by John Walters
A Medium Happy 69th to Queen guitarist Brian May, who says he’d “never give permission” for Donald Trump (or anyone) to use “We Ae The Champions” for political purposes
Starting Five
1. Melania Vanilli
The presumptive First Lady’s speech was bland but emphatic, or so we thought. Then social media soon revealed that 58 words, including key clauses, were directly lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech from the Democratic National Convention. It’s plagiarism, and Melania Trump was almost certainly an innocent victim here.
Team Trump had months to prepare for the first night of the RNC and this is what they delivered: a speech plagiarized in parts from the wife of the man whom Trump says is an unfit leader for the USA. This morning, of course, Team Trump is claiming that the overlap is nothing more than a coincidence because it knows that Trump’s base doesn’t care about truth; it cares about white supremacy.
Or, you know, maybe Melania was just going Jay-Z on all this and sampling from a previous hit. Who knows?
2. Celebrity Apprentice
Speakers during the opening night of the 2016 Republican National Convention included Melania Trump….
Antonio Sabato, Jr.,…
and Scott Baio.
3. Colbert’s Comeback
Arguably Stephen Colbert‘s strongest episode since taking over The Late Show last summer, as his opening musical number lays waste to the RNC. Then, on this rare live episode, there’s a bit with his former The Daily Show boss Jon Stewart that segues into Colbert reviving his old character from The Colbert Report to do a “The Word” segment on “Trumpiness.”
Great stuff, even if it was a reminder that Colbert’s currently only a shadow of his former, albeit staged, self.
4. 105
Chapman throws heat that hits numbers even higher than this week’s temperatures
New York’s trio of relievers—Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, and Aroldis Chapman, collectively known as “No Runs DMC”—extended their scoreless innings streak to 22 innings last night in the Yanks’ 2-1 victory over the Orioles. Also, it was the Yanks’ 22nd game in which they failed to score in the first inning. The headline, though, will be that Chapman twice touched an unhittable 105 m.p.h. on the radar gun in the 9th inning.
This was the Yankee-est win of the season: Don’t score a run in the opening inning. Get an A-Bomb from A-Rod. Take a one-run lead into the 7th and let Betances, Miller and Chapman do their thing. Wake up the next morning with a .500 (46-46) record.
5. “I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot!”
Valentine was 0 for 6 from beyond the arc when he hit his game-extending 3 at the end of regulation….
Chicago Bulls rookie Denzel Valentine—you may remember him as the AP College Player of the Year at Michigan State last winter—hits a game-tying three at the end of regulation against the Minnesota Timberwolves and then a buzzer-beating game winner in OT as the Bulls finish 8-0 and win the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League.
Former Notre Dame guard Jerian Grant scored 24 for Chicago and Bobby Portis 26. Last year’s rookie point guard, Tyus Jones, poured in 27 for the T-Wolves.
The NBA never sleeps, by the way. Earlier yesterday on the same UNLV campus, the first practice for the Team USA men’s hoops Olympic squad took place. Adam Silver ain’t no dummy, putting both those deals on the same site. Easier for media to cover both.
Reserves
Roger Ailes will soon be out at Fox News….Russia will likely be banned from the Rio Olympics (at least they should be)…Nintendo stock is up 116% since June 27 thanks to Pokemon Go (that was an easy one to see).
Music 101
Drunken Angel
There’s not a dud on Lucinda Williams’ 1998 Grammy-winning album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. This tune was written in, what, tribute (?) to a fellow songwriter, Blaise Foley, who had a, well, look at the title of the song
Remote Patrol
Republican National Convention
8-11 p.m. PBS
I’m going to give the joint PBS-NPR telecast a go tonight (“You flaming liberal!”). We’ll see how that goes.
Could the plagiarism in Melania’s speech have been planned? Seems to me that the RNC expected less than a cohesive Day One, and needed to hand feed a distraction to the media and to the left (yes, they are two different things). Expected screams of foul ensued, yet the digression was small enough that the campaign could plead it was no foul at all. Today’s news cycle focused on this misstep rather than the out of tune platform the party affirmed earlier in the day and the minor league of speakers that preceded her. Master manipulation, par for the campaign’s course.
That would be fantastic if true (though why would anyone want to upstage Scott Baio???)