Vee

Actual late-night Trump retweet:

Josh Marshall has nailed what will almost certainly be Trump's strategy: Try to replicate the multi-person GOP debates with Jill Stein and Gary Johnson to help him get room to showboat in a clusterfuck. That will also be his way to get out of it, because it ain't gonna happen and he's too scared to face Hillary (or anyone) one on one. It may play well with his shrinking base, but the nation will call him a coward and he will continue to go apeshit.

As you can see on twitter, Trump is now very notably trying to lay groundwork for escaping the debates. He's complaining that "Crooked Hillary" scheduled them against NFL games, when in fact they were chosen a year ago by an independent commission. The press, fortunately, is dragging him.

Tonight in Trump's ongoing post-DNC meltdown: The Kochs refuse to meet with him, and apparently at his latest (or still ongoing since noon??) stream-of-consciousness press conference he attacked four-star general John Allen, who spoke last night.

A fantastic summer series that really touched my heart. I grew up with all the films and various cultural touchstones it is heavily inspired by, not the least of which was Winona Ryder herself, whose Meryl Streep Silkwood shag haircut was her own idea. Also great: David Harbour who plays the sheriff, wonderful and largely underseen on The Newsroom. He's only going to get bigger thanks to this. I assume they will be renewed - the response has been huge. The kids are all great too. Amusingly, the lead boy (Finn Wolfhard) was Cary Fukunaga's choice for the role of Richie in his planned film adaptation of Stephen King's It, which ST draws a huge amount of admitted influence from (King loves the show, incidentally). When Fukunaga dropped out of that production over studio conflicts, Wolfhard was able to play Mike on ST instead. Now that ST is on hiatus, he's filming It after all for the new director. Thing is, ST is so much like It and King's world that doing the source material now seems repetitious. Assuming ST is renewed and drops again next summer, I'm betting movie audiences will feel the same when the film is released the following September.

It's ratfucking, alright. But in this case I don't think the Russians are colluding with today's GOP, which is frankly too inept, disorganized and discombobulated over Trump. I think this is the Russians' own operation, maybe with a few rich old men in the States giving them a hand. They do this [!@#$%^&*] by the boatload over there, though, and astroturf our social media and popcult/media sites to try and push opinion on Putin, Russia and the Ukraine. They're deeply invested in that information war, even if their public attempts are often very transparent. I don't think they'll find anything exciting, but they'll keep trying until someone comes down hard. Or, preferably, ties them directly to Trump, more than we already have.

Conservative pundit Jennifer Rubin - who I remember being dreadful in the Bush years, but who despises Trump - is just one of many conservative columnists laying out a very stark case as to how the Democrats have replaced the GOP as the 'rational,' patriotic party and changed the game. It's worth reading for opposition research, and for Rubin explaining - again, not the first this week to do so - that center-right Repubs might cross the aisle.

The Russians Our mystery hackers have now targeted the DCCC and the Clinton campaign.

Today in Trump: Rambling bout the fire marshals at the hotel his current disastrous press conference is at, and suggesting we bring back courier pigeons vs. emails. Meanwhile, following the triumphant DNC Joe Scarborough finally panics and begs the GOP to cut Trump loose, but not before insisting that Trump is 'a big government Democrat'.

Yeah, I've seen many, many Republican pundits saying Hillary and the Dems 'took our stuff' over the last week - strong on security with John Allen speaking, pushing optimism, pride and American exceptionalism. They seem very grim today. The contrast between the RNC and the DNC - how they were put together, presented and received - has been stark. Here's Trump blaming the GOP for the convention not going so great. The fact that we topped the ratings - which is all he cares about - must make him crazy. Another great idea after the past few days which have converted both Repubs and wavering Bernie kids I know: Trump explains in public why Republicans have 'no choice' but to vote for him.

I doubt it. Bush still represented the establishment, so the media covered for him. Trump is an outlier and they know how dangerous he is.

The GOP considers the DNC a 'disaster' for the Republicans. They're right.

The speech of her life. I think she blew everyone who didn't expect her to be a great orator away. Best of all: The burns on Trump. Donald cannot take that and has to act out. He will make another Russia-level gaffe by noon tomorrow.

Kaine was a huge dork, but sweet and likable. He won the crowd with that goofy Trump impression.

Amazingly, Bloomberg actually topped Biden in terms of hitting at Trump. Barn-burner. Here's Kaine.

Joe blew it up!

Grima Wormtongue Mark Halperin, whose new Showtime documentary series The Circus hinges on access and friendship with the Trump campaign, struggles to save him from the Russia press conference debacle today and fails miserably.

Read this. Politico, which does lean center-right Beltway class, has been running with every breathless 'will be there chaos??' piece for three days to drive traffic and try to push narrative. I think the Berniebros talk a good game but there was no real drama last night, Day 1 ended well and I think Day 3 will be fine too despite all the handwringing and hot air. We also apparently have five million more viewers than the RNC.

I think that episode count comment may have been misconstrued, but I have no idea. I think Ray may have been misled by an IMDB listing. That being said, I know for a fact he is not taking over the Log Lady intro role. Meanwhile, TP fanatics are poring over the above materials and struggling to figure out Norma's actual maiden name (Annie's was Blackburn, their mother went by Smythe).

Trump also ordered Katy Tur to "be quiet" on live TV. This is why I say he can never be controlled or contained, and it'll only get worse for him. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/27/donald-trump-orders-nbcs-katy-tur-to-be-quiet/

No bounce for Trump.

They did. But the night went off without a hitch. And Bill's speech was received very well.

They had Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin's mothers up earlier, among others. Now it's time for Bill. No sign of Berniebro hecklers tonight. Good.

She's been working in comics for awhile now. So thrilled to see her.