The Hollywood Liberal

With al-Qaida Diminished, There’s No Sense in Expanding Afghan War
Given the Western world’s obsession with al-Qaida, it’s remarkable that public discourse makes little mention of the fact that the terror group is going out of business. READ THE WHOLE ITEM By William Pfaff

Given the Western world’s obsession with al-Qaida, it’s remarkable that public discourse makes little mention of the fact that the terror group is going out of business.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

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“RedNeck Rap”: Bill Otto, GOP Lawmaker, Criticized For Anti-Obama Song
TOPEKA, Kan. — A video featuring a Kansas legislator criticizing President Barack Obama’s policies while wearing a hat describing opossum as “the other dark meat”…

Harry Shearer: Obama in New Orleans: Been and Gone and Got It Wrong
For those of us looking for even the semblance of substance in President Obama’s Town Hall meeting in New Orleans, frankly, he could have saved the jet fuel.

Obama Asked “Why Do People Hate You?” By Fourth Grader (VIDEO)
At a town hall meeting in New Orleans Thursday, fourth-grader Terrence Scott earnestly asked the question that has probably been on many people’s minds as…

Breitbart websites’ specious claim: Volunteer opportunity search engines have liberal bias

In October 15 and September 18 posts, bloggers for Andrew Breitbart’s BigHollywood.com and BigGovernment.com have denounced search engines used to promote volunteer opportunities by the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s “I Participate” initiative and the federal United We Serve program, condemning the former for including volunteer opportunities with Planned Parenthood and the latter for including a volunteer opportunity for ACORN. However, neither post noted that the search engines promote volunteer opportunities with a wide array of groups, including the National Right to Life Committee and the Tea Party Nation.

Breitbart’s sites repeatedly bashed volunteer search engines

From an October 15 blog post to BigHollywood.com by “Stage Right”:

The plan is to weave volunteerism and service into the plots of their shows and then, ultimately, encourage viewers to get up off their sofas and go to a handful of web pages that are meant to provide opportunities for service. As we saw in the previous stories at Big Hollywood and Big Government, these seemingly benign volunteer search engines often seem to be Trojan Horses for controversial, left-wing causes.

The October 19-25 “I Participate” campaign broadcast on all four major television networks for a full week of programming will point viewers to www.iparticipate.org (as mentioned in Ashton’s tweet) and the AARP’s www.createthegood.com web sites.

If your 12 year-old hears about this volunteer initiative and follows the lead of her favorite TV star, she will go to www.createthegood.com and type in her favorite cause. If she’s been paying attention to the news these days (or listening to the lectures from most public school teachers) she will know that “Health Care” is a big deal these days. All she has to do is type “Health Care” into the search engine with her zip code (let’s say 90210 cause we love those adorable Beverly Hills high school kids) and she’ll get a whole host of opportunities to serve.

Go ahead… open that link and you’ll see twelve opportunities to serve.  Look at items “H”, “I” and “L.” All are from Planned Parenthood.

From Dana Loesch’s September 18 post to BigGovernment.com:

The Obama Administration has placed a large premium on what it calls “national service.” It has launched a website, www.Serve.gov, that is reported to act as a clearing house for Americans eager to “give back” to their communities. Unfortunately, Americans looking for an opportunity to volunteer may get something they weren’t expecting.

By typing “ACORN” into the search field entitled “What interests you” at Serve.gov, you’re transported to allforgood.org where you can choose from a list of volunteer opportunities, including “healthcare activist.” This particular “volunteer” opportunity is with the Tuscon ACORN office.

[…]

Your tax dollars at work, America. Living the sweet life on taxpayer dollars while using federal funding to advertise for volunteer opportunities to promote the President’s health care legislation.

Pro-Obama activism is the new welfare.

Search engines provide a wide array of volunteer opportunities

Iparticipate.org promotes opportunity to join a tea party protest group. Typing “taxation” into the volunteer search box at iparticipate.org yields an opportunity to volunteer with the “Tea Party Nation,” a group that describes itself as “a user-driven group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers. We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country!”

Iparticipate.org contains anti-choice volunteer opportunities. Typing “pro-life” into the volunteer search at iparticipate.org box yields a number of anti-choice volunteer opportunities, including an internship with the Maryland affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.

Serve.gov also contains anti-choice opportunities. As Media Matters for America has noted, typing “pro-life” into the “What interests you” search field of Serve.gov redirects you to allforgood.org, where you can choose from a number of anti-choice volunteer opportunities, including an internship with the Maryland affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee.

Watch: GOP Reps Accuse Muslim Interns Of Spying
Here it is, the highlights of the press conference in which four House Republicans, relying on the work of a WND-published book based an intern spy’s infiltration of the Council on American Islamic Relations, charging that CAIR itself is planting scary Muslim interns on national security committees.

Defending Himself, Perry Attacks Executed Man As “Monster”
Texas governor Rick Perry called an executed man who may have been innocent “a monster” and “a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so that she wouldn’t have those kids.”

GOP Rep Takes Campaign Against Muslim ‘Intern Spies’ To Fox
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is today pressing on in the campaign against supposed infiltration of terrorist-linked Muslim interns in key national security committees on Capitol Hill. But authorities either haven’t heard the GOP calls for an investigation, or didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The neocon idea of peace: nuclear war
Excerpt: John Bolton, former ambassador to the U.N. under the Bush administration, apparently has a novel idea of “ensuring peace” in the middle east. A nuclear first strike on Iran. During a conference at the University of Chicago sponsored by the University Young Republicans and Chicago Friends of Israel, ironically entitled “Ensuring Peace,” Bolton stated once again: Negotiations […]

Quote of the Day
“What would it feel like if the next governor weighs 350 pounds?”

— New Jersey Democratic state party chair Joe Cryan, quoted by Politicker NJ.

Corzine Slightly Ahead in New Poll
A New York Times poll in New Jersey finds Gov. Jon Corzine (D) now leading challenger Chris Christie (R) among likely voters, 40% to 37% — though the gap is still within the survey’s margin of sampling error of 4.5%. Independent Chris Daggett pulls 14% support.

Among all registered voters, Corzine leads Christie, 40% to 30%, with Daggett at 13%. However, in the last two elections for governor only 49% of registered voters cast ballots.

Analysis: “The decision facing New Jersey voters is startlingly bleak, the poll found. They do not like Mr. Corzine, think he has done a poor job and have little faith that he will revive the state’s ailing economy or gain control of soaring property taxes, the two issues they say they care about the most. But the electorate is just as skeptical of Mr. Christie, who has been hit with a blizzard of Mr. Corzine’s attack ads but has failed to get across a positive message. Most voters think he has not explained his positions, and among those who offer an opinion of him, twice as many dislike him as like him.”

What’s the Big Hubbub Over a New Book Arguing NYC Is America’s Greenest City?

New Yorker writer David Owen has environmentalists shooting broadsides at his new book; do we really want to replicate the Big Apple across America?

4 TV Series That Should Not Be Missed

Serial TV is the best way to get a mini-escape into another land, another life, another person’s head — here are four shows that will help you understand where the country is.

Big Whoop: 1 Republican Signs on to Watered-Down Health Reform, and the Media Gets in a Bipartisan Tizzy

The 13 Dems on the Senate Finance Committee get one faintly rational GOPer to join them in a meaningless stab at health care reform, and it throws them into a tizzy.

How to Have Sex Like a Virgin for Only 30 Bucks

Who doesn't want to have sex with virgins?

The Audacity of Greed: How Private Health Insurers Just Blew Their Cover
The health-insurance industry has finally revealed itself for what it is.Background: The industry hates the idea that’s emerged from the Senate Finance Committee of lowering penalties on younger and healthier people who don’t buy insurance. Relying on an analysis by…


Sponsored Topics: Health insurance – United States Senate Committee on Finance – Insurance – Senate Finance Committee – United States

Obama’s ‘Unclenched Fist’ Won the Prize
Below follows the lead from a piece I just wrote for CNN on Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. An interesting tidbit that I learned from a TWN reader — though I’m not sure it’s accurate — is that…


Sponsored Topics: Barack Obama – CNN – United States – Nobel Peace Prize – President Obama

Rep. Van Hollen and Israeli Ambassador Skip J Steet
It is pretty impressive that 160 House members have signed on as hosts to the J Street conference. Here’s the list. If your representatives are not on the host committee, you may want to ask them why not. I am…


Sponsored Topics: Middle East – United States – J Street – Warfare and Conflict – Israel-Palestine

FLASHBACK: Fox News Supported Bush White House?s War Against NBC
Recently, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn escalated the tensions between the Obama administration and Fox News when she publicly declared that the network is “opinion journalism masquerading as news” and “often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” Fox has responded with surprise and contempt. “It is […]

Recently, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn escalated the tensions between the Obama administration and Fox News when she publicly declared that the network is “opinion journalism masquerading as news” and “often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” Fox has responded with surprise and contempt. “It is extraordinary that the White House would go and target a news channel,” said Fox and Friends’ Steve Doocy, comparing Obama to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In a Special Report piece on the controversy, Fox correspondent James Rosen compared Obama to President Nixon. On his Fox show last night, Sean Hannity made a similar comparison, adding that he thought the media would freak out if a Republican White House did the same thing:

HANNITY: We have a White House that has now set up a Web site specifically to attack the FOX News Channel because we ask tough questions and they do not like that. They’re not used to that with the fawning news media.

So — I mean is this an enemies list? It seems like it to me. I can’t imagine a Republican doing this without, you know, a media outcry.

The website that Hannity is referring to is most likely the White House blog, which has mentioned Fox News twice, including one post that directed readers to Politifact for the truth about more “Fox lies.” Watch it:

Fox’s incredulous reaction to the White House is somewhat ironic, considering the supportive response of the network’s personalities last year when the Bush administration attacked the credibility of NBC News. In May 2008, then-White House counselor Ed Gillespie publicly sent a scathing letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, accusing them of deceptive editing and blurring the lines between “news” and “opinion.”

In fact, two Fox News contributors, filling in for Bill O’Reilly, suggested that the Bush White House should have considered freezing out NBC and MSNBC all together:

– INGRAHAM: Now Karl, why would the White House agree to do an interview with Richard Engel? I mean, this is the guy who, you know, really didn’t want to give the surge any credit and NBC, an organization, obviously that’s called this a civil war. Now it’s kind of not gone back and changed his view on that. We’re in a recession, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, why bother really at this point? [The O’Reilly Factor, 5/19/09]

– E.D. HILL: You know, I’m sure you know from watching this program that, you know, Bill has, you know, has been reporting for more than a year on a pattern suggesting that NBC News basically panders to the left and is, in essence, in the pocket for Barack Obama. Why go on a venue like that to begin with?

GILLESPIE: Go on a venue like MSNBC?

HILL: Yes.

GILLESPIE: I don’t know. It’s — you know, the – you know, there are elements there who are clearly advocates for a candidate or a point of view, not even commentaries or commentators really or analysts. So I don’t know why he would. [The O’Reilly Factor, 5/22/08]

Gillespie appeared to be supportive of freezing out NBC at the time. On his radio show, Glenn Beck asked Gillespie about Democrats “trying to blackball Fox,” adding, “You don’t see Republicans doing that to NBC, do you?” “No, and sometimes I question why,” replied Gillespie. “It is beyond me frankly.”

Ginsburg Hospitalized Overnight for Reaction to Medications
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized overnight and released Thursday morning because of an adverse reaction to the combination of a prescription sleeping aid and over-the-counter cold medication, the Supreme Court public information office announced.

Obama Speaks to Students at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School
PRESIDENT OBAMA: What’s going on, King? How’s everybody doing? (Applause.) Well, what a warm greeting — I appreciate that, guys. Thank you so much. It is great to see you. I just want you to know that I am so appreciative that your school has been such a good host during my visit. I had a chance…

Obama Criticized as Too Cautious, Slow on Judicial Posts
President Obama has not made significant progress in his plan to infuse federal courts with a new cadre of judges, and liberal activists are beginning to blame his administration for moving too tentatively on what they consider a key priority.