August 31, 2012

Breaking: House Republicans Have Blocked Bill to Create Job of Sitting in the Empty Chair

for Unemployed American.

Instead they are drafting articles to impeach the chair.



As Glenn Greenwald tweeted last night during the Eastwood appearance: "This Clint Eastwood speech is the best thing ever. I hope it goes on forever."

August 31, 2012

Eastwood, Empty Chair Hijack Republican Media Coverage

Source: Reuters

Eastwood, empty chair hijack Republican media coverage

LOS ANGELES | Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:34pm EDT

By Jill Serjeant and Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Months of careful planning for the Republican National Convention were hijacked by actor Clint Eastwood as traditional and social media erupted in a frenzy of scratched heads and parodies that experts said largely overshadowed presidential contender Mitt Romney's moment in the spotlight.

Eastwood's rambling, unscripted address at Thursday's convention to an absent President Barack Obama in an empty chair inspired an instant satirical Twitter account, @InvisibleObama, that quickly went viral, demonstrating the power of social media to upset tightly scripted image control.

- snip -

I by Friday, it was "Dirty Harry" star Eastwood's performance that was capturing the popular attention. The Twitter hashtag #eastwooding - mostly pictures of empty chairs - was also one of the top-trending topics on the microblogging site on Friday morning.

Paul Levinson, professor of media and communication studies at Fordham University and author of the book "New New Media," thought Eastwood's performance was "the biggest story by far from the convention, including Romney's speechg

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE87U10P20120831

August 31, 2012

Eastwood's Empty Chair was NOT Surreal...

It was Dada: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

"Dada rejected reason and logic, prizing nonsense, irrationality and intuition."



Or maybe it was a conceptual piece...?

August 31, 2012

You Have To Give The GOP This...

Every time you turn around, they've come up with some amazingly ALL-NEW way to turn the old ignorance, truthiness, bullshit, stupidity, corruption, hate, obliviousness, greed and incompetence into completely fresh, major

[font size="7"]SUCKAGE.[/font]

It would be funny if it weren't so sad and dangerous.

August 30, 2012

Just Another Fucker.

"I can remember as if it were yesterday..." - Condoleezza Rice, Tampa, Florida, Aug. 29, 2012.

Yes, Secretary Rice, warmonger enabler. I can remember it too. Very well. And I won't ever forget. And neither will many, many other people.

[font size="7"]"Yeah, it was worth it."[/font] - [font size="3"]Condoleezza Rice, Aug. 13, 2012.[/font]





[font size="1"]Chris Hondros (R.I.P.)/Getty Images[/font]



[font size="1"]Eugene Richards/Spectrum[/font]



[font size="1"]Getty Images[/font]

[p]

August 29, 2012

RNC Attendee Tossed for Harassing Black CNN Camerawoman ('This is How We Feed Animals')

Source: Raw Story / CNN

RNC attendee tossed for harassing black CNN camerawoman

By Eric W. Dolan
Tuesday, August 28, 2012 22:58 EDT

Tuesday night in Tampa, an attendee at the Republican National Convention was escorted out of the building for allegedly harassing an African American woman.

Talking Points Memo reported that a man threw nuts at a black CNN camerawoman while saying, “This is how we feed animals.”

“CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment,” the network said in a statement.

The incident was first reported by Current TV host David Shuster.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/28/rnc-attendee-tossed-for-harassing-black-cnn-camerawoman

August 29, 2012

Robert Reich: How Romney Keeps Lying Through His Big White Teeth

http://robertreich.org/post/30413604638

How Romney Keeps Lying Through His Big White Teeth
TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 2012

“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” says Neil Newhouse, a Romney pollster.

A half dozen fact-checking organizations and websites have refuted Romney’s claims that Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law and will cut Medicare benefits by $216 billion.

Last Sunday’s New York Times even reported on its front page that Romney has been “falsely charging” President Obama with removing the work requirement. Those are strong words from the venerable Times. Yet Romney is still making the false charge. Ads containing it continue to be aired.

Presumably the Romney campaign continues its false claims because they’re effective. But this raises a more basic question: How can they remain effective when they’ve been so overwhelmingly discredited by the media?

- snip -

Together, these three mechanisms are creating a parallel Republican universe of Orwellian dimension – where anything can be asserted, where pollsters and political advisers are free to create whatever concoction of lies will help elect their candidate, and where “fact-checkers” are as irrelevant and intrusive as is the truth.

MORE[p]

August 28, 2012

"Motherfuckers Have a TelePrompTer"

One of the more bizarre right-wing "criticism" responses after the election of Barack Obama was the attempt to mock him for use of Teleprompters. After eight years of the most devastating, dishonest, immoral AND border-line illiterate worst-ever President of the United States, somehow Obama making use of this technological assist was the most horrible thing.

Anyway, from Gawker:

http://gawker.com/5938607/an-insiders-guide-to-the-first-20-minutes-or-so-of-the-totally-confusing-convention-kickoff?utm_source=Gawker+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b3a0f653d1-UA-142218-2&utm_medium=email#viewcomments

An Insider’s Guide to the First 20 Minutes or So of the Totally Confusing Convention Kickoff

- snip -

Here is the view from the press stand, located conveniently off to the back and side of the stage so that journalists cannot see anything. Nice, right? (No.) In any case, we cannot file from this section, because Gawker Media did not pay money to secure an assigned seat and phone line in this section. ("It's very expensive," noted the Republican media liaison, helpfully.) Instead, your humble correspondents are forced to trudge back and forth between buildings and through a maze of soldier cops in order to file these Important Reports to you, the reader. When will Gawker Media's parsimonious skinflintiness stop hurting America?

- snip -

And the most important and, frankly, shocking finding of all: motherfuckers have a TelePrompter.



I'm rethinking a lot of things right now. A lot of things.

MORE AT LINK[p]

August 28, 2012

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Pulls Out of Event with Tony Blair Because of Iraq War

Source: Telegraph

By Christopher Hope, Senior Political CorrespondentLast Updated: 5:35PM BST 28/08/2012

Retired Anglican bishop and South African peace campaigner Desmond Tutu has pulled out of an event because he cannot share a platform with Tony Blair because of the Iraq War.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner who was the first black archbishop of Cape Town made the protest because of the former Prime Minister's “morally indefensible” decision to lead British forces into Iraq in 2003.

However Mr Blair hit back in a statement, insisting that such "decisions are never easy morally or politically”.

- snip -

A local Muslim party has already announced that it would attempt to arrest Blair when he arrives in Johannesburg for “crimes against humanity”.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9504259/Archbishop-Desmond-Tutu-pulls-out-of-event-with-Tony-Blair-because-of-Iraq-War.html

August 28, 2012

Democrats Infiltrate Tampa for Republican Convention

Source: Reuters

Democrats infiltrate Tampa for Republican convention

By Samuel P. Jacobs
TAMPA, FLORIDA | Tue Aug 28, 2012 4:02pm EDT

By Samuel P. Jacobs

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) - Hanging over the highway leading into Tampa, Florida, a billboard greets the thousands of Republicans and journalists flooding the Gulf Coast city for the Republican National Convention.

"Welcome to Tampa!" it reads, "Where the mayor and all city council members are DEMOCRATS."

Local officials aren't the only ones eager to wag a finger at the visitors here to witness Mitt Romney's presidential nomination, which will officially place him atop the Republican Party ticket for the November 6 general election.

While a planned visit to Tampa by Vice President Joe Biden was nixed, the Democratic Party has flown in some of President Barack Obama's sharpest defenders to steal some of Romney's spotlight and jump in front of television cameras to rebut the Republican vision.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE87R12P20120828