Political Theatre category archive
If One Standard Is Good, Then Two Must Be Better 0
Daniel W. Drezner offers a theory as to why Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seem to be held to two different standards of conduct by our corporate media. I’ll try my hand at a short version:
Well, everyone already knows Trump is corrupt! That’s old news–no need to report on that.
It’s her we have to look at.
Follow the link and decide for yourself whether my summary is accurate.
How Stuff Works, Conservative Classification Dept. 0
Juanita Jean explains the difference between Trump supporters and Libertarians.
Their Day in Court 0
The Bundy Bund goes to trial.
Drunk on Bircher Beer 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear details the resurgence of the Birchers.
Fun fact: The Koch Brothers come by it honestly. Their daddy was a big wheel in the John Birch Society.
The Candidates Debate 0
I generally do not watch election returns or campaign circuses debates because I have better things to do with my time, like watch reruns of Murder She Wrote. They generally have less nutritional value than a Twinkie without the delicious creamy filling.
If anything of value happens, I can always read about them the next day.
Thankfully, Dick Polman has summarized last night’s Trumpalooza “forum” to prove to me that my decision to watch a rerun of The Bob Newhart Show was a correct and much more edifying decision. Here’s a snippet:
But the main event was Lauer’s abject subservience to Trump. Here’s the gist of what happened.
Q: Are you prepared to be commander-in-chief?
A: Absolutely!
Q: But are you really prepared to be commander-in-chief?
A: The best!
Q: Thank you sir, may I have another?
Hack Journalism 0
Rex Huppke coughs up a column.
A Missive from a Mainer 0
Afterthought:
I never expected to see so much stuff I couldn’t make up as I’ve seen this year . . . .
Up against the Wall 0
Of course, if LePage wasn’t such a jerk, some other outcome would have been likely, however it might have been spun.
Samuel Johnson Was Right 0
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel In related news, David Niose questions attempts to “instill” patriotism. A snippet:
Such conditioning is neither necessary nor healthy, and as a society we should rethink it. Just ask Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who unleashed a public outcry after respectfully dissenting from the national anthem. For doing nothing more than sitting out a ceremonial song at the start of a football game, Kaepernick has been called a traitor and worse. Or ask Bradford Campeau-Laurion, who was once ejected from Yankee Stadium for having the audacity to use the seventh-inning stretch to visit the men’s room rather than sing “God Bless America.” Such hostile responses to mild gestures of dissent show not a healthy patriotism but an aggressive, chauvinistic nationalism.
Left Uncovered 0
Dick Polman considers a story that he considers woefully underreported: An actual factual story, not a “cloud” of conjecture that “casts a shadow,” a story of cash on the barrel head.
Trump’s foundation sent the money to Bondi. A month later, Bondi decided not to prosecute . . . .
Meanwhile, Josh Marshall points out that, when it comes to Donald Trump, the corporate media seems to think that his word is his Bondi:
Follow the links for more.
Charitable Contributions 0
There’s a reason I mark the New York Times’s emails* trying to sell me a subscription as “spam.”
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*I know how they got my old email address. I had the bad judgement to register for an account once, before I realized that any outfit that pays Tom Friedman money has no discernment. How they got my new one . . . .