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So how is the British press reacting to Mitt?
Romney is certainly giving the English Press a lot to talk about on center spreads, while Olympic coverage takes the front pages. Their reaction to Mitt has gone from openness, to skepticism, to mocking, to concluding that Mitt Romney is worse than Sarah Palin.
Take Daily Mail Political Editor James Chapman, whose cen6ter spread was topped with a two page headline: Romney is a Party Pooper. He has been providing the world a play by play of Romney’s British implosion via his Twitter account, starting off by criticizing London’s preparedness for the Olympics, then forgotname of British Labour Leader Ed Miliband, and then he admitted that he had been given a secret briefing by MI6. This led the British to ask aloud if they have another George W. Bush on their hands:
“Romney blunders again by revealing he’s had (supposedly) top secret briefing by John Sawers, MI6 boss. Do we have a new Dubya on our hands?”
After his visit to Whitehall, Chapman offered two of the kinder reviews of Mitt Romney:
“Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. ‘Worse than Sarah Palin.’ ‘Total car crash’. Two of the kinder verdicts. Another verdict from one Romney meeting: ‘Apparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity’”
The Telegraph is reporting that London Mayor Boris Johnson mocked Romney’s readiness comment:
“Quite a moment from the Mayor of London Boris Johnson. Shortly after Rix had lit the flame he really went for it in Hyde Park. He referenced Mitt Romney’s ‘London isn’t ready’ quip and shot back in style. “Are we ready?” he called and the crowd went wild. There may even have been a hint of the Obama-friendly “Yes we can!” in there – he may have jumped into a winning scenario but I’ve not heard a politician get that reaction before.”
… and this in front of a crowd of over 200,000 Londoners.
Related articles
- Romney in Shambles as Britain Proclaims Him Worse than Sarah Palin (tribuneofthepeople.com)
- Mitt Romney’s London Trip: Successful In Terms of Image Deconstructing (themoderatevoice.com)
- Romney’s very bad London trip (dailykos.com)
- Mitt Romney’s very, very bad day (dailykos.com)
- Mitt Romney is the new Sarah Palin! (polizeros.com)
- London Mayor Mocks Mitt Romney For Olympics Remarks (thinkprogress.org)
- British media revel in Romney’s day of gaffes (cbsnews.com)
- Blimey! London Mayor Mocks ‘This Guy Called Mitt Romney’ (theatlanticwire.com)
Romney insists Republicans are NOT the Party of the Rich…
From PERRspectives:
At a $1.7 million fundraiser in Jackson, Mississippi, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared that the GOP is not “the party of the rich,” insisting instead that “we’re the party of people who want to get rich.”
Sadly for Romney, there are two small problems with his assessment. For starters, Mitt’s proposals (like those from GOP wunderkind Paul Ryan) would deliver another massive tax cut windfall for the wealthy and shred the social safety net while putting the economic recovery at risk. Just as damning for Mitt and his cheerleaders like David Brooks and Robert Samuelson, the historical record shows that from economic growth and job creation to household incomes, stock market performance and just about every other indicator of the health of the U.S. capitalism, the modern U.S. economy has almost always done better under Democratic presidents.
Nevertheless, Governor Romney offered his GOP extreme makeover during his audience with the haves and have-mores in Mississippi. As ABC reported:
“We’re accused, by the way — in our party — of being the party of the rich,” Romney said. “And it’s an awful moniker, because that’s just not true. We’re the party of people who want to get rich. And we’re also the party of pSee the rest of this article HERE.eople who want to care to help people from getting poor. We want to help the poor.”Americans have good reason to look the dressage horse in the mouth, and not just because earlier this year Romney announced, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” As it turns out, Mitt Romney’s program makes George W. Bush look like Karl Marx.
See the rest of this article HERE.
Related articles
- Romney Says GOP’s Not ‘Party of the Rich,’ But ‘of Those Who Want to Be Rich’ (news.yahoo.com)
- Mitt Romney claims concern for the waiters and waitresses at his country club fundraiser (dailykos.com)
- Romney Says GOP’s Not ‘Party of the Rich,’ But ‘of Those Who Want to Be Rich’ – Yahoo! News (tribuneofthepeople.com)
- Romney Says GOP’s Not ‘Party of the Rich,’ But ‘of Those Who Want to Be Rich’ (abcnews.go.com)
- Romney says waiters at fundraiser “struggling” (cbsnews.com)
- What’s Hiding in Romney’s Taxes? (realclearpolitics.com)
Afternoon Entertainment : Katie Goodman on the Current Situation.
It doesn’t matter if you are Republican or Democrat.
If you have a bad language problem, predominantly the “F” word, don’t play this.
Breathing easier?
Related articles
- Signs of improper campaigning in McKenna files (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Scarborough Library Follies
John and I broadcast Winners and Losers from Shepherd University‘s Scarborougfh Library this morning, adding an extra hour to our regular show. Todd Cotsgreave, our Station Manager, spent close to two days setting up the equipment, testing it and getting rerady for the broadcast, for which we express great thanks.
I was really struck by the signs and posters they had outside of the Library building and all over the inside that showed John and me broadcasting (pictures swiped from this blog going back quite a ways).
We interviewed members of the Library staff, program directors, student volunteers and Lisa Welch from the Film Society (movie tonight, btw – George Clooney ‘s Good Night and Good Luck). It was all set up by the Library Dean and we even had a mini breakfast and coffee for all attendees.
It all worked out pretty well and we’ll probably do it again in 6 months or so.
As the Middle Class disappears, we turn into Poverty Nation at the Middle Class level.
“You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.”
– Louis Brandeis
So how poor is the Middle Class when looked at in comparison with the top 1% (who don’t seem to be affected by the results of the Great Recession)? Here are a couple of charts from Stanford University which will give you an idea:
CEO pay as related to Average Worker pay
The ratio of the average pay of the 100 highest-paid CEOs in the United States to the average wage of workers increased from 39:1 in 1970 to 191:1 in 1988 to 1,039:1 in 2000. Put more colloquially, top CEOs in 1970 made 39 times more than the average worker, whereas now they make 1,039 times more than the average worker.
U.S. CEO pay in relation to the average worker’s wage:
Source: Thomas Piketty, and Emanuel Saez. 2007. “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-2002.” In Anthony B. Atkinson, and Thomas Piketty, Top Incomes Over the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Children In Poverty
In the United States, 21.9 percent of all children are in poverty, a poverty rate second only to that of Mexico’s (among rich nations).
Relative Poverty Rates in Twenty-One Rich Nations at the Turn of the Century for Children:
Source: Timothy M. Smeeding, 2008. “Poorer by Comparison.” Pathways 3-5.
Got it? The rich aren’t complaining because they earn around a thousand to one compared to the average middle class guy. And they don’t seem to be concerned that, aside from Mexico, we are leaders in Child Poverty among developed nations (we even come in 3 times worse than Slovenia!)
So now the Tea Party folks are pushing a budget where they have already eliminated, in concept, NPR, PBS, the EPA and just about every other federally funded advantage that the Middle Class has. This was all passed by the House yesterday… now it goes to the Senate.
I signed a petition yesterday to save public broadcasting. If you want to join me, go to this link: http://pol.moveon.org/nprpbs/?r_by=-5593088-7WiE7Qx&rc=mailto. This will get the word out to the Senate before they vote on it. Let’s let them know what WE want.
The Republicans are working very hard to eliminate the Middle Class, and it is a losing battle, it seems, negotiating with them. John Boehner seems to have no real control over his House colleagues and the Tea Partyers don’t have any idea what negotiation means.
As we head for a potential government shutdown, we’re in for lots of rhetorical crap and not much real action.
Related Articles
- Dave Johnson: Budget Cuts Kill The Middle Class (huffingtonpost.com)
- Podcast: Jobs, Wages and Middle-Class Costs (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Robert Scheer: The Peasants Need Pitchforks (huffingtonpost.com)
- Middle-class insolvency increase (moneydebtandcredit.com)
- GOP Budget Plan: Humbug For Middle Class & Poor, Lollipops For Rich & Big Business (themoderatevoice.com)
- Class Warfarin: Hemorrhaging, Part II by Joseph Natoli (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
- It’s not just the poor who need social mobility (telegraph.co.uk)
- Poverty and Social Class- The Impact of Poverty (socyberty.com)
Quote of the Day… one of many I’m seeing all over the Internet
“Countdown with Keith Olbermann was the anchor of something extraordinary that emerged, painstakingly and against all odds, during the Bush years. A mild liberal alternative was established in the corporate media to counter the flamethrowers at Fox. Nothing like it had existed since MSNBC fired Phil Donahue in early 2003. Now it’s gone. And it’s hard to see how this gaping hole on the “liberal” end of the corporate media is going to result in anything other than giving a louder voice and greater ventilation to the policies that are currently being advanced by an aggressive right-wing oligarchy.”
– Joseph A. Palermo, Associate Professor, American History, California State University, Sacramento.
Related Articles
- Sean McBride: The Disappearance of Keith Olbermann (Robert Parry) (consortiumnews.com)
- Juan Cole, too! Most of the best bloggers on the web have made support statements for Olbermann… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
- Is Olbermann the victim of his own success? (salon.com)
- Keith Olbermann — Fired By MSNBC (tmz.com)
- Keith Olbermann out at MSNBC (washingtonmonthly.com)