“AFD Ep 25 – The Generation War”

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Bill, Kelley, and guest host Anna from ONTD_p discuss the policy implications of a worsening generation gap between Millennials (and the next generation after them) and Baby Boomers, especially now that White births are no longer a majority in the United States. Eventually Bill gets really angry about Harry Reid’s failure to reform the Senate filibuster rules in January 2011 now that Reid has come around to see the wisdom of the “young” Senators who proposed the change.

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“AFD Ep 18 – Let’s Talk About Uganda”

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Bill and Kerry take advantage of the pre-emption of the FM broadcast to record an extended discussion of several important stories of the week. They break down the facts and controversies surrounding the ‘Kony 2012’ video, cover Rush Limbaugh’s contraception freakout and loss of dozens of sponsors, look into a drug-running scandal in the Afghan Air Force, and they speculate on Mitt Romney’s options for securing the nomination without winning a majority of the delegates. Kelley is out this week.

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“AFD Ep 17 – Sen. Tom Carper Interview”

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Bill interviews United States Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware, asking him about jobs, youth/young adult and minority unemployment, student loans, poverty, and his role at the center-right Democratic Leadership Council in pushing the Democratic Party away from the Left. After that there was 20 more minutes of great discussion with Kerry and Kelley, but it was accidentally deleted right after the show, so unfortunately Bill could only briefly re-summarize the topics and end the show.

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Romney is not a winning dynasty

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The New York Times decided to write about Mitt Romney’s other parent’s ill-fated political campaign, and how that defeat also influenced him. It also mentioned another relative who was unsuccessful in a campaign. Which brought to my mind the following revelation: Come to think of it, who thought Mitt was going to be a good candidate anyway? Considering how many Romneys there are across North America, how many have had successful political careers in the United States?

Turns out they’re quite good at business and they’re even pretty good at getting elected to state legislatures (perhaps by buying them easily), but they’re not so good at politics above that level. Here’s what I found, with some digging through Wikipedia, for statewide offices…

Miles Romney Sr.: MT Governor — Defeated 3x in primaries
L.C. Romney: 1956, UT Governor — Defeated
*George W. Romney: 1962, MI Governor — Successfully elected
George W. Romney: 1964, Presidential — Favorite son convention candidate, defeated
*George W. Romney: 1964, MI Governor — Successfully re-elected
George W. Romney: 1968, Presidential — Dropped out
Lenore Romney: 1970, MI US Senate — Defeated
Mitt Romney: 1994, MA US Senate — Defeated
Ronna Romney: 1994, MI US Senate — Defeated in primary
Ronna Romney: 1996, MI US Senate — Defeated
Scott Romney: 1998, MI Atty. Gen. — Defeated at convention
*Mitt Romney: 2002, MA Governor — Successfully elected
Mitt Romney: 2006, MA Governor — Declined to seek re-election
Mitt Romney: 2008, Presidential — Dropped out
Mitt Romney: 2012, Presidential — Struggling to win nomination against weak field (Editor’s note: Mitt Romney subsequently won the nomination but lost the general election.)

Despite their amassed wealth and sheer number of family members they keep spamming at the ballot boxes of the American people, Mitt’s just the latest of a family of chronic political losers, isn’t he?

We can do better

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A nation’s economic engine runs fastest and takes a country the farthest when the creativity and work ethic of a population are harnessed at full capacity. Full employment and basic economic security are the keys to unlocking that potential. An unhealthy, unemployed, under-educated population can never take a nation as far as it could go with a healthy, fully employed, well-educated workforce.

When we invest in our middle and working classes, when we lift people out of poverty, when we ensure everyone gets a slice of the pie…we make the pie bigger for everyone and we grow our economy faster and bigger than ever. When we ensure basic equalities to our entire population, we provide equal opportunities for all our people to succeed and join our united endeavors as a nation.

In a representative democracy, government is the means by which we as a large society carry out these noble goals. That’s not class warfare or statism, that’s just economics and common sense.

“AFD Ep 9 – Twenty Years of Europe”

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December 2011 is the 20th anniversary of both the end of the Soviet Union and the start of the European Union. In this extended episode, Dr. David Shearer joins Bill and Sasha to talk about those events and how Europe changed because of them, and then Bill and Kerry break down the current Eurozone crisis from its origins to its possible outcomes in just 25 minutes.

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“AFD Ep 7 – Occupy Bain Capital”

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Blogger David Waldman joins the team to discuss a NY Times article on Romney’s time at Bain Capital. Bill, Sasha, and Kerry talk about the eviction of Occupy Wall Street, the Syrian crisis, the Perry & Cain meltdowns, and the state of the GOP race, and then they take listener calls.

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