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AMERICAN BROADCASTER CNN has confirmed that one of its camera operators was involved in an incident which led to two people being ejected from the Republican National Convention in Florida yesterday.
The pair were removed from the Tampa Bay Times Forum after they allegedly threw nuts at an African-American camera woman and said, “This is how we feed animals.”
The broadcaster said there are a number of witnesses to the incident and police and RNC security acted immediately.
The convention later released a statement describing the conduct as “deplorable”, “inexcusable and unacceptable”. Organisers added that such behaviour “will not be tolerated”.
CNN issued a separate statement:
CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.
The incident was first reported by Take Action News reporter David Shuster on Twitter:
The convention got underway yesterday and Mitt Romney has already been declared the party’s nominee for the US Presidency. He will be Barack Obama’s main challenge in the November election.
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I bet they will get to keep their Republican Party membership!
They’ll be running for Congress next.
We have a few home grown racists, fundamentalists and homophobes in the mainstream Irish right-wing of Fine Gael too!
Far too bloody many. Sad thing is I think on the ground level we’re pretty bad for the for all those things as a country too.
Fine Gael right wing ?! get real ! they are the all Keynesian big government, less freedom lefties!
And in politics in Ireland, we’ve a bunch of lefties who don’t like to debate but indulge in emotional sloganing too…
Debate immigration? Racist!
Debate abortion? Fundamentalist!!
Debate gay marriage? Homophobe!!
Such people are common to every part of the politcal spectrum…
@Saint Ruth – What’s emotional about calling someone out on their racism and intolerance? it’s the logical thing to do for any progressive
@ Peter 0_0
There are extreme elements on both the left and right but who specifically in FG is racist, fundamentalist (not quite sure what you mean by this) or homophobic?
Kerron. The problem is that some people on the left, no shortage of them, seem to feel that they define the terms and references of all debates and then proceed to shout down or smear those that they disagree with.
The radical left and the Tea Party types often come across as smug, self-satisfied addicts to applying labels to those they disagree with. (Fascist, Socialist, Commie, bigot, Nazi, fag, homophobe, redneck). It turns the voters off, both exhibit messianic visions of theirs being the one true path to salvation. Marx or Hayek as their Prophet and woe unto the cursed unbelievers.
Arjun, precisely and exactly.
Arjun – the notion that Socialism and Left politics are somehow equatable with the far-right is liberal centrist nonsense
James Dunne –
racist – Mayor of Naas Darren Scully for one – were there not N*gger comments from Enda himself too?
homophobic – Lucidna Creighton
fundamentalist (Christian) – any one of the shower from Mayo – anti-choice and moralistic
Hi, biggest load of BS I’ve read in a long time. Thanks for that!
So all pro-lifers are Fundamentalists?
All those who don’t agree with full gay marriage are homophobic?
Okay, calling someone a N*gger indicates you’re a racist.
But there were many who called everyone who voted Yes to the Citizenship Referendum a Racist.
There’s some people with very narrow political ideas and everyone who disagrees with them is therefore intolerant. No point talking to them. Closed minds. They can be on any part of the political spectrum.
And Arjun didn’t equate “Socialism and Left politics are somehow equatable with the far-right “, he was talking about the people. Some (a minority) progressives ” often come across as smug, self-satisfied addicts applying labels to those they disagree with”
Unsurprising behaviour.
Indeed
Fill me in on why it’s unsurprising.
Massive all-white crowd in a multicultural country. Romney made a ‘birther’ joke and has attacked food stamps. There’s more reasons.
You always get some dic5heads at party conference. Like last year at the FF Ard Fheis, when 2 delegates were mocking and singing cheerio to people in the Work abroad expo who told them FF should be ashamed for what they did to Ireland.
The problem for the GOP and FF is that both, while being on the extreme of the spectrum, fit in to a long pattern of having no respect for much of the electorate. So it becomes unsurprising, making it even harder for parties like that to engage with ordinary people. A fatal hubris for any party.
David, judging by the words actions certain elements of the political landscape in the states who would be naturally given to supporting the Grand Ol’Party (Tea Party fr’instance), especially now with Obama in the White House, with poster boys of the right, Beck labelling him a racist with racist policies, Limbaugh blaming extreme weather events on him, many commentators, GOP senators including the Republican nominee himself questioning Obama’s birthplace and thus qualification to run for the presidency (which I believe is merely because Obama is a black man whose father was Kenyan and makes good column inches for right wing conspiracy-porn addicts) and added to the fact that prior to the 2008 election nearly 9 out of 10 black voters would vote for the Democratic candidate in a general election (making the GOP the non-black party) I find it unsurprising that a racist incident would occur at the GOP National Convention.
The public commentary and political rhetoric is all officially sanctioned. It’s only to be expected that the grunts will grunt it out with their actions.
There’s another batch of “don’t knows” heading for Barack Obama’s camp. Well done the GOP!
Not surprised one bit when the tone from the upper echelons and throughout the GOP is blatantly racist to Obama. I really hope he romps home in November. The GOP need to move centre once again and drop these right wing lunatics
Tea Partiers? (right wing lunatics)
I refer mainly to the tea partners Kevin but the guys at the top are panning to these bigots. Its plain to see! this is a great video from a few nights ago raising the birther/food stamps issue as you mentioned above. http://youtu.be/U7ZWnyy6pAw
The only reason the republicans are annoyed by this is it was sophisticated enough for them. They like to doll their racism up a bit first.
*wasn’t
Not really surprising when the Republicans “birther” theory is nothing more than a disbelief that a non-white American can make it to the most powerful position in the world without it being some sort of conspiracy.
Well said Val
True, Val (would the theory exist if he looked like Bill Clinton?). However the Democrats have their Truthers (a disbelief that non-white Americans/Jews are responsible for 911 – one survey had it at around 50% of democrats believed Bush had some part in it – how could the US be attacked if it wasn’t some sort of conspiracy?).
Birthers/Truthers, all the same. They look stupid to the undecided…
They could have been calling journalists animals.
As far as I’m aware that’s not a crime.
Or women or camera people but I think it’s fairly obvious what they meant.
They could have been speaking swahili and misheard and butterfingered with the nuts. The possibilities are endless, Damocles.
Good grief.
Just sayin’
Anyway some journos are animals.
Damocles, I can hear you! :(
Some, not all.
The two symbols of the Republican Party; An Elephant, and a big fat white guy who’s threatened by change.
When this ‘change’ is having to pay for other peoples’ stuff, I’d feel threatened too. Off topic though, point is – individuals were done for racist behavior. If you want that to be extended to ALL Republican party members, then there is an elephant-sized irony in there for you.
A lot of the racism stories these days are not actually racism… but this one definitely is.
That is what a racist would say?
;)
Most republicans will have smirked and turned a blind eye….I am sure the witness list is just bulging with upstanding citizens shocked at what happened and willing to testify.It will be pushed aside and not dealt with till after the election and then it will just be old news.Having said that,I expect president Obama will be comfortably into his second term.Romney fkd up with his choice of Paul as a running mate……Extreme right wing white trash,dressed in a suit…and thats just Romney…..roll on November.
I am disappointed at how biased you are against republicans. The persons involved were ejected! But Vise President Biden gets a pass on saying “Romney goin to put y’all back in chains” and how he described Obama 4 years ago “he speaks very well for a black fella”. You don’t even know that this people were Republicans. Democrats have staged other (racist) episodes that were proven to be untrue! Races and economic classes are more divided then ever thanks to Obama! What Hippocrates!
Mark you seem to forget that the republicans have questioned all along Obamas citizenship and to this day bring it up, even last week by Romney himself. They call him an Arab, a Muslim which in itself is disturbing. If an Irish American can be president by can’t an African American or indeed a Muslim become a US president. If it wasn’t such an issue the tea partiers would not make any noise over it
Every chance they get they try these nasty subliminal pot shots saying he’s somehow not American and influenced by Europe etc. Everything is made to belittle him. I just hope the US doesn’t flip flop like Romney and his plastics and pan to these neo-con Christian lunatics.
Mark, can you give me a link to Biden saying that Obama “he speaks very well for a black fella”. Also, can you post up some of these (racist) episodes the Democrats have contrived?
Arjun you forgot to mention that story about a “jibe” at the FF party conference turned out to be a complete hoax, started by a malicious and bogus twitter account. Unfortunately the times we live in feature a lot of political “black ops” especially on the day of social media. Speaking of which has anyone seen @Fagans3 lately?
Okay …so those two were planted there to engage in a form of disinformation. Their faces will be on the news soon and they go into witness protection…got it! How much do you reckon they were paid??? peanuts I would imagine….
Why use plants to make the Republicans look bad when they do it themselves so well?
Your right I must have been nuts to think otherwise….I am killing the nuts thing are’nt I?
@ Nivag Yeoh here is the link of joe Bidens racist comments oh and some really dumb ones too! http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/joebiden/a/bidenisms.htm.
One staged episode that I speak about is when Nancy Pelosi and Congressmen Joe Lewis pranced threw a tea party demonstration and claimed that they were spit on and call “nigers”. Journalist Andrew Breitbart debunked the allegation along with dozens of iPhone videos that showed no such disgusting behavior! I suggest doing some research. I’m not saying Republicans are perfect and what we should be talking about are real issues like the economy and Obama’s record!
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