This Week In Dog Whistles: Paul Ryan, Come On Down!

By Arturo R. García

I know, I know…it’s too easy. But we haven’t seen P-Ry pull one of these maneuvers. Until now.

Here’s a transcript of his statements:

We have good strong gun laws. We have to make sure we enforce our laws. We have lots of laws that aren’t being properly enforced. We need to make sure we enforce these laws, but the best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity to the inner cities, is to help people get out of poverty in the inner cities, is to help teach people good discipline, good character, that is civil society.

Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher summed up the issue pretty well:

Ryan’s assessment of “inner city” people is of a piece with the not-at-all subtle and even out-and-proud overt) attitudes of the leading lights in the Republican Party, best exemplified by racism decoder-ring Newt Gingrich, who helpfully singled out black people as the “Food Stamp-satisfied” people we already knew they were talking about, and who echoed Ryan’s chatter about the low character of the inner city denizens who “have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal.”

So, anybody else need convincing to register to vote?