Free Republic

Thousands of individuals have signed an online petition seeking to nudge Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) into allowing concealed carry firearms into the Republican National Committee Convention in Cleveland. The convention will be held in Quicken Loans Arena, which currently bars guns from the premises. The petition–which can be found at Change.Org–calls on Quicken Loans Arena to suspend “their policy preventing the open carry of firearms on the premises of the arena from July 18-21, 2016 to coincide with the Republican National Convention.” The petition also asks the NRA to join the fray by issuing “an immediate condemnation of the...

Even though I’ve been fortunate to attend a few national conventions, I still get a thrill when I meet (for the first time) a favorite politician to whom I’ve donated money, or one of pundits that I read on a daily basis. (My wife would stop at nothing to get a picture with Bret Baier of Fox News.) Or it may be a particular speech. But at this year’s convention, my most special memory was a movie. Who would have ever thought that, for a guy from Hollywood, schlepping to steamy Tampa would elicit a big screen moment? We were...

Mercifully, the political conventions have ended. The political press will keep buzzing over whether Clint Eastwood's unconventional speech helped or hurt Mitt Romney and whether the snafu over Israel and God in the Democratic platform will do any lasting damage to President Obama. Republican reporters will think former President Clinton talked too long, and Democrats will note that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talked more about himself than about Romney. But they are missing the point. The campaign is about what's happening in America, not what the politicians are saying. At the beginning of 2012, it was easy to note...

South Carolina is not a swing state. Solidly Republican, it will vote for Mitt Romney by a large margin this November. With so many other states hanging in the balance, Team Romney doesn't need to spend any time campaigning in South Carolina. So why would Gov. Chris Christie, a top Romney supporter and surrogate as well as the GOP convention's keynote speaker, take time out of an extremely busy schedule to visit the South Carolina delegation at the Republican convention in Tampa? It wasn't easy; the delegates stayed in a hotel far, far away from the GOP gathering site downtown....

When "Dirty Harry" interviewed "Invisible Obama" at the Republican convention Thursday night, Clint Eastwood gained a new kind of fame, as the butt of jokes all over the Twitter-verse. "Idea for a cable drama: Clint Eastwood is a hard-boiled cop that sees his dead partner in every empty chair. It's called 'La-Z Boys in Blue,'"read one tweet. "Give Clint Eastwood a break. ...The RNC asked him to speak about ObamaCare and he thought they said ObamaChair," read another. The actor's mock interview of an empty chair purportedly representing President Obama turned into one of the most-talked-about events of the entire...

...Clint is a brilliant actor, and a superb director of other actors (and I don’t just mean a quarter-century ago: in the last five years, he’s made eight films). He’s also, as Mr Gavin observed, a terrific jazz improvisor at the piano – and, in film and music documentaries, an extremely articulate interviewee. So I wouldn’t assume that the general tenor of his performance wasn’t exactly as he intended. The hair was a clue: no Hollywood icon goes out on stage like that unless he means to. John Hayward writes: >>>The intended recipient was not Mitt Romney, the convention delegates,...

The Democrats and their mainstream media cheering section can huff and puff at Paul Ryan's convention speech, but they can't blow his house down. It was built on a solid foundation. So powerful was the speech that the liberal establishment is reduced to wailing about alleged lies the speech contained -- dishonest and easily refuted allegations. Ryan delivered a substantive indictment of the Obama administration's failed record and a content-rich, realistic plan for putting this nation back on track to economic growth and fiscal recovery, a plan that includes "protecting and strengthening" Medicare, not "raiding" it. Don't listen to the...

Have you heard of "Negro Spotting?" It's a liberal game on Twitter. Libs see a black person at the Republican National Convention and they laugh and laugh at the hilarity! Why, there aren't a lot of black people there! That must mean Republicans are racist! Ha, ha, ha! This actually tells you a lot about how liberals think -- or more accurately, don't think. 1) "Negro Spotting" is a sign of how little racism the Left can find: Most liberals believe deep down in their bleeding hearts that conservatives are evil, bigoted racists! Yet, there's no racist rhetoric coming from...

Paul Ryan had never before struck me as an inspiring speaker. I mean, I like the fellow: he has sound ideas, he's charming and he has a demotic, boy-next-door quality which is unusual among cerebral politicians. But his chief appeal has always been as a policy specialist rather than an orator. Until last night. Ryan's speech to the Republican Convention in Tampa was a masterpiece. As Roger Kimball observes, 'His manner is open, confident, but somehow also humble. There is nothing swaggering, nothing of the braggart or narcissist about him. He seems impressed, not by the sound of his own...

TAMPA — The heat, the chanting, the marching: It was all becoming too much. Protesters, who were scheduled to occupy companies owned by Mitt Romney's Bain Capital empire all day Thursday, were having a tough time mustering the gusto. The plan was to start at a Domino's Pizza, about two blocks away from unofficial RNC protest headquarters Romneyville in downtown Tampa. But after lunchtime, the tents were looking pretty cozy. It didn't sit well with one Occupy Wall Street protester, a 21-year-old woman who would only identify herself as Ducky.

Progressive bloggers and TV personalities are up in arms about Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Several of their accusations revolve around Paul Ryan’s own fiscal record, and his description of President Obama’s. I asked my liberal friends on Twitter to send me an itemized list of Ryan’s alleged lies, and they kindly obliged. So far, Ryan appears to have the better of the argument. [Snip] Dave Weigel of Slate compiled a useful list. (For a longer one, visit ThinkProgress.) Wrote Weigel, “Ryan plowed through one of the more impressive strings of whoppers we’ve seen at...

His "whole life has prepared him for this moment – to meet serious challenges in a serious way, without excuses and idle words. After four years of getting the run-around, America needs a turnaround, and the man for the job is Governor Mitt Romney." When Paul Ryan declared this last night he reiterated what Ann Romney had declared the night before. Together these two speeches have prepared the ground for Mitt Romney to accept the nomination of the GOP and to make his opening argument to the American people: That he is ready to take over for this failed president...

When is it ever hilarious that the thought of dozens if not hundreds of black people desperately clinging for life as torrential waters batter their children, mothers or neighbors ever funny? David Chalian, a former political director with ABC News thought it was fair game to use a hate-mongering attack against Mitt Romney and Republicans gathered at the RNC Convention in Tampa, Florida on Wednesday. In his vicious racist attack he said, Romney is, “Happy to throw a party with black people dying.” Chalian, who was recently the Washington Bureau Chief for Yahoo News was fired for his online remarks,...

The website PolitiFact is going to be truth-squadding the Republican convention speakers this week, delivering verdicts on which claims are “mostly true” and which deserve a “pants on fire” rating. Our advice: Pay no attention to those ratings. PolitiFact can’t be trusted to get the story right. Its recent rulings on Medicare have demonstrated the point thrice over. PolitiFact said that Romney’s comment that Obama had “robbed” Medicare of $716 billion to pay for Obamacare was “mostly false.” Among its reasons: “The money was not robbed in any literal sense of the word.” So if Romney led anyone to believe...

Yesterday, I interviewed my co-worker Brandon Darby as he was traveling toward the Republican National Convention in Florida. The interview focused on strategies used by anarchist protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention and how those strategies will be used once again next week by the Occupy movement. In addition to trying to shut down bridges to prevent delegates from reaching the convention center next week, Brandon has learned that a subgroup of Occupy is looking to shut down EMS communications throughout the city. The video that goes along with this interview is one Brandon took at the RNC convention...

...... Soon, tens of thousands of Republicans will descend upon Tampa Bay, but this area's Democrats say they aren't going anywhere. Their schedules are packed: protests, rallies, vigils, press conferences, a visit from the vice president and even a secret-but-not-so-secret "counter-convention." "We don't want to ruin the convention for delegates," said Ella Coffee of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party, which opened its Tampa campaign office Thursday night. "We just want to be able to have a conversation." Preparation for that conversation starts today with a protest training session in Tampa. The Code Pink-organized gathering, which many area Democrats are expected...

Pinellas sheriff’s Deputy Ed Diluzio asks CodePink and St. Pete for Peace protesters to move off private property in Largo. ARGO — Seventy-five protesters, many dressed in pink, gathered outside the local production plant of Raytheon on Thursday, denouncing the defense contractor for its role in drone warfare. The demonstration, organized by the groups CodePink and St. Pete for Peace, marked the unofficial start of protests surrounding the Republican National Convention, set to kick off Monday in Tampa. "Raytheon, shame on you," they chanted. "Children die because of you." The director of the Young-Rainey Star Center was not happy to...

An alliance of more than 60 labor, peace, student, immigrant rights, gay and lesbian and other groups says it's ready for a 5,000-person march on the first day of the Republican National Convention. "There will be nothing that will stop us from marching in the streets to demand good jobs, health care, affordable education, equality and peace and to oppose the party of legitimate rape," said Corey Uhl of the local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. ...........Protesters are expected to come on buses from as far away as New York, Minnesota, Illinois and the state of Washington, organizers...

LISTEN TO LARRY'S SHOW Davis seconded Obama's nomination four years ago. He got off the plantation, became a Republican, and will be speaking at the Republican convention.

TAMPA — They've painted their posters and planned their marches. Now the question is, where are the 15,000 protesters expected to come and shake their fists at the Republican National Convention next week going to stay? ....City rules prohibit just crashing on the sidewalk, and Hillsborough sheriff's deputies have asked local residents and sanitation workers to look out for signs that protesters are illegally squatting in vacant homes. ....... Urban camping:... Closest to the action is Romneyville, a hive of mostly pink tents set up behind the Army Navy Surplus Market on N Tampa Street. Bruce Wright, who runs the...