The Hollywood Liberal

Pope Says Capitalism Is Failing

In the spirit of the poignant critiques of capitalism made popular by Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI has written a scathing letter just in time for the capitalist G-8 economic summit in Italy that demands we find a “profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise.”

CNN:

Pope Benedict XVI, on the eve of a global economic summit, lashed out at modern capitalism for being shortsighted and short on ethics.

“Today’s international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise,” the pontiff said in his third encyclical letter, “Charity in Truth,” which was released Tuesday.

The papal letter was released as the heads of leading industrialized nations started gathering in central Italy for the Group of Eight economic summit, which begins Wednesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to speak about the economic outlook. The leaders of the other G-8 nations—Japan, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada and Russia—also are scheduled to speak.

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G8 Leaders Agree to Limit Their Hot Air

G8 summit participants have all agreed to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next four decades. Enough to keep Florida above water? The world leaders involved have to keep their promises first, as do successive governments over the next 41 years. Then there are the developing nations that could just absorb all that outsourced pollution. Nice start, though.

BBC:

Leaders of the G8 leading industrial countries have agreed to try to limit global warming to just 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

The summit, in the Italian city of L’Aquila, also set tough new targets for carbon emissions considered necessary to achieve the goal.

Developed nations are to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, to allow a global 50% reduction by the same date.

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Christina Bellantoni: Daily Show’s John Oliver rips Limbaugh, Beck, Olbermann, Blitzer
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Alec Baldwin: Man of the People
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Peter King On Calling Michael Jackson A “Child Molester”: I Said What “Millions Of Americans Really Felt” (VIDEO)
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Bob Cesca: If You Don’t Want the Public Option, Get the Hell Out of the Way
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Hannity again crops Obama’s comments abroad in order to smear him

On the July 7 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity deceptively cropped President Obama’s answer to a question from Fox News senior White House correspondent Major Garrett about the Cold War to suggest that Obama did not acknowledge the actions of past U.S. presidents in freeing Eastern Europe. In fact, as part of his answer, Obama stated, “I’m very proud of the traditions of Democratic and Republican presidents to lift the Iron Curtain,” a comment Hannity edited out of the clip he aired of Obama’s response.

Hannity aired the following clip:

GARRETT: In your speech this morning, you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years.

Mr. President, are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can’t say the Cold War was won, the West won it, and it was led by a combination of Democratic and Republican American presidents?

OBAMA: There were a whole bunch of people throughout Eastern Europe who showed enormous courage, and I think that it is very important in this part of the world to acknowledge the degree to which people struggled for their own freedom.

We don’t have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history.

From Fox News’ transcript of Obama’s July 7 interview with Garrett, with the portions of Obama’s answer Hannity omitted in bold:

GARRETT: In your speech this morning, you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years. Mr. President, are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can’t say the Cold War was won? The West won it? And it was led by a combination of Democratic and Republican American presidents?

OBAMA: Well, listen, the — I think that you just cut out Lech Walesa and the Poles. You just cut out Havel and the Czechs. There were a whole bunch of people throughout Eastern Europe who showed enormous courage.

And I think that it is very important in this part of the world to acknowledge the degree to which people struggled for their own freedom. I’m very proud of the traditions of Democratic and Republican presidents to lift the Iron Curtain.

But, you know, we don’t have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history.

After airing the cropped clip, Hannity said:

HANNITY: Unbelievable. Now, that’s interesting, because Lech Walesa, the leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement, said this about the end of the Cold War; he said, quote: “We in Poland took him, Ronald Reagan, so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. Now this can’t be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century.”

Mr. President, if I were you, you may want to consider hitting the history books maybe before your next foreign trip.

Media Matters for America has documented a pattern by Hannity and other Fox News personalities of cropping Obama’s comments abroad to misrepresent their meaning.

From the July 7 edition of Fox News’ Hannity:

HANNITY: And tonight in “Hannity’s America”: The president is in Russia, and, this morning, he sat down for an interview with our own Major Garrett. Now you won’t believe his answer to Major’s very first question.

[begin video clip]

GARRETT: In your speech this morning, you said the Cold War reached its conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years.

Mr. President, are the Russian sensitivities so fragile that you can’t say the Cold War was won, the West won it, and it was led by a combination of Democratic and Republican American presidents?

OBAMA: There were a whole bunch of people throughout Eastern Europe who showed enormous courage, and I think that it is very important in this part of the world to acknowledge the degree to which people struggled for their own freedom.

We don’t have to diminish other people in order to recognize our role in that history.

[end video clip]

HANNITY: Unbelievable. Now, that’s interesting, because Lech Walesa, the leader of the Polish Solidarity Movement, said this about the end of the Cold War; he said, quote: “We in Poland took him, Ronald Reagan, so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. Now this can’t be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century.”

Mr. President, if I were you, you may want to consider hitting the history books maybe before your next foreign trip.

Obama Won’t Rule Out Indefinite Detention for Terror Suspects
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Wronged Husband Rips Ensign
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The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation
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Why Iran’s Turmoil Makes Me Want to Take to the Rooftops and Shout ‘Allah-o-Akbar’!
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The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation
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Why the FBI Squelched an Investigation of a Post-9/11 Meeting Between White Supremacist and Islamic Extremists
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McNamara’s Tragedy
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O?Reilly Tells African-Americans Whom They Can And Cannot Hold Up As Icons
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was full of his usual hypocrisy as he went off last night about the death of Michael Jackson. O’Reilly started off on a respectful note, saying, “The family of Michael Jackson honored his memory today in Los Angeles. And I do not, do not wish to intrude on that. They […]

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was full of his usual hypocrisy as he went off last night about the death of Michael Jackson. O’Reilly started off on a respectful note, saying, “The family of Michael Jackson honored his memory today in Los Angeles. And I do not, do not wish to intrude on that. They are entitled to grieve any way they want.” However, he then decided to intrude, saying that he was “just about fed up with all the adulation” because it’s “basically grandstanding and pathetic in the extreme.”

O’Reilly was also offended at the “racial component” to the Jackson coverage. “The message is very clear, if you criticize Michael Jackson, you hate black people,” said O’Reilly. He, however, then injected race into the discussion by telling Fox News analyst Marc Lamont Hill that blacks shouldn’t look up to Jackson:

O’REILLY: Okay, then why is he being held up by the African-American community as a pillar of black America when he blanches his skin? […]

But answer me this, if he is such a black American icon, why did he have his kids with white men?

HILL: That’s a personal matter. That doesn’t make him less black. There’s no blackness meter here. You don’t become less black when you have a white kid.

O’REILLY: You don’t become an African-American icon when you do something like that.

HILL: No, you become an African-American icon for producing the greatest music and being the greatest entertainer ever for being extraordinary humanitarian and for.

O’REILLY: No. You just become an American icon for that, not a black American icon. […]

HILL: It’s not — oh, he is an American idol — icon. He is quintessentially American, but he’s also undeniably black. You can’t take black from him just because he has white kids.

Watch it:

That’s right — O’Reilly, who has said he is “terrified” about interacting with African-Americans and is amazed that a restaurant “run by blacks” is like “any other restaurant in New York City,” is now dictating whom people of color should hold up as icons.

Transcript: Obama and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano Exchange Remarks

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