Lion of the Virgin

Yesterday morning, delegates at the Democratic National Convention delegates from Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Missouri and South Dakota staying at the Fairmont hotel awoke to find maggots in their breakfast buffet. 

Multiple suspects had allegedly entered the building and contaminated the food before fleeing. The insects appeared to be maggots but some reports said that they were crickets. Last month, during his visit to the Capitol, maggots and other insects were dumped on the table of Benjamin Netanyahu at the Watergate hotel in Washington. Some of those, too, appeared to be crickets.

At the convention itself, the parents of an American hostage held by Hamas took the stage and thanked Biden and Harris for their efforts to free their son, as the crowd chanted, “Bring them home.”  However, although the family of Israeli hostages got time to share their story, the convention denied a Palestinian-American delegate equal time – or any time - to speak. In protest, a couple dozen delegates began a sit-in outside of the convention. 

The protest was led by Abbas Alawieh, a leader of Uncommitted, a national movement that began in Michigan and won 30 delegates to the convention. “We didn’t come here to do a sit-in, we’re just sitting here waiting for a call,” Alawieh said. The protesters remained in place until Wednesday night's program ended around midnight. 

Some Democratic officials are supporting their demand, tweeting that after the family of Israeli hostages got time to share their story that evening, so too should a Palestinian.

Wednesday night’s proceedings  belonged to Tim Walz, but Georgia still made a big splash, even without Lil Jon. Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan took the stage and accused the Republican Party of being a “cult worshiping a felonious thug.” 

Duncan is a Georgia conservative and no woke Social-Justice Warrior. “You don’t have to agree with every policy position of Kamala Harris - I don’t,” he told the convention, “But you do have to recognize her prosecutor mind-set that understands right from wrong, good from evil.”

He argued that Trump poses a direct threat to democracy and champions values that are not aligned with mainstream conservatives. Duncan framed his support of the Democratic ticket as a matter of patriotism and got a standing ovation from the crowd. 

“I’m certain I don’t have to talk anybody out of voting for Donald Trump here, so I’m going to focus my attention on the millions of Republicans and independents that are at home, that are sick and tired of making excuses for Donald Trump,” he said. “If Republicans are being intellectually honest with ourselves, our party is not civil or conservative - it’s chaotic and crazy, and the only thing left to do is dump Trump.”

Duncan has received death threats for refusing to support Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.  During his speech, he held up a wooden coaster that he had shared with his son that had the words “Doing the right thing will never be the wrong thing” written on it. “To my fellow Republicans at home that want to pivot back towards policy, empathy and tone: You know the right thing to do,” he said. “Let’s have the courage to do it in November.”