Top Items:
Benjy Sarlin / Talking Points Memo:
Clint Eastwood Delivers Bizarre, Rambling Speech To Empty Chair — TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood opened up the primetime portion of the Republican convention with a rambling, mumbling and often incoherent address next to an empty chair that was meant to represent President Obama.
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Washington Post:
(APPLAUSE) — So — but they are there, believe me, they are there. I just think, in fact, some of them around town, I saw Jon Voight, a lot of people around. — Jon's here, an academy award winner. A terrific guy. These people are all like-minded, like all of us.
Discussion:
Salon, Election 2012, Gothamist, The Atlantic Online, LewRockwell.com Blog, USA Today and The Moderate Voice
Politico:
Clint Eastwood RNC speech transcript (text, video) — Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Save a little for Mitt. — (APPLAUSE) I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, what's a movie tradesman doing out here? You know they are all left wingers out there, left of Lenin.
Discussion:
Red Alert Politics, The New Republic, Law Blog and Riehl World News
Mj Lee / Politico:
Clint Eastwood's rambling RNC speech — TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood delivered a rambling performance at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night in a speech that included the Hollywood legend speaking to an empty stool and telling an imaginary President Barack Obama …
Discussion:
NY Daily News, CNN, Washington Wire, Pundit & Pundette, blogs.telegraph.co.uk, Business Insider and Capital Tonight
The Caucus:
Surprise Speaker Delivers the Unexpected
Discussion:
Politico, Daily Kos, BuzzFeed, The Moderate Voice, US Politics and USA Today
Mark Murray / First Read:
Eastwood surprises GOP convention - maybe in more ways than one
Discussion:
Hotline On Call, Saint Petersblog and The Hinterland Gazette
Byron York / Washington Examiner:
The most extraordinary story of the GOP convention — Popular in Politics — TAMPA — When CNN asked top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to assess Clint Eastwood's performance on stage at the Republican convention Thursday night, Fehrnstrom answered simply, “It's improv.”
Discussion:
National Review, Wake up America, The Week, News Desk, Hot Air and americanthinker.com
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Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:
In Prudent Speech, Romney Seeks Role as Generic Republican
Discussion:
Fox News, Election 2012 and The Week
Ezra Klein / Washington Post:
Romney's speech: Where was the policy?
Discussion:
New York Times, The Daily Beast, Daily Kos and Saint Petersblog
Jeff Zeleny / New York Times:
Romney Vows to Deliver Country From Economic Travails
Discussion:
Outside the Beltway, Washington Wire, Politico, The Caucus, NBC Latino, Taylor Marsh, Washington Free Beacon and American Power
Jonathan Bernstein / Washington Post:
Mitt Romney in Tampa: A generic speech for the generic candidate
Discussion:
Swampland, Hit & Run, Bloomberg, The Reality-Based Community, The Daily Beast, Politico, Saint Petersblog, Mother Jones and The Week
Emily Friedman / ABCNEWS:
Romney to Visit Areas Damaged By Hurricane Isaac — LAKELAND, Fla. — In a last-minute change of plans, Mitt Romney will head to visit storm-affected areas in New Orleans today, skipping a previously scheduled joint rally with running mate Paul Ryan in the battleground state of Virginia this afternoon.
Discussion:
Weasel Zippers, Red Alert Politics, The Lonely Conservative, The Agonist and NO QUARTER
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Fred Barnes / Weekly Standard:
Romney Aces Convention Test — A few hours before Mitt Romney spoke to the Republican convention last night, his campaign did something clever. It's normal procedure before a major speech is to release excerpts so the evening TV news shows can preview the address.
Steve Holland / Reuters:
Romney takes lead over Obama with convention “bounce”: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Discussion:
Business Insider, Saint Petersblog, Hot Air and Washington Post
Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill:
Ann Romney: Mitt showed the ‘deepest part of his soul’
Discussion:
Politico, ABCNEWS, The Caucus and Connecting.the.Dots
Sara Murray / Washington Wire:
Romney to View Hurricane Damage in Louisiana
Discussion:
The Rightnewz
Alex Fitzpatrick / Mashable!:
Romney Campaign is First to Buy a Twitter Trending Topic
Discussion:
NBC Latino, Alan Colmes' Liberaland and Twitter Room
CNN:
Romney accepts GOP presidential nomination
Discussion:
Politico, ABCNEWS, Reuters, Pirate's Cove and Liberal Values
William Kristol / Weekly Standard:
What War? — The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan.
Discussion:
The Maddow Blog, ABCNEWS, The Hinterland Gazette, Swampland, ABCNEWS and The Agonist
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Annie-Rose Strasser / ThinkProgress:
OOPS: Mitt Romney Calls United States A ‘Company’ — Mitt Romney is focused on convincing Americans that his private-sector business record qualifies him to be President, which is perhaps why he accidentally called the United States of America a “company” instead of a “country” on Friday.
Sheelah Kolhatkar / Business Week:
Exclusive: Inside Karl Rove's Billionaire Fundraiser — On the final morning of the Republican National Convention, Karl Rove took the stage at the Tampa Club to provide an exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican party's highest-earning and most powerful donors.
Discussion:
Politico, The Hill, No More Mister Nice Blog, GOP 12, LifeNews.com, Mother Jones, Mediaite, The Raw Story and Public Policy Polling
Michael O'Connell / Hollywood Reporter:
‘Honey Boo Boo’ Ratings Top the Republican National Convention — The TLC series hits another high in its fourth episode, nearing 3 million viewers and topping cable news and broadcast network coverage of the RNC among adults 18-49. — Perhaps we spoke too soon.
Discussion:
Addicting Info, Business Insider and Balloon Juice
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Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:
Monetary Policy since the Onset of the Crisis — When we convened in Jackson Hole in August 2007, the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) target for the federal funds rate was 5-1/4 percent. Sixteen months later, with the financial crisis in full swing, the FOMC had lowered the target …
Discussion:
Firedoglake, New York Times, FT Alphaville, New York Magazine, Business Insider, Mother Jones and Paul Krugman
Steven Hayward / Power Line:
The One Line To Rule Them All — I generally agree with Scott that Romney's speech could have been a lot stronger, and still had the same personal structure and done what he wanted to do with it. Who are his chief speechwriters, I wonder? Is it the same crew (McConnell and Scully) that did Paul Ryan's speech?
Discussion:
GayPatriot and Betsy's Page
Danny Shea / The Huffington Post:
Michael Moore: Mitt Romney Will Win In November (VIDEO) … REACT: — FOLLOW: — Mitt Romney, Michael Moore, Video, HuffPost Live, Josh Zepps, Shadow Conventions 2012, Money In Politics, Shadow Conventions 2012, Politics News — Filmmaker Michael Moore joined HuffPost Live Thursday …
Discussion:
Scared Monkeys, The Daily Caller, Datechguy's Blog, The Rightnewz, NO QUARTER, Weasel Zippers and The Raw Story
Cynthia Roldan / Palm Beach Post:
Lake Park man allegedly obsessed with Fox News, GOP is in jail after threats made to girlfriend — A Lake Park man “obsessed with Fox News and the Republican party” is in jail today after he allegedly said that he felt he was going to have to kill his girlfriend because she was a “liberal.”
Discussion:
Mediaite and Saint Petersblog
Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:
Behind the Latest Palin-Fox Fight — Last night's kerfuffle between Sarah Palin and Fox News was a classic display of Sarah Palin being, well, Sarah Palin. But her Facebook outburst complaining about Fox canceling her appearance at the Republic National Convention reveals something deeper …
Discussion:
Hot Air, Washington Wire, The Week, Outside the Beltway, TVNewser, The Fix, Politicker and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »
Kenneth P. Vogel / Politico:
David Koch breaks from GOP on gay marriage, taxes, defense cuts — TAMPA, Fla. - Billionaire industrialist David Koch, who is helping steer millions of dollars to elect Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans, on Thursday told POLITICO he disagrees with the GOP's stance on gay marriage …
Discussion:
Addicting Info, The Raw Story, Advocate, Towleroad News #gay, Red Alert Politics and Prairie Weather
Tory Newmyer / Fortune:
Romney-Ryan details remain elusive: Just ask a surrogate — FORTUNE — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is promoting the Romney-Ryan ticket as a team offering a credible, detailed plan for turning the country around. But some of those details proved troublesome in a sit-down interview with Fortune on Thursday.
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Talking Points Memo and The Maddow Blog
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