From Your Lips to God’s Ear, Ann.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter says she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to soften his stance on immigration.

“I think this is a mistake. It sounds like it’s coming from consultants,” she said Tuesday night on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” where she questioned why there is now talk about “softening the lies of lawbreakers.”

“I’ve thought he’s made other mistakes, and I’ve given him constructive criticism when I think he makes a mistake. I think this is a mistake.”

Coulter said Trump’s recent comments about softening “sounded very consultant to me.”

“This could be the shortest book tour ever if he’s really softening his position on immigration,” she said, referring to her newly released book, “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!”

Rudy, I Bet You Threw Up a Little in Your Mouth When You Said That.

From Rudy Giuliani (a noun, a verb and 9/11):

“A lot of this talk is just silliness coming from Washington or coming from the Clinton campaign,” Miller said. “And I’ve got to give the Clinton camp credit. They’ve done a pretty good job of working their contacts in the media, you know, pushing a lot of this.”

“Not all networks and news outlets are quite as fair and balanced as Fox News,” he added.

Katrina Pierson, Time Traveler

Donald Trump’s spokeswoman blamed the policies of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the death of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, despite the fact that Khan died in 2004.

“It was under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that changed the rules of engagement that probably cost his life,” spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said in an interview Tuesday with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.

Khan died during the presidency of George W. Bush, while Obama was a state senator in Illinois.

Isn’t He Adorable?

Chris Christie on last night’s dumpster fire, otherwise known as Ted Cruz’s “endorsement” speech of Donald Trump at the GOP convention:

“I think it was awful,” Christie said. “And quite frankly, I think it was something selfish. And he signed a pledge. And it’s his job to keep his word.”

This from the man who gave his party’s keynote speech for Romney in 2012 but spoke mainly about his own accomplishments.

That’s a Wrap, Folks

From Andrew Sullivan’s liveblog of tonight’s GOP convention:

11:09 p.m. Just mulling over the events tonight, there’s one obvious stand-out. I didn’t hear any specific policy proposals to tackle clearly stated public problems. It is almost as if governing, for the Republican right, is fundamentally about an attitude, rather than about experience or practicality or reasoning. The degeneracy of conservatism – its descent into literally mindless appeals to tribalism and fear and hatred – was on full display. You might also say the same about the religious right, the members of whom have eagerly embraced a racist, a nativist, a believer in war crimes, and a lover of the tyrants that conservatism once defined itself against. Their movement long lost any claim to a serious Christian conscience. But that they would so readily embrace such an unreconstructed pagan is indeed a revelation.

If you think of the conservative movement as beginning in 1964 and climaxing in the 1990s, then the era we are now in is suffering from a cancer of the mind and the soul. That the GOP has finally found a creature that can personify these urges to purge, a man for whom the word “shameless” could have been invented, a bully and a creep, a liar and cheat, a con man and wannabe tyrant, a dedicated loather of individual liberty, and an opponent of the pricelessly important conventions of liberal democracy is perhaps a fitting end.

This is the gutter, ladies and gentlemen, and it runs into a sewer. May what’s left of conservatism be carried out to sea.

Shots and Prayers

Wait…what?

From the brain of Rick Perry (you know, the guy who called Trump “a cancer on conservatism that must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded”) in response to Hillary Clinton’s Trump Take-down speech today:

“Donald Trump understands what the American people are really tuned into today, and all of these attacks that we saw or we heard her talk about today — I think it’s just off the skin of the duck, off the back of the duck,” Perry said on Fox News.

“This is just water that’s flowing out of her that’s not having any impact.”

Such a great mind and profound thinker.

At least he didn’t say “flowing out of her whatever.”

Probably thought it, though.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Ted Cruz, Weasel in Chief

From Politico:

“Ted Cruz was put on the defensive for his proposal to patrol Muslim neighborhoods as he went on a media blitz Wednesday morning.

On CBS “This Morning” Tuesday, Cruz again cited the initiative that de Blasio ended. But host Norah O’Donnell pushed back.

“This raises a lot of civil liberty concerns. Let me ask you, how many Muslims are in America?” O’Donnell asked.

“I don’t know the number off the top of my head,” Cruz responded.

“So you’re saying that law enforcement should survey the number of Muslims, and you don’t know how many Muslims are in America? There are 3 million Muslims in America. Law enforcement is overwhelmed,” O’Donnell said.  “We have a chief of police, one of the most respected chiefs of police who was here earlier and said there are no Muslim neighborhoods. It’s not like Europe, it doesn’t exist that way. It’s impractical what you’re suggesting. Also, it doesn’t suggest it would lead to anything. It’s more of a political point you’re making.”

 

The “Short-fingered Vulgarian” Makes the Cover of The New Yorker