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From this Friday evening's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart had some fun with Clint Eastwood's appearance at the Republican National Convention, which he described as the "most joy" he's "gotten from an old man since Dick Cheney non-fatally shot one in the face."

After showing a bit more of Eastwood's performance at the RNC, Stewart proceeded to rip apart Mitt Romney's speech and the reason that Clint Eastwood's speech was so damaging to Republicans.

STEWART: Here's why it hurts. It hurts these Republicans bad because this convention, like all conventions is a scripted and focus group fantasy and the display of Eastwood's Gran Torino id was the very thing Republicans had constructed the entire week to suppress.

This convention was the vision of a perfect America that used to exist, until Barack Obama ruined it and so what if that America had never actually existed.

ROMNEY: To be an American was to assume that all things were possible. That unique brand of optimism, humility... it's that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer to coach your kid's soccer team or help out on school trips. It's when we see that new business opening up downtown, so when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else on the block doing the same thing. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.

STEWART: Gee whiz pops, that sounds awesome. That was the uncomplicated America that you remember. I think in the early '60's there are some churches in Alabama that would have disagreed with your sports team versus place of worship anecdote.

But the point is this, when this convention attempted to do is say that we could all live again in this nostalgic paradise, if it weren't for this one f**king guy.

After pointing out that Republicans have invented a complete fiction of a world that never existed and playing a bunch of clips of these Republicans at the convention attacking President Obama, Stewart laid waste to Romney's ridiculous talking point during his speech that he really wanted Obama to succeed.

STEWART: Bull f**king s**t! You... wanted... Obama to succeed? We may not remember that America was never Mayberry, but we sure at s**t can remember back to 2009.

Cue the clips of Fox "News" and rMoney himself hoping for failure from President Obama almost immediately after he got elected and Clint Eastwood giving us more proof that Republicans live in upside down land and a world of projecting their faults onto their opponents, regardless of reality.

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From this Friday evening's Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill slams the Republicans for running away from all of the recent leaders of their party and recent presidential and vice-presidential nominees at this year's Republican National Convention in his New Rules segment.

And finally New Rule, Republicans don't have to accept evolution, economics, climatology or human sexuality, but I just watched a week of their national convention, and I need them to admit the historical existence of George W. Bush.

If your party can run the nation for eight years and then have a national convention and not invite Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Karl Rove or Tom DeLay, you're not a political movement, you're the witness protection program.

In fact, Republicans, next time instead of holding a convention without your most recent president, your most recent vice-president, your most recent vice-presidential nominee and most of the runners up from your most recent primary, why not just wave one of those Men in Black memory eraser wands and say make us forget everything we know about you?

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Author and fearmongering filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza appeared on this Friday evening's Real Time with Bill Maher and had his latest film, 2016: Obama’s America, and the justifications for his depiction of President Obama taken apart one by one by Maher.

Whether it was D'Souza pretending that President Obama didn't reach out to Republicans on their health care bill, when as Maher rightfully pointed out, it was Bob Dole's plan from the '90's, trying to blame the President for the gridlock in Washington rather than Republican obstruction designed to make sure President Obama is not reelected, to pretending that President Obama did anything much differently than other presidents when it came to stimulus, regulating industry or that he's somehow anti-capitalist, D'Souza just was no match for Maher.

We've been down this road before here at C&L with a critique of D'Souza's work, so anyone not already familiar with him might want to go back and read this post -- Doing the Right Wing Limbo – How Low Can They Go?.

Maher did a pretty good job with D'Souza if he's going to allow someone like him who traffics in lies on his show in the first place. I still think the most brutal interview I've seen with him was Cenk Uygur from earlier this month which you can watch here -- Cenk Uygur Destroys Anti-Obama Author Dinesh D’Souza.

Oops headline of the day. h/t Nicole Belle.

Open thread below...

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Gasland from CINE UCR on Vimeo.

"The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown."

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Mitt gives new meaning to the term "corporate America" in this clip. At a Florida rally, he gives the whole tired speech about how President Obama "just doesn't understand the economy". He then launches into his promises about how he and Paul Ryan will get "reach across the aisle and find good people who like us, wants to make sure this company deals with its challenges". Romney then punctuates that with "we'll get America on track again."

Right here. This is the heart and soul of Mitt Romney. America is just another company for him to turn around. Let me remind you about how he "turns around" companies.

1. He loads them with debt.
2. He strips their assets.
3. He merges them with other companies if it's profitable for him to do so.
4. He sends jobs overseas.

That's the Romney model, except there's this one problem. The United States of America isn't a company. It's a country. And countries don't work like corporations. At least, not yet.

[Caution: Contains graphic images.]

Via:

A Sardinian miner has slashed his wrist in a live TV address, in protest against the closing of a local facility. Some 100 workers barricaded themselves in front of the mine, which is packed with almost 700 kilograms of explosives.

­The incident took place during a press conference held underground.

"If someone here has decided to the kill miners' families, ladies and gentlemen, we'll cut ourselves, we'll cut ourselves," 49-year-old Stefano Meletti said as he slashed his wrist in front of reporters.

"We cannot take it anymore. We cannot! We cannot! It’s what we have to do," Reuters quoted him as saying.

The miners have staged an underground protest of government funding for the coal industry, which has cost them their jobs amid the deep recession in the region.

Government officials are scheduled to meet in the coming week to discuss the Sardinia's plight.

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Ann Romney says that her husband is "used to" passing up multi-million job offers and that the "poor guy" didn't even get paid for running the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

During an interview on Friday, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade noted that the former Massachusetts governor had gotten a job offer for $30 million a year after he lost the presidential nomination to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008.

"How hard was the decision not to do that?" Kilmeade wondered.

"Well, we’re used to kind of passing offers up like that," Ann Romney explained. "For us, our life is not about making money. We’ve been very blessed financially. Our life is now about giving back."

"I always trust that Mitt can always make another dollar," she added. "Poor guy, he took no pay when he did the Olympics for three years and no pay when he was governor for four years."

Earlier this year, Ann Romney told Fox News that even though she is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, she didn't consider herself to be wealthy.

"You know, we can be poor in spirit," she said. "I don’t look — I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing. It can be here today and gone tomorrow. And how I measure riches is by the friends I have and the loved ones I have and the people that I care about in my life. And that’s where my values are and that where my riches are."

The couple reportedly has a net worth of $250 million, but Ann Romney has repeatedly complained about having to release her tax returns as a part of her husband’s campaign for the Republican nomination.

“You all know that he’s been successful in business,” she told a crowd in Miami earlier this year. “Unfortunately that was made abundantly clear yesterday when our tax forms were released.”

The candidate's wife insisted to ABC's Robin Roberts in July that she and her husband had "given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life"

And during an interview with NBC earlier this month, Ann Romney confirmed that there would be “no more tax releases given” by the wealthy couple, but she also insisted that “there’s nothing we’re hiding.”

“We have been very transparent to what’s legally required of us,” she told NBC’s Natalie Morales. “But the more we release, the more we get attacked, the more we get questioned, the more we get pushed. And so, we have done what’s legally required. And there’s going to be no more tax releases given.”

(h/t: Think Progress)

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