Political Theatre category archive
Hollow Points 0
Jonathan C. Rothermel points out that the “gun debate” is a tinkling cymbal, a sounding bell, signifying nothing, for it falls on empty ears attached to empty heads.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Helen Ubinas is tired of inappropriate language.
“No comment.”
Follow the link for examples.
A Picture Is Worth 0
Via Political Prof, who points out that one of the characteristics of irrational fear is that it is–well–irrational.
“The Smart One” 0
Jeffrey Gillespie thinks that Jeb! is twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. A snippet:
He has also, inadvertently, become the poster boy for a lack of resistance to the far-right elements that have propelled Trump’s bid so far. That’s unfair to Jeb — God knows, the lunatic fringe isn’t about to take a chill pill administered by anyone who they might consider to be a “mainstream” candidate — but it does show the voting public that Bush’s campaign is stuck in a 1990’s time warp; it is not operating with the lusty visibility that almost always translates to a win in the news cycle.
The Trump Cycle 0
Jack Ohman spots a pattern:
1. He lies again.
2. He questions the motives of the people who caught him in the lie.
3. He repeats the lie; then he goes up two points in the polls.
More cycling at the link.
Image via Job’s Anger.
A Saucerful of Secrets 0
No, not on your music player; down at town hall:
The Daily Press reports (http://bit.ly/1jrucBD ) that the newspapers found that more than half of the police or sheriff’s departments wouldn’t provide information about felony incidents, which the law considers public records.
The newspaper says that about 1/4 of local government and school board officers surveyed wouldn’t release the salaries and allowances of administrators, as required by the law.
Much, much more at the link.
Both Sides Not 0
The Booman takes down Kathleen Parker’s latest foray into both-siderism.
Baby Elephant Walk 0
Aside:
No Republican will ever admit that the Republican Party created the conditions from whence sprang Donald Trump. But it did.
Via Michael in Norfolk.
Tales from the Hustings 0
David Farmer details (yet another) Republican effort to gut out the vote, this time in Lewiston, Maine.
Base Ideas 0
The Booman surveys the field of Republican candidates and their hate-full, bigoted positions and points out that the rhetoric is not so much cause as effect:
Trump is doing great in the polls for a reason, and it’s not because he’s out there explaining Ronald Reagan Republicanism to the masses.
Republican insiders created the appetite for this rhetoric. They’re to blame for the fact that there is now a massive constituency who wants their candidates to deliver on it.
As I’ve noted before, Richard Nixon’s odious Southern strategy has come full circle. Nixon believed that the Republican Party could use bigots and racists to its political advantage; the bigots and racists now use–indeed, one can argue that they are–the Republican Party.
Thoughtlessness 0
If there is one thing the United States of America has done well, from internment camps for Americans of Japanese descent to HUAC to demonizing ladies named after an ancient Egyptian goddess to cowering at the sight of a child, it is to violate its stated ideals when it’s a-skeert, even when what it’s a-skeert of is based on a hoax.
Just look around. It’s the Land of the Fee and the Home of the Knave.
I am ashamed of my country.