If there was a competition for the country that's going the most bonkers, I'm pretty sure the USA would squeak through as the winner right now. Oh, I know it's all a bit crazy in post-Brexit Britain - I mean Boris Johnson as the Foreign Secretary for god's sake! At least the rest of the world isn't just laughing at the USA. According to a source in the EU, "Everyone in the European Parliament thinks it's a bad joke and that the Brits have lost it." Oh dear.
Meanwhile, back in the USA, boy did we have a circus last week. Political parties (in this case mainly Republicans and Democrats) have what's called a National Convention, where they officially nominate their candidate for the upcoming Presidential election. It all gets very complicated as the two parties have different rules and not only are there votes as we would normally understand them (ie. by the people) but they have delegates and super-delegates who cast votes for their man or woman.
Last week we had the RNC (Republican National Convention) to officially nominate Don the Con Trump. Hardly anyone else from their party even showed up to the Convention let alone took the floor to speak for him. Instead, he had his children (he has five from three different mothers), and Willie Robertson from Duck Dynasty.Yup. He did. This guy -
Then he had has-been Scott Baio (anyone remember him from Happy Days?) He said some awe-inspiring things like "Now America is an easy place to get to." Okay. And "Is Donald Trump a messiah? No he's just a man..." which probably didn't go down too well with old Donnie. Oh and Scott looks like this now -
Then there was Dana White, who first of all is a guy, and second, is the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a (mixed martial arts) fight promotions company. Yup. Apparently him and Don the Con go way back.
Notably missing from the Republican National Convention was every single, living former Repub president, John McCain (nominee against Obama in 2008), Mitt Romney (nominee against Obama in 2012) and three of his rivals in this race, Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Lindsay Graham (another guy, btw).
What a circus!
But first, he was introduced by his wife, Melania, as is traditional. She gave a good speech - parts of which were lifted wholesale from the speech given by Michele Obama in 2008 when Obama kicked off his candidacy. Oh my, did that kick off a sh*t storm, especially as Trump and his people just insisted it wasn't plagiarism, even when it had been run through the software that detects how much of a speech has already been published before. Here, take a look -
After several days of nothing-but-plagiarism being discussed, and the Trumpkins flatly denying it, they eventually said that Melania had given the passages to her speech writer (after having said she wrote it herself) who inserted them into the speech, which Melania then delivered. But - it still wasn't plagiarism, and the speech writer duly resigned. Today kicks off the Democrats Convention and we already have a huge scandal - their National Committee e-mails have been hacked (possibly by Russia) and reveal a bit of skulduggery in an effort to get Hillary, rather than Bernie Sanders elected. Watch this space. You couldn't make this stuff up!
