July, 2016 archive
Conventional Bloggery 0
Don’t expect much about events at either the Republican or Democratic conventions in these electrons. I’ve long considered what happens at political conventions, like election results, to be something to read about over coffee the next morning.
Besides, at least this week, I couldn’t bear to look, even if I wanted to. Cleveland is already turning uglier than I feared it might.
Aside:
I wonder how long the corporate media can maintain their fiction that the Republican convention is “politics as usual” and that “both sides do it” in the face of events in Cleveland? Yesterday, the headlines at Raw Story and Crooks and Liars looked like stuff the Onion Mad Magazine would not have dared to make up.
(Indefinitely, I suspect. It’s what they are paid for.)
The Meat of the Nut in the Gun Nut 0
The Rev. Robert Winter gets to the point:
Stripped to its essence, the point of owning a weapon is power.
Follow the link for more.
First Things First 0
Priorities matter.
As he walked out of court , Shkreli had something more pressing on his mind. He asked his lawyer: “Can I play Pokémon Go now?” according to a New York Daily News reporter who overheard the question.
“Strict Constructionists” 0
At Cleveland.com, Thomas Suddes marvels at Republicans’ devotion to the Constitution. An excerpt:
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite in the potty.
The pistol then discharged, firing a bullet into the floor. A man entering the restroom was struck in the ankle by a fragment from either the bullet or the floor.
Where are the Tarheel Potty Patrol when you really need them?
Karma Again? 0
Misdirection Play, Shilling for Pence Dept. 0
The punditocracy are united in marketing Mike Pence as somehow a sane and safe choice for vice president, a calm and cultured counterweight to Trump’s trumpeting boorishness.
Erika D. Smith begs to differ. Here’s a bit of her column:
(snip)
On paper, the two men are very different – in an ulcer-relieving way, if you’re an establishment Republican or a social conservative. But look a little closer, as I have in meetings with him as member of the editorial board of The Indianapolis Star, and you’ll see that they’re really just two sides of the same crazy coin.
Like Trump, Pence is tone deaf and uninterested in learning what he doesn’t know. He’s an ideologue who surrounds himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear. His bubble is so airtight that differing opinions often come as a complete shock to him.
Think of your Bond villains: which is more dangerous, the quiet one stroking a cat or the loud one brandishing a gat?
Remember, a soft-spoken fanatic is still a fanatic.
Party Hardly 0
Daniel Ruth wonders, What if they give a party and no one comes?
