Category Archives: politics

Don’t Get Punchy

freespeech, politics, rhetoric 2013.05.28 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Fox News’ Andrea Tantaros Tells Listeners to Punch Obama Voters In the Face (Yahoo!) Lost amidst the coverage of the devastating tornado in Oklahoma last week was news that, in addition to spying on Associated Press reporters, the Justice Department also spied on Fox News Channel on-screen personality James Rosen, tracking his movements and phone calls, seizing his e-mails, and even accusing him of committing a crime in their affidavit. Coming on the heels of the AP scandal, this story likely would have exploded were…

#freekate

glbt, politics, sex 2013.05.24 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Kaitlyn Hunt Refuses Plea Deal: Gay Teen Charged Over Underage Relationship Will Appear In Court (Huffington Post) ACLU of Florida Statement on Prosecution of 18-Year-Old Kaitlyn Hunt (aclufl.org) Several years ago, when I was still playing dance games at arcades and going to tournaments and such, I got to know someone who was a registered sex offender here in Ohio. When he was nineteen years old he had a consensual relationship with a woman who was seventeen; the age of consent here in Ohio is…

Republicans: Do Your ****ing Jobs

politics, rhetoric 2013.05.17 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Conservative Advice To GOP: Don’t Legislate, Focus On Scandals (NPR.org) In the autumn of 2010 I decided to stop following politics so closely, in part to focus on my fiction writing, but also because I was getting sick and tired of all the Tea Party nonsense and could see the handwriting on the wall in terms of how the midterm elections would turn out. I still kept half an ear on the news, though, since I needed to know what was going on for my…

Screw the “Silly Season”

politics, rhetoric 2013.05.11 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Benghazi Schools Obama In The Politics Of Scandal (npr.org) The beginning of May is the start of what’s known as the “silly season” of American politics. Most states have held their primaries, and until we get closer to the election — around September or October — there’s a sense that there won’t be much in the way of “serious” politics done until then. (This isn’t so much the case in presidential election years, thanks to the increased importance of the parties’ annual conventions and vice-presidential…

Not This Time

politics, rhetoric 2013.04.20 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Peter King calls for “increased surveillance” of Muslims after Boston (salon.com) Republicans Urge Obama To Treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston Suspect, As ‘Enemy Combatant’ (Huffington Post) Thanks to my old friend from Backwash.com, Val, I knew about the bombs that went off in Boston before television-watchers did. She retweeted some of the first tweets about the bombs at the Boston Marathon as soon as they were posted, and when I switched on cable news I found that they were still calmly running stories on other topics.…