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.

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Jingoist Warmongering Democrats

Republicans don't hold a monopoly on jingoism. The Democrats excelled at it at their 2012 convention. In an article titled, "Democrats parade Osama bin Laden's corpse as their proudest achievement," Glenn Greenwald saw the Democratic National Convention for what it was: an attempt to out-warmonger the Republicans:

I thought, or at least hoped, that such vulgar crowd celebrations of leader-reverence, jingoism and militarism would not soon be replicated. But on Thursday night, the final night of the Democratic party convention, it was. It is hard to count how many times a Democratic party speaker stood up proudly to proclaim: Osama. Bin. Laden. Is. Dead! Almost every time Bin Laden's scalp was paraded around on its pike – all thanks to the warrior spirit and unflinching courage of our commander-in-chief – the crowd of progressives, liberals and party faithful erupted into a prolonged "USA. USA" chant.

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Romney Economics

This is insane. How can a guy running on the economy not read the work of an economist he is citing on the campaign trail? Romney's definition of "middle class" is also astounding, given that only 2% of households have incomes of $250,000 per year. Alternet reports on a recent Romney interview:

Democrats say Romney’s plan would cause a $2,000 tax hike on the middle class - something Romney disputes and points to a number of studies that say his plan to cut taxes will not increase the deficit, including one by Harvard professor Martin Feldstein. Feldstein says Romney’s math will work, but he would have to eliminate the home mortgage, charitable, state and local tax deductions for incomes greater than $100,000. When I pressed Romney on that point, he conceded that he actually hadn’t read the Feldstein report that he and Paul Ryan cite on the campaign trail. “I haven’t seen his precise study,” he said. “I said that there are five different studies that point out that we can get to a balanced budget without raising taxes on middle income people. Let me tell you, George, the fundamentals of my tax policy are these. Number one, reduce tax burdens on middle-income people. So no one can say my plan is going to raise taxes on middle-income people, because principle number one is keep the burden down on middle-income taxpayers,” he said. Romney defined middle income as $200,000 to $250,000 a year and less.

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