Sure, we’re taking forever about finishing the next installment of our podcast. And because you’ve been so damn patient, we’re posting this mix of one of the eight songs that will appear in the Ned Trek episode included therein, entitled “Romney and You Know It”. Willard sings this hopeful little number about his dream of a brokered G.O.P. convention. Give it a listen and let us know what you think. (Swearing is welcomed.)
Tag Archives: Mitt Romney
Each second day.
This will be another quickie. I am neck-deep in web development and video production this week, none of it Big Green related, so bear with me.
We are in the midst of another election season, as you know. I could have made that statement at any point in the last eight years, essentially. Our elections are now permanent affairs; the moment one election passes, the next one begins to dominate the national conversation. Sure, elections are important, but the constant focus on horse-race politics, who’s ahead, who’s behind, who’s in/out … distorts our political culture and in many ways makes the country completely ungovernable and, worse, unresponsive to public will. It used to be that, between the elections, policy would be developed, legislated, signed into law, etc. Now there’s no space for any of that. How is that working?
The danger in this is that we have developed a political economy around this practice of perpetual elections. One leg of this stool is the pay-to-play culture of political fundraising. Office holders are spending increasing amounts of their time with potential donors, dialing for dollars and addressing $10,000 a plate dinner crowds. Another leg is the media feeding frenzy that attends every twist and turn of the competition. Plenty of news to be served up, with lots of red meat. And then there’s the ad revenue, in the billions of dollars, ultimately.
This kind of reminds me of Matt’s Christmas song for Romney a couple of years back; he was singing about the planet that Rick Santorum “Christma-formed” so that every day is either Christmas or Christmas Eve. “Each second day is Christmas, preceded by its Eve,” goes the song, as it describes the financial advantages of such an arrangement. I think the way our elections are set up now provides a windfall for power centers in our economy, in ways I discussed and other ways as well. That’s a problem for all of us.
We need to get hold of this process, because honestly … it has a hold on us.
luv u,
jp
Bite back the bad news.
I’m not going to say much about politics this week. Just bracketed with work, school, more work, etc. A few quick comments and I’m out – sorry for the lameness.
Watched the Biden / Ryan matchup. My thought about presidential and vice presidential debates is that you tend to feel the person you agree with was the winner. Only makes sense, right? This was a much easier contest to watch than the last one, I must say, but it retained one of the central themes of the presidential debate: Romney/Ryan does not want to talk specifics about anything, and are now in full flight from their own positions.
The purported “numbers guy” seems very reluctant to use any when it comes to talking about their tax plan. They are planning to cut marginal tax rates to 20% across the board, while increasing military spending something like a trillion dollars or more above current spending levels. Ryan was 
claiming that this can be balanced by closing loopholes on upper income earners. Horseshit. Where’s the proof? They don’t have any numbers. They can’t name deductions that they would suggest in any negotiations with Congress. They’re talking about an enormous gap that their plan would greatly expand, they claim they can close it, but they offer no details. They’ve got a secret plan to cut taxes and balance the budget while raising military spending: it’s called “Just trust us.”
The laser focus on the Benghazi terror attack is instructive about how efficient the right-wing echo chamber is. Fox News blows this story to its many millions of viewers, along with Rush and the gang; the more mainstream outlets pick it up out of nervousness. What the hell – they are blowing this thing up as if it were a bigger failure than 9/11. They certainly talk about it more than Afghanistan, where Americans are killed every week, for chrissake.
That’s all for now. More later.
luv u,
jp