When Mitt Romney Came to Town (subtitle: The King of Bain) a 30 minute attack documentary whose "overriding sensibility is not Swift Boat — it's Frontline, replete with a calming voice of God narration and meticulous sourcing to SEC filings, court documents, and the Boston Globe" (
Rolling Stone) provides an interesting moment in the future of political messaging and funding.
[more inside]
posted by stratastar
on Jan 12, 2012 -
195 comments
Here is "The B.S. of A. with Brain Sack," a show aired on Glenn Beck's TV channel that claims to be a "non-partisan" alternative to the Daily Show. How good is it? Better than the right's previous attempts at making a satire show, but uneven.... Judge for yourself: here's a monologue, in five parts:
1-
2-
3-
4-
5. Here's a few of the better bits:
Kill Panel -
Pilgrim Funnies -
Isle of Skulls MLYT [more inside]
posted by JHarris
on Dec 17, 2011 -
88 comments
An awkward moment in politics. (YouTube) While campaigning in
a New Hampshire diner, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney spotted local Bob Garon, a regular to the diner, eating his breakfast while wearing a Vietnam veteran's cap. “Vietnam veteran!” Romney greeted Bob, as he slid down onto the diner seat for a little chat. Unfortunately for Mitt,
Bob was dining there that morning with his husband, and had to explain to Bob that his husband didn't deserve any of the benefits he fought for, and that the makers of the Constitution held marriage to be between a man and a woman. (Which doesn't really explain
Mitt's great-grandfather Miles and his wives Hanna, Caroline, Catherine, Alice, and Emily, but stilll...)
posted by markkraft
on Dec 12, 2011 -
168 comments
If mainstream conservatism is a “philosophically flabby movement,” and I won’t argue that it isn’t, this is not evidence of its success but simply of its exhaustion and lack of imagination. Perhaps conservatism should thrive on loss and defeat, but I see little evidence that the conservative movement in America understands that it has already lost on many fronts. There is an illusion of success that the most recent election has kept alive, but it is a temporary one.
As the campaign for the Republican nomination for president gets
weirder by the minute, what does it mean to be an American conservative? Daniel Larison and Corey Robin debate the
changing nature of conservatism.
Bonus:
A Liberal Reads the Great Conservative Works
posted by villanelles at dawn
on Nov 11, 2011 -
110 comments
Boeing's new Dreamliner plant in South Carolina was found to be retaliation for union strikes by the National Labor Relations Board, an independent agency (
On Point radio show).
That's prompted Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to launch an all-out
war on the NRLB according to Dahlia Lithwick.
(
Previously.)
posted by klangklangston
on Aug 19, 2011 -
78 comments
Children in foster care in Michigan get an allowance for clothing. Republican State Senator Bruce Caswell wants to limit their clothing purchases to
thrift stores only.
posted by helloknitty
on Apr 24, 2011 -
241 comments
Texas Republicans have been turning against the
ideas on immigration supported by George W. Bush, who actively courted Latino voters in his
1998 gubenertorial election campaign (
cached), and in his
two presidential election campaigns. In 2010,
some 12,000 Republican delegates came together, many proposing new directions on immigration reform. By January 2011, there were
more than three dozen immigration-related bills filed, a number of them creating heated debates. By the of March, there were
nearly 100 immigration bills written or filed, some with
serious loopholes. (Rep. Debbie Riddle,
previously.)
posted by filthy light thief
on Mar 30, 2011 -
57 comments
Rep. Peter King (R-NY), not content with
questioning Muslim loyalty, has introduced
HR 607, the "Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011,"
to take away HAM radio from amateur operators, and sell it to he highest commercial bidder in order to fund some kind of separate internet for cops.
posted by Slap*Happy
on Mar 10, 2011 -
72 comments
How They Did It - A Republican Strategy Session 11 days before Obama's inauguration. 'How they did it is the story of one of the most remarkable Congressional campaigns in more than a half-century, characterized by careful plotting by Republicans, miscalculations by Democrats and a new political dynamic with forces out of both parties’ control.'
'At that Republican retreat in January 2009, gathering inside a historic inn in Annapolis, Md., the group — led by Representatives John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, and Eric Cantor of Virginia, the whip — did not tolerate the hand-wringing that consumed so many Republicans that dark winter.
Instead, they walked through a by-the-numbers picture of Democratic vulnerability that had been lost in the excitement over Mr. Obama’s election.'
[more inside]
posted by VikingSword
on Nov 4, 2010 -
143 comments
It's Election Day in America, and as is so often the case in this
fickle land, the results of the 2010 midterm elections are up in the air. Although President Obama's party is expected to suffer significant losses,
record numbers of districts remain competitive, and even minute errors in polling could mean the difference between
a historic Republican landslide and
an unexpectedly robust Democratic defense. At stake are control of not just the Senate and House, but myriad state and local offices, many of which will play key roles in the dynamics of the 2012 presidential race -- and, more subtly but no less crucially, the once-in-a-decade
congressional redistricting process. Much uncertainty surrounds the behavior of the electorate -- how many will turn out, and how informed will they be? To help move those statistics in the right direction, look inside for voter guides, national and state fact checkers, and an assortment of other resources to keep tabs on as the results roll in.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Nov 2, 2010 -
858 comments
In a five part series he wrote a few years ago, blogger J. Brad Hicks breaks down how, in the mid-1960s, the Republican party made a conscious decision to rebrand themselves as the party of Christians, and in doing so, how they had to shift the ideology of the churches to what he calls a "
false gospel".
[more inside]
posted by quin
on Sep 15, 2010 -
208 comments
Lately, the organizations that make up the American Republican Party/GOP have been experimenting with
going online. The House Republicans have created
America Speaking Out, a website for the people to give their ideas to "an arrogant congress." There, visitors can upload ideas they would like the government to carry out.
posted by mccarty.tim
on May 25, 2010 -
191 comments
"How do you talk about something like gangsta rap from a conservative perspective?" he said. "Are you going to critique it, or just disagree with it?" Friedersdorf tried gamely to square that circle in a piece exploring his conflicted feelings about dancing to Lil Jon at a wedding, but it was an essay that could have been written only so many times.
A post-mortem on
Culture11. (
previously)
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Mar 26, 2009 -
34 comments
Fox,
the BBC and
CNN have all revealed that Republican US presidential candidate John McCain has picked Alaskan Governor
Sarah Palin as his running mate on his 72nd birthday on the eve of the start of
Republican National Convention. Despite being wildly popular in Alaska, Palin has recently been involved in
an investigation over whether she dismissed a public safety commissioner because he refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law.
posted by HaloMan
on Aug 29, 2008 -
5555 comments
“You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas." A
Vanity Fair reporter investigates the chain of command that tossed out the Geneva Conventions and instituted coercive interrogation techniques -- some might call them torture or even
war crimes -- in Bush's Global War on Terror. UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo's now-obsolete 81-page memo to the Pentagon in 2003 [available as PDFs
here and here] was crucial, offering a broad range of legal justifications and deniability for disregarding international law in the name of
"self-defense." Others
say that Yoo was just making "a clear point about the limits of Congress to intrude on the executive branch in its exercise of duties as Commander in Chief." [previously
here and
here.]
posted by digaman
on Apr 3, 2008 -
76 comments
