Political Theatre category archive

John Romano finds a new blond bobblehead for Fox News.

His letter of recommendation is a gem.

Why do people pay Peggy Noonan to write stuff?

Chris Hayes and his guests wonder, just which one was the worst.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I’m so old, I remember when The History Channel was about history.

Professor Emeritus John C. Raines muses on an unholy alliance. A nugget.

There are a lot of people out there who want us to be afraid. Their lives and livings depends upon us feeling unsafe. Of course, I am talking about the terrorists, whose purpose is to make us feel afraid to be in public spaces we depend upon in our everyday life – malls, train stations, marathon races.

But, strange to say, I am also talking about the enemies of the terrorists. Yes, the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI, and the immense security systems of the military, local police, and private security firms. They all depend upon us feeling afraid.

An effort to bring recognition to the graves of enslaved Virginians was rejected Monday by a House subcommittee.

The measure, sponsored by Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, would have created a commission to oversee the work of trying to identify and mark the graves of Virginians who were enslaved at the time of their deaths.

The Committee seemed to fear that recognizing the graves of Virginia’s slaves would cost too much.

Aside:

It is rare that Bob Marshall is on the right side of an issue. This appears to be one of those times. However, he did wait until after the deadline for introducing new bills had passed . . . .

Via BartCop.

Joan Walsh struggles to understand where Chris Christie got a reputation as a “moderate.” A nugget:

I think there’s something else at work, something psychological, maybe, and harder to get at. I think the mainstream media and its dominant pundits are unable to take in exactly how far to the right the Republican Party has swung in the last decade, and so they need to invent “moderates” to keep from writing over and over about the party’s departure from political sanity. And when their moderates either show themselves as extremists, as Christie has repeatedly, or else as severely flawed politicians, as Christie has lately, those pundits either ignore it or rush to rescue them over and over.

I think something baser is at work.

The media, particularly the Washington media, loves the horse race; they don’t care about the outcome. IF they report the truth–that the Republican Party has devolved into a coalition of the New Secesh and the American Taliban funded by robber barons–the spectators might leave the stands.

Like old-style horse-fixers, they disguise one of the horses so they can jack up the betting and have their photo finish.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Steven M.:

We really have to start treating Donald Trump’s transparently phony faux-“flirtations” with electoral politics the way baseball broadcasters treat idiot fans who run onto the field — just turn the cameras away and don’t provide any coverage at all.

More trump cards at the link.

Intentions are irrelevant.

A groundbreaking study by the think tank Demos released last week found that 10,000 tweets containing a racial slur are posted on Twitter every day, although a majority of these tweets are not intended to be racist.

If you act like a racist, you are a racist.

If you don’t realize you are acting like a racist, you are stupid or you are lying to yourself. And you are probably not that stupid.

Warning: The usual bad taste.

New Jersey, always classy.

Since publication, a note was added to the story online indicating the newspaper had misquoted some off-color comments Drewniak made about one of the people involved in the scandal that has embroiled Christie’s administration.

“An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Drewniak referred to the Port Authority’s executive director as a ‘piece of crap,'” the correction said. “While Drewniak did call him a ‘piece of excrement,’ it was David Wildstein who referred to the executive director as a ‘piece of crap.'”

Shaun Mullen wonders whether the Republican Party has given up on winning the Presidency, settling instead on barricading itself in the individual states. I know it sounds crazy, since the all-horserace-all-the-time news industry seems to think that the Presidential election is the only one that matters (it isn’t–just ask the people of North Carolina, to pick one), but his argument deserves a hearing.

Here’s a nugget:

Although no one will dare say so publicly, the leaders of the Tea Party lunatic fringe that has become the tail that wags the party dog don’t care if the Oval Office remains out of the Republican grasp. Pushing a conservative agenda in Congress and on the state level is enough. This was all but confirmed in a New York Times article about Tea Party-backed PACs raising tons of money while PACs like moderate stalwart Karl Rove’s Crossroads are treading water. There was nary a peep about winning back the biggest prize of all. Toppling moderate stalwarts like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was more important.

Follow the link for his full discussion, including the math.