Political Theatre category archive
Blind Justice 0
Steve Chapman discusses eyewitness identifications at the Chicago Tribune:
Alejandro Dominguez, age 16, had no tattoos or pierced ears, and he reportedly could speak only Spanish. The woman, however, said he was the attacker, and largely on the strength of her testimony, he was convicted. Not until 2002 did DNA analysis prove Dominguez was innocent.
It’s a dismally familiar tale: a victim making an eyewitness identification that later turns out to be horribly mistaken. This type of mistake is universally known as the most common cause of false convictions. Yet law enforcement authorities, courts and juries continue to treat it as pure gold.
He goes on to discuss recent appeals court cases that lean to more realism in considering eyewitness testimony, which, despite its cachet, is often the least reliable.
It’s not that persons can’t believe their eyes; they cannot remember them.
And police and prosecutors, even those of the best will, are rewarded for convictions, not for truth.
Coddled Yeggs (Updated) 0
Addenda:
Part II:
Part III:
Twits on Twitter 0
Political twits.
Mitt the Flip This House 0
I really can’t see why anyone would want an 11,000 square-foot vacation home other than to plump his vanity and impress his guests, but I don’t think it has any bearing on Mitt the Flip’s unsuitability for the presidency.
If he lived in one room with kitchen privileges, he’d still make a lousy president.
Of course, if he lived in one room with kitchen privileges, Republicans wouldn’t give him the time of day.
As I have mentioned before, Republicans equate wealth with virtue.
Ben Stein’s Money 0
You know that the right wing has lost touch with reality when they lose Ben Stein.
The good part starts at the three-and-a-half minute mark:
A nugget from RawStory:
O’Reilly went on to argue that raising taxes on the rich would make the recession worse.
“That isn’t true,” Stein said. “There is no correlation, Mr. O’Reilly, between taxes rates on millionaires and people above that level, billionaires, and the growth of the economy… Higher taxes have historically correlated with more growth.”
“Mr. O’Reilly, sir, there is no correlation of raising taxes and unemployment,” he added later. “If you can show it to me, I’ll eat your shoe.”
Via IntoxiNation.
A Liberal: Origins Issue 0
Neal Starkman, writing at the website that is all that is left of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which was my favorite of the two major Seattle papers, muses over how he became a liberal what he considers the two distinguishing characteristics of liberals.
In some ways, it mirrors my own experiences; in others, it points to some of the reasons why liberals tend to be such a factious bunch. A nugget (emphasis added):
But am I merely justifying and ennobling my own prejudices? Don’t conservatives seek the truth and care about people? Consider some issues, past and present, with liberals on one side and conservatives on the other: Racial integration of public schools. The formation and continuation of unions. The invasions of Vietnam and of Iraq. Environmental protections. Women’s rights. Gay rights. Well, you can do the analyses. The next time you see a liberal and a conservative debate an issue, ask yourself: Which one is sticking to the facts? Which one is advocating something that will help people who need help?
Both Sides Now 0
- The young fellow timidly entered the office of the tough sales director.
“Wou-would you maybe think about considering maybe buying a life insurance policy?” he stammered.
The sales manager looked up. “What the hell kind of sales pitch do you think that is!” he bellowed. He wound himself up into a long lecture on the art and science of sales pitches, eventually talking himself into buying a $300,000 policy.
He finished up with, “So, remember young man, you have to have a toolkit full of different sales pitches and be ready to chose the right one for each prospect.”
“Oh, I do,” replied the young man, locking the signed application in his briefcase. “You just saw my stock sales pitch for tough sales managers.”
I’ve mentioned before that right wing politicians and commentators will say anything, regardless of how it contradicts what they said yesterday and or what they might say tomorrow. They can stand on both sides of any issue if it suits their tactics of the day.
The latest example is Texas Governor Rick “Fastest Lethal Injection in the West” Perry’s campaign’s responses to Perry’s own book. Eugene Robinson comments:
These and other wild-eyed views are set out in Perry’s book “Fed Up!” His campaign has already begun trying to distance the governor from his words, with communications director Ray Sullivan saying last week that the book “is a look back, not a path forward” – that “Fed Up!” was intended “as a review and critique of 50 years of federal excesses, not in any way as a 2012 campaign blueprint or manifesto.”
One problem with this attempted explanation is that the book was published way back in … the fall of 2010. It’s reasonable to assume that if Perry held a bunch of radical, loony views less than a year ago, he holds them today.
How can right wingers contradict themselves so fluidly?
They have only two allegiances: Winning and Wall Street.
All the rest is sales pitch.
Primary Election Day in Virginia 0
If there is a primary in your district, don’t miss it.
Pouring Oil in Troubled Waters 0
Carl Hissan discusses the destructive insanity of the Republican Party’s war on the EPA. A nugget:
The corporate mentality toward pollution has changed because the alternatives are heavy fines, criminal penalties and savage publicity. A reminder of why we still need the EPA was last month’s oil spill on the Yellowstone River, which affected ranchers, farmers, fishing guides and rafting companies. It also occurred seven months after Exxon Mobil insisted that its pipeline would never rupture because it was buried too deep.
I remember the bright orange eye-burning noontime summer skies of Washington, D. C., smog alerts.
Returning to those days, as Republicans seem to want, is not a good idea.
“Yosemite Sam with Better Hair” 0
Rick Perry, per Bob Cesca on the Bob and Chez Show.
The relevant portion of the discussion starts at about the 37 minute mark.
Lessons Unlearned 0
If we cannot learn from our own past, we certainly cannot expect the United Kingdom to do so.
Cord Jefferson considers the riots in the UK in the light of findings on the causes of the 1992 Rodney King riots:
(snip)
“Like other urban conflagrations—from Watts to Miami—the 1992 Los Angeles Crisis was sparked by a single incident, yet rooted in grievances and tensions which had accumulated for years,” the report’s introduction said. And later: “As they pleaded for immediate assistance and demanded long-term change, the frustration, anger, and pain of the people of Los Angeles was unmistakable.”
Driving While Brown, Commodities Futures Dept. 0
From the introduction:
With the economy flailing – there’s at least one industry – other than Wall Street and Big Oil – that’s booming! And that’s the business of locking up immigrants. Not because there’s more illegal immigration in America today – there’s actually less – but because private prison lobbyists – with the help of paid-off lawmakers who write strict immigration laws like Arizona’s SB1070 – are making sure more and more illegal – and sometimes legal – immigrants are rounded up and thrown in for-profit detention facilities . . . .
Strange Equation: Teabaggers and the SDS 0
Shaun Mullen explains:
I remember the 1972 campaign well and Election Night in particular. It was obvious early on that despite Nixon’s unpopularity — he had reneged on his promise to end the war and there were the first stirrings of the Watergate scandal that would abort his second term — that he would win in a landslide. I woke up the next morning and despite having a world-class hangover immediately understood why McGovern had been thrashed. Like the Tea Party, his supporters refused to dial back on their stridency and cool their rhetoric even if the face of probable defeat.
For you whippersnappers, here’s more about the SDS.
Cause for Optimism 0
From a letter to the editor of the the Boston Globe.
Molding the Future 0
Writing at Bloomberg, Nathan P. Myhrvold suggests that the wrong metaphors are often used to describe social dynamics. He argues this is why bad ideas don’t die and why persons hold on to falsities.
He argues that society is less like an organism (think Hobbes’s Leviathan) and more like a slime mold.
Like the individual mold cells in a slime colony, most people mainly pursue their self-interest, influenced only partially by a concern for the common good. And our individual agendas often conflict. You can’t balance the federal budget, for example, without goring somebody’s ox. Do we raise taxes, cut spending, eliminate subsidies? Every option is resisted by some people.
What’s more, society as a whole isn’t rational. In politics, religion and other areas of culture, people disagree on the worth of competing ideas. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that can determine in a robust way which ideas match the real world, and which ones can be ruled out. So conflicting ideologies persist indefinitely.
Got a point. Worth a read.