Political Theatre category archive
The Sad Sack 0
At the San Francisco Chronicle, a veteran of the U. S. Navy and a long-time public servant argues forcefully that Donald Trump has failed his duties as Commander-in-Chief.
A snippet:
Follow the link for his reasoning.
What If They “Reopened the Economy” and No One Came? 0
Ed, at Gin and Tacos, thinks that is a very real possibility.
Here are some bits from his post:
(snip)
The truth is that people are afraid, and with good cause. They are afraid of unnecessary risk.
(snip)
The other reality that is becoming all too clear is that the “slow drain” theory of capitalism and consumer spending is delusional. That is, demand and consumption haven’t been pent up for 8 weeks and once the clog is cleared, it will come bursting forth in torrents. . . . The lack of spending is from tens of millions of people losing their jobs, having their hours reduced, or being in fear of losing their jobs in the near future.
I commend the entire article to your attention.
And, for related reading, economist Austan Goolsbee is not sanguine.
Sacrificed for by Your Country
0
I would have phrased it somewhat more circumspectly–well, a lot more circumspectly–but methinks Atrios may be onto something.
Decline and Fall 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear is not sanguine.
Cavalcade of COVID 0
Der Spiegel assigned a team of reporters to chronicle the United States’s response it COVID-19. Waht that found was not pretty. Here’s a bit from the intro:
I commend the article to your attention.
It’s a painful read, but a necessary one.
Nattering Nabob of Nonsense 0
Norm Shpancer, writing as Psychology Today Blogs, remarks on Donald Trump’s rambling, incoherent, and often self-contradictory remarks and tries to figure out why the Trumpettes not only overlook, but defend them. Here’s an exerpt:
That reaction, rather than the bumbling itself, manifests a core corruption of Trump and his cultists—the rabid insistence that gibberish is poetry, that covfefe is a real word, albeit secret; that, in other words, the leader’s obvious faults do not in fact exist.
Politics aside, to the honest outside observer that reaction seems both unnecessary and ineffective. And it begs for explanation. So, what is it that compels Trump and his enablers to deny the clear evidence of our ears? To treat utter nonsense with fawning reverence?
Reading Rainbow 0
Covidiots meet the Constitution, and discover that maybe they should have read it first.
That Other Epidemic 0
At NJ.com, Kevin Manahan traces the latest outbreak of the Dumbbell Disease, caused by the stupid virus, which is again (it’s happened before–think of the Know Nothings, for example) going viral in the United States. A nugget:
Misdirection Play, Covidiot Dept. 0
At The Philadelphia Inquirer, Robert Field explains that the persons protesting for states to “reopen” are misdirected to the wrong culprit. An excerpt (emphasis added):
Individual states are not and were never equipped to defend the nation from a global threat. That’s why the framers of the Constitution created the federal government. Asking the states to lead the fight against COVID-19 is like asking them to defend the country from a military threat. Imagine FDR announcing after Pearl Harbor that each state was on its own to fend off the armies of Germany and Japan.