The Hollywood Liberal

Sestak Catches Toomey in Pennsylvania
A new Quinnipiac poll in Pennsylvania finds Rep. Joe Sestak (D) and Pat Toomey (R) are deadlocked at 43% each in the U.S. Senate race.

In April, Sestak trailed Toomey by eight points.

Said pollster Peter Brown: “Congressman Joe Sestak, a decided underdog who knocked off U.S. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary, has now closed an 8-point gap in the last three months to tie Pat Toomey. But the Senate race remains wide open, since at this point about half of the voters don’t know enough about either candidate to form an opinion.”

Democrats Plan to Use Clinton on Campaign Trail
White House aides are putting together “an aggressive schedule” to deploy former President Clinton at campaign and fundraising events in key states around the country, CNN reports.

Said one Democratic official: “It’s a no-brainer you would use one of the most talented politicians the country has ever had. There are few as good at laying out the contrast with Republicans.”

Baseball as a Political Indicator
Smart Politics finds that a National League victory in the All Star Game has preceded each of the last nine election cycles in which Republicans have enjoyed double-digit gains in the House.

Arizona’s New Immigration Law Is Unconstitutional — But this Right-Wing Supreme Court May Have Other Ideas
Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 attempts to make immigration policy that differs from federal law. Precedent suggests it will be shot down.

Arizona's controversial SB 1070 attempts to make immigration policy that differs from federal law. Precedent suggests it will be shot down.

Is it Worse to Be a Racist or a Rapist? What Gibson and Polanski Teach Us
It looks like the silver lining for celebrity abusers everywhere is that unless you use a racial slur while committing abuse you might be okay, career wise.

It looks like the silver lining for celebrity abusers everywhere is that unless you use a racial slur while committing abuse you might be okay, career wise.

Bowling Alone? Erskine Bowles Goes Off the Deep End
When the co-chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission gets his deficit numbers off by 100 percent, you would think this would be worth a little media attention. But apparently this is not the case. Therefore when Erskine Bowles warned the…



Barack Obama – Erskine Bowles – President of the United States – United States – President

Robert Kagan Takes Franchise to Brookings
Yesterday, when I was at this meeting with Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Cheryl Benton, Benton asked me off camera if I followed the LeBron James stuff. I sheepishly…



LeBron James – Robert Kagan – United States Secretary of State – Diplomatic rank – Benton

Bolton Lays Out His Pro-Israel Strategy: Increase Political Support In The U.S. For Letting Israel Bomb Iran
Reports have emerged this week on the group Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), an organization led by pro-war neocons and evangelical Christians seeking to attack President Obama’s Middle East policy. The group launched an ad this week bashing Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) for allegedly not understanding that Israel is a U.S. ally. War hawk flack […]

Reports have emerged this week on the group Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), an organization led by pro-war neocons and evangelical Christians seeking to attack President Obama’s Middle East policy. The group launched an ad this week bashing Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) for allegedly not understanding that Israel is a U.S. ally.

War hawk flack John Bolton commented on the new group today in an email to right-wing Commentary Magazine:

I don’t understand why so many people accept the Obama Administration’s ritualistic recital of the pro-Israel catechism, rather than looking at its specific policies and actions. You can say “unbreakable relationship” as many times as you want, but it has no real-world impact. I don’t see how anybody can object to a new group that simply points out the obvious disjunction between what Obama and his acolytes are saying and what they are actually doing.

So what is this “obvious disjunction” between ECI and “what Obama and his acolytes are saying and what they are actually doing?” The President has made it clear that the United States will achieve its foreign policy goals in the Middle East, particularly regarding Iran’s nuclear program, through diplomatic means — a position that both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen support. What are those on the right like Bolton supporting? The former U.N. ambassador outlined his views today in the Wall Street Journal:

[Opinion leaders need] to increase political support for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile facilities. […] What outsiders can do is create broad support for Israel’s inherent right to self-defense against a nuclear Holocaust and defend the specific tactic of pre-emptive attacks against Iran’s Esfahan uranium-conversion plant, its Natanz enrichment facility, and other targets.

Indeed, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol — a member of ECI’s leadership board — has been supporting and advocating a strike on Iran’s nuclear program for quite some time. So yes, Bolton is right, there is an “obvious disjunction” between ECI and the Obama administration’s policy; despite the debacle in Iraq, the former still appears to believe that war will achieve peace in the Middle East, while the latter has learned from the neocons’ mistakes in favor of negotiation and diplomacy.

Obama Cleanses Terrorism Glossary
Rowan Scarborough, Human Events
President Obama and his cast of aides will lash out at Republicans, the Tea Party, banks, oil companies and Arizona. But when it comes to radical Islam, Obama-ites treat it with kid gloves or ignore it altogether.Recent speeches show that—rather than identifying the enemy for what it is, bands of Islamic extremists who use their religion to justify murder—the administration searches for the root cause of terrorism, a "why do they hate us?" obsession which serves only to paralyze a global war to defeat terrorist killers.Islamic extremists use mosques to…

A Better Stimulus For States?
Nicole Gelinas, Investor’s Business Daily

U.S. Rebuilds Plant, Taliban Reap Windfall
Yaroslav Trofimov, WSJ
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan—The U.S. has poured more than $100 million into upgrading the Kajaki hydropower plant, the biggest source of electricity in south Afghanistan. And it plans on spending much more, in an effort to woo local sympathies away from the Taliban insurgency.Yet, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this American-taxpayer-financed project are the Taliban themselves.Since U.S.-funded repairs of a turbine at the Kajaki plant doubled its capacity in October, nearly half of the total electrical output has flowed to districts in Helmand province where the Taliban administer…