Political Theatre category archive

As an ex-Delawarean, I can attest that there’s a reason that Delaware loves Joe.

He’s Joe.

Via Balloon Juice.

Reg Henry knows whom to blame

The natural temptation is to blame Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush and the Congress. That is fair up to a point. But as a great Republican once said, it is a government of the people and by the people. Whether it is a government for the people is the question of the hour.

Inconveniently, we cannot view this president, his predecessor and the Congress as a breed apart from the rest of us. They are doing what most ordinary Americans wanted them to do. That’s the unfortunate truth of the matter.

E. J. Dionne tackles the fundamental hypocrisy of “Libertarianism.” A nugget:

From this, Mr. Lind asks another question: “If socialism is discredited by the failure of communist regimes in the real world, why isn’t libertarianism discredited by the absence of any libertarian regimes in the real world?”

The answer lies in a kind of circular logic: Libertarians can keep holding up their dream of perfection because, as a practical matter, it will never be tried in full. Even many who say they are libertarians reject the idea when it gets too close to home.

Follow the link; read the rest.

One more time:

A “Libertarian” is nothing more than a Republican who is ashamed to admit it.

One more time: old news.

If you didn’t know it was going on, you weren’t paying attention.

Via Rawstory.

Don’t abdicate your voice.

Vote.

You can see my endorsements on the sidebar.

Over there ———————–>

Robyn Blumner reflects on the continuing story of the Archie Bunkers.

Archie felt he knew who was changing the rules: women, minorities, hippies, homosexuals and college boys.

But the real forces that were inexorably reducing his economic prospects were imperceptible to him. The conservative political wave, from Richard Nixon on, that the flag-waving Archie fell into lock-step with was to be the undoing for people like him. Those politicians and their corporate partners would be his silent enemies, de-leveraging worker power through union-busting, unfettered outsourcing and keeping minimum wages low.

Just read it.

Psychologist Larry Samuel attempts to explain Republicanism.

I’ve participated in my share of protests over the years.

Shouting at someone in mid-sentence may be a lot of things–it may even sometimes be warranted–but I really don’t see how it can be considered “having an ‘open conversation.'”

Afterthought:

Why do some of my fellow lefties seem to think that the way to get what they want is to alienate potential allies?

New York Magazine’s Dan Amira explains why conservatives are up in arms about New York City’s “Bike Share” program.

He thinks it has little to do with bicycles or bicyclists (including the type of cyclists that I recently heard called the “spandex mafia”) and everything to do with what bicycles and bicycling symbolize to the conservative mind. A nugget:

But, in a way, the depth of conservative animosity for a bike-share program makes perfect sense. Because, as the Venn diagram above indicates, Citi Bike finds itself at the very nexus of five different things that conservatives hate.

Follow the link. Methinks he has a point.

Via Dick Destiny.

In the usual bad taste.

Update:

The video has been pulled, I think because it was broken. I will repost it if it becomes available. Fixed.

The Tampa socialite who unwittingly triggered an investigation that ended the careers of CIA director David Petraeus and former Central Command leader Gen. John Allen asserted Monday in a lawsuit that the federal government violated her privacy.

The suit is likely a non-starter, as Petraeus was CIA director and national security and all that.

But it promises two things: providing lots of comic relief and not ending well.

The other certainty is that it’s more of what Dick Destiny calls the “culture of lickspittle.”

Llewellyn King has qualms about the proposal for a “shield law” to enable reporters to protect their sources.

No, he’s not concerned that such a shield law would protect the guilty, but, rather, that it would jeopardize the innocent. A snippet (emphasis added):

That is why, although I begin like any old war horse by kicking at my stall when the government goes after reporters, I would urge those now supporting a federal shield law, known as the Free Flow of Information Act of 2013, to think carefully. I don’t think it will work, and I think it will create large loopholes around the sensitive issue of national security. That is what sets a federal law apart from those on the books in the states.

Once there is a law, common decency, societal values and tradition are abandoned. Clever prosecutors see laws not as barriers but opportunities. One fears that the law rather than supporting the broad protections of the First Amendment could, in fact, detract from them.

The basic tenet of the proposed law is to require judicial review before the mastiffs of government begin their sniffing. Their (sic. from context, the mastiffs of government–ed.) goal is always to root out the source of the reporter’s information and to punish, and possibly destroy, that person.

I don’t know whether I agree with him, but my years of observing political news leads me to agree wholeheartedly with the last sentence–the one in bold.

When the government expresses “national security concerns” as regards news, it’s frequently newspeak for “personal and political embarrassment concerns.”

Melissa Harris Perry rounds up the stupid.

Michael Smerconish, himself a representative of shrinking tribe, that of sane conservatives, thinks that Michelle Bachmann is more than a representative.

He thinks she’s a representative representative. A nugget:

Bachmann epitomizes what the Congress has become: polarized, pugilistic, and pernicious. She leaves with no legislative accomplishments, unless one considers obstructionism an achievement.