The Hollywood Liberal

Premature Concession Syndrome
Premature Concession Syndrome — A Remedial Limerick By Madeleine Begun Kane Dear Obama, it’s Law 101 That in deal making don’t jump the gun: Never give stuff away With the hope that one day You might get something back — this ain’t done. Your opponent will simply want more. He will threaten to walk out the door Unless you accede To his limitless greed. Learn this […]

Protecting Detroit’s Mayor is Expensive
Michigan Capitol Confidential reports the city of Detroit spends $1.35 million per year on security for Mayor Dave Bing and his wife. There are 16 police officers serving as bodyguards that work in shifts of four to protect the mayor and two more officers that each work on a 12-hour shift to protect the First Lady.

Quote of the Day
“Today we ended sad chapters in Illinois history. Our state leaders tried to sell this seat, and then they blocked a special election to fill it, but the court, the law and the people of Illinois won.”

— Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), quoted by the Chicago Tribune, moments after being sworn in to replace Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL).

Estimate of Bailout Cost Falls
“The projected cost of the $700-billion financial bailout fund — initially feared to be a huge hit to taxpayers — continues to drop, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimating Monday that losses would amount to just $25 billion,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

In March, the budget office estimated that the program would cost taxpayers $109 billion.

From the report: “Clearly, it was not apparent when the TARP was created two years ago that the cost would turn out to be this low. At that time, the U.S. financial system was in a precarious condition, and the transactions envisioned and ultimately undertaken through the TARP engendered substantial financial risk for the federal government.”

California Leads States in Hate Crimes
According to a new FBI report, California had more reported hate crime incidents last year than any other state, with 1,015 cases.

According to a new FBI report, California had more reported hate crime incidents last year than any other state, with 1,015 cases.

Richard Kauffman’s Speech
Richard Kauffman (Professor, Yale School of Management; Former CEO, Good Energies; Former Partner, Goldman Sachs) gave a fantastic speech at the Coalition for Green Capital’s “Future of Energy Reform” conference last week, I’ve included the text of the speech below….

The Impact Today and Tomorrow of Chalmers Johnson
Next week, Foreign Policy magazine and its editor-in-chief Susan Glasser will be releasing its 2nd annual roster of the world’s greatest thinkers and doers in foreign policy. I have seen the list — and it’s impressively creative and eclectic. There…

Did Fox News Remove Fox News Jabs From Lastest ?The Simpsons? Episode?
The award-winning cartoon series The Simpsons proved its long-standing relevance with a swipe at its parent network Fox News last week, animating a news helicopter with the fictional tagline “Fox News: Not racist, but #1 with racists.” With “a license to make any anti-corporate joke that is at their avail,” the show doubled-down last night […]

The award-winning cartoon series The Simpsons proved its long-standing relevance with a swipe at its parent network Fox News last week, animating a news helicopter with the fictional tagline “Fox News: Not racist, but #1 with racists.” With “a license to make any anti-corporate joke that is at their avail,” the show doubled-down last night with another jab at Fox: “Fox News: Unsuitable for viewers under 75.”

Despite giving the show license for mockery, it appears Fox may not be able to take the joke. Today, Webnewser pointed out that the latest jab has been removed from the online version. As Mediate notes, it is possible that the producers might have added the joke after the websites received their copy. However, Fox’s resident “culture warrior” Bill O’Reilly’s recent huff over last week’s joke couldn’t have gone unnoticed:

O’REILLY: Continuing to bite the hand that feeds part of it, Fox Broadcasting once again allows its cartoon characters to run wild. Pinheads? I believe so.

Watch it:

Certainly, The Simpsons has a well-established (and well-watched) record of swipes at “the most swipeable network on this planet,” so it is unclear why this episode in particular would require scrubbing now. However, Fox’s parent company News Corp certainly has toyed with its Hulu viewers before and, as Mediate’s Jon Bershad points out, “you’d think that the TV channels would get the shows before the websites so you never know.” Regardless of why, the absence of the joke doesn’t remove the truth behind it – Fox news is unbalanced, and yes, it’s not fair.

The Fix: Why McCain is right that Palin is like Reagan
1. Sen. John McCain was asked for the umpteenth time on Sunday about his former running mate, Sarah Palin. And while his previous responses elicited plenty of headlines, his latest might take the cake.

The Plum Line: What the right’s ‘American exceptionalism’ attack is really about
Let’s stipulate at the outset that there’s really no point in getting into a debate with right-wingers over the question of whether Obama believes in “American exceptionalism.” That’s because the right intends this attack line as a proxy for their real argument: That Obama is not one of us.

Obama, GOP leaders to work on map for days ahead
When President Obama sits down with the new Republican congressional leaders for their first face-to-face meeting on Tuesday, the stated mission will be to make progress on ratifying an arms agreement with Russia and reaching a deal on soon-to-expire tax cuts.

Customs agents seize Web sites suspected of selling knockoffs
Federal customs agents have seized 82 Web sites accused of trafficking in handbags and other counterfeit goods, escalating a crackdown against knockoffs that have increasingly moved online, the Justice Department said Monday.

The Fed and Foreclosures

Obama Must Fight GOP’s Blame Game
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post

Europe’s Ominous Reckoning
Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
WASHINGTON — What you need to know about Ireland's economic crisis is that it's not about Ireland: a small country of slightly more than 4 million people and an economy of roughly $200 billion. It's about Europe. For decades, Europe has pursued two great political projects. One is the democratic welfare state, designed to improve economic justice through various social safety nets. The other is European unity, symbolized by the creation in 1999 of a single currency — the euro — now used by 16 countries. The fact that both contributed to Ireland's troubles suggests that…

Latest Mad Muslim Would-Be Bomber Botches It
Jeremy Lott, Am Spec
“A Christmas tree lighting? In Portland? Seriously?” Such was my flip reaction to news that 19-year-old Muslim Somali immigrant Mohamed Mohamud had attempted to set off a van full of explosives in downtown Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square Friday night during the city's holiday tree lighting ceremony.More news will come out today as Mohamud gets his first of many days in court, but what we think we know so for is that Mohamud picked the target because there were a lot of people there — including women and children — to be killed or maimed, and because nobody would see…

Time for a Realistic Nuclear Arms Control Policy
Stephen Rosen, WSJ
Enough is enough. Every day, the events of the real world reveal that the American foreign policy establishment is wearing nothing but the emperor's new clothes"”policies that make proper people murmur “how Nobel-worthy” while looking around to see if anyone else notices something odd.Respectable wise men, in and out of government, talk of the importance of arms control and a nuclear-free world, when the reality is that Iran, North Korea and other countries have made the acquisition of nuclear weapons their highest priority.