All Those Convention Speeches

Last night Sec of Defense Leon Penetta spoke at the convention before six on KOCE.  Both he and Biden, who spoke after six, discussed Donald Trump’s erraticness and unpreparedness for assuming the Presidency.  Finally there were references to defeating ISIS, and numerous references to capturing Bin Laden.  There were a lot of chants of “USA” during both speeches.  I missed the beginning of Biden’s speech where he apparently talked about his son Bo.  After six thirty Mike Bloomberg spoke.  He doesn’t have the best speaking voice in the world.  He identified with people who didn’t have a political party.   He was supposed to speak on guns but instead really lit into Donald Trump calling him a flake and a poor example as a business man.  I would say that Biden and Penetta gave the two best speeches this night.  Mayor Bloomberg did say one thing me and the Sanders people would take issue with.  He said that turning our backs on trade deals won’t bring back jobs.  So he is at odds with what Hillary claimed to be saying now.  After seven I switched to ABC because I like George Stephanopolis.  Tim Kaine was the next speaker and he gave a major address.  He was all over the map in terms of what he talked about.  He spoke at length about his own background being born in Minisota and being raised in Kansas City and working with his father and brother in their tool and dye shop.  He was also very enthusiastic in his confidence and support of Hillary.  There was a frontal Trump assault using the Trump phrase "Believe Me" and none of the contracters or customers or employees of various projects much like the "Believe Me" remarks because they CAN'T believe Trump.  After this I went down to get my medication from Tom’s assistant.  In case I didn’t say Augustine turned off the water for the third night in a row.  I was fit to be tied because there was no warning at all of tonight’s outage and I already had soap on my hands.   It looked like a short line with just three people in it but each person took at least five minutes with this or the other specific problem.  Augustine was working in a room on the east hall and I heard a lot of rattling around of tools and later Augustine appeared and after I got my bologna sandwich I passed by there and the door was closed.  It turned out he was done for the evening and I returned as President Obama was just fielding the initial applause while taking the stage.  President Obama’s speech was filled with the usual Obama platitudes and in my opinion he gave one of the poorest speeches of the convention and the one I learned the least from.  However one phrase was useful.  "The phrase isn't "Yet He Will" but "Yes We Can".  Try that one out at a Christian evangelical rally sometime and see how far you get.  He did throw a bone to the Sanders people speaking of being outside and making your voices known and being willing to put in a lot of hard work to achieve your goals.  He got started about ten to eight and spoke all the way to twenty minutes to nine.  He decided he was through.  Although you couldn’t really tell when he was approaching the conclusion because it was just an endless spring of platitudes talking about “Yes, we can” and all of the usual hope and determination stuff.  Then I went out for a cigarette and then watched Pen and Teller.  That whole guilitine thing I didn’t get.  The program continued on past nine o clock and I watched some of it.  Pen and Teller said “It was good but it didn’t fool us”. 

[The night before] Bill Clinton began his speech at seven after seven and ended at seven minutes to eight.  It began with when Bill met Hillary at a college government class in the spring of 1971.  It continued through the seventies going from state to state such as South Carolina and Massachusetts.   Each time Hillary would discover some cause to crusade for.  I interrupted the litany of items to go down for medication from Tom and fortunately the line wasn’t too long.  The convention was still going on after eight o clock.  Finally NCIS began and I watched that program and some of the “Animals” one. 

[This was] Wednesday July 27, 2016 and Norman Goldman is on now.    Donald Trump at a news conference this morning said, “Russia, if you’re listening I hope you can find the missing thirty thousand E mails of Hillary”.   Norman says this statement is not treasonous.   Shawn Hannity was fit to be tied over the noon hour and I had him on only a short while because he began repeating himself having nothing to say in his own defense.  Howard Dean made an appearance at the democratic convention last night and began rattling off states, without the war cry at the end.  Tonight Michael Bloomberg and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine will be speaking in addition to Biden and Obama.   There are just over four days left before I get paid.  The time is whittling down.  I have saved, as in not spent, nine dollars so far.  I just hope Sunday’s expense didn’t break the bank.  This morning I went to the office and asked about my dermatologist appointment.  Federico said that Sarah would contact me about it with me later.  John Hinkley is freed from the psycho ward because “there is no longer any medical benefit to his being locked up”.  Then maybe he should go back to serving a life sentence.  He was locked up for 34 years.  There is a long list of conditions.  Even so I am against this move.  However even before today the guy was getting furloughs all over the place, which I didn’t like.   The prosecution in the Freddy Gray case has dropped all charges against the remaining police officers in Baltimore, even the officer who got a hung jury.  He was supposed to be tried again.  All subsequent officers bypassed jury trials to get a sympathetic judge. 

As of Tuesday afternoon Hillary Clinton was the official nominee of the democratic national convention.  They held the row call vote this afternoon and it was Arizona, of all states, that put Hillary over the top.  So as of right now we have our first woman nominated by a major party.   But there were reports that Bernie Sanders moved that the vote for Hillary be made unanamus when the row call came to the state of Vermont.  This occured earlier in the afternoon before I started watching TV.  I don't like the idea of "changing a vote for show" either by congress or the delegation at a convention.  What's wrong with just admitting that for forty percent of the delegates Hillary wasn't their first choice but Sanders was.  I will say that as the week progresses the pro Bernie protesters have been drowned out by cries of either "Hil-lar-ry" or "U S A" or whatever.