DNC Night One: Let's All Just Scream At Each Other Forever! A Livebloog Experience

She's got this

Hooray, it's time for the great big Democratic Unity Lovefest, isn't it? Everybody's been pretty well-behaved so far, we hear, with only a couple of completely embarrassing outbreaks of rude screaming by Toddlers For Bernie. We bet that nonsense will be all over by primetime, when this here livebloog goes up for your edification and amusement. Who all is speaking tonight? A veritable parade of great people who might be drowned out by the chanting! We're planning to start this mother when New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand comes onstage, and then we'll have Sarah Silverman, and Al Franken, and another guy who you can call Al, Mr. Paul Simon. Then the heavy hitters: Sen. Cory Booker, Michelle Obama, Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, Elizabeth Warren, and finally, Bernie Sanders, who will shake an angry finger at the Youngs and tell 'em to straighten up.

Some time previous (we are playing catch up!): Walking out to "Sell Out" by Reel Big Fish? An odd choice, but we will take it! The 90s ska revival was a happy time for everyone! Also, yay! Actually talking about helping addicts! That is nice!

Some other time previous: Demi Lovato, whom I have never heard before but DID see on Pretty Little Liars (this is Robyn btw!), is actually pretty good! Good for her!

8: 04 AW, NICE TIME WITH KIDS AFRAID THEIR PARENTS WILL BE DEPORTED, Clinton says "She'll do the worrying." That is nice.

8: 06 Little Karla Ortiz is too cute for words... and probably some jerk is right now tweeting, "Your parents aren't immigrants, they're CRIMINALS"

8: 09 Time for the Donald Trump is a gross racist montage!

8: 11 Most famous Dreamer Astrid Silva says Trump wants to tear families apart! Which he does! Also she was very good!

8: 18 Luis Gutiérrez from Illinois does some good shouting! Also, isn't it sort of weird to hear people saying on TV that climate change is real? We could get used to that!

8: 25 The basketball guys were sweet! Also, now there is a tech entrepreneur, Jesse Lipson, from North Carolina, who is here to tell us that being mean to LGBT people is really bad for business: "They're not just telling people what bathroom to go into, but also what market to stay out of." Good one!

8: 30 Nevada State Sen Pat Spearman is giving hell to the haters, and very possibly building a national profile, you think?

8: 33 Pat Spearman used black ministerial rhetorical super weapon. It's super effective!

8: 37 And now there is comedy. Austan Goolsbee and the guy from the CookieCrushJam ads are reminding us that Donald Trump creates lots of jobs in countries that are not the USA. It's... a comedy bit for a political convention.

8: 40 Oh, also, this has been Dok Zoom liveblooging at you since 8:18. If anything wasn't funny, the rotten fruit comes my way, not Robyn's. PA Sen Bob Casey is telling us about an "economy that works for everyone," and it is a very fine, very standard speech. We almost certainly have beer in the fridge, is what we start thinking during a perfectly serviceable speech like this.

8: 42 The Honorable Luke Feeney, mayor of Chillicothe, Ohio, tells a story of a woman who dreamed of opening her own business and revitalizing the local economy. And by golly, she did it! All thanks to small business owners, which is impossible, because last week we were informed that the burdens of regulation made that impossible nowadays. Mostly, we like saying "Chillicothe" over and over again.

8: 45 And now, an amusing collection of Donald Trump's most idiotic comments about women, including how disgusting pumping breast milk, but only for women who are awful to start with. He'd probably watch his daughter pump breast milk, if they weren't related at least.

8: 47 Kirsten Gillibrand got the FUNKY walkout music, and here she is with all her woman card stuff about working moms and families and stuff. She should talk about blowing stuff up, instead!

8: 52 And now Al Franken will draw his freehand map of the USA!

8: 53 Oh, Al, we've missed you doing comedy! We too, have been learning all about rightwing megalomania, only in a home study course!

8: 55 "Trump University school of ripping people off is ranked second in the nation. That is behind only Bernie Madoff University." We're looking forward to the Thin-Skinned One's angry tweets on this bit.

8: 57 Awww, shoutout to Paul Wellstone. If you haven't read Franken's chapters on the rightwing distortions about Sen. Wellstone's funeral in  Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them,  you've missed out on one of the sharpest critiques of the rightwing media noise machine ever written. Go, buy it!

9: 00 "Many of you have jobs. Many of you have families. Let me tell you, ignore them. Kids love it when their parents are gone." spot in Dem Convention clip montage guaranteed.

9: 03 Even more "Trump in his own words" -- this is a terrific strategy. No need to say anything against him, just show the man in his natural assholishness. And it's used to introduce disability rights advocate Anastasia Somoza, who is definitely NOT the late dictator of Nicaragua.

9: 07 We don't even want to know what the Trumpers are saying online about Ms. Somoza. But we'll probably bring you a roundup tomorrow, because we know they won't be able to hold themselves back.

9: 10 
 

9: 15 Evan is teasing us with photos of free food from the RealClearPolitics watch party! RCP is now an official Wonkfriend.

9: 17 Al Franken and Sarah Silverman are here to do Reconciliation Comedy! Silverman says nice tings about Hillary and is not shouted down!

9: 19 We are looking forward to the Sarah Silverman web ads for Hillary. Let's hope they're filthy!

9: 22 "Can I just say to the Bernie or Bust people, you're being ridiculous." Oh, Sarah. That was excellent. It will not calm down the jerkwads, but it needed to be said.

9: 23 Franken's "Like a Bridge... over troubled..." intro for Paul Simon was Oscar-show worthy deliberate badness. It worked.

9: 27 Major Major Major Major in the Sekrit ChatCave: "I think that was good TV. When a major celebrity tells a bunch of dickheads they're being dickheads, dickheads at home go, 'Uh, I think I'd rather be with the hot chick on this one.'"

9: 30 Mario Cuomo will bring us together!

9: 31 Major X 4 notes that the Trumpkins on the PBS Newshour YouTube livechat don't recognize Cuomo. They're asking who the Jew is.

9: 33 You'd think after that Cuomo speech, we'd get Andrew Cuomo, but the DNC smartly decided to go with Eva Longoria. She doesn't like this Trump fellow, not one bit.

9: 35 Eva Longoria talks about diversity as if it were something to be proud of! We're still shaking off the cobwebs of last week, but...that makes sense!

9: 38 Actual Superhero Cory Booker is talking. You Berners hush, now.

9: 40 Cory Booker is saying we can't all be survivalists who live on our own? Next he's going to say some crazy thing about the social contract or some such. Madness, we say!

9: 45 "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." Another moment for the highlights.

9: 47 Nothing better than a New Jersey senator to remind us what Donald Trump did to Atlantic City. "I'm from the Great Garden State, and we've seen how he leads in Atlantic City. He got rich while his companies filed multiple bankruptcies."

9: 49 Hillary Clinton has been "paying it forward her whole life." Cory is killing it here.

9: 51 Two Berners chanting "War Hawk." We're pretty sure the dead enders are over-represented at the convention. After Thursday, they go poof.

9: 53 That's what you really like to hear, is a bunch of white dudes yelling "Black Lives Matter" at a black man. Hey, black school teacher ladies? Go get in their faces and give them the look.

9: 54 All the English teachers just melted at the Maya Angelou shoutout...and it turns into a theme. We will rise. Man can give a speech, all right.

9: 56 "Cynicism is a refuge for cowards"... now wait a minute, I thought that was our business model? Aw, what the hell, we're moving to New Jersey to vote for this man.

10: 00 And now it's time for Cheryl Lankford, who spend her late husband's military death benefits on the Trump University scam. "Here's a guy who was born rich, and there's nothing wrong with that ... But then he decided to make himself richer by cheating working people. What kind of man does that?" An asshole?

10: 03 Kids LURVE Michelle Obama!

10: 05 Cue the wingnuts complaining about how Michelle forced our innocent children to exercise...

10: 06 The Melania plagiarism joke, when it arrives, will be EPIC.

10: 08 Robyn in the ChatCave: "I was hoping that she’d come out and start speaking in an Eastern European accent."

10: 10 Michelle admits it's all about "the power to shape our children"! She says Hillary Clinton, nobody better dare boo!

10: 12 Michelle just casually killing this speech.

10: 13 "Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life." Somewhere, a Palin barked.

10: 16 Well, dammit, Michelle, now you're going to make us get misty.

10: 18 Mention of slavery -- so divisive! Why does she have to call attention to the fact that her daughters have a dog?

10: 19 "Don't let anyone tell you that this country isn't great..." No, YOU'RE crying!

10: 20 Let's get to work! If you say so, Michelle! (Can't find hearts emoji) Now, when does she run for Senate? Let Sasha graduate first...

10: 21 Joseph Kennedy III is telling us all about law school. We liked The Paper Chase, too! "I never showed up unprepared for Professor Elizabeth Warren again."

10: 24 Elizabeth Warren in the house! Or rather, the Senate! Slang is stupid. Donald's gonna get his butt chafed.

10: 26 Guys, you don't try to shout down Lizzie Warren.

10: 28 Elizabeth Warren is worried that the American Dream isn't working, because the system is, ahem, rigged. And has been since the Reagan years. "Does anyone here have a problem with that?" Oh yes, we do.

10: 30 Washington works just fine. If you're a huge corporation. Way to flip that cliche!

10: 32 Time for the Trump roasting. "He's conned them, he's defrauded them, he's ripped them off"

10: 33 Just a quick reminder: Donald Trump does not pay his bills. What kind of man does that? A man who must never be in the White House.

10: 35 Other than talking about a stupid wall, did you hear any actual ideas? Yeah, we noticed that, too!

10: 38 Trump's entire campaign is just another late-night infomercial -- and he'll even throw in a goofy hat.

10: 40 Oh lord she is SO. GOOD. And now, a brief history of Jim Crow, and how the Trump campaign is appealing to the same low motives. "When we turn on each other, rich guys like Donald Trump can pass more tax cuts for themselves... Well I've got news for Donald Trump: The American people aren't falling for it."

10: 43 Oh, be still our hearts, another shout-out for science!

10: 45 Warren/Booker 2024?

10: 46 Keith Ellison, Yay! Somewhere, Michele Bachmann is shivering in fear of the scary Muslim Minnesotan.

10: 48 Dude in Minnesota delegation just got caught playing Pokemon Go. Really.

10: 49 Oh. The "America" ad. Go ahead and get us weepy, you.

10: 50 Nice touch: the Bernie signs in the Hillary shade of blue. With a bird on it. Portlandia brings us together!

10: 53 The entire arena just came hard, and is going out for a cigarette.

10: 55 In a future America, little children will learn the story of the Man On the $27 Bill.

10: 58 This is some pretty good Party Unity stuff. Now wait just a minute, Bernie, it IS TOO about political gossip. You hush, now.

11: 00 Class Warfare! We're up for some of that, as long as we get a percentage on the torches and pitchforks.

11: 04 "Well, we have come a long way in the past seven and a half years, and I thank President Obama and Vice President Biden."

11: 07 Bernie says the words "Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine," and the cheers drown out the boos. And now this lovely rhetorical pivot where Bernie takes points from his stump speech and replaces "I" with "she." Nicely done.

11: 09 And we all agree Citizens United sucks. Slightly underwhelming cheers for Hillz's prospective SCOTUS picks, which needs to be a huge cheer.

11: 10 OLIGARCHY! DRINK!

11: 11 Oh shit, we gotta pay our student loan after this speech. Thanks for the reminder, Bernie.

11: 12 Transforming our energy system? Hey, seems to me we have some sponsored content we could mention here. Would that be tacky? FINE WE ARE TACKY!

11: 15 Yes to health care! And to Bernie Sanders saying "Dent'l care" and "ment'l health."

11: 18 Now look, Bernie, if you just keep saying stuff we agree with, we can't make jokes about it.

11: 20 Hooray for the platform! Just don't make us read it, OK? We are rather lazy that way.

11: 22 Meanwhile, from the Idiot Zone:

11: 23 And that is how you concede with grace. Also, please let's not shout down the nice rabbi lady. That's more like it.

11: 25 Rabbi Schonfeld knows what is great. It is not you, Donald Trump. Oh, yeah. Trump got subtweeted by a rabbi. Subprayered?

11: 30 The arena is still standing! See you in the morning, you magnificent bastards!