Because the Republican National Convention was so damned goofy, Susie Sampson naturally files a spectacularly weird Tea Party Report from Tampa, featuring dimbulb Stephen Baldwin (with perhaps the most tongue-twisted explanation of one's opposition to gay marriage in history) and Newt Gingrich, expounding on his mission to the moon.

Favorite line: "Oh, then why not just marry your dog?"

[Cover it Live seems to have issues with allowing people to actually read the live blog. Meet us in the comment section.]

Join us tonight as we live blog (and fact check) Mitt Romney's acceptance of the Republican nomination for President.

Here are your Romney Fact Check Resources. Keep them close. You will definitely need them.

• ThinkProgress: Facts Matter
• MediaMatters: Mitt Romney's tax plan for the middle class
• FactCheck.org: Romney files

I recommend the ThinkProgress site as most comprehensive for Mitt errors and the Media Matters site for Fox News errors lies.

C&L Staff will be liveblogging and watching your comments too! It should be fun.

Governor Chris Christie is scheduled to deliver one of the most anticipated prime-time speeches at the GOP Convention tomorrow night. But apparently, he believes it's all for naught.

Gov. Chris Christie wasn’t willing to give up the New Jersey statehouse to be Mitt Romney’s running mate because he doubted they’d win, The Post has learned.

Romney’s top aides had demanded Christie step down as the state’s chief executive because if he didn’t, strict pay-to-play laws would have restricted the nation’s largest banks from donating to the campaign — since those banks do business with New Jersey.

But Christie adamantly refused to sacrifice his post, believing that being Romney’s running mate wasn’t worth the gamble.

“[Christie] felt, at one point, that [President] Obama could lose this. And, look, there still is that chance. But he knows, right now, you have to say it’s unlikely,” one source said.

Whoops.

Christie, who is a darling of establishment conservatives, flirted with a run himself, but must have made the calculation that Obama was going to be too difficult to beat, and decided to sit 2012 out. If that was his thinking about his own run, then he certainly wouldn't want to go down in flames as Romney's number two, especially since Team Willard wanted him to give up his post.

In any event, this is not the story Mitt Romney wanted plastered all over the media going into the convention.

Of course, convention-goers will be permitted to carry actual weapons onto the convention floor -- but no puppets in the street, damn it! The only puppets allowed are the ones on the stage:

TAMPA, Fla. (CBS Tampa/AP) — While puppets have been a feature of the political landscape at conventions and large-scale demonstrations for decades, officials have effectively banned them for the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the city has essentially declared puppets’ components illegal in the RNC event zone, which covers most of the downtown area.

“Their components are not allowed inside the event zone,” Andrea Davis, spokesperson for the Tampa Police Department, told the Tampa Bay Times. “Also their heads have been used to hide weapons and other matter, fecal matter.”

No sticks, strings or masks allowed — therefore, no puppets.

Puppet protesters call it a “suppression of civil liberties.”

“I understand that the people proposing limitations may mean well and their genuine concern may be safety,” Tracy Boyles, executive director of Spiral Q Puppet Theater in Philadelphia, told the Tampa Bay Times. “But if we try to limit our civil liberties and freedom of expression because of the acts of a few, then we’re really not free.”

The Tampa City Council on Thursday said they would ask Florida Gov. Rick Scott to ban firearms outside the Republican National Convention later this year.

The council has already issued a citywide ban on items like pieces of wood, switchblades, slingshots, containers of bodily fluids and even squirt guns. A so-called "Clean Zone" around the convention area would prohibit string longer than six inches, glass containers, light bulbs, portable shields and gas masks. A smaller protest area would prevent demonstrators from having camping gear, bottles, cans and umbrellas. The Secret Service has said that only law enforcement will be able to carry firearms inside of the convention center.

But Tampa now needs Scott's help because state law prevents local governments from regulating guns. City officials believe that Scott has the executive power to temporarily suspend that law.

"We believe it is necessary and prudent to take this reasonable step to prevent a potential tragedy," council member Lisa Montelione wrote in a draft of the letter to the governor.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn has said that the state law makes the city "look silly."

"The absurdity of banning squirt guns but not being able to do anything about real guns is patently obvious," Buckhorn explained last week. "Given the nature and the potential dynamic of this event, I think it would make sense that you would not want firearms introduced into that environment by people other than law enforcement."

The mayor suggested that Tampa could "become fodder for the late-night comics because of something that has nothing to do with us and nothing to do with our ability to control the situation, and it's elevated by Trayvon Martin, obviously."

Legal experts told the Tampa Bay Times that in the emotionally-charged protest environment, another tragedy could take place that was covered by Florida's controversial "Stand Your Ground" law that allows gun owners to use deadly force in public places without a duty to retreat.

Continue reading »

Florida: Land of the free, home of the brave... and cradle of gun insanity. Even though I'm sure most anti-Republican protesters will be sensible enough to resist the temptation, it seems inevitable that at least some of them will try some political theater - you know, like an open-carry rally for liberals? (Not that there's anything wrong with that...) I just don't believe in giving cops excuses for breaking your ribs when they're already so good at just making them up:

TAMPA — If Tampa's proposed rules for the Republican National Convention are passed, protesters could not bring squirt guns into a designated protest zone.

But they could bring real guns if they have concealed weapons permits.

That's because state law does not allow local governments to enact laws regulating guns, City Attorney Jim Shimberg Jr. said.

"Even if we tried to regulate it, it would be null and void," Shimberg said Monday.

Not that the city didn't consider it.

The first draft of Tampa's proposed temporary ordinance laying out rules for the convention did include restrictions on guns inside the city's proposed "Clean Zone," which will cover all of downtown, including a designated protest area.

"It was just kind of common sense," Assistant City Attorney Mauricio Rodriguez said. "We felt if we're going to regulate people carrying sticks and poles, why wouldn't we regulate people carrying firearms, because those could pose significant risks to police and other protesters."

But later, city attorneys removed the ban on guns after finding that Florida Statute 790.33 prohibits local governments from enacting any laws on the sale, purchase, transfer, taxation, manufacture, ownership, possession, storage or transportation of guns or ammunition.

Passed last year, the state law allows judgments of up to $100,000 against local governments that enforce local gun ordinances. It also says local officials could be removed from office and fined $5,000, with no representation from the city or county attorney.

After the Legislature passed the law, municipalities scrambled to revise local ordinances. Tampa repealed a ban on discharging a firearm in city limits, though it's still against state law.

There is, however, one place where guns won't be allowed.

That's the convention itself, and it's because the U.S. Secret Service has authority to make the rules inside the convention, which is scheduled for Aug. 27-30.