Eastwood’s fellow Hollywood stars pan his RNC performance

By Leila Macor/Raw Story

LOS ANGELES — Clint Eastwood’s bizarre cameo at the Republican National Convention drew some scathing reviews Friday from his movie industry colleagues in traditionally Democrat-leaning Hollywood.

The Oscar-winning actor-director’s own agent declined to comment on the rambling performance — in which the 82-year-old “Dirty Harry” star chatted with an invisible Barack Obama — but others were less discreet.

“What WAS that thing Clint Eastwood just did? How could they let it happen??” actress Mia Farrow tweeted after the Thursday night turn, shortly before Mitt Romney formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination.

“Is clint eastwood meant to instill confidence in republicans?!” wrote Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in the latest big screen version of “Star Trek.” “I am legitimately scared of his talking to imaginary obama.”

Eastwood, whose next movie, “Trouble With The Curve,” is set for release in September, endorsed Romney earlier in August, and backed the 2008 Republican nominee, Senator John McCain.

On Thursday he arguably stole the show at the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida — but unfortunately not in a good way, for many.

His dialogue with an empty chair, while in theory not a bad dramatic idea, was judged rambling and borderline offensive by some critics, and widely lampooned on the Internet.

“That was so awesome. Biden has to go shirtless for DNC to top it,” Saturday Night Live star Seth Meyers tweeted, referring to Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Convention next week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Eastwood’s own agent, Leonard Hirshan, was tight-lipped about the performance — which he had said in advance was part of Eastwood’s “personal life” as opposed to his movie industry work.

“That’s not for me to have anything to say about. No comment,” Hirshan told AFP.

Hollywood is famously Democrat- and liberal-leaning: George Clooney is among A-listers who openly back Obama, even hosting a high-profile fund-raiser at his Hollywood Hills home in May.

That said, it was well known that Eastwood is a Republican — he served as mayor of his plush coastal hometown of Carmel south of San Francisco, and has made no secret of his leanings.

But celebrity-watcher and CNN talk show host Piers Morgan said that with his Tampa turn, the film legend may just have shot himself — and the Republicans — in the foot.

“I think the Romney camp was probably as horrified as everyone else. They were probably assuming they would have their version of George Clooney,” Morgan told the Hollywood Reporter.

“Clooney would have stuck rigidly to what he’d agreed with the Democratic party, delivered five minutes of non-chalant charm, wowed everybody, and gone off to the bar,” said the British former journalist.

Instead, with Eastwood, “the whole thing just got increasingly surreal, and I thought, very awkward and by the end not only embarrassing but pretty damaging to Mitt Romney,” he added.

“Clint eclipsed Mitt … One of the craziest things I’ve ever watched,” he tweeted.

Well-known US film critic Roger Ebert voiced what many others in Hollywood thought, lamenting his performance even while the legendary Eastwood was still on stage. “Clint, my hero, is coming across as sad and pathetic.

“He didn’t need to do this to himself. It’s unworthy of him.”

Republican Convention Bombs As Viewership Drops by 17 Million

By: Jason Easley/politicususa

The GOP’s Mitt makeover isn’t going over well with American television viewers. Compared to night two of the 2008 Republican convention, viewership is down by 17 million.

Paul Ryan is no Sarah Palin. The viewership for Paul Ryan’s speech was down across every network compared to what Sarah Palin averaged in 2008. NBC was down 3.5 million viewers. ABC was down three million viewers. CBS and MSNBC were down 2 million viewers each. CNN lost a whopping 5 million viewers compared to Palin’s 2008 speech. Even Fox News was down 1.5 million viewers. In total, only 20 million people tuned in for Paul Ryan compared to the 37 million who watched Sarah Palin.

Ryan’s ratings nosedive isn’t the Republican convention’s only problem. Only Fox News and ABC saw their viewership rise or stay the same from night one to night two. Fox News saw their viewership rise from 6.89 million on night one to 7.70 million on night two, while ABC has drawn to 2.86 million viewers on each night.

What really jumps out in the ratings data is how limited the appeal of this convention is. Fox News has led the ratings for all networks on both nights. If the Romney campaign was hoping to reach Independents with their convention, it isn’t working. Over one third of the total audience is coming from the Republican cheering section known as Fox News.

Ryan’s ratings collapse highlights his limited popularity. As you could tell by the reception in the convention hall, Paul Ryan is beloved by the right. His appeal though seems limited just to the right. Ryan and the Romney campaign did themselves no favors by having him give a speech that was loaded with falsehoods, while also being completely devoid of any hope, optimism, or vision for the future.

Republicans love nasty negative politics, but America doesn’t. Voters love optimism and vision, but Mitt Romney has not highlighted any of this during his convention. Instead the Republican Party has presented an angry gloom and doom fest where speaker after speaker tell us all how lousy everything is, and that it is all Barack Obama’s fault.

Since voters don’t like Mitt Romney, it seems the Republican Party has decided that it must terrify America into supporting him. That type of strategy makes for a depressing convention, and even worse, it’s bad television.

Paul Ryan’s speech was delivered like an oral book report by someone who was making up the book as he went along. It is no surprise that viewers aren’t tuning in to the Republican convention. This is convention that lacks warmth, charisma, and star power.

The Republicans were hoping to reinvent Mitt Romney, but they got was confirmation that America is just not into both of them.

RNC the party's best chance to sell Romney

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RNC Attendee Allegedly Threw Nuts At Black CNN Camerawoman, Said ‘This Is How We Feed Animals’

From TPM

An attendee at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday allegedly threw nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN and said “This is how we feed animals” before being removed from the convention, a network official confirmed to TPM.

The CNN official declined to confirm specific details of the incident to TPM but generally confirmed an account posted on Twitter by former MSNBC and Current anchor David Shuster: “GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying ‘This is how we feed animals.’”

It is not clear whether the alleged culprit was a delegate or attending the convention in some other capacity.

In a written statement, CNN addressed the matter but divulged few details: “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.”

TPM’s calls to RNC and convention officials were not immediately returned.

Here is the original tweet from Shuster:

David Shuster@DavidShuster

GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying "This is how we feed animals."@TakeActionNews #TAN

28 Aug 12

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 2012, CNN, Republican National Convention

Paul supporters boo Boehner, decry establishment-favoring rules changes

By Jonathan Terbush/Raw Story

Irked by changes to the presidential nominating process that will make future contests more favorable to establishment candidates like Mitt Romney, Ron Paul backers at the Republican convention loudly booed House Speaker John Boehner as he presided over the final adoption of those rules on the convention floor.

Though not as fractious as some had anticipated—Paul supporters had talked of staging a little rebellion and trying to nominate Paul  from the floor at the convention—the spat highlighted the divided nature of the party just as the presidential race hits the home stretch.

The divide centered around several changes to the nominating process pushed through Fridayat a meeting of the powerful Rules Committee by Romney’s top legal advisor, Ben Ginsberg, that were designed to make it more difficult for an insurgent campaign to secure delegates en route to the convention. The changes dictated that delegates be bound to vote in accordance with the results of state primaries and caucuses, thus limiting the ability of candidates to boost their support later on at state conventions.

Paul lagged significantly at the polls, but his supporters quietly worked behind the scenes to propel their chosen delegates into the mix, meaning that he could have more support on the convention floor than he enjoyed at the ballot box. The new changes effectively nixed that strategy for future campaigns, drawing the ire of Paul supporters, activists and other conservatives who said the change would limit grassroots campaigns.

On top of that, the Republican National Committee also barred twenty Paul supporters from Maine from serving as delegates, saying that their election violated party rules.

Fast forward to Tuesday, where Boehner stood before the convention and put the new rules up for a voice vote to all the assembled delegates. Though both the ayes and nays boomed as loud as each other, Boehner quickly said the rules were adopted and moved right along, prompting a chorus of boos and chants of, “Shame on you.”

Paul himself has been hesitant to embrace his party during what is otherwise a tightly choreographed, unanimous show of party loyalty and fervency. He declined to speak at the convention, claiming organizers offered him a speaking gig on the condition that he let them vet his speech and that he offer a full endorsement of Romney. In an interview with the New York Times, he said he doesn’t “fully endorse” Romney’s candidacy, and later told Fox News that he was unsure if he would even vote for him.

Democracy Now! journalists sue police, Secret Service over ‘violent’ RNC arrests

By Stephen C. Webster

For what she called her "violent" arrest outside the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC), journalist and author Amy Goodman has joined with The Center for Constitutional Rights in filing a federal lawsuit against police and the Secret Service, issuing a stark challenge to policies governing their treatment of protesters.

Goodman said her producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were injured as police took them to the ground, with Salazar's nose bloodied and Kouddous's arm severely twisted. The whole time, they were demanding police not place them under arrest, shouting "Press! Press!" and waiving their media badges.

Instead, Goodman told RAW STORY during a Thursday conference call that unnamed Secret Service agents "ripped the credentials from around our necks" and police removed the batteries from their cameras, "which makes it very clear what they were after."

The YouTube video of Goodman's arrest quickly became the most popular clip on the site in the 2008 RNC's first days.

"I think that's what freed us after a number of hours," she told reporters.

"Goodman v. St. Paul seeks compensation and an injunction against law enforcement’s unjustified encroachment on First Amendment rights, including freedom of the press and the independence of the media," The Center for Constitutional Rights summarized in an advisory.

"Attorneys say the government cannot limit journalists’ right to cover matters of public concern by requiring that they present a particular perspective; for instance, the government cannot require journalists to “embed” with state authorities," they continued. "Goodman further asserts that the government cannot, in the name of security, limit the flow of information by acting unwarrantedly against journalists who report on speech protected by the First Amendment, such as dissent, and the public acts of law enforcement."

"The media are the eyes and ears of the American people—that is why there are laws to protect them," CCR attorney Anjana Samant added. "Law enforcement and Secret Service agents are not exempt from those laws in their dealings with un-embedded journalists who are documenting peaceful protestors or law enforcement’s use of force and violence against those protestors [sic]."

"While most protesters demonstrated peacefully, some engaged in property damage, slashing car tires, throwing bottles, tipping trash bins and breaking windows of cars and buildings," Democracy Now! reported shortly after the arrests. "One of the broken windows came in the building that houses Saint Paul Neighborhood Network—that’s SPNN —where Democracy Now! is broadcasting from this week.

"But police used harsh tactics, including chemical irritants, to disperse everyone, even those protesters who remained peaceful. Officers in riot gear fired teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets in a series of standoffs around the downtown St. Paul area."

Police arrested 283 people during the RNC's opening day and had in the weeks prior been engaging in targeted harassment of activists. Over 800 arrests were made during the convention. The New York Times noted that an estimated 50 of those detained were journalists.

Said Goodman: "Democracy is a messy thing and it's our job to capture it all. We shouldn't have to get a record to put things on the record."

This video of Amy Goodman's arrest is from outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, published to YouTube on Sept. 1, 2008.

This video of Nicole Salazar's arrest is from outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, published to YouTube on Sept. 2, 2008.

This video of the 2008 RNC protests was captured by protesters on the scene and features some narration by a reporter from Minnesota citizen journalism outlet The Uptake, published Sept. 3, 2008.

eaten sedition and disrupt anything they want and no one gets arrested? The double standard of arresting left wing protestors is patently obvious.