Political Theatre category archive

Via BartCop.

Ye bolt hath struck home.

Jason330 agrees.

Addendum, Later That Same Morning:

Chauncey Devega’s has his own typically trenchant analysis of this. A nugget:

It is clear to most thinking people that Joe Biden spoke a plain truth when he suggested that the banks, credit card companies, and the financier classes basically have the American people in a state of debt peonage. By rolling back modest consumer protections enacted by President Obama, the Tea Party GOP and Mitt Romney would only make our shared pain even worse.

(snip)

In all, the vast majority of references to chains have little to do with the horrors of slavery, the Middle Passage, and the Black Holocaust. That Romney’s campaign would play with such historically potent imagery–efforts made even more insincere given the Tea Party GOP presidential nominee’s blatantly racist Barack Obama is a lazy negro welfare king ads–is not surprising.

In Wingnut World, health care, like car elevators and dancing horses, is a luxury for the rich.

Helen Philpot assesses the Republican veepstakes:

And speaking of a horse’s ass, Romney picked a Vice-Presidential nominee. They say Romney needed to pick a conservative like Paul Ryan to distinguish himself from Obama. I’m not sure why. Romney and Obama look nothing alike. I mean they look nothing alike on paper. Obama campaigned on universal healthcare and then delivered universal healthcare. Romney hates government controlled healthcare. Obama was pro-choice and then he became President and was still pro-choice. Romney is pro-running for President. That Obama even ran as a black man and wouldn’t you know it – he’s still a black man. Romney is a white guy. Which is probably why so many people in the Tea Party are so excited about the Romney/Ryan ticket – neither are black.

Read the rest.

H/T to Dick Destiny, who adds context.

Some Guy with a Website finds campaign press coverage lacking.

Paul Ryan is the final proof to me that this country simply doesn’t have a news media anymore. Regardless of you liking/hating Obama or supporting/opposing a right-wing economic plan, we don’t have people we used to have simply stating for the fact that almost everything he says is a complete lie. This isn’t a partisan observation; his tax plan literally doesn’t work using a highly biased system called “math.”

He has a point, you know.

Major media does not call out the lies until and unless they have no choice.

Remember way back when, oh, maybe three or four months ago, the punditocracy was all over Mitt flipping back towards the center?

Well, as The Richmonder points out, it ain’t happening, folks.

The rich, richer; the poor, poorer.

Now that Mitt has flipped Paul Ryan’s hat into the veep ring, only alienists (and perhaps these folks) will have any reason whatsoever to pay attention to the Republican National Convention.

Philadelphia’s attempt to hide the homeless comes a cropper:

A federal judge on Friday reaffirmed his July 12 order blocking enforcement of Mayor Nutter’s rule banning groups from feeding homeless people along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Among other things, the judge said that it was clear that services for the homeless were overwhelmed and that feeding the hungry was in the public interest.

Homeless folks are attracted to that area because it’s safe and well-patrolled and there are lots of bushes and trees to sleep under.

But the city is not giving up.

Within hours of the release of the 56-page opinion and preliminary injunction by District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., the Nutter administration filed notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

It bears remembering that Philadelphia (and other cities) did not create this situation. If there were justice, these folks would be sleeping on bankster lawns in the Hamptons.

Paul Ryan?

Heh. Heh, indeed. Heh, indeedy-do.

Also, too.

Remember, Barbara Billingsley was a working mother.

Via ABL.

Afterthought:

This is a much more profound, relevant, and well-reasoned position than anything from Charles Krauthammer or Cal Thom–oh, never mind.

Via PoliticalProf.

Miss Swiss Bank Account comes out for Mitt:

Learn more about Romney Girl.

Via Raw Story.

Addendum, the Next Week:

Switzerland is not happy.

Contradict Me offers a handy tool for classifying bigots.

This is one of my favorites, one seen frequently in the wild over the past two weeks:

The Enlightened- This bigot calls for peace. The problem is, their call for peace is only directed at the victim of hate. Rarely, if ever, is this “Call for peace” directed at the person who has caused the pain. They are anti-retaliation but not so much anti-attack. This bigot will talk of Ghandi or quote “An eye for an eye…” They’ll say, “Whatever the hate fueled person did was bad BUT…” All the while stepping directly on the hurt person and remaining completely silent in the face of the person who has caused the harm. They will often go on a faux peace rant, end it with an incorrect use of Nameste and be completely shocked that everyone doesn’t immediately fall at their feet and start singing We are the World.

This is the one that, after some bigoted massacre or other, can be recognized by its plaintive cry:

Now is not the time to politicize.
Now is not the time to politicize.
Now is not the time to politicize.

Follow the link for the rest. I expect that you will recognize them all.

Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz consider what happens when Senator Harry Reid talks like Fox News, complete with “Some people say . . .” and “The word on the street is . . . .”

They also wonder whether there’s a there there:

If there is a there there, it’s the only there that’s there over there in Mitt world.

Following the Milwaukee massacre, the press has discovered the seamy underground of white power punk (as an SPLC supporter, I was already aware of it and other manifestations of the mongers of extreme hate).

Psychology Today blogger Anthony Lemieux, who has studied that music, considers the message in the music and its use in recruiting haters. A nugget:

A couple of years ago, one of my former students did a detailed research study examining the lyrical themes in White Supremacist music and in short found a series of reliable and recurrent themes. Those mentioned here are just a small (but representative) sample of what we found. But it is important to note that emphasizing the need for ‘awakening’ is one of the themes that is particularly important in the context of violence, because violence is positioned as the means by which the masses can be shocked from their collective complacency. Not only are the perceived problems and threats that Whites face attributed to racial and religious minorities, but the solution to those problems is purported to be through the embracing of eliminationist themes and justification of violence.