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

Those weren’t rally caps
The Beckapalooza was showpiece of American Stupidity — as per tradition

photo via Emil Kepko at flickr.com

Well, I take some time off and I miss the latest boring rally for 87,000 people with the body mass of 174,000. Say what you will about Nuremberg in the 1930s, but those people did basic cardio (it was all the putsching and pogroming).

It was interesting that Beck picked the Anniversary of the “I have a Dream Speech” and then hid the Lincoln Memorial from spectators so they could more easily reflect in his pasty countenance. I now realize it wasn’t just to give affront to the meaning of the day – it was also scheduled for this weekend because the NASCAR Sprint Series had no race planned.

However, what I understand to be amongst the most bizarre aspects of white people “Reclaiming Civil Rights Day” was one of two members of the St. Louis Cardinals taking the time to give the other an award for Celestial Awesomeness, or staying off the list of PED users or something.
Continuing the legacy of the Cardinals and the Civil Rights Movement:

When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, there had reportedly been sentiment among some Cardinals players that the team go on strike rather than face Robinson.

And there was one last parting shot from Beck as a post-script:

Beck: Obama’s comments on his Christian faith are “not something that most Christians recognize”

Hmmmm, I’m guessing far more Christians don’t recognize, among other of Beck’s beliefs, that Jesus came to North America for a Farewell Tour.

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Early Morning Swim

• Sign of the times.
• It’s witch-hunt season.
• Mosque attacked in Tennessee.
• Of course he’s sorry — he lost all his advertisers.
• Atrios reads the tea leaves.
• Americans just don’t like a Quitter.

• Sign of the times.
• It’s witch-hunt season.
• Mosque attacked in Tennessee.
• Of course he’s sorry — he lost all his advertisers.
• Atrios reads the tea leaves.
• Americans just don’t like a Quitter.

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Late, Late Night FDL: Worst Cover Song Ever
Worst Cover Song ever…!

Top 10 Worst Cover Songs Ever

All worthy contenders indeed, however, where they merely mangled the delivery, this tops them all, where they bungled the entire message…!

“Toking” with Lawrence Welk

Just think of the fun they’d have had with “Jesus is Just Alright”…? 😉

What’s your nomination…?

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Sights and Sounds From Glenn Beck’s Ego Festival
Our morbid curiosity got the better of us and we went looking for video documentation of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor Rally.” Hop past the jump for Sarah Palin speechifying, Beck describing himself as savior of America (sigh) and the inevitable music video.

Our morbid curiosity got the better of us and we went looking for video documentation of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor Rally.” Hop past the jump for Sarah Palin speechifying, Beck describing himself as savior of America (sigh) and the inevitable music video.

Related Entries

• August 27, 2010 The State of Our Interracial Unions
• August 27, 2010 ‘Daily Show’: Glenn Beck MLKs It

A Bloody Close to August in Afghanistan
The final weekend of August was a costly one for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with seven Americans killed. Also, five campaign workers for a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections were found slain, and a candidate for parliament was shot to death. —JCL The New York Times: Seven American soldiers were killed in fighting in eastern and southern Afghanistan over the weekend, after several weeks of declining death tolls among NATO forces. Separately, in Herat Province in western Afghanistan, police found the bullet-riddled bodies of five missing campaign workers for a female candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections, while another candidate for parliament was shot to death, Afghan officials said Sunday. The American servicemen were killed in five separate incidents, according to statements from the International Security Assistance Force. On Sunday, an American soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, while another died as a result of an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, the NATO force said. Read more

The final weekend of August was a costly one for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with seven Americans killed. Also, five campaign workers for a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections were found slain, and a candidate for parliament was shot to death. —JCL

The New York Times:

Seven American soldiers were killed in fighting in eastern and southern Afghanistan over the weekend, after several weeks of declining death tolls among NATO forces.

Separately, in Herat Province in western Afghanistan, police found the bullet-riddled bodies of five missing campaign workers for a female candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections, while another candidate for parliament was shot to death, Afghan officials said Sunday.

The American servicemen were killed in five separate incidents, according to statements from the International Security Assistance Force. On Sunday, an American soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, while another died as a result of an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, the NATO force said.

Read more

Related Entries

• August 27, 2010 The State of Our Interracial Unions
• August 27, 2010 ‘Daily Show’: Glenn Beck MLKs It

Robert Kuttner: Simpson’s ‘Tits’ Are the Least of It
Given what is happening to the real economy in the real world, the prospect of a double-dip recession and the prospect of a lost decade of high unemployment, the idea that the bigger menace is Social Security is just whacko. Let’s recall that Social Security is in surplus until 2037! Yet the idea that the road to recovery leads through cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and other social outlays that are keeping the depression from worsening, if anything, is gaining traction among opinion elites. Exhibit A is a doubly dishonest column by the New York Times’ new whiz-kid pundit, Matt Bai, who used a liberal congressman, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, as a prop to make his misleading case.

Incumbents Lincoln, Murray Embrace Earmarks; Did It Backfire For Murkowski?
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Ignoring Republican complaints about wasteful federal spending, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln is reminding voters – in dollars – of what’s she’s…

Lorelei Kelly: Beck-Palin 2010
No, I don’t think either of the stars of last Saturday’s “Restoring Honor” gathering in DC will run for office this year. I do think…

Obama: Muslim Rumors Not A Concern (VIDEO)
NEW ORLEANS (Associated Press) – President Barack Obama said Sunday he isn’t worried about a recent poll showing that nearly one-fifth of Americans believe he…

Miami Arms Dealer Dude Had Complex Web Of Business Dealings
In their newest case against the already-convicted 20-something Miami arms dealer Efraim Diveroli, the feds accused him this week of using a front company to hide his continuing involvement in the arms trade. But a closer look at Diveroli’s recent dealings suggest that, even as he was awaiting sentencing on his initial conviction for selling the U.S. government poor-quality and illegal munitions for use in Afghanistan, Diveroli engaged in a series of transactions designed to obscure his involvement in companies involved in the arms business.



Efraim Diveroli – Afghanistan – Business – Florida – Arms industry

Charges Dropped Against Blago’s Brother Robert
Federal prosecutors will not retry Robert Blagojevich, the brother of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for two counts of extortion conspiracy and one count each of wire fraud and extortion.



Rod Blagojevich – Barack Obama – President – Wire fraud – Robert Blagojevich

The Tea Party Paradise

Most Don’t Think Palin Would be Effective as President
A new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll finds that 59% of Americans said they don’t think Sarah Palin would be an effective president of the United States.

However, Republicans, by a 47% to 40% margin, do believe that Palin would be an effective president.

How to Kill Goyim and Influence People: Israeli Rabbis Defend Book’s Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews (with Video)
A rabbinical guidebook for killing non-Jews has sparked an uproar in Israel and exposed the power a bunch of genocidal theocrats wield over the government.

A rabbinical guidebook for killing non-Jews has sparked an uproar in Israel and exposed the power a bunch of genocidal theocrats wield over the government.