I’m reading the news about Hillary Clinton’s pick for a VP.

Hillary Clinton has chosen Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine to be her running mate, turning to a steady and seasoned hand in government to fill out the Democratic ticket, she announced Friday.

I thought that was Clinton’s reputation: steady and seasoned.

It may be an anti-establishment year, but Clinton’s running mate is an insider: A senator and former governor from the critical battleground of Virginia and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

After a campaign in which Bernie Sanders gave her a strong run for the nomination, she picks the establishment guy. OK.

Kaine, 58, has long been seen as a seasoned and safe choice for Clinton, who could help shore up support among white working-class voters.

Bored now.

He went to Harvard law school, but before graduating served a year as a missionary in Honduras.

It was an experience that cemented his Catholic faith and strengthened his fluency in Spanish.

There’s nothing there to get me enthused, that’s for sure.

Advisers to Clinton see Kaine as a stable force on the bottom of the ticket, foregoing the allure of a pick that could provide more star power in favor of one they are hoping will be void of drama

Oh, jebus. So bored! Even the news stories are emphasizing his lack of pizazz.

Safe safe safe safe safe safe safe safe. I guess it’s one way to run the campaign, and it might very well work…but it’s really going against the grain of the political impetus this year.

I guess she figures all the reasonable people are already planning to vote for her, having no choice in the matter, so she is going to avoid taking any risks at all.

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Another factor:

Clinton’s running mate is a catholic “personally against abortion, but…” writes informed consent and parental consent restrictions against the practice. He favors deregulating banks and businesses.

Shit.

And then shoot them.

Amanda Marcotte writes about the performative worship of the police at the Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, in Miami, a black caregiver trying to help a severely autistic man who wandered away from a group home, was confronted by police who’d been called by someone who said the man was wielding a gun (it was actually a toy truck). The caregiver ends up lying in the street with his hands up and clearly empty, trying to explain to the police that he was trying to help the man, and please don’t shoot.

So shot him, obvs.

“When I went to the ground, I went to the ground with my hands up,” Kinsey said, “and I am laying there just like this. Telling them again there is no need for firearms. He is autistic. He has a toy truck in his hand.” …

“I’m like this right here, and when he shot me, it was so surprising,” Kinsey said. “I thought it was a mosquito bite, and when it hit me I had my hands in the air, and I’m thinking I just got shot! And I’m saying, ‘Sir, why did you shoot me?’ and his words to me were, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

Then they handcuffed him. Why, I don’t know. I think the new logic has changed from “if you see a criminal, shoot them” to “if you shoot them, you see a criminal.”

I’ve never been to one, and I’ve never even been invited to one, and this is the first account I’ve read of one, and it’s not quite what I would have expected. Hosting the party was Milo Yiannopoulos — perfectly legitimate, since he is openly gay — and…Pam Geller? Geert Wilders? Praise for Trump, excoriation of Democrats and other liberals, condemnation of jihadis, and…bad dancing?

I am so disappointed. That doesn’t sound open and liberal and joyful and fabulous at all.

It was just a mistake.

A US air strike killed more than 85 civilians, including children, in Syria on Tuesday after the coalition mistook them for Islamic State fighters.

Some eight families were hit as they tried to flee fighting in their area, in one of the single deadliest strikes on civilians by the alliance since the start of its operations in the war-torn country.

A slight inaccuracy. A little slip-up. A bit of a faux pas, don’t you know. A blunder. A goof. Flubbed that one. A boo-boo. One brown person fleeing looks like another. They were wearing middle-eastern-looking clothes! If they didn’t want to get blown up, they shouldn’t have been living in a place that has terrorists. How do you know they were all innocent? Not our fault, we had good intentions, we didn’t mean to kill frightened civilians. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette. We have to kill the terrorists, sometimes civilians get in the way. Would you rather let the terrorists win? Collateral damage. Collateral damage. Collateral damage.

85 dead Syrians/terrorists/Islamic State fighters/Muslims. The labels help. Makes it easier to forget these were 85 dead human beings, as long as you don’t use the labels “children”, “women”, “men”, “families”, “people”.

It’s now clear that Melania Trump’s speech at the RNC last night was partially plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s speech to the DNC. At first I was inclined to doubt: it’s really hard to say two pieces of mushy platitudes are different, let alone alike, but when put side by side it’s clear that there was literal copying and pasting going on.

NPR carried the original text of Obama’s speech. The relevant section is here, and areas of common phrasing have been bolded:

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.

And Barack and I set out to build lives guided by these values, and pass them on to the next generation. Because we want our children — and all children in this nation — to know that the only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

Below is the section of Trump’s speech, as transcribed by Quartz:

From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise. That you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son. And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because we want our children in this nation to know that their only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

But here’s the thing…I actually have a lot of sympathy for Melania. She’s a non-native English speaker, and she has never trained to be a speechifier — I teach biology students who are told from day one of their arrival at this university that the culminating experience before graduating will be giving a 45 minute talk to the faculty and their peers. They know for four years that this is coming. We coach them along with classroom exercises. I practically hold their hands in the weeks before they have to give it. And still, this one event is the source of tremendous anxiety for many of them.

Now imagine that your career is as a model, and you’re told that you’re going to have to make a speech that will be broadcast around the world, and that will be scrutinized intensely in order to find fault with your husband. The pressure must have been intense, and thus my sympathy for her.

That does not excuse plagiarism, however. But if we’re going to blame anyone, that has to be fastened directly on the Trump campaign team. She had speechwriters composing her talk — my students don’t get that. Her speech should have had multiple levels of inspection. Obama’s speech was very well received, so I can understand using it as a starting framework — but everyone on the speechwriting team should have known that was one of the sources, and been particularly alert to making sure that this kind of sloppy plagiarizing didn’t happen. They were apparently working on this important speech to be given by an amateur for six weeks, and somebody should have been going through it line by line to make sure it was in line with the goals of the campaign, that there were no outrageous errors, and that it just plain sounded good. There must be many people who have heard her practice it dozens of times. A speech like that had to have been vetted out the wazoo, unless it wasn’t, which would also be a problem.

Her delivery was fine, but the content was stolen, and for that we have to blame the Trump staff who gave it to her and coached her on it. And that tells me that there is a gang of lazy incompetents working behind the scenes of the chief lazy incompetent, Donald Trump.

It’s time for the Republican convention in the under-appreciated city of Cleveland, Ohio…and I don’t think this event will buff the place. In case you were wondering who is speaking at the event, here’s the list.

MONDAY

Theme: Make America Safe Again

Headliners: Trump’s wife, Melania; Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, U.S. Army; Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; and Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont.

Others: Willie Robertson, star of “Duck Dynasty”; former Texas Gov. Rick Perry; Marcus Luttrell, retired U.S. Navy SEAL; Scott Baio, actor; Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya; Mark “Oz” Geist, member of a security team that fought in Benghazi; John Tiegen, member of Benghazi security team and co-author of the book “13 Hours,” an account of the attacks; Kent Terry and Kelly Terry-Willis, siblings of Brian Terry, a Border Patrol agent whose shooting death revealed the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-smuggling operation; Antonio Sabato Jr., actor; Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden and Jamiel Shaw, immigration reform advocates; Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas; David Clarke, sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wis.; Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis.; Rachel Campos Duffy, LIBRE Initiative for Hispanic economic empowerment; Darryl Glenn, Senate candidate in Colorado; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; Karen Vaughn, mother of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan; Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; and Jason Beardsley of Concerned Veterans for America.

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. And those damned immigrants.

In case you were concerned that you might miss some of those riveting speeches by exciting, happening people, don’t worry — just turn on your TV. It’ll be there, and there will be a fawning media gently and lovingly ‘reporting’ (this is a fancy word that means ‘describing’ or ‘repeating’ what is said) on it. If you’re hoping to maintain your equanimity during this week of awfulness, though, don’t read Paul Krugman. He knows what’s up.

Yet while most polls suggest that he’s running behind in the general election, the margin isn’t overwhelming, and there’s still a real chance that he might win. How is that possible? Part of the answer, I’d argue, is that voters don’t fully appreciate his awfulness. And the reason is that too much of the news media still can’t break with bothsidesism — the almost pathological determination to portray politicians and their programs as being equally good or equally bad, no matter how ludicrous that pretense becomes.

And he gives specific examples!

And in the last few days we’ve seen a spectacular demonstration of bothsidesism in action: an op-ed article from the incoming and outgoing heads of the White House Correspondents’ Association, with the headline “Trump, Clinton both threaten free press.” How so? Well, Mr. Trump has selectively banned news organizations he considers hostile; he has also, although the op-ed didn’t mention it, attacked both those organizations and individual reporters, and refused to condemn supporters who, for example, have harassed reporters with anti-Semitic insults.

Meanwhile, while Mrs. Clinton hasn’t done any of these things, and has a staff that readily responds to fact-checking questions, she doesn’t like to hold press conferences. Equivalence!

I think I’ll just vote “no confidence” in American media and keep the television off this week.

Here’s how his diatribe against the latest from the delusional gay Republicans starts:

Every four years gay Republicans slime out from under their rocks to remind us that the Democratic candidate wasn’t always perfect on LGBT issues. They then implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) pivot to this nonsensical argument: Since your guy/gal wasn’t always perfect on LGBT issues, the LGBT community should vote for the Republican who was terrible on LGBT issues then, is terrible on LGBT issues now, and who has pledged, if elected, to remain terrible on LGBT issues forever.

And then he gets angry and starts smashing things. You should read it all.

That really is the logo for the Republican ticket, huh?

Time to wake up to the veep candidate. Here are four reasons Mike Pence is the absolute worst. Or perhaps you’d prefer the myth of Mike Pence?

His key values are a fanatical opposition to abortion and Planned Parenthood, a contempt for LGBT citizens, rejection of immigrants, and he wants to ramp up the war on drugs. Against that, his denial of climate change and evolution are almost comical. With that choice, Trump has definitely firmed up his position with ignorant straight white religious men, and strengthened his opposition among just about everyone else.

It’s an interesting strategy. I hope it doesn’t work.

The good news:

There is apparently a coup going on by the mostly secular military against that erratic despot, Erdogan.

The bad news:

There is apparently a coup going on by the mostly secular military against that erratic despot, Erdogan.

The confusing news:

No one knows what the heck is going on, because internet access has been curtailed, tanks are in the streets, jets are streaking over Ankara, Erdogan is simultaneously in control and rebuffing the attempted mutiny and fleeing the country in a private jet.

Oh, wait. I was wrong. None of this is good news.