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."

GOP Accidentally Does Clinton A Favor MSNBC

I honestly have no idea what Republicans thought they were going to achieve with this spectacle. Did GOP lawmakers expect Comey to declare, “Now that you’ve yelled at me for a few hours, I’ve changed my mind and now support criminal charges against Clinton”?

Before the hearing Republicans had a series of fairly specific talking points: Clinton lied to the FBI; she created a national security threat; she plays by a different set of rules than everyone else. But instead of simply repeating those talking points, GOP lawmakers invited the FBI director – a lifelong Republican, whom GOP officials have repeatedly praised for his honesty – to testify about how wrong the party’s arguments are.

“We have no basis to believe she lied to the FBI,” Comey said. Asked about Clinton benefiting from a different set of rules, he responded, “It’s not true.” Asked about classified emails, Comey said there were only three messages – each of which were not properly marked classified when she received them.

Is Donald Trump Losing It? The New Yorker

Watching Donald Trump Wednesday night, I find myself agreeing with conservative Republicans the day after -- an event that rarely happens today. I agree that Donald Trump appeared unhinged and nearly pathologically possessed at moments. HE needs an exorcism, not that I support them. But with exorcisms on the rise in America, the Catholic bishops should focus on Trump, not progressive women.

In the political-campaigning industry, there is a tactic sometimes referred to as the “I am not a child molester” strategy. With no real evidence necessary, one makes a damaging claim about your opponent, forcing him or her to deny it. Trump doesn't just fall into this trap of defending himself and taking comments seriously. If you watch him carefully, you note that he takes personal offense at everything, unable to stay focused on more important talking points. According to a tally by the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale, who tweeted a partial transcript of the speech, Trump said the word “star” twenty-eight times Wednesday night, unable to contain his anger over major complaints about last weekend's tweet of Hillary against a six-pointed star with plenty of cash behind her image. Trump ended his tirade with a new twist to the story. Referring to the decision to replace the star with a circle, this would-be US president said that he had told some of his campaign workers, “Too bad, you should have left it up. I would have rather defended it.”

New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Michael Barbaro, and Jonathan Mahler, described the Trump spectacle as “a striking display of self-sabotage from a presumptive presidential nominee.”

Others were less kind. Live-tweeting his response to the speech, John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a New York Post columnist, wrote, “Trump whining that anyone would say he praised Saddam Hussein last night. The man is a mental patient.” Later, Podhoretz, a confirmed member of the Never Trump movement, added, “Just send the delegates this speech and lock them in a room and make them watch it all the way through.” He wasn’t the only one to wonder aloud if Trump had lost his marbles. Kyle Foley, a commentator for the conservative Web site Red State, wrote, “If you choose to support Trump, that is absolutely your prerogative, but he has proved tonight (and pretty much every night) that he is absolutely and certifiably insane.”'