Citizen Cartwright

Did Democrats reach their goals at the convention?

The convention was designed to tackle four missions critical to Clinton’s chances for success in November, says Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal: Make people like her more, make people like Trump less, unify a fractured party and reconnect with white working-class voters.

So did Democrats succeed?

Clinton “carries the blessing and the curse” of having been a national political figure for a quarter of a century, so views of her are fairly hardened and hard to change," says Seib.

Even this week, with his comments on Russia, Trump gave Democrats ammunition as they sought to get voters to like him less, Seib says.

Efforts for Democratic unity went better than had been expected, Seib says, as Sanders “abandoned weeks of seeming to accept defeat only grudgingly, and finally embraced his foe unequivocally.”

Seib says he’s surprised the convention wasn’t staged to appeal more to working-class whites.

“For three days, the party’s embrace of diversity in race, gender and sexual orientation was on full display,” says Seib. "Less numerous were the odes to those who wear hard hats, or drive trucks or go bowling. Finally, Thursday night, a factory worker, a home-care provider and a laid-off restaurant worker appeared on stage.”

A New York Times analysis of Clinton’s acceptance speech Thursday says it was aimed to increase public recognition of her readiness for the job of president and didn’t tackle the issue of trust.

"By now it is all but impossible for Mrs. Clinton to shake herself loose from the elaborate, decades-old scaffold of assumptions — built up by scandal and bolted in place by her enemies — that her motives are impure,” the Times says.

Dan Balz of The Washington Post says:

"The presidential election probably will turn on a calculation that all voters will be making, a balance between the desire for change and the fear of risk — the change Trump’s outsider candidacy promises vs. the risk his presidency might bring. Clinton was not, in the end, trying to sell her soft side on Thursday night. Instead she was looking to persuade even those who have their doubts about honesty that her experience as a political insider offers the better combination of change and risk.”

Here is a fact check of Clinton’s acceptance speech, from the Post.

‘Alarmism’ over Trump, Clinton getting classified briefings

Now that they’re official nominees, Trump and Clinton are eligible to receive a closed-door rundown from U.S. intelligence officials about global risks and domestic security threats.

But Democrats have warned that Trump would be a loose cannon with the nation’s top secret material.

And Republicans have said that Clinton’s “extremely careless” track record with classified emails shows she can’t be trusted with the material either.

Intelligence experts say the stakes aren’t that high.

“I think there is some alarmism,” says Michael Morell, who led the Central Intelligence Agency at various points in the Obama administration and has participated in briefing candidates. “There’s not a tremendous amount of extremely sensitive stuff here. These are analytic judgments.”

The point of the briefings is to affect what candidates do and don’t say on the stump to avoid making global hot spots worse, according to people familiar with their content.

Big Democratic donors are back, after ‘lying low’

“After a wrenching yearlong nominating battle with searing debates over the influence of Wall Street and the ability of ordinary citizens to be heard over the din of dollars changing hands, the party’s moneyed elite returned to the fore this week, undeterred and mostly unabashed,” says The New York Times.

For many Clinton donors, especially those from the financial sector, the Democratic convention was a time to shed what one called the “hypersensitivity” that had surrounded their appearance at Clinton’s fundraisers or at her political events, during the period when Sanders repeatedly attacked Clinton’s connections to Wall Street and her six-figure speaking fees from financial institutions.

In Philadelphia, donors got preferred suites at the Ritz-Carlton and “friends and family” packages created for longtime Clinton hands — some of them also longtime donors.

Two men were overheard debating the merits of ambassadorships they hoped to receive under Clinton. Even a low-ranking posting meant having “ambassador” on a child’s wedding invitation, the two said, and would be helpful in getting invitations to sit on corporate boards.

“It’s business as usual,” says Libby Watson, who monitored lobbying events in Philadelphia on behalf of the Sunlight Foundation, a group devoted to government transparency.

Also in the news

Major setbacks for attempt at U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria

Afghan forces failing to turn back Taliban gains

FBI probes hacking of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

A brief look at the long history of women running for president

Researchers: To best remember what you learn, study, wait, then exercise

Study explores effect of deep space travel on astronauts’ cardiovascular health

Changes take place in brain when a person is hypnotized, researchers say

CDC: Restrictions should be increased on teen driving at night

Consumer Reports: Fifteen supplement ingredients to avoid

Democratic convention: Heavy hitters hit hard at Trump

The lineup of speakers on Wednesday reflected a party attempting to rally its own troops and attract Republicans with warnings that, whatever they may think about the Democratic nominee, they must all do their duty to thwart Trump, says The New York Times.

The convention speeches were full of cross-party appeals, as Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, offered Republicans “a home” if they felt Trump didn’t represent “the party of Lincoln,” and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York urged independents to vote for “a sane, competent person” — Clinton.

Among the anti-Trump comments Wednesday:

“He’s not really a plans guy. Not really a facts guy, either.” — President Obama

“He is trying to tell us he cares about the middle class. Give me a break. That is a bunch of malarkey.” — Vice President Biden

“Parents, you are right to fear what comes out of Donald Trump's mouth. Republicans, you should have been careful also. He learned it from watching you.” — Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid

“Even the Know Nothings, anti-immigrant party of the 1850s, did not stray this far into sheer ignorance and dark fantasy as have the Republicans and their leader Donald Trump.” — California Gov. Jerry Brown

Here is a fact check of the day, from The Washington Post.

And here is a fact check from The Associated Press.

Trump now says he was ‘being sarcastic’ on Russia hacking

As you know, I don’t waste your time and mine summarizing many of the GOP presidential nominee’s statements, because he so often disavows them.

A case in point came Wednesday when he said during a news conference, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” in an apparent invitation to a foreign power to use its cyberspying to find emails deleted by Clinton.

Later, Trump said in a Fox News interview, “Of course I’m being sarcastic.”

Why did Trump make the comment in the first place?

Well, here’s what Dan Balz of The Washington Post says:

"Trump thrives on chaos and above all else demands attention. When the spotlight falls elsewhere, such as on the Democrats this week in Philadelphia, he looks to shift it back in his direction. He is a candidate who uses disruption as a strategic force. Wednesday was a textbook example — whether for good or ill.”

Trump says he’s a great negotiator. But how can this be, when he so often says that what he said isn’t what he said?

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot puts out air ‘hotter than lava’

Let’s leave the anxiety-producing news of our own planet for a second and focus on Jupiter.

Astronomers using a telescope from Earth have discovered that the temperature of Jupiter's upper atmosphere 350 to 600 miles above the red spot averages 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, they report in the journal Nature.

The red spot is a hurricane that’s been raging for centuries. It once was three times bigger than Earth but has been shrinking.

“Jupiter is like a giant laboratory for extreme physics,” says study author James O’Donoghue of Boston University. “It’s teaching us how storms interact with the upper atmosphere in a way that is difficult to measure on Earth.”

Also in the news

U.S. officials poring over vast trove of new intelligence on the Islamic State

America’s diplomatic strategy on South China Sea appears to founder

Turkey’s government expands its purge, shutting down news outlets

After years of setbacks, Democrats again seeing gun control as a winning issue

Rundown on some future Democratic presidential prospects appearing at the convention

Fed eyeing possibility that economy has permanently downshifted into era of weak growth

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau looking to limit harassment by debt collectors

Report: Climate change threatens 18 U.S. military bases

John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Reagan and 3 others, to be freed after 35 years

Being unfit might be almost as bad for you as smoking

Study: Family lifestyle may be as important to health as genetics

Clinton makes history as first woman presidential nominee

During the roll call vote Tuesday, Vermont arranged to go last and its senator, Bernie Sanders, called on the party to rally behind Clinton.

Later, Bill Clinton chronicled his marriage to his “best friend” and her career as “the best darn change-maker I’ve ever met in my whole life.”

The most moving moment of Tuesday's proceedings, for me, was the appearance of nine grieving African-American women whose sons and daughters have died in racially-charged incidents.

"This isn't about being politically correct. This is about saving our children,” said Sybrina Fulton, whose 17-year-old son Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida in 2012 in an incident that drew so much national attention that President Obama eventually said "Travyon Martin could have been me."

Also on stage were the mothers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, whose deaths at the hands of police in 2014 started the national protests that have grown into a civil rights movement.

The women urged voters to back Clinton, saying she will try to reduce tensions between police and communities of color.

Still trying to understand Clinton, ‘reluctant star’ of convention

“Naturally guarded, unusually private and hard-wired to avoid the boastfulness and hagiography that are so typical of political conventions, Mrs. Clinton has seemed, halfway through this four-day celebration of her life and life’s work, a reluctant star of her prime-time production,” says The New York Times.

Clinton seems to be “energized by policy, and adept at appealing to people up close, but ill at ease with the showmanship of politics,” says the Times.

And she’s “up against a reality television performer who cannot get enough of it,” the Times says.