Sure, Clint Eastwood might have made headlines by having a one-sided debate with Invisible Obama, but the President bears him no ill will.

While regular-sized Mitt Romney stood inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, telling regular-sized fables, his 40-foot-high head boomed from the side of a parking garage. The image called for blood-red banners and black bunting, for Dwight Schrute pounding the podium and yelling, "BLOOD ALONE MOVES THE WHEELS OF HISTORY." Instead, Mitt pulled an awkward smile, wincing and unconvincing, unctuously excusing himself into our hearts—the Jim Halpert of the annals American politics.

As a mystery guest speaker, Clint Eastwood may not have been much of a surprise, but his speech sure was.

Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson has a devastating story gutting one of Mitt Romney's origin myths as a "Turnaround Guy." Romney has always taken credit for rescuing Bain & Co., the consulting firm where he got his start (as distinct from Bain Capital, the private equity operation he later co-founded) from the clutches of bankruptcy by dint of fearless resolve, hard work, and common sense. The truth: He raided its coffers for executive bonuses even as it owed millions to the federal government, and used the resulting lack of cash as leverage to screw over the company's creditors.

REPORTING LIVE FROM THE TAMPA CONVENTION CENTER'S RADIO ROW—Just moments ago, the political world's axis tilted directly towards the second floor of the Tampa Convention Center, near the back doors, where onetime pizza restaurateur Herman Cain delivered a scorching call for truth to the assembled voracious media scrum.

An unnamed CBS News/National Journal reporter traveling aboard Mitt Romney's campaign plane yesterday happened across a loaded gun left unattended inside the plane's bathroom by a Secret Service agent.

To watch America's most treasured political theater play out firsthand is to come to understand that this is not about real things that happen in the world outside of television boxes and the mouths of anointed leaders. This is a mass indulgence of the faithful in the collective ecstasy of their faith. As an act of cognitive dissonance, the speeches of the Republican convention were breathtaking in their boldness.

Sure there are inconsistencies in the Republican platform, especially when it comes to rape and abortion, but that doesn't mean the Republican party should tell the candidates what to do, right? The Daily Show's Samantha Bee investigates.

There is an official Romney/ Ryan souvenir store in the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where the convention is being held. It's a store that would normally be selling Tampa Bay Lightning shirts and whatnot, but now it's selling souvenirs to people with poor taste who may not even like hockey.

BuzzFeed says TMZ's report is false: Mitt Romney did not spend $500,000 to get Journey to play his fundraiser.

Mitt Romney — just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit — is paying Journey $500,000 to play his fundraiser.

People get hostile when you want to ask critical questions about someone's money. If it's a profile hailing an entrepreneur as a genius, then things are okay: we're only inquiring about the accumulation of an implicit good. When talk verges on criticism, people get itchy.

Here's Mitt Romney in Michigan, talking to a group of voters:

Mitt Romney's refusal to release more of his tax returns isn't about any shady offshore dealings — he just doesn't want people to know how much money he gives the Mormon Church.

Before allowing local reporters in Denver to conduct one-on-one interviews with Mitt Romney, his camp made reporters promise not to ask him any questions about Rep. Todd Akin of "Legitimate Rape" fame or abortion in general.

These documents are part of a package on Mitt Romney's Bain holdings. For the full report, go here.

This story is part of a package on Mitt Romney's Bain holdings. For the full report, go here.

This story is part of a package on Mitt Romney's Bain holdings. For the full report, go here.

Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.

Gawker has obtained a large cache of confidential internal financial documents from more than 20 secretive hedge funds and other investment vehicles in which Mitt Romney has stashed his considerable wealth. All told, the partnerships and limited liability corporations detailed below accounted for, at minimum, $10,069,000 of Romney's assets in 2011 and yielded $913,300 in income, according to his 2012 financial disclosure (those figures are derived from adding up the low end of ranges Romney disclosed; the actual numbers could be astronomically higher).