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CONVENTION ROUNDUP….During John McCain’s speech on Thursday, he inexplicably spoke for part of the time in front of an image of Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood. Obviously this was meant to be Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and after radio silence for over 24 hours on how this screwup happened, hapless McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds offered up this howler:

“The changing image-screen was linked to the American thematics of the speech and the public school was simply part of it,” Mr. Bounds said, adding that during the speech, Mr. McCain “called for public education reforms that empower parents and students before bureaucrats and labor unions.”

Uh huh. These guys are just congenitally incapable of admitting a mistake, aren’t they?

And speaking of screwups during the GOP convention, here’s another one. The Navy gave permission for two SEALs to attend the convention on the condition that the Republican National Committee not try to exploit them politically (active duty members of the military aren’t allowed to engage in partisan activity). So what happened? They wrote a speech exploiting them, and when they were called on it they made up a lie about it being an inadvertant ad-lib. Notice a pattern here?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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