The Hollywood Liberal

The Answer is Still a Definite NO!

Major Climate Bill Still a Major Possibility This Summer

Cross-posted from Treehugger. In making one of the centrist compromises designed to lure Republicans towards compromising on energy policy, Obama may have inadvertently nearly killed the climate bill that’s been languishing in the Senate for months. The offer to open offshore drilling was intended to meet GOPers halfway in crafting a more […]

The Infuriating Cell Phone Racket
If you’re not already angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — here’s some ridiculous news to raise your righteous ire.

If you're not already angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — here's some ridiculous news to raise your righteous ire.

Saving Water, the (Really) Old-Fashioned Way
Drawing on indigenous Indian knowledge of geology, hydrology and ecology, Rajendra Singh helped to save a watershed.

Drawing on indigenous Indian knowledge of geology, hydrology and ecology, Rajendra Singh helped to save a watershed.

“The Gravest Danger”
The early reactions are in on the Obama administration’s National Security Strategy, released yesterday. Writing on the web site of the Nation, Robert Dreyfuss questions whether Obama’s policy, as opposed to his rhetoric, is dramatically different from the Bush approach….


United States - Robert Dreyfuss - National security - Obama administration - Warfare and Conflict

MEMORIAL DAY REMEMBRANCES
Whether you commemorate Memorial Day somberly or celebrate the arrival of summer with barbecues, beaches, and beer, your thoughts are probably drawn back to a particular person who died in uniform. For me, that person is my second cousin, Patrick…



Memorial Day - Barbecue - Arlington National Cemetery - United States - Holidays

Why Wall Street’s Political Poison Is Still Catnip For Many Incumbents
Today’s quiz: At a time when California’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is losing ground to her Republican rival in the primary because of her ties to Wall Street, when Utah’s incumbent Senator Robert Bennett was just booted out by…



Wall Street - Utah - Republican - Meg Whitman - California

Rand Paul Endorses Obviously Unconstitutional Plan To End Birthright Citizenship
Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is best known for radical anti-government views that lead him to oppose the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters, while claiming that governmental criticism of BP is “un-American.” Yet Paul’s hatred of all things government appears to end at the border. In an interview with a Russian television station, Paul calls […]

Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is best known for radical anti-government views that lead him to oppose the federal ban on whites-only lunch counters, while claiming that governmental criticism of BP is “un-American.” Yet Paul’s hatred of all things government appears to end at the border. In an interview with a Russian television station, Paul calls for expansive levels of surveillance and unconstitutional attacks on Americans’ citizenship:

I recently have been talking more about satellite observation. They say you can sit in front of the store here and a satellite can read the headline on your newspaper. So I think you could also monitor your border with satellites, and then you just have to have some means of intercepting people who come in illegally. You could have helicopters stations positioned every couple of hundred miles. . .

We’re the only country I know of that allows people to come in illegally have a baby and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.

Watch it:

It’s a bit amusing to see a self-described libertarian call for satellite-directed helicopter brigades to sweep down upon anyone who wanders too close to America’s southern border. It is not clear why Paul insists upon using wildly-expensive spy satellites to monitor the border when cheaper technology exists. But Paul’s call to end birthright citizenship, however, is by far the most radical aspect of his immigration plan because it conflicts with the express language of the Constitution.

Under the 14th Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This language is unambiguous; it grants citizenship to all persons born in the US unless they are not subject to American “jurisdiction” — a very narrow exception that applies only to children of foreign diplomats and a handful of other people.  Moreover, in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark and again in Plyer v. Doe, the Supreme Court firmly rejected the notion that persons born in the US are not citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents.

Paul’s utter disregard for the Constitution’s plain text is particularly damning because, Paul justifies his radical opposition to cherished laws such as the Civil Rights Act by his false belief that such laws are unconstitutional. Like many conservatives, Paul subscribes to the “tenther” belief that the federal government lacks meaningful authority to regulate the national economy, and thus Congress is powerless against local businesses that want to exclude African-Americans or other disfavored groups.

Paul told NPR that every piece of legislation that Congress passes “should point to where in the Constitution they get the authority for it.” As his opposition to birthright citizenship indicates, however, he seems quite comfortable contravening the express words of the Constitution.

Days after saying ?leave peoples? families alone,? Beck attacks Malia Obama?s intelligence. (Updated)
Earlier this week, rodeo clown Glenn Beck became incensed when he learned that journalist Joe McGuinniss has moved next door to Sarah Palin in Alaska, calling it “harassment.” “Leave peoples’ families alone!” Beck exclaimed, arguing that he said the same thing during the Clinton and Bush administrations. “You don’t go after Chelsea Clinton! You don’t […]

Earlier this week, rodeo clown Glenn Beck became incensed when he learned that journalist Joe McGuinniss has moved next door to Sarah Palin in Alaska, calling it “harassment.” “Leave peoples’ families alone!” Beck exclaimed, arguing that he said the same thing during the Clinton and Bush administrations. “You don’t go after Chelsea Clinton! You don’t talk about the Bush kids!” he said. Yesterday during his press conference on the Gulf oil spill, President Obama said that his daughter Malia had asked him, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” So today, Beck dropped his rule of leaving the families alone and took a shot at 11 year-old Malia. Mockingly replaying the conversation between the President and his daughter, Beck attacked Malia’s intelligence:

BECK: This is such a ridiculous — this is such a ridiculous thing that his daughter– (imitating Malia) Daddy?

GRAY: It’s so stupid.

BECK: How old is his daughter? Like, thirteen?

GRAY: Well, one of thems, I think, thirteen, one’s eleven, or something.

BECK: “Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?” Is that’s their — that’s the level of their education, that they’re coming to — they’re coming to daddy and saying ‘Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?’ ” Plug the hole!

Listen here:

Oil Spill Culprits Run Deep
Charles Krauthammer, Orange County Register
Here's my question: Why were we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place? Many reasons, but this one goes unmentioned: Environmental chic has driven us out there. As production from the shallower Gulf of Mexico wells declines, we go deep (1,000 feet and more) and ultra deep (5,000 feet and more), in part because environmentalists have succeeded in rendering the Pacific and nearly all the Atlantic coast off-limits to oil production. (President Obama's tentative, selective opening of some Atlantic and offshore Alaska sites is now dead.) And of course, in the safest of all…

A New Vision of School Reform
Pedro Noguera, The Nation
Before his election President Obama carved out what many regarded as a more progressive and enlightened position on education reform. Recognizing that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) had become widely unpopular because of its overemphasis on standardized tests, he declared, “Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles in a standardized test.” He pledged to lead the nation in a different direction.We are still waiting for a change of course. Since the election, the president and his secretary of…

What Keeps Charles Schwab Awake at Night?
Betsy Morris, BusinessWeek
In 12 years as a retail financial consultant for Charles Schwab (SCH), George Pennock thought he had seen every kind of market. Then, on May 6, he and his 250 clients lived through something new. Pennock was in Schwab's office in Englewood, Colo., just outside of Denver, talking by phone with a retiree who moved his money to Schwab last year because he says he felt suckered by his old broker. While they spoke, Pennock kept an eye on his computer screen and saw the Dow drop 250 points, bounce sideways, then go into free fall"”300, 400, 900 points down. His client was…

Late Late Night FDL: Don’t Wait Too Long
Madeleine Peyroux — Don’t Wait Too Long, Los Angeles, 2009.

Madeleine Peyroux — Don’t Wait Too Long, Los Angeles, 2009.

What’s on your mind?

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The Texas Textbook Massacre
Our friends at Brave New Films sent us this update on the Texas Board of Education’s partisan rewriting of American history. If you haven’t been angry enough today, hop past the jump and give it a gander.

Our friends at Brave New Films sent us this update on the Texas Board of Education’s partisan rewriting of American history. If you haven’t been angry enough today, hop past the jump and give it a gander.

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