Political Theatre category archive
The Long Game 0
Keith Olbermann and Andy Koll discuss the Republican cave-in on payroll taxes.
It will be reconsidered in two months.
Republicans have set themselves up to display their desire to make the rich richer and the poor poorer just as primary season gets under way.
Republican Economic Theory 0
Robyn Blummer wraps it up in once sentence.
Shorter version: Make the rich richer, the poor poorer.
It’s what they do.
A Newt Is a Small Lizard 0
A roundup of commentary about Newt the Gingrinch’s Humpty-Dumpty view of the law (that is, laws mean what he wants them to mean).
Dick Polman:
(snip)
Ah yes, this is the real Newt – the reckless Newt in touch with his inner thug – that veteran Newt-watchers saw so often during his brief mid-’90s heyday. The real Newt’s hatred of so-called “activist” judges (i.e., judges whose rulings he doesn’t like) is so unhinged that two recent attorney generals, Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales, have stood up to voice their revulsion.
Mike Littwin:
In tossing away about 200 years of American jurisprudence — and, by the way, for a historian/not-lobbyist, Newt made a complete hash of Jefferson’s attack on court appointments, which had nothing whatever to do with court rulings — he said he might abolish certain courts while ignoring others. He called for a best-of-three constitutional test, which, let us say, you can’t actually find in the Constitution.
(snip)
Under the Gingrich Rule, consider that Obama and Congress could ignore the Supreme Court if it overturns Obamacare. In the ’50s, the president and Congress could have ignored Brown vs. the Board of Education. The whole idea is crazier even than anything Ron Paul has ever said.
Jay Bookman:
That is a 180-degree reversal of Hamilton’s actual position. He saw the courts as vulnerable guarantors of freedom whose independence must be preserved at all costs against the likes of Gingrich.
In Federalist Papers #78, for example, Hamilton writes that the judiciary “is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it can never attack with success either of the other two; and that all possible care is requisite to enable it to defend itself against their attacks.”
The Republican War on Women 1
Hadley Freeman predicts the next campaign:
The Republicans ban women from having sex (except with them)
In 2011 America’s right wing, and especially the Christian right wing, at last let slip what their problem is with contraception and abortion: it’s not squeamishness, morality or a fondness for hanging outside Planned Parenthood clinics toting misspelt placards – they just don’t like women having sex. At all. . . . This was borne out in their frankly unhinged attacks on Planned Parenthood, the HPV vaccine, insurance coverage of contraception and, as I discussed last week, the puritanical mood they created that encouraged President Obama to restrict access to Plan B, or the morning-after pill, none of which have much to do with abortion and everything to do with women’s temerity to have sex.
Thus, in 2012 the Republicans propose the female anti-sex bill, in which women are expressly forbidden from having sex with anyone other than the occasional lecherous politician who happens to hurl himself, bodily, sweatily, in her lucky, lucky path.
Follow the link for the rest of her predictions.
Twits on Twitter 0
Galluping twits:
A copy of the report is available at the link.
A. P. Ticker Remembers Dear Leader 0
Warning: Some language.
Droning On 1
The government has found more brown people to point drones at, now on this side of the big pond.
The winding down of the ground operation over the next two months stems from growing concerns over the cost and effectiveness of the $10 million-a-month National Guard effort that has provided reassurance along the border and political cover for politicians in Washington but has had limited impact on arrests and drug seizures.
It won’t be long before drones are pointed at everyone everywhere, sort of like Google Earth in real time. With bombs.
Meanwhile, in the Guardian, Gary Younge quotes a statement that sums up the anti-immigration movement: it’s about hatin’ on The Other:
Follow the link for the rest of Mr. Younge’s column.
Comment Rescue 0
It’s my comment and I like it. It’s my blog. I’m allowed.
Libertarianism is an elegant and simple theory which explains political behavior in much the same way as phlogiston explains combustion.
A Picture Is Worth . . . 0
Check out this proposed Pennsylvania congressional district.
Candidate Gift Ideas 0
See the suggestions here.
Iraq Coda 0
The attempts of the US administration to put the best face possible on the withdrawal from Iraq does not hide the crucial fact that the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq has
- done nothing to further peace and stability in the Middle East or in the world as a whole,
- failed to find the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration sold as a reason for war, because they never existed, and
- increased the stature of Iran as a Middle Eastern power.
The proximate cause of the end was rooted the Iraq Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by the President George the Worst and the Iraq government in 2006 and 2007; the deadline had arrived.
Asia Times summarizes how the this came about. Here’s a snippet from a lengthy exploration of the events:
A central element of the Maliki-Iran strategy was the common interest that Maliki, Iran and anti-American Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr shared in ending the US occupation, despite their differences over other issues.al-Sadr shared in ending the US occupation, despite their differences over other issues.
I have no doubt that the Bush administration expected the Iraqi government to be much more malleable than it turned out to be, its having been, after all, an American creation.
No doubt some will try to use the timing of the withdrawal, coming under President Obama, to start a “Who lost China” who-shot-John.
Nevertheless, the prints, indeed, the DNA of President Bush and his circle pervades The Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie, from its conception in arrogance, through its promotion with deceipt and its pursuit with incompetence, to its conclusion in confusion.
The Lowe Down 0
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Writing at Psychology Today, Douglas LaBier considers the indications that our political discussion has left reality far behind.
- From the left, President Obama is attacked for not achieving and pushing for a more progressive agenda, despite a range of accomplishments that he’s achieved. But the greater insanity is that he’s operating with the new “requirement” instituted by Republicans: That every piece of legislation must now be able to overcome a filibuster threat, rather than be hammered out through compromise and then subjected to a majority vote.
- On the right, the Republican/Tea Party vilifies Obama’s “socialist,” “anti-American” or — in Newt Gingrich’s description — “Kenyan, anti-colonialist” agenda, despite an ironic reality to the contrary: President Obama’s policies and behavior are much closer to those of a moderate Republican of yore; the kind that doesn’t exist anymore.
- Then there’s the ongoing clown show — Republican presidential hopefuls who argue for returning to policies that — as data show — have created the economic mess we’re now in. Moreover, they try to outdo each other to embrace anti-science, anti-knowledge positions, whether about climate change or evolution; and they vocally embrace anti-human rights positions when those rights concern gays and lesbians.
He goes on to cite some faint positive signs. Follow the link to read them and decide whether you consider them significant.
Verdict First, Trial Later 0
Daniel Ellsberg comments on the persecution of Bradley Manning.
This is one area in President Obama is charting the wrong course.
TSA Security Theatre 0
Now showing, Thoreau’s Unqualified Offerings.
