Political Theatre category archive
“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0
Thom parses a number of rhymes.
A quote:
It’s not just that dictators become corrupt. It’s that corrupt people, when they have positions of power, inevitably will or will try to become dictators because that’s how they protect themselves and their corruption.
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*Mark Twain.
Tickled Memory 0
For some fool reason, this article reminds me of someone in the news.
Establishmentarians 0
Sitting in for David Pakman, Brittany Page focuses on a discussion from the Texas legislature to highlight the hypocrisy of today’s establishmentarians.
Afterthought:
The dirty little truth that establishmentarians don’t want anyone to know is that establishmentarianism is not about piety.
It’s about power.
Republican Thought Police 0
Our wannabe dictator has sicced the Republican thought police on NPR and PBS. At Above the Law, Liz Dye points out that
Follw the link for the other stuff she points out.
Student Visa Tours 0
Daniel Ruth, writing at the Tampa Bay Times, takes issue with Donald Trump’s characterization of foreign students at American universities. He tell of his own experiences with foreign students at the University of South Florida. Here are a couple of excerpts from his article:
The contributions of these international students are profound.
Almost all of are engaged in STEM majors — bio med, engineering, physics, chemistry, math, biology. A few are business majors. All of them are a joy to be around. They are intellectually curious. They are very serious people, and they can be funny, too.
(snip)
. . . so many of them want to use their American education to return to their homelands to make things better — the medical students, the engineering students, the computer science students, the nursing students. They want to make their countries better. And Donald Trump wants to throw them out.
Emoluments, Reprise 0
At the Bangor Daily News, Linda Wilcox follows the money.
MAGAttributes 0
David offers a theory to explain Donald Trump’s appeal to his base. Methinks he makes some good points. (Warning: David does a short promo for his book at the end.)
“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0
It appears that Larry David hears a rhyme. Rick Strom parses the poesy.
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*Mark Twain.
Spatial Awareness 0
The writer of a letter to the editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune argues that (column) size matters.
I don’t know that I fully agree with him, but he certainly raises an intriguing argument.
Sizing It Up 0
A bit from the artist’s commentary (emphasis added):
Springsteen has been using his platform and calling out the needless cruelty of Trump’s policies at his concerts, which in turn elicited insults and attempts at intimidation from Trump.
The president’s response to a superstar musician criticizing how he’s running the country is to launch vague threats about not letting him back in the country. Silencing of critics is authoritarian level nonsense and the president’s willingness to go after celebrity members of the opposition is both incredibly petty and terrifying.
The Rule of Lawless 0
In a longer column discussing the Trump maladministration’s attempt to punish Harvard University for daring to stand up to it, Noah Feldman makes this observation, which methinks is quite en point (emphasis added):
As has become typical of the Trump administration, Noem’s action blatantly violates the law, not even paying lip service to it. Her letter didn’t even deign to claim that Harvard had broken any rules or regulations.
Instead, the letter embraced the “we can do anything we want” reasoning behind so many of Trump’s executive actions.
Vaccine Nation 0
Farron comments on what happens when a science denier is put in charge of an agency that (supposedly) relies on science.
Real Big Men 0
Does this article remind you of anyone in the news?