The Hollywood Liberal

ThinkFast: August 30, 2010

“I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” President Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams last night when asked about the growth of the fringe “birther” movement. “There is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly,” Obama explained.

“I’m making decisions that are not necessarily good for the nightly news and not good for the next election, but for the next generations,” Obama told NBC last night.

59 percent of Americans believe Sarah Palin lacks the “ability to be an effective president,” according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll. Only 26 percent of adults said she would have the ability to be effective, while that number is considerably higher — 47 percent — among Republicans. Only 21 percent of independents said Palin would have the skills to be effective.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is spearheading efforts to build the Park 51 Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City,” told a Middle Eastern newspaper that he believed election-year politics had stoked the debate over the project and blamed a ‘tiny, vociferous minority’.” The full interview is available at The National newspaper’s website.

The “consensus among economists” is that the Recovery Act “worked in staving off a rerun of the 1930s,” but other emergency measures implemented by the Obama and Bush administrations played a larger role. The stimulus “was important for confidence,” said Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, adding, “But fiscal stimulus was the least important of the three planks of the government’s strategy.”

Underwater mortgages “are a massive drag on the economy and it could take years to eliminate the negative equity from many markets.” While many homeowners are paying their mortgages, they are “trapped” and unable to move for better jobs because they would lose money if they sold their homes. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a program to help homeowners with negative equity.

Government anti-poverty programs now “serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.” Upwards of 50 million Americans on Medicaid and more than 40 million Americans are now receiving food stamps.

And finally: A New York Assembly candidate from Brooklyn has a very convincing character witness — his mom. He sent out a fundraising mailer titled, “My son Doug Biviano wants to protect your PENSION,” which featured nothing but four quotes from his mother and a picture of the candidate and his mom.

ThinkProgress is hiring! Details here.

Time magazine comes out on top
Rick Stengel may have his shoulder in a sling, but when it comes to the newsmagazine wars, he’s the last man standing.


Magazines and E-zines – Magazine – Time – Video game – Awards

Federal Eye: Report details loss of Bush-era e-mails
Top aides to President George W. Bush seemed unconcerned amid multiple warnings as early as 2002 that the White House risked losing millions of e-mails that federal law required them to preserve, according to an extensive report obtained by The Federal Eye and set for release on Monday.


United States – President – History – Bush George Walker – Opposing Views

Obama speech on Iraq has risks
President Obama is promoting the decision to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq on Tuesday as a fulfillment of his campaign promise to draw the war to a close. But some of the president’s detractors are using the same moment to question the wisdom of doing so – noting that Iraq is still afflicte…


Iraq – United States – Barack Obama – Warfare and Conflict – President

70% of Americans Know They’ve Been Conned
Hugh Hewitt, DC Examiner
Minimum estimate of Saturday's crowd on the Mall: 300,000 Maximum estimate: One million people. Meaning of the crowd: An enormous upheaval in the emotions of average Americans is coursing through the country, with a certain significance for November's elections. It will have a lasting, profound impact on America's political direction.Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin provided an occasion to glimpse this undeniable phenomenon. Of course, the interpretations of what the phenomenon is and what its consequences will be will keep the chattering class busy for weeks, if not years.

Health Reform Group Aids Campaigns

The Real Cost of the War in Iraq
Anne Applebaum, Slate
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama will make a speech about Iraq. With 50,000 troops still in the country “in an advisory capacity,” he can't declare victory, so he will instead celebrate “the end of combat operations.” If he follows others who have already marked this occasion, he will focus his comments on Iraq: the state of Iraqi democracy, the level of violence, the impact of seven years of war on Iraqi society.All of which is fair enough. But I hope he spares a few extra minutes to assess the impact of seven years of war on American society–and American foreign…

Forget the CW: Dems’ Senate Majority is in Play
Albert Hunt, Bloomberg
Forget conventional wisdom: Republicans have a real shot at taking control of the Senate, as well as the House, in the U.S. midterm elections.”This is going to be a massive election like 1974, except it will happen to the Democrats this time,” says Bill McInturff, a leading Republican pollster, alluding to the Democratic landslide more than three-and-a-half decades ago. “The Senate is in play.”

Egg Debacle Reveals Loopholes