Sunday, September 2, 2012

The "post-convention" roundup: Jon Stewart, CNN, Mitt Romney, Amy Goodman, David Koch, Karl Rove

By Patrick

The big embarrassment called the "Republican National Convention 2012" is over. The world cringed. It was basically like an episode of "Veep." We already had a lot of fun in the last post with hilarious cartoons and photoshops. So let's wrap up!

The world stared at an empty chair - and Jon Stewart delivered in one of his finest moments.

UPDATE: I removed the embedded clips from the "Daily Show" website and just left the links to the clips because for some people, the page was difficult to load. 

CLIP 1:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/fri-august-31-2012/rnc-2012---the-road-to-jeb-bush-2016---invisible-obama

CLIP 2:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/fri-august-31-2012/rnc-2012---the-road-to-jeb-bush-2016---a-fistful-of-awesome

CLIP 3:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/fri-august-31-2012/rnc-2012---the-road-to-jeb-bush-2016---republican-time-travel

But let's not forget the brilliant, must-see segment in which the Daily Show showed a parody of a biographical film about Mitt Romney (h/t Mediaite):



+++In addition, also watch John Olivers absolutely brilliant take on: "We can change that!"+++

Let's now move on to the subject of CNN:

CNN produced a documentary about Mitt Romney: "Romney Revealed." The documentary is certainly quite revealing, but in many ways! You can watch the full documentary here.

Let's just talk about one particular excerpt right now. Actually, watching this excerpt, one could think that we are still watching Jon Stewart's parody biography. Except, we are not:



But Jon Stewart could not have said it better:

“In 1968, France was a dangerous place to be for a 21-year-old American, but Mitt Romney was right in the middle of it."

Judging by the footage in this clip, France was at least as dangerous as Vietnam for Mitt Romney!

Additional information again at Mediaite.

That is your mainstream media, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank God that there are also other media sources available, for example the journalists at "Democracy Now!" who are actually doing their job.

First, a short clip by "Democracy Now!" with an overlooked handshake (not just overlooked, but actually "blacked out" in the MSM):



But that's by far not everything. Amy Goodman from "Democracy Now!" delivered excellent and hard-hitting reporting from the RNC. She actually tried to ask a question to David Koch, but when he was just about to answer, a "human wall" was quickly formed around Amy Goodman, blocking the access to David Koch.

"NY altnews" reports:

Republican delegates from New York created a human wall around billionaire David H. Koch to keep journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!  from interviewing him.

Koch was also part of the New York delegation to this week’s convention.

In the video (below), Goodman walks down the aisle at the convention site and attempts to ask Koch: “Does concentration of wealth undermine democracy?”

Koch appears shocked at first, then starts to answer, and later claims to be deaf in one ear. But then several men begin to stand up between Goodman and Koch, including New York Republican Chair Ed Cox, the son-in-law of former President M. Nixon.

One of the men in the human wall tells Goodman: “We’re not doing interviews.”

Goodman was persistent, however, and eventually began to interview Cox, who responded with platitudes, non-answers, and elitist contempt.

Goodman asked Cox how young people should feel about the increasing concentration of wealthy influence around the political process, but Cox shot back:

“That’s a statement that isn’t true. This country is governed by the people. That’s what it’s always been based on.”

It is worth to see this complete segment from the RNC by "Democracy Now!", as it is truly excellent, including great guests. It is more than 90 minutes long, and you can watch it in full at "Democracy Now!" Another clip here.

From this segment, I chose an excerpt which is nearly 20-minutes long, and uploaded it to youtube. It includes the moment where a "human wall" is formed around Amy Goodman in order to shield David Koch from questions. The guests on the show are Arun Gupta and Craig Unger - whose book "Boss Rove" will appear next week! Of course I pre-ordered straight away!

The clip also includes for example footage when Craig Unger asked questions to a very annoyed Karl Rove at another event and Karl Rove mingling with Sheldon Adelson.

Watch:



Craig Unger's book looks extremely promising and will appear on the market on Tuesday:


Craig Unger writes for Vanity Fair and is also the author of the highly praised book "House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties."

I also planned to include a "surprise" video clip from our visit in Venice, but due to the fact that this is an HD-clip, it takes virtually half a day to upload to youtube, due to the large file size. So I will include it in a future post!

Also, a new interesting post about the Stratfor-emails is in the works. Well, is there still something else to report about the emails? You betcha! Did you ever want to know what the Tea Party and the Nazis have or have not in common? I surely hope so! It will be another part in the series: "What I simply cannot say in public."

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BONUS UPDATE:

Here is finally the announced "Bonus clip" from Venice! I filmed this clip during the ride with the water taxi on the Grand Canal at night, when Kathleen and I were together with Leadfoot and Bella. I did not use the original audio as we were talking frequently, but I put some really beautiful music by Antonio Vivaldi under it (download the music legally for free here).

Make sure to watch it at HD on youtube!


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SECOND BONUS-UPDATE:

Many thanks to our reader HIG for alerting us to this excellent clip by documentary film maker Alexandra Pelosi, interviewing some angry white people (which were also delegates at the RNC). There will be "civil war" is President Obama is re-elected. Well, then: Full steam ahead straight to the 19th century, Republicans!


Other great documentaries by Alexandra Pelosi, which are available to watch online (both from HBO) - click on titles to watch:

Right America Feeling Wronged

Friends of God : A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi

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