Holy Crap, Tim Kaine Killed It by Michael Tomasky The Daily Beast

Holy crap. He killed it.

I’m not trying to spin you. I’m sitting here in shock. Shock. Tim Kaine was unbelievable.

He was natural. He was smart. He was relaxed and funny, and he was serious. He was proud of himself and his wife and family but never arrogant. He was humble without ever being cloying in that way the politically humble can often be. He was genuine. He was unbelievable.

And part of the way through, this thought struck me: He is the perfect choice for her because he comes across as so at ease and so real. These are two things, as we know, that Hillary Clinton has a lot of trouble with. She’s too scripted, she’s a phony, all that stuff. Kaine was just so easy-breezy, so comfortable with himself and in this role, that he has the potential to wash away a decent chunk of that negativity about her.

Wikileaks Dumps Democratic National Committee E-Mails Snopes.com

We're a little dumbfounded over all the alleged DSW transgressions in these leaked emails. These are people who have little to do in our complex world -- except to rant. The only thread we can see -- and also after popping into several Sanders FB pages last night -- is that Berners are outraged that there was any strategic conversation going on at the DNC about 1) how to handle the press as Hillary clearly won the nomination and Bernie should drop out at some point and 2) how to develop a strategy around key Bernie questions if he did somehow win.

Example, what is Bernie's view on faith and God, an email that seems to have garnered terrible ire. That is NOT a question of bad faith in a political campaign that smears people right and left.

Nor are questions about his past embrace of Lenin and ultra-left wing politics, but it seems any of these concerns are giant transgressions among those screaming about these stolen emails.

Some of the Berners appear as irrational and unprepared for real life as Donald trump. Real life is a grand offense to their view of the world, and we're not getting sidetracked by email dumps days before the convention and especially if these 'horrors' are the best they've got.

Grow up people. Donald Trump is a maniac who threatens to destroy all we hold dear in America, flawed as it is. Your enemy is not Hillary Clinton and shame on you that she is your enemy and not Donald Trump.

Oh . . . and 26,000 women and children fled South Sudan last week to escape the violence in their country. Uganda is reeling under the weight of trying to process and care for the refugees. Take all this energy of yours and focus it on fixing something important in the world.

You run the risk of not being taken at all seriously at this point. Clintonites are doers and not habitual conspiracy theorists. This is nonsense. ~ Anne

DNC email leaks, explained VOX

Former Sanders Spokeswoman Says Election Wasn't 'Stolen' US News

After leaving the Bernie Sanders campaign at the end of June, national press spokeswoman Symone Sanders has been working at the Democratic Convention Committee. It would not surprise us that she ends up with Hillary. Sanders has increasingly improved her diplomacy skills over the months, and she is very articulate. ~ Anne

"As the Wells Fargo Arena erupted in chants of “Bernie! Bernie!” and delegates booed when speakers mentioned the name of presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, the former national press secretary for Sen. Bernie Sanders took to Twitter to dispute the idea that the 2016 election was "stolen."

“Look, people are well within their rights to have passions and opinions. That is how we create change in this country. We need the passion!!” Symone Sanders tweeted. But, while Democratic National Committee emails published by Wikileaks showed a lack of support for Sanders, she also tweeted that “7 folks on an email didn’t ‘steal’ the election.”

“The reality is the system didn’t cheat us,” she tweeted."

Hillary Clinton has chosen Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. The enormously qualified senator has a wealth of experience, a political resume held by only 20 people in America. Putting Kaine on the ticket may put the purple state in the blue column for good. Hillary is currently estimated to win the state without Kaine, but making the state a Democratic bastion could be good news. On his own, Trump is turning off educated Republicans, a reality that shows up in all the polling, including among white men.

Tim Kaine has never lost an election, moving from city council member, into mayor of Richmond, Va, lieutenant governor and then governor of Va and now a senator. Many Republicans have praised Kaine's calm, warm, Midwestern collegiality.

Some of the Bernie Sanders supporters are disappointed, a reality we will cover tomorrow on AOC. But Kaine speaks fluent Spanish from his days as a Jesuit missionary, before marrying his wife who is presently secy of education in Virginia. The future vice president has a long history of activism, including taking on the NRA in Virginia and winning. More on Kaine's resume tomorrow.

Ivanka Trump gave a speech based on Democratic ideals last night -- and certainly to policy ideas around women. As a close (but shelved) friend of Chelsea Clinton, There is NO way that the current Republican-controlled Congress would pass legislation based on her principles.

Still, Ivana's eloquent, competent, engaging speech must be dealt with in Philadelphia next week. And Democrats should deal with it head on. Still, Ivanka spoke as a Rockefeller Republican, the Republicans judges who passed Roe v. Wade and gave women a legal right to contraception. If was as if Ivanka came from an earlier Republican era and advocated for the same Republican ideas of hard work, entrepreneurialism, fairness, high standards, high competency and host of other values that neither party speaks of these days -- except in the most glib terms. They were my original values before I became a Democrat.

Of course Trump's speech is the one that must be dealt with, but Ivanka giving her father legitimacy and saying she will hold his feet to the fire on old-fashioned Republican ideas has been largely lost in the conversation. They should not be lost. They should be embraced but attached to the right party that has her vision as a policy agenda.

Take Ivanka's words and compare the platforms. ~ Anne

Ivanka Trump Is Not Going to Save Us From Her Father New York Magazine

So it’s been somewhat startling to see this Ivanka — the Ivanka we know — seemingly wholeheartedly embrace a campaign that features xenophobia, racism, and general lack of civility as its central themes. Even though she told us in The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life that she was a “daddy’s girl,” it’s still hard to comprehend the level of filial loyalty that compelled Ivanka to defend her father’s grotesque comments about Megyn Kelly’s “blood coming out of her wherever” and straight-facedly call him a “feminist.” It’s hard to believe that the Ivanka whose New York social circle consists of people from all over the world truly supports the idea of Building a Wall. Given the intelligence we know she possesses, it’s tempting to see tightness in her smile as she stands behind her father, blustering at the podium, and read sarcasm in her cheery tweets (“There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do,” she wrote — quoting Amy Poehler — after her father’s Brexit gaffe).

Perhaps this is the reason we’ve allowed a sub-narrative to take root, one that casts Ivanka as the Trump campaign’s Secret Voice of Reason. He’s her father — she has to support his cockamamie run to some degree, the thinking goes, but she’s not like him.

Donald Trump's Caesar Moment by Jeff Greenfield Politico

It was a speech perfectly suited to the nominee. It was a speech utterly unconnected to anything we have ever heard from any previous nominee. It was, then, exactly what we should have expected from this most unexpected of candidates.

Most American presidential nominees—indeed, most convention speakers—pay homage to outsized figures of the nation's past, even some from the other side of the spectrum. House Speaker Paul Ryan, as did countless others in Cleveland, paid homage to Ronald Reagan. Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence told the assembled Republicans that “the heroes of my youth were President John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” Ronald Reagan himself, back in 1980, quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt. In past conventions, the Founding Fathers were invoked, or inspirational party leaders of the past, or some link to the heritage of party or country.

And Donald Trump? In his speech, there was no thread of any kind linking him to past American greats, no sense that he is following any tradition. Indeed, in one of the best-received lines of the speech, he told us, of our “rigged” system: “I alone can fix it.” Fix it with his own party’s leadership in Congress, or with an aroused populace? No. “I alone can fix it.”

In so many other ways, Trump presented himself as a man alone, imbued with the power to do what no other person or institution can do. Consider how he described his visits to “the laid-off factory workers, and the communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.

“I am your voice.”

Trump Claims the Prize Politico

'“Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever,” Trump said. “My message is that things have to change and they have to change right now.”

Trump delivered a deeply negative speech that described a darkening America. He spoke of spiking crime, “third-world” airports, growing trade deficits, “chaos in our communities,” and terrorism on the home front. Abroad, he said, the situation was “worse than it has ever been before.”

“This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction, terrorism and weakness,” he said."

News Updates

North Carolina Trans Law

NBA Pulls All-Star GameOut of Charlotte Over Transgender Bathroom Law HB2 NBC News

Caitlyn Jenner Tells GOP Gathering Why She's a Republican TIME

This week, the GOP approved a platform that defines marriage as the “union of one man and one woman.” The party drafted language aimed at restricting bathroom usage to individuals’ birth sex and an early version nodded to “conversion therapy,” or the discounted practice of trying to “cure” homosexuality. The published version condemned “the hate campaigns” by “proponents of same-sex marriage” and left many gay and transgender Republicans wondering what there place is in the party and whether they are welcome.

“I get it. The Democratic Party does a better job when it comes to the LGBT and trans community and all of that,” Jenner said at Wednesday’s brunch. “The Republican Party needs to understand. They need to know people who are trans.”