The Hollywood Liberal

Voices of the troops from the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ report
Some expressed fears about contracting AIDS or getting leered at in the showers. Others worried that it would get in the way of critical bonding at barbecues and bar outings. Still others said it would be an affront to their religious beliefs and harm the military’s credibility.

Capehart: Sec. Gates’s blunt message to the Senate and Sen. McCain
My editor popped into my office to ask “What’s the headline?” out of the release of the long-awaited report on the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell. The answer was pretty easy. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants the Senate to repeal don’t ask don’t tell before the courts force him to eliminate th…

After meeting, Obama and Republicans hopeful about a deal on Bush tax cuts
President Obama and congressional Republicans expressed determination Tuesday to reach an agreement on the tax cuts due to expire at year’s end, raising the possibility of a compromise that could avert a tax increase for virtually every American worker.

The Federal Eye: ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ report set for release
The Pentagon on Tuesday will release its long-anticipated report on how ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning gays from openly serving in uniform might impact troop readiness and morale. The comprehensive review — expected to number several hundred pages — will be closely scrutinize…

Julian Assange says Wikileaks release of diplomatic cables only the beginning, bank data next
Wikileaks surged into prominence again this week as they released a large cache of sometimes classified American diplomatic data. The American government scrambled to contain the damage, as the Post reported:

You Can’t Fix Deficit With ObamaCare in Place
Rep. Paul Ryan
The Latest Politics, News & Election VideosRep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) on The Charlie Rose Show.Rose: So when you look at what the commission said so far — what those two co-chairs said — what do you like and don't like?Ryan: What I like is the fact that you have the president's people that he put in charge of this — Erskine Bowles, who's a great, very conscientious Democrat — saying that for America to be competitive in the 21st century, we need lower tax rates. We need a lower corporate rate, we need a territorial tax system, which is very important for our competitiveness,…

The Fallout from WikiLeaks
Tunku Varadarajan, The Daily Beast
Another WikiLeaks whirlwind has hit us. The trick, truly, is to stay grounded and ask a question that newspapers (yes, even The New York Times) don’t easily ask: This is all mighty interesting, and truly, madly juicy, but…should we really be colluding with nihilists who traffic in stolen information?There are a few observations that one should make in the face of the latest act by Julian Assange, the prime mover of WikiLeaks, who has just dumped in the laps of four publications—The Times, The Guardian of London, El Pais of Madrid, and Germany’s…

START is Essential for U.S. Security
Froma Harrop, Providence Journal
The recently leaked diplomatic cables reveal both Arab and Israeli horror at a nuclear Iran. Last year, Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, evidently told the American ambassador that the world had 18 months or less to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, warning “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.” Bahrain's King Hamad sent a cable saying, “That program must be stopped,” and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed said, “Ahmadinejad is Hitler.”With Russia key to slowing Iran's nuclear program, U.S….

Defense Cuts Cannot Be Arbitrary
Jed Babbin, RealClearPolitics
The $700 billion Pentagon budget is going to be cut one way or another in the coming round of austerity measures. But choosing the ways it is cut cannot be arbitrary.The draft recommendations of co-chairmen of the Simpson-Bowles presidential debt commission said that $100 billion could be cut from the Pentagon's budget. They would reduce weapon system procurement by 15%, reduce overseas bases by one-third, eliminate the V-22 Osprey program, cancel the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program, halve the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in favor of F-16s and…

Tough Times for a Superpower
Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
The secret U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks leave one overriding impression: It's hard out there for a superpower. As of Monday, fewer than 250 of a promised 251,287 confidential State Department messages had been made public. Perhaps somewhere in that enormous trove is evidence to the contrary, but what we've see thus far shows that post-Cold War rumors of American global hegemony are vastly overstated. If ever there was a time when being a superpower meant never having to say you're sorry, that time is long gone.