile the Trump diehards will all claim that he did it deliberately, that it was some kind of 5D Korean starcraft move that we’re all too stupid to understand.
You’d think anyone with the most infinitesimal speck of self awareness would perhaps learn from this and realise that sometimes you really do need experts. I have zero expectation that will actually happen.
Why have both nights ended with nobodies speaking to an empty room? Did the world-class showman not take advice on how to schedule this either? You end with the headliner, not the opening acts. Melania should have been the last person to speak. Tonight should have ended with either Don Jr. or Chris Christie. (However disturbing his Revolutionary Court For The Denunciation Of Enemies Of The People was, it was better television than the avocado-farming washed-up soap actress.)
He looks like Shawn Spencer having one of his psychic visions!
So, apparently (The Daily Show FB page), Donald Trump Jr. borrowed a few lines from The American Conservative.
This is just trolling, if so.
Because most of the big name Republican speakers want to have nothing to do with Donald.
I find this entire family creepy. I can’t watch this stuff.
Regardless, it is fundamental political malpractice to let network cameras show an empty hall during prime time coverage. This will not happen next week–you can take that to the bank.
It runs in the family!