Political Theatre category archive

Ask Dr. Gerry Mander, the Therapist the Stars Trust.

Dear Dr Mander

I’m the governor of Texas, running to be the Republican candidate in next year’s presidential election and I’ve got myself three problems.

First, I forgot one of my key policies in a live TV debate. Second, I’m now the laughing stock of the internet. Third… now what was it? Nope, sorry, it’s gone.

Rick Perry

Dear Governor Perry

So you’re an inarticulate, rightwing Texan with no grasp of policy who liberals sneer at – and you want to be US president. Something tells me you’ll be just fine.

Mike Littwin:

The other thing that came out of the news conference was that Cain said he would take a lie detector test — but only if, he said, “I have a good reason.” Could there be a good reason for a presidential candidate to sit down with a lie detector?

Kay at Balloon Juice speaks sense (emphasis added):

I don’t know if this nonsense is sentimentality or nostalgia or what, but can we please stop pretending there’s something called “The Republican Party”, a theory, that is different than the actual Republican Party that exists?

There’s one Republican Party, just like there’s one Democratic Party. I don’t run around pretending there’s another, alternate Democratic Party that is much, much better than the group that currently exists. I’d sometimes like to do that, but I don’t, because that’s purely aspirational on my part. It’s not reality.

Like all organizations, the GOP is a group of people. It’s a sum of parts. This fantasy mainstream “Republican Party” exists only in the memories of newspaper editorial writers. There are no activist members or leaders of the imaginary GOP. An organization like that no longer exists. This is what they are. Deal with it.

Remember that on the next election day. What you see is what you will get.

Sam Seder discusses contemporary American racism in the light of President Obama’s campaign and election with Professor Randall Kennedy.

Warning: Mild Language

H/T Pandora.

The Republican garden of hate starts to bloom.

Peter Bergman unveils the new Herman Cain ad. It starts about 13 minutes in.

Short commercial or, if you have ads blocked, delay at beginning.

Via Bob Cesca.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz discusses yesterday’s results.

From Comically Vintage.

Via Contradict Me.

Vote.

By the way, for the candidate who thought the way to get my allegiance was a robo-call with an “Unavailable” caller ID,

fuhgeddaboudit.

Offered without comment. Click to read the rest.

Let me offer important alternative argument – the US government has a record of making terrible mistakes in this covert war. On 2 September 2010, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan claimed to have killed Muhammad Amin, the alleged Taliban deputy governor of Takhar province in Afghanistan, in a drone strike. There was only one problem: Michael Semple, a Taliban expert at Harvard University, subsequently interviewed Muhammad Amin and confirmed that he was alive and well and living in Pakistan in March 2011.

Daniel Ruth takes a look at the Cain-paign:

All the Herman Cain story suggests is that a black political candidate is just as capable of acting like a hypocritical saucy fellow as white candidates.

Click to read the rest.

The former owner of two for-profit juvenile detention facilities was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison for his role in a kickback scheme that led the state Supreme Court to vacate the convictions of thousands of juveniles who appeared before a now-jailed Pennsylvania judge.

There is no upside to selling prisoners or “for profit” prisons.

At Science 2.0, Enrico Uva takes a look at teachers and teaching and concludes that much energy is wasted in fixing what ain’t broke.

A recent article in the Atlantic surveyed the tiresome debate over whether teachers are overpaid. It’s really not the key issue. Students will not benefit from our salaries, regardless of how much money is wired into our accounts. You rarely hear of anybody focusing instead on the following:

(1) Improving morale among teachers
(2) improving dismal teacher training
(3) raising hiring standards
(4) and most importantly forming bridges between industry, research and schools.

By scapegoating teachers, politicians divert attention from their failures in supporting and funding (the means by which support is most commonly shown for government services) teachers, even as flocks of administrators, some of whom have no teaching experience and consequently no clues, continue to grow.

Read the whole thing; it’s short.

Via Raw Story.