Political Theatre category archive

Via Job’s Anger.

Werner Herzog’s Bear tries to figure out what “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” means and thinks he’s hit on something. Here’s a bit:

They are okay with legalized marijuana, abortion rights, and gay rights, mostly because that does not cost them a thing. At the same time, they are not at all interested in income inequality, institutional racism, lack of health care access, and any other social injustice that would require wealth redistribution to rectify. The ghettoes do not concern them, nor does the fact that students who live in poorer areas have a much lower quality of education than their own children bother them. In fact, they secretly like it that way.

More at the link.

Gary Younge:

When they won the Senate as well as the House, they were supposed to work together to produce Republican legislation that Obama would be forced to veto, definitively exposing the real source of the gridlock. In fact, they are simply imploding under the weight of their own obstinacy. They’ve run out of people to blame for not compromising with them. So now they’re blaming each other.

“The Republicans are like Fido when he finally catches the car,” the Democratic senator Charles Schumer told the New York Times. “Now they don’t have any clue about what to do. They are realising that being in the majority is both less fun and more difficult than they thought.”

Read the rest.

. . . from a letter-writer to my local rag.

This should be fun:

Retired surgeon Ben Carson on Sunday said he could form a committee to explore a bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination this month and make a formal announcement in May.

So he is maybe possibly thinking about throwing his hat in the ring.

On the bright side, he would be a better candidate than Donald Trump. So far as I know, he hasn’t gone bankrupt four times, at least not monetarily. “Intellectually” is another matter.

I’ve seen a number of articles and blog posts claiming that Brian Williams’s fantasies of being embattled in Iraq don’t matter because, as the reasoning usually seems to go, “Who cares?” I disagree.

I gave up on television news three decades ago, when broadcast news morphed from being a “service” to being a “profit center.” I long before had realized I could read four times as much information in half an hour as I could passively have poured into me from television (and without the commercials). Nevertheless, Williams’s perfidy, intentional or not, matters greatly.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Denise Cummins discusses this; here’s a bit:

The media is the “fourth estate.” It has tremendous power to influence policy and hence history. And for that reason, news anchors can’t just be pretty faces, charismatic celebrities, or entertainers. They have to be people of integrity who are held to high standards. We need to know that what we are being told is the truth. And that means that news anchors must remain dispassionate, disinterested, and truthful reporters.

We already have one major “news” network dedicated to spreading propaganda and falsehood to poison public discourse. We need trustworthy–not error-free, which is an impossible goal, but given in good faith–reportage so as to make informed decisions.

Otherwise, the country will go to hell even faster than it already is.

Not even bothering to go through the motions.

Via Job’s Anger.

In the usual bad taste . . . .

Clarence Page watches the hucksters and bumpkins march by.

Via Juanita Jean.

Failure is not an option deterrent.

Via Job’s Anger.

Warning: Language.

Via Raw Story.

Daniel Ruth reviews the record of Jeb “Oh God Please Not Another” Bush. A snippet:

Bush, R-DeLorean, has added another shaky entry on his business resume that suggests an aspirant to the White House too often has the financial acumen of Willy Loman.

The Miami Herald has reported that between 2007 and 2010, the Cash McCall of Miami served as a board member and consultant to InnoVida, which sounds a bit like Lucille Ball’s tipsy commercial for Vitameatavegamin, and was about as successful.

For all that keen consulting, Bush, R-Betamax, hauled in a cool $15,000 a month. InnoVida was supposed to manufacture lightweight building materials for affordable housing, which sounds like a bully idea. But the firm went belly up in bankruptcy court and its founder, Claudio Osorio, went to the federal slammer for 13 years for running a Ponzi scheme.

There’s more. Lots more.

And, in related news . . . .

Mitt flips his hat out of into out of* the ring while Steven M. sums it up. A nugget:

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention my favorite line from the Times story:

He (Romney—ed.) added that it was “unlikely” that he would change his mind.

Oh, for crissake, Mitt. Just stop. We know this is killing you and you still want to leave the door open a teeny, tiny, crack, but it’s closed, it’s locked, and it’s bolted. Nice knowing you. Now go away.

________________

*As of this afternoon. Tomorrow is another day.

Via Southern Beale.