Did Melania go rogue?

Rosslyn Smith  "It appears official, and I can see how this could be the source of rumors that it has put the marriage in hot-water jeopardy.  She's reportedly upset, he's angry, and no fingers can be pointed within the campaign.

"I feel sorry for Melania, as she has always been in an uncomfortable position.  It is being reported that Melania Trump circumvented her husband's campaign speechwriters when preparing the text that dominated a days news cycle.  Here is what the N.Y. Times reported. 

. . . 

"While the list of similar acts of political plagiarism is long and bipartisan, three factors made this error particularly memorable.  One, it was the first exposure many Americans had to the somewhat reticent Melania Trump.  Within a couple of hours of the speech, the story changed forever from how Melania Trump's more humble demeanor and her delivery style were in positive contrast to that of the foreign-born and arrogant Teresa Heinz Kerry in 2004 to ridicule over the plagiarism.  Two, the passages involved the themes of honesty and integrity, which made the error both more newsworthy and less sympathetic.  And three, the text was lifted from the speech of an African-American Democrat rather than from a speech of the spouse of a Republican nominee.  Thus, it needlessly infuriated and energized some Democrats.

"This was an entirely unforced error that has to have the Trump campaign professionals pulling their hair out, as it was readily preventable."

NY Times: How Melania Trump’s Speech Veered Off Course and Caused an Uproar  . . . "Inside Trump Tower, it turned out, Ms. Trump had decided she was uncomfortable with the text, and began tearing it apart, leaving a small fraction of the original.

"Her quiet plan to wrest the speech away and make it her own set in motion the most embarrassing moment of the convention: word-for-word repetition of phrases and borrowed themes from Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention eight years ago." . . .

I hate to read this next, because it will be either Hillary or Trump, and it must not be Hillary.  
GOP Convention Has Become a Stomach-Churning Affair  . . . "Nor am I referring to the political malpractice that allowed Melania Trump to introduce herself to the country as a plagiarist. I have sympathy for Mrs. Trump. Obviously, the media overreacted to the plagiarism, but such overreactions are exactly why parties script out their conventions down to the punctuation marks. The media only want to cover what goes wrong, so you aim not to give them the opportunity. As a matter of ethics, the plagiarism was a triviality. But for the staffers who let it happen, it was a capital offense." . . .

The Conservative

Marilyn Mosby

Playing into Mosby’s Hands  . . . "Nevertheless, in the wake of Rice’s acquittal, Mosby will again be under pressure to drop the remaining cases. Although Rice was the highest ranking officerinvolved in the arrest and transport of Gray, his trial was even more of a fiasco for the prosecution than the earlier acquittals. "

Comedian Argus Hamilton had this to say about the issue:

A Baltimore judge ruled the fourth cop not guilty in Freddie Gray’s death during his ride back to the station in the van after his arrest last November. It sparked riots, burnings and looting of fast-food restaurants. Everyone agrees McDonald’s picked the wrong month to bring back the McRib.

Ohio policeman served sandwich containing shards of glass

WaPo: After shootings, police fear being ‘a public target’ — even at lunch Murdered Baton Rouge policeman Montrell Jackson had posted in his Facebook page:

 “In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat,” he wrote. “I’m tired physically and emotionally.”

Joe Newby  "10TV provided a bit more information, including the name of the restaurant:

The officer, who has not been named, was eating at the Lincoln Cafe on East Long Street on Monday when he “heard a crunch” as he bit into the sandwich, according to police. The officer then noticed his mouth was bleeding and found a piece of glass.

The officer drove himself to Grant Medical Center where tests were performed.

The Operational Manager at Lincoln Cafe tells 10TV the business has a long history with police and has not had any similar events in the past.
. . . 
"Maybe it was a shard of assault glass…

"Weasel Zippers noted:
"Lincoln Cafe, previously known as Zanzibar Brews, bills itself as a 'progressive coffeehouse', and has hosted events for politicians, including Democratic candidates.

"Interesting…

Their Facebook page contains discussions on this incident.

While on the subject of the "tolerant" left:

‘Tolerant’ liberals: Melania Trump a ‘dumb b*tch’ who needs to be deported

Liberal GQ writer: I would like to beat mother of Benghazi victim ‘to death’ After acknowledging that the writer apologized, Gateway Pundit added:

. . . "Sadly, there are far too many on the left like this guy.  And a whole bunch of them work for mainstream outlets. But we should thank Shoals for one thing — he has revealed to the entire world that when push comes to shove, deep down, liberals want to kill you if you’re a conservative. Welcome to Obama’s fundamentally-transformed America."

 Miramar Police Officer Refused Service At Local Gas Station

It's Melania! Get the pitchforks!

Get Melania! Plagiarism charges thrown at Trump’s first lady in waiting  "By most accounts, Melania Trump’s speech to the GOP Convention was a success – until charges flew that she had plagiarized a speech given by Michelle Obama to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.  First noted on Twitter by Jarrett Hill, a small portion of Melania’s speech bore a strong resemblance to Michelle’s.  Here is a side-by-side comparison:

"If Melania plagiarized Michelle, then Michelle plagiarized others.  Compare Michelle’s words with the advice found in a 1992 book about doing business in Africa:" . . .

. . . 

Do the political swells so concerned with this “scandal” really think that anyone’s vote would be swayed by whether Melania voiced the same bromides as Michelle?

Update: Yeah, plagiarism is a very serious thing in speeches:



Then, there is the beloved by Democrats Joe Biden:

Who can forget Joe's campaign speech lifted from the UK's Neil Kinnock?

Trump Camp: Melania's Speech 'Included Fragments' of Michelle Obama Speech 'That Reflected Her Own Thinking'  Yeah, that should shut her critics up.

. . . "At a Bloomberg breakfast this morning, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said he'd "probably" fire the speechwriting team that crafted Melania's speech. “Certainly I don’t blame her for anything,” he said.

. . . 

"Before her address, Melania Trump told NBC News of the speech: “I read once over it and that’s all, because I wrote it, and with as little help as possible.' "

Bloomberg’s Heilemann: Melania Plagiarism Worse than Biden, Obama  "Is There Nothing a Liberal Does that the MSM Won’t Find Some Way to Defend?"

Trump Campaign Has No Plans to Fire Anyone Over Melania Speech Flap  "UPDATE: Now sources are telling NBC "heads will roll" over this. 
"It's piss-poor staff work," a source within the campaign told NBC News. "Melania has been humiliated. No doubt heads are going to roll." 

"This is a developing story, more to come."

Manafort on speech plagiarism: When Hillary Clinton is threatened by a woman she always tries to destroy her Did Hillary hire that speech writer?

Melania Speechwriter Rickrolls* GOP Convention

  "It’s funny, but there are a couple of serious issues that this reveals.

"First: whoever wrote that speech is a mole. The insertion of the Michelle Obama plagiarism was no mistake. The speechwriter is trying to embarrass the Trumps. And they don’t mind making it perfectly obvious.

. . . 

"It’s good to know that when they have an active mole inside their campaign, their reflexive desire to deny any and all wrongdoing will compel them to go into Baghdad Bob mode rather than seek out the mole."
* Rickroll: . . . " This is usually considered a major let-down."

Analysis: What Happened During Today's Ugly 'Never Trump' Convention Floor Fight

Townhall

"Upheaval and confusion reigned on the Republican National Convention floor this afternoon when the presiding chairman ruled that there would be no full roll call vote pertaining to the adoption of the confab's governing rules. Conservative opponents of Donald Trump said they'd secured signatures from the majorities of nine to eleven delegations, easily clearing the seven-delegation threshold required to trigger a convention-wide ballot. After vociferous protests from several GOP officials -- most notably Utah Sen. Mike Lee -- the chair vacated the podium for a span of several chaotic minutes. He returned with an explanation: A sufficient number of delegates from three states or territories had supposedly withdrawn their signatures from their roll-call-compelling petitions as to render the procedural move moot."

Obama has never been the man to heal wounds

The moment Obama lit the match  "Mike Lester illustrates president's first move in stoking racial resentment in America."

Althouse: "Clinton’s message has been that America is divided by race and gender, and suddenly we see a horrifying uptick in police shootings because it fits that world view."

Ann Althouse links to Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who posted: . . . "Have you ever noticed that professional sports teams are great at overcoming racism and getting everyone to play together? That’s because the coach has persuaded the players to see the team as their dominant identity. Trump can do the same with America."

NRO: Black Lives Matter – Words Have Consequences  . . . "Who really has blood on their hands? The killer and anyone who helped him. Who should feel guilt and shame? Each and every Twitter troll or Black Lives Matter marcher who called for violence and blood on the streets. For those people, sunlight is the best disinfectant. They should be relentlessly exposed and discredited. And any movement that harbors them, that marches with them, or excuses their rage as somehow “understandable” or “justifiable” or “predictable” should be rejected. 

"Surely the Left will agree. After all, if they were willing to condemn Sarah Palin without evidence, surely they’ll reject Black Lives Matter extremism with evidence." . . .

The Fire This Time

"Though this month’s cop-killers are no BLA, they share the same twisted thinking."

Rich Lowry  . . . "Killing cops quickly moved from a rhetorical pose — the Black Panther newspaper gave us the phrase “Off the Pig” — to an actual imperative. The Weather Underground targeted police in a series of — thankfully — relatively ineffectual bombings. It was the Black Liberation Army, an underground force spawned in the poisonous split between Newton and Cleaver, that took up the mission with a deadly seriousness." . . .
"The United States has experienced an extraordinary period of social peace dating from the Rodney King riot in 1992 — more than 50 dead and $1 billion in damages — to today. The recent unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore can’t be compared with that five-day conflagration, or the urban riots of the 1960s. But order is always a fragile thing, dependent on the sense of the legitimacy of our institutions. 

"With the police under a withering moral and intellectual assault, politicized assassinations of cops, which a few weeks ago would have seemed a relic of the 1970s, are back."

Who Was Gavin Long?

"He rejected U.S. law and claimed allegiance to a fantasy nation built on a fantasy history."

. . . " The Washitaw Nation is, charitably put, a marginal movement. Its message is incoherent, its website nearly unnavigable, its reading of history inscrutably deluded. The Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that active membership is around 200 (with more, perhaps, registered on paper). Its version of black nationalism is far on the fringe, by no means the same as mainstream varieties that Malcolm X and others made fashionable. The fable driving the Washitaw ideology — that a great nation of Moors once populated the American continent — is nonsensical and entirely its own." . . .

Benghazi looms over the GOP convention first night

Mother Of Benghazi Attack Victim: I Blame Hillary Clinton For The Death Of My Son, "She Deserves To Be In Stripes"
. . . "This entire campaign comes down to a single question: If Hillary Clinton can’t give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency?" . . .


Chris Matthews Scolds Mother Of Benghazi Victim: "It Was Wrong" to "Lie About Hillary Clinton"
. . . "I don't care what that woman up there, the mother has felt," Matthews said. "Her emotions are her own but for the country in choosing a leader, it's wrong to have someone get up there and tell a lie about Hillary Clinton. It's not true." . . .

GOP speakers fault Clinton on Benghazi deaths  . . . "The report last month by Republicans on the Benghazi panel accused the Obama administration of lethal mistakes, but produced no new evidence pointing to wrongdoing by Clinton.

"Clinton has said the Benghazi report "found nothing to contradict" the findings of multiple earlier investigations into the attacks." . . .

Media Matters calls some of what was said a "hoax".

Marcus Luttrell: “America Is The Light, And Her People Are The Goodness That Grows From That”
"Marcus Luttrell reminds us, in one sentence, of the purpose of America."

No Blue lighting for the White House

Earnest can't say why WH won't be lit in blue to honor cops 

Breast cancer

. . . " 'All of this is an indication of just how strongly the president feels about the need to show our strong support for our men and women in law enforcement," Earnest said, including Obama's "strong" condemnation of the ambush that left three Baton Rouge officers dead over the weekend.

" 'The president dedicated a lot of time to this, both in substance and in symbolism," Earnest said. "The president's strong support for American law enforcement officers is crystal clear.' "

Gay marriage

Onward Christian Pansies

Mike Adams

"Last week, a young Christian male asked me a pretty direct question. He wanted to know whether I ever worried that my blunt commentary on social media was “turning people away from Christianity.” I thought it was an honest question. So I gave him an honest answer. I told him that I believe the problem is just the opposite of what he considers it to be. In other words, it isn’t occasional blunt commentary that turns people away from Christianity. It is the constant displays of Christian cowardice that make people both reticent to join and quick to attack us.

. . . 

"Let that sink in for a minute. The next time you self ­censor you may be hurting Christianity, not helping it. We need brave young warriors not spineless “evangelists” who are more concerned about being liked than influencing the culture. In a nutshell, Jesus was not Mr. Rogers. He had little tolerance for the smug moral superiority of those who grasp the truth but lack the faith and courage necessary to defend it."

New documentary explores Clinton and the Democrat party

Fox News  "Dinesh D'Souza's new film 'Hillary's America' mixes narrative with interviews

WATCH – HILLARY: THE BEST WAY TO HONOR POLICE IS FOR THEM TO STOP KILLING AFRICAN AMERICANS

Hidden Americans  "Today, Hillary Clinton spoke at an NAACP event said the best way to honor the murdered police is to stop killing Africa Americans.
"She then took the opportunity to bash police and push a false narrative just days after three cops were slaughtered." Video at the link.