The Hollywood Liberal

Late, Late Night FDL: Happy Kwanzaa!
The Kwanzaa Song – Billy Paul Williams

The Kwanzaa Song – Billy Paul Williams

Happy Kwanzaa to all!

Here’s Kwanzaa’s founder, Dr. Maulana Karenga…

What’s on your mind tonite…?

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That’s Entertainment…or something
The Arts are going to kill us all…hopefully sooner rather than later.

pic via Andyi at flickr.com

Two vital news stories broke and I will discuss them in order of importance (least to most):

Republicans plan to lift the ban on the use of electronic gadgets like the iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry on the House floor.

John Boehner gets to make tee times from the Speakers’ chair…and now porn is not just for office chambers.

And the first member of Congress caught on C-Span looking at foot fetish porn is? I’m guessing it will be Jet’s fan Peter King.

But that’s not the big news. This is!

Earlier this month an army doctor, Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, was sentenced to six months in prison and thrown out of the military after he failed to turn up for a tour of duty in Afghanistan, arguing that because of Obama’s foreign birth his orders as commander-in-chief were illegal.

[Orly] Taitz said that she was now trying to turn the Lakin story into a musical, and is appealing for Andrew Lloyd Webber to contact her.

That’s right… ORLYHOMA!

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Help Stop Destruction of the Free Internet Now
The recent FCC decision to “protect” the free and open Internet was long awaited by activists but it turned out to be smoke and mirrors, catering largely to service providers such as Comcast and AT&T.

By Elliot D. Cohen

The recent FCC decision to “protect” the free and open Internet was long awaited by activists but it turned out to be smoke and mirrors, catering largely to service providers such as Comcast and AT&T.

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For the past two years, conservatives have repeatedly attacked President Obama for supposedly endangering American lives by not being aggressive enough in going after terrorists. But a year after the failed bombing attempt on Christmas Day for which Obama received immense criticism from the right, a key Bush intelligence official refuted these right-wing attacks today on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley. Retired Vice Admiral Mike McConnell, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under President Bush, said the Obama “administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing” terror threats:

MCCONNELL: Both general Hayden and I served in the previous administration and we got a lot of criticism for being aggressive, and so on. … My observation is that the new administration has been as aggressive, if not more aggressive in pursuing these issues, because they’re real. And so, regardless of which side of the political spectrum –

CROWLEY: And you commend them for that?

MCCONNELL: I do commend them for that.

Watch it:

Meanwhile, retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as the head of the CIA under Bush and appeared along with McConnell on CNN today, warned against overreacting to the “low threshold” attacks that Al-Qaeda and their ideological allies now employ. “We cannot allow our response to that kind of event to turn a tactical success for Al-Qaeda into a strategic defeat for us,” Hayden said, by “overreacting to it by suppressing our commerce and our convenience.”

Now That Tax Cuts For The Rich Are Extended, Coburn Calls On The Rich ?To Sacrifice To A Greater Extent?
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Today on Fox News Sunday, the Oklahoma senator repeatedly said the federal government should reduce spending. Host Chris Wallace pressed for specifics, but Coburn couldn’t offer up much. “That remains to be seen,” he said, and, “We haven’t even done the hard work of identifying all the duplications in the federal government.” To his credit, Coburn noted that the Pentagon needs some auditing help, but he repeatedly threw out some random amounts of money that could be cut ($50 billion, $100 billion, $200 billion, and $350 billion) without saying exactly where that money would come from. But now that the tax cut deal is done and the President signed it into law, it appears that Coburn now thinks the rich are going to have to start sacrificing too:

COBURN: We could certainly cut $100 to $200 billion and help ourself. [sic] …There cannot be anything that’s not put on the table. There will not be one American that will not be called on to sacrifice. Those that are more well to do will be called on to sacrifice to a greater extent.

We could save about $50 billion a year by eliminating programs. … [W]e have a realm of about $350 billion that will not truly impact anybody in this country that we could eliminate tomorrow.

Watch it:

There is one sure way that the federal government could save hundreds of billions of dollars “tomorrow”: eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the rich, which of course Coburn would never advocate doing. The Joint Committee on Taxation said that the Obama-brokered tax cut deal — most of which go to the rich — will cost the federal government more than $400 billion over the next two years.

But if Coburn needs help with ideas on specific spending cuts, the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes that the Center for American Progress has identified $100 billion in defense programs (that won’t compromise national security), $45 billion in subsidies to oil companies, $1 billion in tax expenditures for big agricultural firms, $2 billion in unnecessary stock ownership incentives for the rich, and hundreds of millions in redundant or duplicative education programs that could be cut.

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