Political Theatre category archive

Thom discusses Paul Ryan’s visions of a Randian paradise based on selfishness. Watch the first two minutes; it will tell you all you need to know about the contemporary Republican Party and its Libertarian fellow travelers.

Click to follow the proceedings of the Republican National Committee as it lays out its 2012 strategy.

Know what to expect in the campaign season.

Andrew Trees comments on justices run amok. A nugget:

Here are a few examples of the “offenses” that led to strip-searches in recent years: violating a leash law, driving without a license, failing to use a turn signal and riding a bicycle without an audible bell. And don’t think that your upstanding reputation will protect you. A nun was strip-searched after an arrest for trespassing during an anti-war demonstration. Presumably, the police were trying to locate that dangerous weapon that goes under the street name “crucifix.” It gets better — the court’s decision explicitly states that there does not have to be a reasonable suspicion that the arrested person has any contraband secreted on his or her person.

In addition to giving police unlimited rights to strip-search for contraband, the Supreme Court had given them unlimited rights to strip-search to humiliate, abuse, and debase prisoners.

Not that any police officer would ever do such a thing.

Dick Polman discusses the Republican presidential nomination contest with long-time Republican activist Rich Galen. Mr. Galen seems to despair of the course of his party.

His comments on Newt the Gingrinch are particularly interesting:

By the way, we had to ask: What’s up with Newt? Why does your old boss insist on staying in the Republican race long past his sell-by date? Could you provide some character clues that would help explain this?

Galen surely did: “Newt’s world has always been inside his head. He’d have 15 ideas a day (back when Galen worked for him), and at least one would be deadly. It was my job to sort out the deadly one…He has the attention span of a five-year-old…He truly believes that if Romney doesn’t get the 1144 delegates (by convention time), he’ll have one last chance to get the delegates to chant his name.”

But how can Newt possibly believe that?

Because, as Galen put it, Newt operates within “a reality-distortion field….And he’s 68 years old, so what else is he going to do with his time? Go to the zoo?”

Follow the link for the rest.

J. M. Ashby evaluates the spin.

When you turn from the rhetoric of Republicans to their actions, it is difficult not to wonder whether one of their core values is kicking people when they are down.

KHELI Muhammad was trying to schedule a routine pediatrician’s appointment last summer when she discovered that her 2-year-old son, who has a congenital heart disorder, had been kicked off the Medicaid rolls.

The 30-year-old mother of two boys was stunned.

“It is written in stone that he’s covered,” Muhammad said of Samad, who qualifies for Medicaid based on his serious medical condition, not the family’s income level. “He’s pacemaker-dependent . . . [H]is heart will not beat without a pacemaker.”

But the heartbeat of the fragile little Samad was clearly not a priority for welfare officials, who informed Muhammad that she had failed to renew his benefits – even though she said she had not received renewal paperwork in the mail – and that she’d have to reapply.

Dick Polman wonders at the polls regarding Mitt the Flip’s relative unpopularity amongst women voters and wonders from whence comes the unpopularity.

He concludes that Republicans just can’t help themselves. A nugget:

But the problem goes far beyond Romney. He’s likely taking a big hit in the gender polls for the party’s female-unfriendly efforts across the map. Red-state legislatures have been pushing for measures that would curb women’s power over their own bodies. Republican spinners insist these days that the Democrats have “manufactured” the notion of a GOP war on women, but that’s an odd assertion in light of the fact that Republican lawmakers have been targeting abortion and contraception in (among other states) Virginia, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kentucky, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Missouri, and Pennsylvania.

Via BartBlog.

No doubt absolutely nothing can go wrong with this:

American scientists have drawn up plans for a new generation of nuclear-powered drones capable of flying over remote regions of the world for months on end without refuelling.

The blueprints for the new drones, which have been developed by Sandia National Laboratories – the US government’s principal nuclear research and development agency – and defence contractor Northrop Grumman, were designed to increase flying time “from days to months” while making more power available for operating equipment, according to a project summary published by Sandia.

At Asia Times, Pepe Escobar takes a look at what keeps the 101st Fighting Keyboard Brigade turned on. War is for them what guns are for gun nuts: their viagra.

There is, however, a crucial difference. Gun nuts actually shoot guns, often when they shouldn’t.

The Fighting 101st doesn’t actually fight wars; it just likes to watch.

The early 21st century is addicted to war porn, a prime spectator sport consumed by global couch and digital potatoes. War porn took the limelight on the evening of September 11, 2001, when the George W Bush administration launched the “war on terror” – which was interpreted by many of its practitioners as a subtle legitimization of United States state terror against, predominantly, Muslims.

This was also a war OF terror – as in a manifestation of state terror pitting urban high-tech might against basically rural, low-tech cunning. The US did not exercise this monopoly; Beijing practiced it in Xinjiang, its far west, and Russia practiced it in Chechnya.

Like porn, war porn cannot exist without being based on a lie – a crude representation. But unlike porn, war porn is the real thing; unlike crude, cheap snuff movies, people in war porn actually die – in droves.

Read the rest.

The Commander Guy muses on the Republican War on Knowledge. A nugget:

Putting it a little more politely, I believe that opposition to science stems from a populist reaction to the fact that it takes over educated eggheads using hard to understand skills sets to run the Country post 19th century.

Read the rest.

They have their own political party.

Daniel Ruth considers Newt the Gingrinch’s campaign:

Once upon a time and a wife or two ago, Gingrich was a big shot, the second most politically powerful figure in the nation. Now he’s been reduced to the campaign trail equivalent of a strip mall photo booth.

When you stare into a mirror and see St. Thomas Aquinas, Winston Churchill and Mount Rushmore staring back, it’s not easy to accept that the body politic has rejected you.

So Newt Gingrich, the Norma Desmond of the stump, continues to annoy people. He knows the moment he officially ends the campaign his moment in the limelight, no matter how dim and flickering, is over for good.

In one short paragraph, the Booman cuts to the quick:

No one has suggested that Trayvon Martin was doing anything wrong. And he’s dead. Can a black boy be killed with impunity in this country?

The Sanford, Florida, authorities seemed to want the answer to that question to be, “Yes.”

Still improving slowly:

Initial jobless claims fell 5,000 in the week ended March 24 to 359,000, the lowest since April 2008, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. The median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg News survey called for 350,000 claims. With the report, the government data also contain revisions dating back to 2007.

(snip)

The four-week moving average, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figures, fell to 365,000 last week from 368,500.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 41,000 in the week ended March 17 to 3.34 million.

Not to me. I don’t get noticed enough.

But Chauncey Devega got a gem, a literate and articulate attempt to justify bigotry by changing the subject. It’s a good example of how persons paper over hate with smooth-sounding rationales.

Aside:

Be sure also to read Devega’s column in the New York Daily News.

A different perspective:

Via PoliticalProf.