Political Theatre category archive

The US state of Nebraska is fighting to be allowed to carry out an execution using drugs manufactured in India, which the manufacturer believed were bound for sub-Saharan Africa for legitimate medical use. When this grim event takes place it will be the first execution in Nebraska since 1997, and the first ever in the state by lethal injection.

The drugs were-er–“misdirected” by a middleman.

The manufacturer wants its stolen drugs back. Nebraska is refusing to discuss to it.

I’m a confident that, if this involved a private person rather than a state government, we would hear no end of fulminating about cults of death and the like.

Details at the link.

Via Eschaton.

Karen Heller talks to some of Little Ricky’s professors about Little Ricky’s claim that Penn State was a hotbed of liberalism:

All three veteran, now-retired faculty members were stunned by Santorum’s account of the university politics and their department.

“Maybe he believes it, but he doesn’t have a very good memory,” Friedman said. “He wasn’t very conservative.”

The real story about Rick Santorum’s education is this one: “He was telling a story that isn’t true,” Friedman said. “It’s a fantasy,” Eisenstein echoed. “You’re in a political campaign and you’re dealing with people you can get to applaud if you tell stories about people being indoctrinated and liberal professors, but it’s not true.”

When I lived in the Philly area, I knew a lot of Penn State grads. When any of them formed a sentence with politics in the subject, “bid to football bowl game” was in the predicate.

Click for a larger image.

Via BartBlog.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., on the soul of contemporary conservatism:

That’s because what now passes for conservatism is less an ideology than an excuse for ideological rigidity, extreme language, shameless (indeed, proud) ignorance and situational ethics wherein the only thing that matters is victory and any tactic — fear, misogyny, bigotry, lies — is acceptable so long as it advances that goal.

Read the rest.

The San Jose Mercury-News wonders why Democrats do not adopt Republican campaign tactics. It asks

Why don’t Democrats just make stuff up too?

Forcing assessors to innovate (emphasis added):

The assessed values for residential properties dropped 4.5 percent while residential condos fell 2.4 percent. The assessed value for general commercial and income commercial fell 5.8 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. Also, the assessed value of vacant land fell 6.9 percent.

Residential properties make up about 70 percent of taxable properties in the city, according to the city manager’s office.

Because of the lack of buyers, the Office of the Real Estate Assessor had to rely more heavily on the data from foreclosures and short sales, Bunn said. That resulted in a loss in assessed value across the city.

Dick Polman, on the interminable Republican nominating process:

The new rules are not the problem. The candidates are the problem.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., points out that the Republican Party as it presently exists looks not to the future, but to the past:

On issue after issue — gay rights, contraception, labor rights — the goal seems to be to return the nation to the supposed tranquility of its Beaver Cleaver years, before Martin Luther King had his dream, before Betty Friedan wrote her book, before Rock Hudson was gay, before everything changed.

In short the days, when old white men were in control (or at least thought they were in control) and no one else mattered or, for that matter, was considered to exist.

Read the rest.

Take the quiz.

Via PoliticalProf.

Alyona and her guests wonders why the sudden Republican focus on birth control and suggests that Republican men might be having identity problems because of not being able to go all Don Draper with (perceived to be) their women:

Mike Papantonio traces Republican attacks on learning and knowledge back to Big Tobacco.

Actually, it goes back much further.

Warning: In bad taste, but not as bad the targets.