Political Theatre category archive

The level of stupid regarding the nomination of Elena Kagan is surpassing the stupid about the nomination of Justice Sotomayor.

Dick Polman calls it out.

Afterthought:

Much of the stupid results from her being a generally competent nominee with nothing particularly objectionable in her background, so objections must be manufactured to satisfy the market for objectionablefication.

Addendum:

Oliver Willis has more on the stupid.

Andy Borowitz reports:

In the text of a speech released Sunday, hours before Ms. Kagan was selected, House Minority Leader John Boehner (D-Ohio) states, “I opposed the nomination of BLANK because I believe BLANK would lead the court down a dangerous path towards judicial activism. In short, I cannot think of a worse choice for Supreme Court than BLANK.”

The anti-Kagan rhetoric was generated last week before Ms. Kagan was nominated, GOP insiders said, by using a new iPhone app called iOppose.

Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:

For most of US history, there was no ceiling on the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country. There were some specific exclusions — polygamists and prostitutes were denied entry, for example, and the racist Chinese Exclusion Act barred immigrants from China — but on the whole, nearly anyone who wished to settle in the United States before the 1920s was free to do so. The immense influx of immigrants made possible by that policy was often the cause of tension and suspicion. It was also an extraordinary blessing, transforming America into the most prosperous, vibrant, and innovative nation in history.

We have an illegal immigration problem today only because federal law makes legal immigration so costly and difficult. A concrete-and-barbed-wire wall along the border will not fix that problem, and neither will punitive sanctions on employers who hire illegal aliens. Meaningful immigration reform would focus instead on simply making it easier for low-skilled or unskilled workers to enter the country lawfully.

Like I have said.

Immigration laws became restrictive when immigrants became less white. The less white, the more restrictive.

(Remember how, back in the anti-Italian immigrant days of the turn of the previous century, Italians were invariably described as “swarthy”? So automatic was it that “swarthy Italian” seemed to be one word for a couple of generations. Now, not so much.)

The “immigration problem” results not from immigrants. It results from bigotry.

All the rest is rationalization for bigotry.

Not white. Not welcome.

The Slant on mottoes.

Andy Borowitz explains.

The Peralta Community College District has settled a federal lawsuit over its punishment of two College of Alameda students who were praying on campus.

The four-college district will pay $90,000 in legal fees to students Kandy Kyriacou and Ojoma Omaga, who were threatened with suspension after they prayed in class and after Kyriacou prayed with a sick instructor in the teacher’s office. The district also agreed to rescind its written warnings to the students, sent in late 2007 and early 2008.

My two or three regular readers know that I have strong beliefs about the separation of church and state. The first amendment not only prohibits the government from favoring or promoting religion, it also protects the free exercise of it. The religion clause of the first amendment cuts both ways.

The Constitution says,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .

According to the report excerpted above, the letter of discipline sent to the students said, in part, that the students

“may not engage in behavior that is disruptive to the teaching and learning process during class lecture and lab or in the offices of the faculty.”

The story does not say that the praying in class was in any way disruptive to the class; the fact of the settlement leads me to think that it was not. Had it been, it would be the disruption that was actionable, not the praying itself. I cannot see how voluntarily praying in a private office could be disruptive, unless accompanied by other behavior, such as shouting, screaming, or wall-pounding. If that were the case, it would be the shouting, screaming, or wall-pounding that was disruptive.

Furthermore, the settlement agreement contains this telling paragraph:

Click the picture for a larger image. Click here to see the full agreement.

The community college district is a public agency. For a public agency to act as if the mere act of praying, absent any other intrusive or inappropriate behavior, is disruptive in and of itself seems to me to be clearly “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion.

The college probably did well to cut and run.

The myth, taken from a wire story about John McCain at Raw Story (emphasis added):

The Tea Party, taking its name from a pre-American Revolution demonstration in which colonists protested taxes imposed by the British government by tossing crates of tea into the Boston Harbor, mobilized over the last year against President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform and his fiscal policies.

The bust, from US History dot com (emphasis added): The taxes had actually been lowered.

In 1773 Parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the English East India Company a chance to avert bankruptcy by granting a monopoly on the importation of tea into the colonies. The new regulations allowed the company to sell tea to the colonists at a low price, lower than the price of smuggled tea, even including the required duty. The British reasoned that the Americans would willingly pay the tax if they were able to pay a low price for the tea.

The issue was not the tax. It was the retail price of legal tea. Lost in the mythmaking is that many of the leaders of the tea party, particularly John Hancock, were involved or associated with those involved in smuggling tea.

Raw Story has a report from various news services that

And that’s the sound (the Colorado River–ed.) Interior Department Chief of Staff Tom Strickland was hearing with his wife as he coasted through river rapids while the worst oil spill to hit the US coast since Exxon Valdez neared shore off the coast of Louisiana.

Strickland is

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s chief of staff, as (well as–ed.) the department’s assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks.

It doesn’t look to me as if that would necessarily make him a “first responder” to an oil spill.

Indeed, according to the organizational chart, the Minerals Management Service, which is the branch of the Department of Interior directly responsible for policing oil drilling, does not report to him (by the way, none of the several reports I’ve seen on this so far has mentioned that).

Click for a larger image

As the estimates of the spill were revised upwards, he was called home.

I have spent most of my life working in large organizations. Generally, a crisis for one department does not require people in a whole nother chain of command to stop what they are doing and to come watch right then and there. That is why organizations are, well, organized.

Later, in the “how can we keep this from happening again” phase, lots of folks from all over the outfit may get involved.

His being in one of the parks that he is responsible for may look bad, but I question its relevance to anything but attack politics.

Here.

Yeah. I know, It seems extreme. But look at the damned record, for Heaven’s sake.

Thoreau has a novel suggestion:

If there is sufficient evidence suggesting that you may be involved in terrorism (or, for that matter, any other act of violence against innocent people!) the police can hold you in jail 24/7 while the matter is investigated further. During this time, 12 ordinary citizens would be selected–not liberal trial lawyers, not government bureaucrats, not namby-pamby rehabilitation types from the “correctional” system, just good, ordinary citizens–and we’d rely on them to use their good old common sense to examine the evidence. You would only be allowed to leave the jail to go and participate in this process, but you’d have to sit in your seat and not act out of order and only speak at appropriate times in the procedure. Or, if you don’t want to speak for yourself, a lawyer can speak for you, but realize that lawyers are bound by all sorts of rules of conduct. Don’t expect them to break any ethical rules to get you off, no sirree! If, during this process, you or your lawyer (who can only go as far as ethical rules allow, mind you) cannot persuade those 12 honest God-fearing folks that there is reasonable doubt about the allegations, you get sent to prison for a very, very long time.

Aside:

Two lesson from Times Square:

• It didn’t work.
• Good police work, not torture, nailed a suspect, who, it is important to remember, is still a suspect.

Let’s try Thoreau’s idea out on him.

I doubt that this applies only to the U. K.

Over-fishing means UK trawlers have to work 17 times as hard for the same fish catch as 120 years ago, a study shows.

Researchers used port records dating from the late 1800s, when mechanised boats were replacing sailing vessels.

In the journal Nature Communications, they say this implies “an extraordinary decline” in fish stocks and “profound” ecosystem changes.

Four times more fish were being landed in UK ports 100 years ago than today, and catches peaked in 1938.

And we haven’t seen yet the effects of the gusher:

Via the Brad Blog:

When was the last time you heard about (an environmental) disaster occurring at a wind farm or at a location where solar panels are being installed?

The Governator has second thoughts:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is withdrawing his support of a plan to expand oil drilling off the California coast, citing the environmental tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico.

The BBC has a more detailed story.

Bloomberg reports on the fishing industry in Louisiana as it drowns in oil:

Campo, 68, said his marina can’t survive long without the men and women who make their living in the marsh. He pointed to a new concrete slab adjacent his hoist and said he’d halted work on a building meant for the spot.

“If a guy can’t go fishing, and a guy can’t go crabbing and a guy can’t go get oysters, what good is the fuel?” he asked. “If they shut you down for four, five, maybe 10 years, what are you supposed to do in the meantime?”

Via BartCop.

The Bradblog looks at the demographics of states that keep trying to restrict women’s right to abortions.

The findings are interesting. The writer concludes that it’s not about the babies, it’s about white babies.

I’m not sure I buy it, but, for folks who follow this issue, it makes fascinating readings.

Blue Ridge Data has some data on off-shore oil spills through 2007.

Read it and weep.

Also, what Digby said.

Um, yeah.

I hear the protesters at tea-party rallies crying out, “We want our country back!” and I’d like to ask them, “Back from whom?”

Back from the 66.9 million of your fellow Americans – 53 percent of the electorate – who voted for Barack Obama? Those who gave substantial majorities to the Democrats in the House and Senate?

(snip)

If the tea-party types really want to protect the Constitution, I suggest they join the American Civil Liberties Union. It’s been opposing abuses of government power and defending our constitutional rights and liberties in courts, communities, and legislative bodies for 90 years.

Read the whole thing.

Of course, the Teabaggers are more likely to favor banning the ACLU than joining it. The ACLU believes civil liberties are for everyone.

The Teabaggers think civil liberties are for them only.

Under 450k.

The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance fell slightly less than expected last week, government data showed on Thursday, implying only a gradual labor market improvement.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 448,000 in the week ended April 24, the Labor Department said.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected claims to fall to 445,000 from the previously reported 456,000, which was modestly revised up to 459,000 in Thursday’s report.

.

Aside: Who are these analysts and why can’t they get it right? If I got it wrong as often as they do, I’d turn in my analysts’ union card.

All seriousness aside, these anonymous unnamed analyists were off by 0.6% That’s hardly worth mentioning, except that it takes up an additional column inch.