The Hollywood Liberal

By pushing for pandemic preparedness cuts, Collins helped finish what Vitter started.
Given the recent outbreak of swine flu, Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) push to strip funding for pandemic flu preparedness is looking increasingly shortsighted. But Collins was not the first to campaign against the provision. Indeed, several days prior to Collins’s public push, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced an amendment that would have stripped, among other […]

Given the recent outbreak of swine flu, Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) push to strip funding for pandemic flu preparedness is looking increasingly shortsighted. But Collins was not the first to campaign against the provision. Indeed, several days prior to Collins’s public push, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced an amendment that would have stripped, among other things, the flu funding provision. In arguing for his amendment on the floor of the senate, Vitter apparently couldn’t fathom how pandemic preparedness could possibly serve to protect the economy, calling it part of a “laundry list of…big government spending items”:

VITTER: The Vitter amendment is an attempt to start the important work of cutting out some of the clearly non stimulative parts of this bill. … [N]eighborhood stabilization, historic preservation, fish and wildlife resource construction, comparative research, the pandemic flu, the smart grid.

People might say: You are not worried about a pandemic flu and the threat that causes to our Nation? I am. That is a serious subject. … Maybe we need to do more; I do not know. But I do know one thing. That is average spending and typical spending that is nothing to do with job creation and economic stimulus. Yet this bill is littered line after line after line with all of those items. Many are ridiculous. […]

I hope this vote tonight on the Vitter amendment will be the beginning of fundamentally changing this bill so it is no longer simply a laundry list of traditional Washington, big government spending items.

Plan to Cut Weapons Programs Disputed
Some of the nation’s largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are banding together to argue that the Obama administration is putting 100,000 or more jobs at risk by proposing deep cuts in weapons programs.

Key Posts Remain Vacant as Untested Pandemic Response Plan Implemented
As they confront the growing swine flu crisis, President Obama’s administration is attempting to implement a never-before-tested pandemic response plan while dozens of key public health and emergency response jobs in the administration remain vacant.

Democratic Congressman Patrick Kennedy Crusades for Mental Healthcare Reform
Political aides counseled Rep. Patrick Kennedy not to mention the incident when he was campaigning for reelection in 2006. “Don’t bring it up,” they insisted, as Kennedy recounts their reaction. “Everybody already knows about it.” Talking about it only reminded Rhode Island voters of other Kenned…

Bipartisanship Didn’t Last Long for Obama
Dana Bash, CNN

What Happened to the Ban on Assault Weapons?
Jimmy Carter, NYT

How to Spend $6.5 Trillion in 100 Days
David Frum, National Post

Republicans Agonistes
Troy Senik, RealClearPolitics

Swine Flu Has the World on Alert

Joe Wilson Wants Dick Cheney to Let It All Hang Out

Ever the fan of cherrypicking, former Vice President Dick Cheney has called for the declassification of select intelligence he claims would polish his torture legacy. Whistleblower extraordinaire Joe Wilson says the “most secretive individual in American politics” shouldn’t stop there—why not air all of the Bush administration’s dirty laundry once and for all?

Joe Wilson in the Daily Beast:

Cheney’s request for the declassification of material is a welcome development, but it should not be limited to his narrow request. Our country’s understanding of what was done in our name by the Bush administration depends on the release, not just of the documents Cheney has designated, but of all documents related to the efforts of the Bush administration and Cheney himself to defend the indefensible—the decision to invade Iraq despite the knowledge at the time that Iraq did not have a nuclear program, had no ties to al Qaeda, and posed no existential threat to the United States or to its friends and allies in the region.

The disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion in favor of the invasion, the torture program, and the illegal exposure of a clandestine CIA agent—my wife, Valerie Plame Wilson—were linked events. In their desperate effort to gather material to whip up public support, Cheney and others resorted to torture, well known in the intelligence craft to elicit inherently unreliable information. Cheney & Co. then pressured the CIA to put its stamp of approval on a series of falsehoods—26 of which were inserted into Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the United Nations Security Council. At the same time, Cheney was furiously attempting to suppress the true information that Saddam Hussein was not seeking yellowcake uranium in Niger. After I published the facts in an article in The New York Times in July 2002, Cheney tried to punish me and discredit the truth by directing the outing of a CIA operative who happened to be my wife.

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Robert Kuttner: Obama’s First 100 Days: What’s a Presidency For?
The biggest obstacle for seizing the moment to achieve enduring change is Obama’s conception of what it means to promote national unity. He’s repeatedly declared that he would govern as a consensus builder. He wasn’t lying. However, there are two ways of achieving consensus. One is to split the difference with your political enemies and the other is to use presidential leadership to transform the political center. In his first hundred days, Obama defaults to the politics of accommodation.

Daniel Denvir: Teabag the Boss, Card Check for the Masses
The business community is scared shitless by the prospect of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) becoming law. They have conjured up images of aggressive…

Steve Rosenbaum: Obama’s Next 100 Days: The Top 4 Challenges Ahead
The next 100 days are likely to be the ones where Obama will have to make history — or have events overtake him. Here’s why.

NYT Examines Geithner’s History: Close Ties To Wall Street Execs
Last June, with a financial hurricane gathering force, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. convened the nation’s economic stewards for a brainstorming session. What emergency…

Shannyn Moore: Deep Throat, Steroids & Torture
I grew up without a television and was convinced baseball was something that just happens on the radio. I’ll take a ballgame called on the…

Did Harman Break The Law?
We’ve been wondering about something on this whole Jane-Harman/AIPAC story. (For the background, go here.) When the Justice Department heard Harman on the wiretap, and as a result started to investigate her (a probe later reportedly shut down by Alberto…

Seventy-Five Ex-AGs To Holder: Review Siegelman Case
Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman is stepping up his campaign to persuade Attorney General Eric Holder to take another look at his case. Seventy-five former state attorneys general, including ten Republicans, have sent a letter to Holder saying that Siegelman’s…

Have a Grand Old Rubber Mask Party!

Are Celebrities Destroying Twitter?
To balance out the inanities of celebs trying to self-promote, you should get on Twitter and talk about what’s important to you.

Glenn Beck: A Savvy Fraud Who Knows Just How to Please His Audience of Conservative Suckers
The faux right-wing pundit is laughing and crying in the backseat of his stretch limo, all the way to the bank.

Note to Nervous Would-Be Dads: Having Kids Doesn’t Look ‘Gay’
What is it with those men on cusp of middle age who see their masculine identity threatened by the act of fathering a child?

Political science and what to do.
Matt sounds disappointed that Gelman et al. don’t give politicians or activists much useful advice; indeed, they seem to argue that demography is electoral destiny. Andrew responds by offering some advice as to how candidates can benefit from marginal…

When textbook macro pays off
Macroeconomics doesn’t get much plaudits around now, but here is a real-life story that should hearten those who think the field is really broken. It concerns Andres Velasco, a distinguished macroeconomist who is currently the minister of finance in Chile,…

Partisans Need To Know The Numbers
Partisan activists need to study the work of objective political scientists like Andrew Gelman and of objective partisans like Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress. That’s because very few pundits or campaign consultants are terribly numerate. (For…

Poll: 69 percent approve of Obama, highest ?right track? numbers in six years.
An ABC News poll released this morning shows that a vast majority — 69 percent — of Americans approve of President Obama and 72 percent view him favorably, “the best job approval rating at this point in 20 years, [and] the broadest personal popularity since Ronald Reagan.” Fifty percent now say the United States is […]

An ABC News poll released this morning shows that a vast majority — 69 percent — of Americans approve of President Obama and 72 percent view him favorably, “the best job approval rating at this point in 20 years, [and] the broadest personal popularity since Ronald Reagan.” Fifty percent now say the United States is headed in the right direction, up 31 points since the end of the Bush administration, when only 19 percent thought the country was on the right track. Other figures from the poll:

— “Fifty-eight percent approve of Obama’s work on the economy.”

— “Obama leads the Republicans in Congress in trust to handle the economy by a garish 61-24 percent.”

— “A remarkable 90 percent say Obama is ‘willing to listen to different points of view’; fewer than half said that about George W. Bush.”

— Seventy-seven “percent call Obama a strong leader, nearly matching Bush’s best a few months after 9/11.”

A majority supported Obama’s decision to release the torture memos, but only 49 percent support his blanket ban on torture. That said, a majority still favors holding investigations into the Bush administration’s use of torture.

Update Politico reports that anger is building in the GOP base. “There is a sense of rebellion brewing,” said Katon Dawson, the outgoing South Carolina Republican Party chairman, who cited unexpectedly high attendance at anti-tax “tea parties” last week.