Political Theatre category archive
Plus Ca Change, Flail the Bern Dept. 4
Eight years ago, as Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination fell behind Barack Obama’s, I gave forth a screed* in which I suggested that, as hope for her campaign faded, she had begun acting like a jerk. (People sometimes do that when they start to lose hope in a cause. My two or three regular readers also know that, in my opinion, she has redeemed herself in her subsequent conduct.)
In an eerie reprise of history, the role is reversed and it is now her opponent who is acting like a jerk.
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*I haven’t done a screed for a long time. I think I got them all out of my system in this blog’s youth.
“The Birds” 0
Shorter Reg Henry: Hitchcock had nothing on this campaign.
“If You Can’t Google It, It Must Not Be” 0
Remember the University of California at Davis campus cop who egregiously pepper-sprayed a group of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protestors a couple of years ago?
Well, UC-Davis doesn’t want you to, so it tried to make it go away. The Sacramento Bee has the documents:
The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper-spray incident.
Some payments were made in hopes of improving the results computer users obtained when searching for information about the university or Katehi, results that one consultant labeled “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor.”
Much more at the link.
By the by, if you follow the link in the first sentence, the money does not appear to have been well-spent.
Asides:
Because I pay attention to stuff like this, I know that the most common technique used by the outfits that promise to cleanse your on-line reputation is not to make bad stuff go away, because they can’t. It’s to fabricate promulgate a bunch of good stuff, hoping that it pushes the bad stuff off the first page of search results, because most persons don’t look beyond the first page.
Also, remember that, with rhetoric, “venomous” and “accurate” are independent variables.
The Voter Fraud Fraud, Lost in Translation Dept. 0
The Republican gut-out-the-vote effort continues.
The Spanish-language guides said that voters could register up to 15 days before the election, while the English version included the correct deadline, 21 days before the election, as the Daily Kos flagged last week. And while the English guides told voters they could use their passport as a photo ID, the guides in Spanish did not include a passport in the list.
According to the story, Kansas is calling this an “administrative error.”
No There, There 0
Gwynne Dyer tries to visualize a “real” Donald Trump and can’t find one. A snippet:
Trump is so focused on getting their support that he even opposes the traditional Republican policies that have contributed to their marginalization and impoverishment: free trade, low taxes for the rich and deep cuts in welfare programs. And he gets away with it, although no other Republican candidate would.
(snip)
The answer is that there is no real Trump, in terms of policies and principles. He will do anything and say anything to get what he wants . . . .
Read the rest. Her most optimistic take on the results of Trump’s being elected is a hoot.
In related news, here’s a snapshot of Donald Trump’s (and the Republican Party’s) America.
Dreamers 0
I rather get a kick out persons who talk about a “real” Republican Party as if such a thing magically mystically exists on some plane separate and distinct from actual voting Republicans.
My real car is a 2016 Lamborghini. The 13-year old pickup truck is not my real car. It’s just not.
Animal House 2
Der Spiegel takes a look at the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. What it sees is not pretty. A nugget:
It’s not just the two bullies at the top who are to blame. Their rise was made possible through a decline in values such as decency, honesty, tolerance and fairness — a process that has been hastened by the Republican Party more than anyone else. For too long, it has pursued fiscal, economic and social policies that served only companies and the rich, the financial backers of their election campaigns.
I was wondering this morning whether it would be accurate to suggest that the Republican Party is no longer a political party in any recognizable sense, but, rather, large and unruly cabal.
Just thinking out loud, mind you.
The “Panama Papers” . . . 1
. . . contain no revelation, only confirmation.
If you didn’t already know that the system is crooked, you haven’t been paying attention.