Political Theatre category archive

Jeez Louise.

Sex between lobbyists and government officials who are covered under North Carolina’s ethics laws does not constitute a gift that must be listed in disclosure reports, the State Ethics Commission said Friday.

“Consensual sexual relationships do not have monetary value and therefore are not reportable as gifts or ‘reportable expenditures made for lobbying,’” the formal advisory opinion says.

If consensual sexual relations “do not have monetary value,” why is prostitution illegal?

(Link fixed.)

At Asia Times, Alfred W McCoy identifies what he dubs “the real American exceptionalism.” A snippet:

Washington, more than any other power, created the modern international community of laws and treaties, yet it now reserves the right to defy those same laws with impunity. A sovereign ruler should, said Schmitt, discard laws in times of national emergency. So the United States, as the planet’s last superpower or, in Schmitt’s terms, its global sovereign, has in these years repeatedly ignored international law, following instead its own unwritten rules of the road for the exercise of world power.

Follow the link to find to what thinker McCoy attributes such arrogation of power. You will be taken aback.

CPAC twits.

The Gloomy Historian points that, oh, yes, it sure as heck can.

This is a must-read.

The Rude One explains why Bill O’Reilly will survive and thrive despite the current kerfuffle over his lies. Two snippets:

No one on the right cares about right-wing liars. They just don’t.

(snip)

Lies are the fuel that runs the outrage engine that gets the base amped up and ready to vote for idiots.

Follow the link for the full dose of rudeness.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., uncovers the foundations of Rudy Guiliani’s recent claim that President Obama doesn’t love America “like us.” He reveals what that “us” is thinking.

Most of them (the “us”–ed.) no longer say it with racial slurs, but they say it just the same. They say it with birther lies and innuendo of terrorist ties. They say it by saying “subhuman mongrel.” They say it by questioning Obama’s faith. They say it as Rudy Giuliani said it last week. They say it because they have neither the guts to say nor the self-awareness to understand what’s really bothering them:

How did this bleeping N-word become president of the United States?

Read the rest.

As you may have heard, Rudy Guiliani recently unleashed his inner racist and various reporters and commentators had the gall–the unmitigated gall–to notice.

Wingnuts cried “media bias.’

At the same time, Howard Dean suggested that Wisconsin governor and Koch Brothers sycophant Scott Walker, being a college drop-out, was not qualified to be president. Republicans freaked out, but Democrats made no charges of media bias.

Jonathan Bernstein attempts to understand the contrast. A snippet:

Both accusations were pretty much denounced by everyone; both sparked predictable partisan bashing and a few interesting reflections.

But liberals didn’t go crying about conservative media bias in the Dean-Walker case because they don’t see every news story as an example of prejudice against them. Conservatives do.

Via Kos.

Jeb “Oh God Please Not Another” Bush shows his independence.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

On the chopping block in North Carolina.

One more time: Republicanism is counter-factual, so Republicans fear encountering facts.

Shaun Mullen reviews the show. A snippet:

The Republicans’ own big takeaway from their 2014 election victories was that they would now show Americans what governing was all about. Ta da! This boast was rather strange since the party has performed a sort of demented Kabuki theater in lieu of governing — whether jointly with President Obama, Democrats or by their lonesome — over the last six-plus years in making the case that it still was not capable of taking back the keys to the national car. So it comes as no surprise that despite now controlling both House and Senate, it has been more of the non-governing same — and perhaps even worse.

Read the rest. It’s worth it.

Steven M. notes that Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to be doing so well in the polls and tries figure out why, as he says, Cruz is “in Sarah Palin territory these days.”

Froma Harrop considers the intellectual contortions of Rand Paul’s stance(s) on vaccination. A snippet:

A real libertarian wanting his party’s presidential nomination has only two choices:

• Come clean and acknowledge the cost side of your beliefs. If you think parents have the right not to vaccinate their children, agree that more Americans might come down with preventable diseases as a result. Provocative, perhaps, but honest.
• If you don’t want that controversy tied around your neck, say that you have changed your mind on vaccinations and now hold that they should be required. Not totally honest but at least coherent.

Put into practice, libertarianism can make a mess. If parents have the right to endanger others by not getting their children immunized, why can’t individuals decide whether they’re too drunk to drive?

The core belief of Libertarianism is summed up in the phrase, “because I want to, dammit.”

The Roanoke Times has found it in Richmond. Here’s a bit from their editorial yesterday.

Immovable faith in conservative dogma seems to have blinded the House Republican majority to the reality that, without government subsidy, as many as 400,000 adult Virginians will go without primary health care, much less coverage for hospitalizations – and not for want of honest labor. . . .

So how is this like the Roman Inquisition?

House Republicans bring to mind the Congregation of the Roman Inquisition, which in 1633 silenced Galileo about his observations that supported Copernicus’s theory of the previous century: Earth, rotating on its axis every 24 hours, was orbiting the sun. Earth was not the center around which all of the universe spun.