The Hollywood Liberal

Reinventing Health Care: The Role of the States
When the nation’s governors gathered in Washington this weekend, many were preoccupied with the largest, fastest growing category of their budgets: health care. Unfortunately, none of the serious reform plans on the table in Washington attack the three core problems that drive health care inflation: a fee-for-service payment system that encourages waste; a medical system so fragmented that real management of costs is almost impossible and administrative overhead is 25-30 percent; and lifestyles that are creating an epidemic of chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.

Thain Must Dish On Bonuses, Rules Court
That was quick! John Thain has been ordered by a New York court to testify about those controversial Merrill Lynch bonuses, reports CNBC. Earlier today, it was reported that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is investigating the bonuses,…

Baucus Committee: We Prefer Different Approach To Tax Haven Problem
Yesterday, we revealed how a bill that might have sought to close off-shore tax loopholes — and which might have helped catch Allen Stanford — died in Max Baucus’ Senate Finance committee in 2007. Now, a Finance committee aide has…

Report: Goss Knew Of Foggo’s Shady Past
A great nugget from Laura Rozen… Source said that Goss lied in his testimony, that he was not aware about the problems with Foggo when he hired him for executive director. He said that a major fight had broken out…

Will Obama Go After Social Security? My Editor and I Have a Bet
If it were looted, it might produce enough in fat management fees alone to resuscitate Wall Street’s ailing financial giants.

Jail Sentences for Cops Who Planted Pot on 92-Year Old They Killed in Botched Drug Raid
Three former Atlanta police officers were sentenced for shooting Kathryn Johnston and attempting to cover up their cruel acts.

We Need Obama to Help Heal the American Soul
The economy may revive in a few years, but our spirit will lay in the metaphorical dumpster without an articulate vision of a new America.

Why Healthcare Can’t Wait
There have been many issues where labor and business don’t see eye to eye. Here’s one where we firmly agree: the need to fix healthcare, now.

Obama Gets an “A” on Health Care; Needs Improvement on Banks
President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to reform health care tonight. This will be a huge undertaking, which he clearly understands. But, he has repeatedly said that he would make this a top priority and he fully intends to move forward…

The Speech
Visuals- The Dems seem spread throughout the room, so the aisle-like split between who is standing up and clapping and who is sitting on their hands is not so clear in the long shots. Looks like everybody is standing up….

Quick Morning After Thoughts On Obama’s Speech
1 – These thing are always a Rorschach test, but in our household Obama was king of the world last night. In fact, my wife Jody (as usual) had the best quick take when he was done. “After he does…

Sanford: Rush Limbaugh is an ?idiot.?
In an interview with the website Real Clear Politics, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) was asked about the “view that perhaps Republicans are rooting for President Obama to fail.” This question was a clear reference to Rush Limbaugh, who infamously said, “I hope Obama fails.” Sanford responded in unequivocal terms: SANFORD: I don’t want him to fail. […]

In an interview with the website Real Clear Politics, Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) was asked about the “view that perhaps Republicans are rooting for President Obama to fail.” This question was a clear reference to Rush Limbaugh, who infamously said, “I hope Obama fails.” Sanford responded in unequivocal terms:

SANFORD: I don’t want him to fail. Anybody who wants him to fail is an idiot, because it means we’re all in trouble.

In the past, Limbaugh has attacked other Republicans who have expressed hope for President Obama to succeed, declaring that they are “drinking the Kool-Aid… they’re afraid of being called racists.”

Evolution Of A Headline: Drudge Blames Obama For Market Declines, Accidentally Gives Him Credit For Rally
The markets opened this morning with a sustained decline, which Reuters attributed to a new “report showing yet more deterioration in the housing market.” Matt Drudge, however, wanted to blame it on President Obama, so he posted an auto updating graph of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Under that, in large block letters, Drudge asked, […]

The markets opened this morning with a sustained decline, which Reuters attributed to a new “report showing yet more deterioration in the housing market.” Matt Drudge, however, wanted to blame it on President Obama, so he posted an auto updating graph of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Under that, in large block letters, Drudge asked, “WAS IT SOMETHING HE SAID?” But as the day passed, the market rebounded, and Drudge was left suggesting that Obama was responsible for the rally:

Drudge couldn’t let that stand so, several minutes later, he changed the headline:

But then, shortly before the closing at 4:00 PM, the market declined again. What did Drudge do? He hurriedly changed it back, typos and all:

Matt Yglesias wrote recently, “Not only is it obviously stupid for political commentators to be assessing the quality of economic policy by tracking the ups-and-downs of the stock market but the fact that the commentators who want to do this keep wanting to specifically use the Dow Jones Industrial Average just highlights their ignorance. Not only is there no particular significance to the stock market as such, but there’s no particular significance to this index.”

Update Also noting that Drudge changed the headline back as the Dow declined late in the day, Media Matters asks, “Is he going to do this for four years?“

GOP Resting Hopes on Normally Conservative Upstate N.Y. for House Election, but Area Has Been Defying Political Trends
HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. — For the Republican Party, the long road to a comeback winds through the hills, small towns and dairy farms of Upstate New York and runs smack through such places as the Halftime Sports Bar and Grill, where Mark Hansen was recently nursing an afternoon beer.

President Obama Picks former Gov. Gary Locke as Commerce Nominee
SPEAKERS: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. FORMER GOV. GARY LOCKE, D-WASH. NOMINATED TO BE COMMERCE SECRETARY [*] OBAMA: Good morning, everybody. Last night, I outlined my vision for our common future, one in which we accept the responsibility to act boldly and wisel…

Obama’s Budget Expects Limits on Greenhouse Gases to Produce Revenue
A mandatory cap on the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, which President Obama embraced on Tuesday as central to his domestic agenda, would be designed to generate badly needed revenue for the government while addressing arguably the world’s most pressing environmental issue.

Reinventing Health Care: The Role of the States
David Osbourne, RCP

A Bold Agenda, but Economic Crisis Has to Come First

An Enormous Bet on Big Government
Dick Morris, New York Post

Mr. Clooney Goes to Washington … for Darfur

George Clooney made his admiration for Barack Obama apparent long before he was elected president, so now that Obama’s officially installed at the White House, Clooney has come a’knockin’—but this wasn’t a celebrity play date.

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Jindal Disses Obama’s Economic Plan

Perhaps keeping an eye on the 2012 election, Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal has gone public with his critique of President Barack Obama’s proposed solutions to the country’s economic woes. ThreatDown!

AP via Google News:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who may challenge Obama in 2012, said Tuesday that the Obama-backed stimulus package will “grow the government, increase our taxes down the line, and saddle future generations with debt.”

Although he said Republicans are willing to work with Obama and congressional Democrats, his remarks continued the generally harsh GOP reactions to Obama’s bid to boost the economy with billions of dollars in spending. The Republican Party chose Jindal to give its official response to the president’s speech to Congress on Tuesday night.

Read more

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Related Entries

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• February 24, 2009 The President’s Address to Congress
• February 24, 2009 Schwarzenegger Thought About Ditching the GOP
• February 24, 2009 Bernanke: We Won’t Bounce Back in 2009
• February 24, 2009 And Now for Some Financial News That’s Not Utterly Disastrous

Taylor Marsh: Calling Sarah Palin
“Oh God,” muttered Chris Matthews, before Gov. Jindal had begun. If you’re going to enter like a wanna be president the least you can…

William Galston: Assurance to the Nation: Obama Delivers First Address to Congress
With an unflinching speech, Barack Obama wagered his presidency on his ability to move an ambitious agenda through the Congress while stabilizing the economy and…

Obama Speech To Congress: REACTION
Pundits have begun to react to President Barack Obama’s speech before both houses of Congress. Below is a roundup of some of the reactions in…

Lee Stranahan: Potential Drug Czar’s Family Connection To Failed Drug War
In the Academy Award winning film Traffic , Michael Douglas plays the nation’s new Drug Czar who discovers just how unwinnable The War On Drugs…

AP falsely reported Obama called Social Security “the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far”

In a February 23 Associated Press article, Liz Sidoti falsely reported that at his fiscal responsibility summit, President Obama “called the long-term solvency of Social Security ‘the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far.’ ” In fact, as blogger Kovie at OpenLeft.com has noted, Obama did not call the long-term solvency of Social Security “the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far”; rather, in delivering the summit’s opening remarks, Obama made that comment in reference to “the rising cost of health care”:

OBAMA: Now, I want to be very clear: While we are making important progress towards fiscal responsibility this year in this budget, this is just the beginning. In the coming years, we’ll be forced to make more tough choices and do much more to address our long-term challenges, from the rising cost of health care that Peter [Orszag, Office of Management and Budget director] described, which is the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far, to the long-term solvency of Social Security.

As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, the 2008 Social Security trustees’ report forecasts that, in the absence of a change in the law, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until 2041, after which it will be able to cover 78 percent of currently scheduled benefits, going down to 75 percent through the end of the 75-year period the report’s long-range projection covered.

From Sidoti’s February 23 AP article:

Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.

“If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road,” the president warned, promising to cut the yearly deficit in half by the end of his four-year term. “We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences.”

He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that calls for spending reductions to match increases and would shun what he said were the past few years’ “casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks.” He called the long-term solvency of Social Security “the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far” and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, was a huge priority.