Political Theatre category archive

When challenged to make good on their obstructionism, Republicans fold.

A deal to proceed (on debating Financial Reform–ed.) came after Democrats threatened to keep the Senate in session all night to put pressure on Republicans. Minutes after an aide said cots would be set up for senators to sleep on, an agreement was announced.

Formal debate on the bill will begin at 12:15 p.m. (1615 GMT) on Thursday, said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

It’s about time the filibusterers were called on to actually filibuster.

Aside:

From the Dept. of Etymology Dept.: “Filibusterer” is a corruption of “freebooter,” a synonym for brigand or pirate. From the Gnome Dictionary, the Webster’s 1913 definition:

A lawless military adventurer, especially one in quest of plunder; a freebooter; — originally applied to buccaneers infesting the Spanish American coasts, but introduced into common English to designate the followers of Lopez in his expedition to Cuba in 1851, and those of Walker in his expedition to Nicaragua, in 1855.

In quest of plunder.

’nuff said.

Republicans pimp voter registrations:

Orange County authorities are launching an investigation into possible voter registration fraud after a local newspaper reported over a hundred cases of voters being tricked into registering as Republicans by petitioners who asked them to sign petitions for, among other causes, legalizing pot.

Unlike ACORN, which paid canvassers an hourly rate, the Republican Party was paying for piecework: $8.00 per registration.

Steve Almond tells of living in El Paso and watching persons from Juarez “commute” to work every day by wading across the Rio Grande in the morning, then wading back home the next day. He contrasts what he observed with harsh rhetoric of the anti-immigration folks and concludes:

Most of all, I’d suggest to those who trumpet the alleged evils of undocumented workers to spend some time in cities like El Paso and Juarez.

What they’d discover is an ancient and enduring truth: immigration is not about spreading evil. It’s about poor people seeking to become less poor. It is about the very human beings whose honest labors built our nation, and whose dreams honor its most sacred tenets.

Cookie Jill points out that

brown skinned people didn’t take away your job

.

John Cole forgets how to mince words.

I’m keeping this at the top of the page, because he said it better than I could.

Read more »

The probabilities are analyzed here.

TerranceDC wonders how far back the Teabaggers actually want to take the country. A nugget:

Years ago, long before I stumbled into blogging, I got into a discussion/argument with a conservative about their penchant for returning to the “good old days,” and pointed out that (borrowing a line from Billy Joel) “the good old days weren’t always good” for everybody. My opponent argued that we could return to those days and “make them good for everybody.” It seemed impossible then, and it seems even more so now.

I guessed that period was probably the 1950s – when (the great, white) father knew best, and everybody else knew their place; women in the kitchen, gays in the closet, blacks in the back of the bus, etc. In my defense, I got that idea from some conservatives.

It turns out I was way off. I didn’t go back far enough. Not nearly.

Follow the link to find out how far back.

Distilled wingnut, by Sara Benincasa:

Via TPM.

Via VB Progressives.

Full Disclosure:

Parody, and a damned good one. Don’t try Walmart on that offer. The actual CEO of Crayola is Mike, not Michelle, Perry.

I guess I had better renew my passport in case I ever have to go to Arizona again.

Oh, wait. I’m not brown. I’m pink.

Neal Gabler, discussing the “Cocktail Party Effect,” wonders whether the information explosion feeds extremism:

In a globalized informational environment where we are awash 24/7 in new bits of data, like those rising decibels, we are stuck in a kind of virtual cocktail party in which the whole world is present, all talking at the same time, all drowning out one another.

In order to get heard, you not only have to shout — you have to shout at the top of your lungs, and even that probably won’t do it. To assure yourself of attention, you have to do something so startling that you effectively stop the conversation altogether.

Cartoon via Kiko’s House.

This is truly strange.

Yesterday:

A judge Wednesday forced the removal of a website attacking Vice Mayor Anthony Burfoot and the city’s treatment of downtown clubs.

Circuit Court Judge Charles E. Poston ordered an immediate removal of the website May4thCounts.com, stating that other legal action “is not adequate under the particular circumstances of this case.”

Today:

A Circuit Court judge reversed his own decision Thursday to shut down a website criticizing Vice Mayor Anthony Burfoot, clearing the way for the site to reactivate.

Circuit Court Judge Charles E. Poston reconsidered the day-old motion without legal prompting and concluded “that the temporary injunction should not have been granted.”

GoDaddy took the site down when it got the first order.

It’s not back up yet. GoDaddy is quoted as saying it’s waiting for a copy of the new court order before it restores it. (Follow the “Yesterday” link above for a link to the site.)

Now, I’m still learning my way around local politics and I’m not in Norfolk (though it’s right next door), so I don’t know beans about either Mr. Burfoot or the website, but, unless the site was actually slanderous, the judge probably got it right the second time.

In the United States, what with the first amendment and all, slander, defamation, and libel are extremely difficult to prove. Opinion clearly stated as opinion is normally protected and truth is an absolute defense against any of those charges. That is, if you are convicted of bribery, someone cannot defame, slander, or libel you by pointing out that you take (or pay) bribes because, well, you did.

This is certain: If the site goes back up, it’s going to get far more traffic than it otherwise would have gotten.

(Full disclosure: I use GoDaddy for this site. I cannot fault GoDaddy for complying with a court order. The legal principle is to follow the order first, appeal later.)

Writing at the Guardian, David Smith, a white South African, remembers attending a recruiting meeting for the AWB, a pro-apartheid militia-style group, during the dying days of South African apartheid. He was 14 at the time and went with his father. They never went back.

His description of the meeting sounds as if it could have come from the contemporary US. Here’s a bit of it:

After the preacher, the “general” spoke. Direct and to the point, he said that Afrikaners stood at a crossroads. We could either choose death or we could fight to survive like he had always done. He then painted the history of South Africa in biblical terms, a chosen people battling against the odds to secure their promised land. The irony of a guy in quasi-Nazi regalia citing a Jewish story didn’t seem to worry him or anyone else in the room. All they heard was that apartheid had been a necessary reaction to the circumstances the Afrikaner had found himself in. And if he didn’t fight again, he was bound to die.

All of which was absurd rubbish, racist alarmist bunkum. But for so many people in that room, it made sense. Somehow, when they weighed up their options, the lunacy of a preacher with a handgun and a racist army of fat blokes in khaki seemed like a credible path forward. And that is scary. The same kind of scary that leads people to join all sorts of extremist groups. Whether it be the AWB, the KKK or the BNP. Their strategy is perfectly simple. Find the panic button and hit it as hard as you can.

“Oh, Mann.”

As an extra added attraction, a song about Wall Street:

Transcript here.

The swamp is starting to bubble. From the BBC:

The former president of the US private security firm, Blackwater Worldwide, and four other former workers have been indicted on federal weapons charges.

Gary Jackson, who resigned last year, denies conspiracy to violate firearms laws, making false statements and possession of an unregistered firearm.

(snip)

In addition to Mr Jackson, Blackwater’s former general counsel Andrew Howell, former executive vice-president Bill Mathews, former procurement vice-president Ana Bundy, and former weapons manager Ronald Slezak were indicted on Friday.

They are charged with using “straw purchases” to stockpile automatic weapons at the company’s headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina, and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the king of Jordan.

It appears that at least some of the deceptions and underhanded dealings related to, but not restricted to, the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq are starting to head for hearings in open court.

It will be interesting to see how great, how glorious, how patriotic they appear in the cold text of court stenography.

I suspect that it is not uncommon for mercenaries to think that they are a law unto themselves. That is part of the problem with using mercenaries; they know no loyalty other than to the name on the paycheck.

Follow the link for more.

My letter to my elected representatives incongruously assembled:

Dear Mr. [name]:

This is to urge you to support the strictest possible reform of the financial industry, including reinstitution of Glass-Steagall.

The banking and investment industry has shown over the past decade that it cannot be trusted to exercise fiduciary responsibility, restraint, or sound business practices. It is time to (re?)create a regulatory structure to minimize their abuses and to hold them accountable for misconduct.

Thank you.

Feel free to paste this into your word processor and adapt it to your congresscritters.

Afterthought:

SEC goes after Goldman-Sachs.

when he said (in 1938 mind you) that the Negro problem in America is a white man’s problem:

Video via the Booman, whose entire post is worth a read.