The secretly taped Romney video

At this article in Mother Jones, you can listen to Mitt Romney's presentation to a select ($50,000/plate) private audience. In addition to the well-publicized gaffes, listen to the story about how Mitt's wife's father's family (parents and children) scraped to put one of the children through college. This is at about the 4:40 mark. Mitt marvels at the thought that a child from a financially struggling family worked long hours of self-sacrifice to put his brother through college. It was a touching story of self-sacrifice, but then comes Mitts punch line: "I mean, I would never do that for my brother." [Loud laughing]. No, Mitt. I'm sure you wouldn't. You've made this clear throughout this campaign that everyone is on their own, except for big companies that buy Congress and laughingly feed at the public trough. At the 23 minute mark, Romney asserts that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace. Remarkably simplistic world view.

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William Black explains Mitt Romney’s 47% comment

William K. Black is spot on in his analysis of Mitt Romney, the candidate of America's Social Darwinist Party (aka the Republican Party):

Romney's initial non-apology for his dismissal of the 47 percent claimed that he was not "elegant" in his statements, but that is a deliberate effort to divert our attention from the real point. His consignment of nearly half of all Americans to the trash heap was deliberately crude because his fellow plutocrats love the crudeness of his dismissal of those they see as immoral moochers. His speech demonstrated perfect pitch for his audience because his plutocratic peers are the only Americans who Romney knows and understands.

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Insanity abounds at the Values Voter Summit

At "The League of Ordinary Gentlemen," Tod Kelly reports on what he heard at the Values Voter Summit. This is pretty amazing stuff. It would be difficult to make up things this bizarre. Here's an example:

The greatest challenge to our security and our Constitution we face in the 21st century is gay soldiers being able to marry. (Steven King, US Rep-Iowa)
Kelly's bonus observation was quite interesting to me:
Friday morning before Paul Ryan came out, they showed a video presentation honoring the Heritage Foundation. The video ended with stills of famous conservatives that had worked with the foundation, and each got a different level of applause by the audience, based on how popular the pictured conservative was. Not surprisingly, the picture of Paul Ryan got the loudest. The next biggest cheers went to a picture of Limbaugh, followed by one of Hannity, and right behind him was George W. Bush. One of the pictures that got the least, shockingly, was the picture of Reagan, who got what might be called a polite, golf-clap smattering. This may have been the most surprising moment of the conference for me.
I do think we have gotten to the point where Ronald Reagan is far to liberal for the leaders of today's Republican Party.

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Late to 24, and feeling uneasy about the show

My daughter recommended that I watch a season of the TV show 24 on Netflix. Over a period of a month, I did so. It was riveting, smartly written and incredibly well acted. But it left me uneasy for it's carefree stamp of approval on torture. And, no, the ends don't always justify the means. This article by James Parker in The Atlantic captures my own reaction. We all love the roller-coaster ride of a Hollywood thriller, but when it's over we don't always feel good about enjoying the "entertainment." Maybe it's because we know that entertainment harbors implicit lessons, including lesson on what is acceptable conduct. And in the case of 24, some of those lessons fit hand-in-glove with the American Neocon outlook on life.

Continue ReadingLate to 24, and feeling uneasy about the show