Political Theatre category archive

The push to privatize public services has had almost uniformly inimical results.

Here’s one. From the website:

The prison industrial complex has continuously increased their profits, and with the expanding number of people behind bars in the US, the price of phone calls from prison has gone up as well. One company is charging $1.13 per minute in a Georgia state prison, and Drew Kukorowski, research associate for Prison Policy Initiative, joins us with more on the phone service in prisons and how the FCC might play a role in controlling rates.

Have you noticed how often vampire capitalists “private equity” turns up in these situations.

The “nocebo” effect.

You can catch it from any green technology I don’t approve of.

Via the Green Miles.

Little Ricky isn’t having any of it. The Commander Guy reports.

Chauncey Devega has an unexpected take on the Petraeus-Broadwell-Allen-Kelley brouhaha.

I haven’t figured out how far up his cheek he had his tongue when he wrote it, but it’s far more plausible than the Republicans’ lame attempts to gin up a link to Libya.

Tony Norman tries to figure out the Neo-Confederates:

Americans love guns and religion, but we’re complete agnostics when it comes to history.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the second year of the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in our history, but that doesn’t mean secession should ever be off the table as far as a minority of bitter voters are concerned.

Without any sense of irony that comes with even a cursory reading of history, hundreds of thousands of Americans recently flooded the Obama White House with “We, the People” petitions requesting permission for their states to “amicably secede” from the Union.

Love thy neighbor.

A teenager in northwestern Minnesota was refused the Catholic sacrament of confirmation after he posted an online photo condemning the marriage amendment, according to his family.

Shana Cihak says her 17-year-old son, Lennon, was not allowed to participate in the religious rite of passage at Assumption Church in Barnesville last month after posting a Facebook picture of himself holding a political sign that he changed to oppose the constitutional amendment. The proposed measure to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota was defeated Nov. 6.

Matt Taibbi invites his readers to rewrite a Thomas Friedman column in one paragraph.

The results are–well, just see for yourselves.

Daniel Ruth on the Generals–he doesn’t say anything new, but it’s a fun read.

Nothing spoils a perfectly delightful scandal involving power, lust and ambition more than the intrusion of seriousness.

Long after the cameras are folded up in front of the Declasse Doyenne’s underwater mansion on Bayshore Boulevard, we are still left to wonder just how did David Petraeus and John Allen find themselves transformed in the time it takes to unsnap a bra or hit the send button from bold, visionary military figures to General Halftrack chasing Miss Buxley around?

Then there’s this:

PoliticalProf argues that focusing on a demographic explanation for the Republican Party’s losses in the recent election misses the point, unless the reason for the demographic disparity is taken into account. A nugget.

But this demographic analysis lets Republicans off the hook far too easily. It implies that if they change their public face — e.g., run candidates like Marco Rubio for office — they will fix the demographic gap. Toss in some candidates who are female and, well, Shan-gri-la apparently awaits!

What this argument misses, of course, is the answer to the question, “why”? Why have so many different groups of people abandoned a party that, twice in the last 40 years, set all time records for electoral college margins of victory.

(snip)

The plain answer is: the leaders of the Republican Party have squandered the party’s advantages by appealing to the worst, basest instincts of a small segment of the electorate . . . .

PoliticalProf lays out the sequence of events of the Petraeus scandal (follow the link for the enumeration) and concludes:

You know what’s not in this story? Any allegation or coverage of potential professional wrongdoing on Petraeus’ part (e.g., leaked information, emails, breaches of security, etc.).

Watch any soap opera you’ve ever seen. Nighttime or daytime. This is the standard story. it perhaps does not deserve quite so much detail.

I think a run-of-the-mill scandal has been complicated by the dashing of the press’s veneration of Petraeus and wingnuts’ desperate desire to make everything about President Obama; this clip illustrates both, although the blogger’s comments about it address only one of those items.

It probably also doesn’t hurt that it’s giving reporters an excuse to go all tabloid.

I think I’ll go watch some F-Troop reruns.

Chauncey Devega offers comfort to the huddled masses of fearful white voters dreading the imminent Obamapocalyse.

A nugget.

The Right-wing media failed you. They lied and told you that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide. They cooked up stories about voter fraud and rigged polls that were biased against Republicans. The Right-wing media machine betrayed you—their audience.

If I were white, a conservative, and listened to the Right wing media, I would be scared and upset too. I would feel confused. How could so many people lie to me? It just isn’t fair! It must be some type of conspiracy.

I do not have a ready answer. But I do want to help you feel better. Because I am your friend, I am going to let you in on a secret that Fox News and the Republican Party will not share with you. Are you ready?

White people run America.

Via TPM.

Citizens Benighted, reductio ad auto:

Thom discusses Texas Republicans’ attempt to ban teachers from teaching “critical thinking” skills.

Why oh why would Republicans be against facts and analytical thinki–oh, never mind.

Via C&L.

Keep reminding yourself:

I’m not stubborn, I’m steadfast.

I’m not mean, I’m realistic.

I’m not self-serving, I’m fair and balanced.

I’m not unscientific, I’m in touch with higher truths.

More pundit self-talk at the link.

John Scalzi has a few words for old angry white men who are stunned that Mitt the Flip’s Etch no longer Sketches:

Second, stop believing that the problem was that Romney didn’t sell the message. He sold it just fine. So did Paul Ryan. So did the GOP candidates you favor. So did hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ads funded by SuperPACs. The problem isn’t the selling of the message. The problem is the message. Everyone else got the message. They just said “thanks, no,” to it.

More words for old angry white men at the link.

Hate is a popular product, but I guess it don’t always sell.

Via Delaware Liberal.

Jonathan Schell writes in the Beirut Daily Star. A nugget:

The same disregard for reality has been the hallmark not only of the Republican campaign but of the entire Republican Party in recent times. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a report in October showing that the national unemployment rate remained “essentially unchanged” at 7.9 percent, Republican operatives sought to discredit the highly respected BLS. When polls showed that Romney was falling behind President Barack Obama, they sought to discredit the polls. When the non-partisan Congressional Research Service reported that a Republican tax plan would do nothing to foster economic growth, Republican Senators muscled the CRS into withdrawing its report.

These refusals to accept matters of plain fact reflect a still wider pattern. Increasingly, the Republican Party, once a fairly normal political party, has granted itself a license to live in an alternate reality . . . .

Read the rest.

Tom Tomorrow brings it alive with pictures:

Dr. Dan tries to figure it out.