The 2020 Republican National Convention thread

[SuperMatt]

Mitch McConnell looks quite unhealthy and was nearly unintelligible when he spoke....

 

[Thomas Veil]

So business as usual for him?

 

[SuperMatt]

They literally have a guy with the blue lives matter flag behind him speaking. And just seconds after Ben Carson spoke too, saying Trump isn’t a racist.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Right now the race is on to see which group is moving faster: MR members leaving to join PG, or Republicans running away from the Trump Party.

Ex-McCain, Bush and Romney staffers endorse Biden, joining Republicans bucking Trump

In separate letters released Thursday, alumni of the Bush administration, Utah Senator Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign and McCain's 2008 White House bid and congressional office announced their support for the former vice president. The Republican officials said that while they disagree with some of Biden's policy positions, they value his record of bipartisan work and believe he can offer steady leadership as the country grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, a weakened economy and deeply entrenched political divisions.

"Given the incumbent president's lack of competent leadership, his efforts to aggravate rather than bridge divisions among Americans, and his failure to uphold American values, we believe the election of former Vice President Biden is clearly in the national interest," more than 100 former McCain staffers wrote in a public letter.

Romney's former staffers were more forceful in their rebuke of Mr. Trump, saying that while some of them voted for him in 2016, they are all now worried about the GOP transforming into a "toxic personality cult" under the president's leadership.

The group of Bush administration alumni, led by former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, focused on Biden's values and decency, implicitly criticizing Mr. Trump's conduct while in office, including his support of conspiracy theories and use of racist, sexist and divisive language.

Heck yeah.

Add these to all the others that have gone before, and it’s clear the real Republicans are abandoning the asylum...

...leaving it the Trumpers. Or as I like to call them, the neo-Nutzi Party.

 

[SuperMatt]

OMFG Rudy Giuliani?!? Why put a criminal like this on stage? He looks pathetic. And says Democrats “have a country to destroy!” And now BLM and Antifa are in league to burn down America. Go f- yourself Rudy... Also, he is shouting just as much as Guilfoyle...

 

[SuperMatt]

Why did people vote for Tom Cotton? He‘s got the charisma of a dishrag.

 

[Thomas Veil]

Who knows? I’m sure they had their Cotton picking reasons.

 

[SuperMatt]

Trump brags about releasing convicted drug dealers from prison, but promises to clamp down on protesters. He really is a winner. And now he is blaming every problem in the country on Democrats... we all know you are and have been the president for almost 4 years now. The problems are on YOUR shoulders, Orangeman.

 

[SuperMatt]

I just saw the My Pillow guy in the crowd for Trump’s speech... he didn’t get a front row seat...

 

[SuperMatt]

He has the gall to brag about his response to Covid-19... what a heartless bastard. We handled it worse than any other country. He is claiming HE is following the science, and Joe Biden wouldn’t? OMFG what a complete and utter pathological liar.

 

[iLunar]

I'm not watching him talk because I refuse to listen to the continuous lies and gaslighting.

However, the images with his campaign materials plastered all over the White House really makes me sad as someone who really loves our country. It's a disgrace to see the White House lit up like a whore like that. He's turned that symbolic place into one of his casinos.

 

[JayMysteri0]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1299180300585652235/
WTF is that reaction?!!

That green screen dress, not the best choice where the internets are concerned.
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1299174942882365441/

 

[JayMysteri0]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1299173126752722944/


https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1299166494161620998/

 

[Thomas Veil]

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1299180300585652235/
WTF is that reaction?!!

That green screen dress, not the best choice where the internets are concerned.
https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1299174942882365441/

I couldn’t watch more than three seconds of that.

Trump whoring out the White House is revolting enough, but using that staircase to recreate his infamous escalator entrance, like some god descending from heaven, while that stupid song is playing...and to recklessly and brazenly do it in front of a purposely gathered crowd of maskless fools...it just makes me want to fucking throw things.

A take from CNN this morning:

...The two sides in the election are not just feuding over what America's future should look like, they are operating from vastly different understandings of the meaning of the republic itself.

...The set-up was a defiant metaphor for Trump's willingness to crush the traditions of the presidency, to put his own immediate gain over the dignity of the office and to troll his enemies while he was at it.

The bending of truth was so audacious and the propaganda so relentless that it required constant vigilance by voters to keep the story straight. ...Trump's willingness to cross the line so boldly was a sure sign that his shocking presidency enjoys almost total impunity.

The message was clear: Trump thinks he would be untouchable in a second term.

Yeah. I’m afraid if he gets re-elected that (among other horrors) the propaganda machine will be so strong we’ll never see another non-authoritarian president again.

 

[User.45]

Statistically speaking DC's COVID prevalence is about 1 case / 1000 right now. And if we make some stretchy assumptions, there's gonna be at least 1 infected person at the event. It will not look good. So they break the Hatch Act, they break pandemic restrictions.Again, nice summary of how much they care about the American people.

Also guys, remember: Trump's "China ban" was an off season tourist ban.It only covered people without a first degree relative in the statesn, etc. I have a lot of Chinese colleagues and friends and literally none of them complained to me because it was inconsequential to them.

 

[Edd]

Trump’s speech was so bad he caused Jim Gaffigan to snap. My respect for him just shot way up.

America's Nice Guy Finally Says 'Fuck You' to Trump Supporters on Twitter

Jim Gaffigan, arguably America’s most wholesome comedian, has finally had enough of Donald Trump’s shit. And he’s here to tell you that Trump and his minions are destroying America.

gizmodo.com

 

[yaxomoxay]

the Hatch Act,

Just a technical note. The President and the Vice President are exempt from the Hatch Act, as basically any political appointee; the act itself mostly applies to civil service employees (basically, federal career employees).

 

[Huntn]

Night Four of the Republican Convention featuring Mr. Dispicable, 25 claims. The hope here is that followers reside in LaLa Land, don’t care about the putrid, huge lies, they are blind to reality, and choose Koolaid handed to them in a paper cup. Ten are listed here.

Fact-checking President Trump’s acceptance speech at the GOP convention

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/28/fact-checking-president-trumps-acceptance-speech-2020-rnc/

May behind a pay wall.

• “When I took bold action to issue a travel ban on China, very early indeed, Joe Biden called it hysterical and xenophobic. And then I introduced a ban on Europe, very early again. If we had listened to Joe, hundreds of thousands more Americans would have died.”— Trump Trump oversells in the impact of his “travel ban” — and on Biden’s criticism. Biden was referring to him, not the travel ban. My comment: This is just a smoke screen to hide Trump’s willful mishandling of the crisis.
• “The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates of any major country in the world.”
  — Trump
  This is false. Case fatality measures how many people known to have gotten covid-19 eventually die of covid-19, and the U.S. rate is currently 3.1 percent. Johns Hopkins University says that puts the United States 11th among the 20 countries most affected by the disease; the United States ranks fourth for deaths per 100,000 population
  
  
• “I have done more for the African American community than any president since Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican president.”
  AD
  — Trump
  Trump appears to base this assertion on pre-coronavirus employment figures and some relatively minor actions taken during his administration. Historians say this claim is ridiculous.
• “Our NATO partners, as an example, were far behind in their defense payments. But at my strong urging, they agreed to pay $130 billion more a year, the first time in over 20 years that they upped their payments. And this $130 billion will ultimately go to $400 billion. Secretary General [Jens] Stoltenberg, who heads NATO, was amazed, and said that President Trump did what no one else was able to do.”
  — Trump
  Throughout the 2016 campaign and his presidency, Trump has demonstrated that he has little notion of how NATO is funded and operates. He repeatedly claimed that other members of the alliance “owed” money to the United States and that they were delinquent in their payments.
• “We will always and very strongly protect patients with preexisting conditions. And that is a pledge from the entire Republican Party.”
  — Trump
  This could hardly be more false — and we’ve given Trump’s claim our worst rating, a Bottomless Pinocchio.
  Trump took office and immediately began trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and now, his administration is asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire law, including the preexisting condition coverage guarantee. Trump has not offered a replacement plan, despite promising one since days before taking office in 2017.
  We have also given Four Pinocchios to several Republican senators who have consistently worked to undermine the Affordable Care Act and its coverage guarantee, and who support the GOP lawsuit pending before the Supreme Court.
  The Republican Party has spent 10 years trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and its coverage guarantee for patients with preexisting conditions, but GOP lawmakers have never come to an agreement on how to replace the law.
• 
  “Joe Biden ... the party he leads supports the extreme late-term abortion of defenseless babies right up until the moment of birth ... stopping a baby’s beating heart in the ninth month of pregnancy.”
  — Trump
  Most abortions are performed in the earlier stages of pregnancy. About 1 percent happen after the fetus reaches the point of viability. Trump and antiabortion advocates have claimed for months that Biden or other Democrats support abortion “up until the moment of birth,” a claim we have awarded Three Pinocchios.
  
  
• “We have spent nearly $2.5 trillion on completely rebuilding our military, which was very badly depleted when I took office.”
  — Trump
  False. The military was not “depleted” despite Trump’s insistence. (The claim appears 175 times in our Trump database of false or misleading claims.)
  
  
• “I then approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, ended the unfair and costly Paris Climate Accord and secured, for the first time, American energy independence.”
  — Trump
  Trump signed executive orders to speed up construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration had rejected. (It still has not been built.) But Trump did not “approve” the Dakota Access pipeline, which began construction during the Obama administration.
  The Paris Climate Accord allows member nations to set their own targets, and Trump could have unilaterally changed the commitments offered by the Obama administration.
  Trump and his allies often repeat the false claim that the United States is now energy independent. The United States is not energy independent, as it continues to import millions of barrels of oil per day.
  “In 2019, the United States imported about 9.10 million barrels per day (MMb/d) of petroleum from nearly 90 countries,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
• “They spied on my campaign, and they got caught.”
  — Trump
  Trump has concocted conspiracy theories about the Obama administration spying on his campaign, which he sometimes labels “Obamagate.”
  It started with Trump’s false claim in 2017 that President Barack Obama ordered a wiretap on him. Then that merged with a report that an FBI informant in Europe, a professor named Stefan Halper, met with at least three people working on the Trump campaign in Europe.
• “When asked if he supports cutting police funding, Joe Biden replied, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ ”
  — Trump
  This is a false claim that has earned Trump Four Pinocchios.

 

[User.45]

Just a technical note. The President and the Vice President are exempt from the Hatch Act, as basically any political appointee; the act itself mostly applies to civil service employees (basically, federal career employees).

You mean these guys?

 

[yaxomoxay]

You mean these guys?
View attachment 221

yes, they are all exempt. No idea about the lady on the right, red dress, which caught my eye.