Political Theatre category archive
The Silence Treatment 0
At Above the Law, Joe Patrice notes Donald Trump’s lawyer attempts to silence Tony Schwartz, Trump’s Art of the Deal “co-writer.” A snippet:
But I digress.
In any event, Greenblatt’s letter is as brash as his client, demanding millions for defamation and being “very disloyal.”
Patrice proceeds to delight in Schwartz’s lawyer’s response. Follow the link and enjoy.
Bait-and-Switch? 0
Honest to Pete, you can’t make this stuff up.
“The Wall” 1
Will Bunch points out that we already have lots of walls.
To mark the arrival of the greatest show of democracy on earth, the streets of downtown Cleveland are criss-crossed with several miles of white concrete barriers and black metal fencing. It looks like the central city is hosting a giant Grand Prix race – occasionally I look up expecting to see Michael Schumacher rounding a curve at 175 mph.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Status quo ante:
The four-week moving average decreased to 257,750 last week, from 259,000, the report showed.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 25,000 to 2.13 million in the week ended July 9. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits dropped to 1.5 percent from 1.6 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
In other news of the Status quo ante, Bloomberg’s experts blew it ag–never mind.
The Count Counts 0
Ever optimistic, Shaun Mullen says, “Do the math.”
Merchants of Death 0
Part One:
Part Two:
There Are None So Blind . . . . 0
Shorter Elie Mystal: “What you see is what you got.”
Move over Occam 0
Meet Trump’s razor.
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.)
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.