memeorandum: BREAKING: Federal Court Strikes Down Ohio Law Restricting Early Voting (Ian Millhiser/ThinkProgress)

5:00 PM ET, August 31, 2012

Top Items:

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: Little Green Footballs, neo-neocon, his vorpal sword, The Lonely Conservative, The PJ Tatler, Hot Air, New York Times, American Spectator, The Jawa Report, National Review, The Week, Wake up America and americanthinker.com

New York Times:

Romney Aides Scratch Their Heads Over Eastwood's Speech — TAMPA, Fla. — Clint Eastwood's rambling and off-color endorsement of Mitt Romney on Thursday seemed to startle and unsettle even the candidate's own top aides, several of whom made a point of distancing themselves from the decision to put him onstage without a polished script.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, CNN, Outside the Beltway, Hot Air and BuzzFeed

Michael Moore / The Daily Beast:

Thanks, Clint: You Made Our Day! — The Hollywood legend growling at an empty chair will live on in infamy as the moment when a crazy old man hijacked a national party's most important gathering to tell off the president. Michael Moore on the creepiness of crazy Clint.

Discussion: Examiner and US Politics

Kevin Cirilli / Politico:

Pundits pan Clint Eastwood's ‘disaster’ speech — MSNBC pundits said Clint Eastwood's GOP convention speech Thursday night was a “bizarre” and “embarrassing” “disaster,” and a Fox News reporter wouldn't even touch it. — But GOP strategist Steve Schmidt was more forgiving of the Hollywood icon's performance.

Discussion: CNN, Althouse and iOwnTheWorld.com

John Nolte / BREITBART.COM:

MEDIA STRIKES BACK AFTER DIRTY HARRY DARES TO MOCK OBAMA — Newsflash: Obama can't take a joke. But we already knew that. — For four long years we've waited, hoped and prayed that some young comic would break free of the politically correct demands of The State and mock Obama …

Discussion: NY Daily News, Mediaite, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, New York Magazine, Belmont Club, Datechguy's Blog, American Power, The Jawa Report, The Caucus, The Gateway Pundit, Questions and Observations, Wake up America, Babalú Blog and The Lonely Conservative

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

CNN:

TRENDING: Obama takes his seat — (CNN) - The Obama campaign offered a pointed comeback to Clint Eastwood's Republican National Convention chair sketch Thursday night tweeting, “This seat's taken” along with a picture of Obama in his Cabinet Room chair with a plaque inscribed: “The President.”

Discussion: Politico and The BLT

Washington Post:
(APPLAUSE)

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Salon, Election 2012, Gothamist, LewRockwell.com Blog, Capital Tonight, USA Today and The Moderate Voice

Mary McNamara / Los Angeles Times:
Clint Eastwood and his imaginary non-friend at the convention

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, Power Line, Fox News, News Desk, New York Times and The Week

Benjy Sarlin / Talking Points Memo:
Clint Eastwood Delivers Bizarre, Rambling Speech To Empty Chair

Discussion: Mother Jones, The Caucus, Politico, The Atlantic Online, The Raw Story, The Other McCain, The Impolitic, The Moderate Voice, CANNONFIRE, No More Mister Nice Blog, Towleroad News #gay, Bark Bark Woof Woof and The Hinterland Gazette

Bloomberg:
Good Enough for Mitt, but What About the Rest of Us?

Discussion: blogs.telegraph.co.uk

Ian Millhiser / ThinkProgress:

BREAKING: Federal Court Strikes Down Ohio Law Restricting Early Voting — Last month, President Obama's reelection campaign filed a lawsuit claiming that a recently enacted Ohio law eliminating early voting in the three days before an election, except for members of the military …

Discussion: The BRAD BLOG and Wonkette

Rick Hasen / Election Law Blog:

Breaking News: Federal Judge Orders Ohio to Restore Weekend Early Voting in Ohio Weekend Before Election Day — UPDATE: Ohio will appeal this case to the Sixth Circuit. — I thought we were done with blockbuster election law decisions before Labor Day, but now comes this order …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Associated Press, Firedoglake, Outside the Beltway, The New Republic, Crooks and Liars, Brennan Center for Justice, Daily Kos and Taegan Goddard's …

Jim Provance / Toledo Blade:
Federal judge orders Ohio to allow early voting on 3 days before Election Day

Discussion: The Maddow Blog, Zandar Versus The Stupid and Balloon Juice

Jim Siegel / The Columbus Dispatch:
DeWine to appeal judge's ruling on early voting

Discussion: The Volokh Conspiracy

Ryan J. Reilly / Talking Points Memo:
Judge Sides With Obama On Ohio Early Voting Suit Despite Romney Attacks

Discussion: Washington Monthly and The Raw Story

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

Shoving Match Between Chris Matthews' Hecklers, MSNBC Producer Investigated at RNC (Video) — A fight broke out after two men shouted, “Hey Chris, how's that tingle up your leg.” — TAMPA, Fla. - A scuffle involving an MSNBC producer and two men who heckled host Chris Matthews …

Discussion: Mediaite, NewsBusters.org, Pat Dollard, Weasel Zippers and The Jawa Report

Alessandra Stanley / New York Times:
How MSNBC Became Fox's Liberal Evil Twin

Discussion: Mediaite, NewsBusters.org and TVNewser

Matthew Yglesias / Slate:
Mitt Romney's Incoherent View of Mothers

Discussion: iOwnTheWorld.com, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Daily Kos

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: Sunlight Foundation Blog, Firedoglake, Politico, Mediaite, LifeNews.com, No More Mister Nice Blog, Stinque, Hullabaloo, Mother Jones, The Hill, The Raw Story, GOP 12, Suburban Guerrilla, Booman Tribune, Wonkette and Public Policy Polling

Daily Mail:

Obama bounced into announcing visit to storm-ravaged Louisiana after Romney shows him up with surprise visit — President Barack Obama was today forced to announce he will fly to storm-hit Louisiana on Monday - hours after Mitt Romney beat him to the punch by deciding to head there this afternoon.

Discussion: Rush Limbaugh, Hot Air, The PJ Tatler, Washington Examiner and The Lonely Conservative

Donovan Slack / Politico:
Change in plans: Obama will visit La. Monday

Discussion: CNN

Emily Friedman / ABCNEWS:
Romney to Visit Areas Damaged By Hurricane Isaac

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Pirate's Cove, Weasel Zippers, Pat Dollard, The Lonely Conservative, ABCNEWS, Red Alert Politics, The Agonist and NO QUARTER

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: FP Passport, Conservatives4Palin, PERRspectives, The Hinterland Gazette, The Maddow Blog, ABCNEWS, Swampland, ABCNEWS and The Agonist

Annie-Rose Strasser / ThinkProgress: OOPS: Mitt Romney Calls United States A ‘Company’

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: Wall Street Journal, FT Alphaville, The Daily Beast, Economix, Paul Krugman, Real Time Economics, New York Magazine, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, Mother Jones and Prairie Weather

Binyamin Appelbaum / New York Times:
Fed Chairman Makes Case for New Steps to Spur Growth

Discussion: Hot Air, The Maddow Blog, Say Anything, Firedoglake and Weasel Zippers

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

Joe Klein / Swampland:
The Romney Speech — I think Mitt Romney just gave a very smart speech.

Discussion: FiveThirtyEight, Washington Post, Outside the Beltway, Guardian, Saint Petersblog and Mother Jones

Scott Douglas / Newswire:

Paul Ryan Says He's Run Sub-3:00 Marathon … In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said he's run a sub-3:00 marathon. — In the interview, after Ryan told Hewitt that he ran in high school, Hewitt asked if Ryan still runs.

Discussion: Paul Krugman and The Hinterland Gazette

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: Washington Wire, Hot Air, Conservatives4Palin, The Week, Outside the Beltway, The Fix, TVNewser, Politicker and Mediaite

Aviva Shen / ThinkProgress:

RNC Delegate Offended By Presence of ‘Mexican’ At Disney's Epcot Center — During a trip to Epcot at Disneyworld, Pennsylvania delegate Mark Harris and his wife were shocked and offended to find a Mexican employee working at the amusement park's American pavilion, which showcases the different cultures in the United States.

Discussion: NBC Latino, Wonkette and The Raw Story