Political Irony

You have undoubtably heard about this, but it is interesting to hear it side-by-side:

List of items prohibited from being brought into the convention perimeter: tennis balls, sound equipment, umbrellas with metal tips, padlocks and bicycle locks, sleeping bags, gas masks, ornaments, tents, coolers, lasers, canned goods, light bulbs, aerosol cans, ropes longer than 6 feet, non-plastic containers, ice chests, mattresses, BB guns, paintball guns, and water pistols.

Allowed: AR-15 assault rifles. Well, except you can’t bring them into the convention hall itself, because the Secret Service but their foot down.

UPDATE: Paul Manafort first tried to deny that there was any plagiarism scandal at all, and then repeatedly tried to blame the scandal on Hillary Clinton!

UPDATE 2: Republicans are arguing that Melania Trump is not guilty of plagiarism, but that she was just using common themes. But the company whose software is used by most universities to detect plagiarism ran her speech through their program and declared that the chances that she did not plagiarize parts of it are “1 in 1 trillion” (translation: effectively a mathematical impossibility). In addition, a number of former presidential speechwriters and communication aides for both parties said that given the scrutiny that is applied to convention speeches, this kind of plagiarism is unheard of and is a sign of deep problems in Trump’s campaign.

UPDATE 3: There was one difference between Melania Trump’s speech Monday night and Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention in 2008. Trump wore a dress made by a foreign designer while Obama (both in 2008 and in 2012) wore a dress from an American designer. Trump is not alone — both Ann Romney and Cindy McCain wore outfits from foreign designers. Which is only interesting because Trump and the Republicans claim to always put America first.