Donald Trump is going with the flow. Making America Safe Again is the theme for the first day of the RNC Convention. The fun begins at 2 PM ET with the procedural stuff TV viewers don’t care about – credentials, adopting the rules, adopting the platform, etc… After watching the rules committee, I think the #nevertrump people realize resistance is futile. The convention is a TV show with red white and blue balloons.
There is an app available to stream the convention in 360 degrees if you want to avoid the TV spin and commercial breaks. The list of speakers is very long, albeit almost nobody you care about. My expectation is the convention will careen off script by events not happening inside the Arena. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
After weeks of brutal attacks on Trump, Barack Obama is returning to his normal sucker punch routine, demanding respect and civility.
Live streaming is counting down to start at 1 PM
Show time!
I don’t know if it has changed yet, but Trump has been spending nothing on TV advertising. Networks who believed The Republicans would be cutting checks for a couple million dollars may have a budget shortfall. The way to win is to not play their game. Maybe in four years, we can cut down the entire process to a few weeks and not spending the next 3 years and 9 months counting down the days to the next election.
In slightly related news, the FCC announced the forward auction for spectrum will begin in a month. A lot of potential bidders refused to put up the 50% deposit of the minimum bid, leaving the experts to believe the forward auction will fail and the TV owners ultimately may get nothing
If Huey Long was alive today, he would assert that the wireless spectrum belongs to the people, not big corporations who got it for free in the first place
Another not guilty verdict in Baltimore. The more police that are shot, the more responsible people will refuse to convict police, and so the war escalates. In this case, the officer decided to let a black “no nonsense” judge decide his fate rather than demand a jury trial. Without having to spend time educating the jury about the law, things moved very quickly and the judge showed no mercy to the prosecutors and threw out every charge
First shot across the bow. When Priebus did the routine vote of appointing Mitch McConnell as temporary chairman – the Nays were louder than the Ayes. Of course, that didn’t matter.
Very brief shot of a guy with a “Hillary for Prison” sign until they realized what it said
Nothing shocking here, but the convention comes across as a bunch of old white people, because that is what the party is. They have a crawl running of the dead Republicans.
The reports of the committees should be done by 4 PM unless things go off in a ditch
Lengthy speech by former governor of Hawaii: summary, Democrats hate Jews. Crowd is bored. They don’t care about rockets fired at Israel from Gaza. This has droned on for 15 minutes. We get it. Linda Lingle is proud of Republican Jewish support.
Several speakers have already referred to Trump and Pence as the nominees. That not true yet.
A few films from people like Scott Walker who don’t want to be in Cleveland
Music is being provided by GE Smith, who did the music for Saturday Night Live for 10 years and was married to Gilda Radnor. I find his music pretty boring, but at least it is live. Crowd is pretending they are having fun, mugging for the camera to get on the Jumbotron
We’re gonna repeal and replace Obamacare, blah blah
4:00 – the official handoff to Paul Ryan is complete
No Paul Ryan, no Rules Committee Report. There may be trouble in paradise off camera
While at least it is live, the GE Smith band makes we want to vomit. Dead air would be more interesting while we wait to see the corpse of #nevertrump… This could go on a long while
The permanent convention rules committee adopted the rules from last Thursday as expected, but the word is the Anti-trump faction have enough signatures to force a roll call vote on the rules, which will push back the schedule and start a fracture of the Unity. Trump already is unloading on his enemies. Get the popcorn ready.
The delegates are screaming “bull shit”over the steamrolling of the voice vote on rules
The convention is erupting in unison in “roll call vote”. Proceedings have stopped. Ditch ahead. RNC is muting microphones. Poke a stick in a hornet’s nest and see if it calms the hornets. Remember many Trump delegates hate him, and they are not obligated to vote for rules to keep them bound
Cameras are no longer showing Twitter feed as it probably is flooding with anti-trump tweets from delegates
Demand for a roll call vote was rejected by the chair
The guy trying to discuss the platform is visibly shaken. The crowd are talking to each other using their phones. The Arab Spring has just hit the Republican Party. This ain’t over. I would guess a delegate walkout is next to prevent a quorum until they get a roll call vote.
Live stream has been pulled down.
Downloaded CNN app to see what is happening. Place may have emptied out. A few people milling around, nothing happening
Seems logical they broke for dinner. RNC says “it is over”. I seriously doubt that. Any illusion of unity is in 1000 pieces. How will they mask anti trump protests when Trump is on the stage. “Get them out of here” won’t work. They have a right to be there.
Convention was recessed at 7:00 with instructions to be in their seats by 7:50… No idea what happened the last 2 hours
Main show about to begin – Act One is MOZ doing a rap thing – looks lip syncy
More GE Smith singing the same songs from this afternoon
Duck Dynasty Guy…
Scott Baio (happy days)
Gov Rick Perry (TX)
Day One is history.
Observations? Opinions? Predictions?
I would rather stick bamboo under my fingernails than watch a political convention. That said, I watched Melania’s speech. This morning the blogs have it that she plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech. Really? I couldn’t imaging someone who hates America like Obama having anything that someone who loves America like Melania found worthy of “stealing”. I thought the speech was well thought out and neutral (no attacks).
What makes me vomit are the endless hours of coverage by this anchor and that guest.
That’s why I tried to use the raw video feed on YouTube, but it was down during her speech.
https://youtu.be/sWLnf-rsl5s
If anyone missed it and cares
Every word of the Convention (except the last ditch effort of #nevertrump) is scripted and carefully choreographed. When the speech mentions veterans, the camera is already pointed at the designated veteran ready to raise his Veterans for Trump sign.
The Republicans went down the path again of finding every person they could find with a dark skin and pushing them in front of the camera or up on the podium.
While everything was quite predictable, I thought Rudy delivered an old-fashioned barn burner…great, great speech that echoed the sentiments of the silent majority.
Melania was good. To deliver a speech like that in one of your five languages, in front of a huge crowd, was praise worthy.
My observations. There is still a lot of passive resistance from the Cruz people and the establishment delegates forced to vote for Trump. Pay attention to if they come around or continue to refuse to stand and cheer.
General Flynn was a total fiasco, both in content and delivery. The crowd was bored and walking out.
My suspicion that I have voiced in private and in other comments appears to be true. Melania was not a poor peasant girl – her father was a Communist apparatchik, which is why her discussion of growing up in Slovenia was so tempered.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/30/donald-trumps-father-in-law-is-a-communist-who-looks-exactly-like-him-5470817/
She was born in 1970, so when her career in modeling started at age 16, Slovenia was still part of Yugoslavia. Tito was Communist but tried to stay out of the Soviet Union sphere of influence, but he died in 1980.
It doesn’t take a genius to notice that Melania married her father.