The Hollywood Liberal

Fix Face-Offs: Whose 2012 stock is up?
Send in your match-ups and then tune in live at 12 p.m. ET Monday to watch The Fix’s Chris Cillizza hand down the verdicts.

Portugal’s president says main parties still committed to debt cuts aimed at averting bailout
LISBON, Portugal — Portugal’s three largest political parties pledged Monday to abide by the deficit cuts set by the outgoing government but their vows showed no sign of heading off the country’s impending financial collapse.

Is lying protected speech? Military-medal case on track for Supreme Court
THE HIGH COURT | The Stolen Valor Act was passed in 2005 to deal with people falsely claiming to be war heroes.

Stocks weighed down by Japanese, Libyan concerns; dollar rallies on Fed rate hike talk
LONDON — Popular uprisings in the Arab world and concerns over a leaking nuclear reactor in Japan weighed on stock markets Monday while the dollar remained well-supported by signs the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates sooner than anticipated.

How Obama Will Out-Game GOP on the Budget
Ed Kilgore, Daily Beast
As Washington’s budget battles rage on, many progressives seem less frightened by the specter of Republicans slashing spending than by the conviction that the Obama administration will “cave in” to Republican demands. If Obama had a spine, it is suggested, he’d seize on conservative threats to Social Security and Medicare and wreak havoc on GOP approval ratings. Surely the retiree-heavy Republican electoral base would rebel against this kind of fiscal discipline. But alas, Obama is holding his fire, with what will surely be catastrophic results.

The Mormon Moment?
Maureen Dowd, New York Times
It’s the Mormon moment.The Republican Mormons Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman may run for president, braving more questions about whether they wear the sacred undergarment and more resistance from evangelicals who consider Mormonism an affront to Christianity.TLC just renewed its hit “Sister Wives,” and HBO’s popular “Big Love” just had its big finale.

Give TARP a Break
Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
WASHINGTON — It isn't often that the government launches a major program that achieves its main goals at a tiny fraction of its estimated costs. That's the story of TARP — the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Created in October 2008 at the height of the financial crisis, it helped stabilize the economy, used only $410 billion of its authorized $700 billion and will be repaid most of that. The Congressional Budget Office, which once projected TARP's ultimate cost at $356 billion, now says $19 billion. This could go lower. You would hardly know. Receive news alertsAlmost…

Susan Rice: A Voice for Intervention
Massimo Calabresi, Time
As Muammar Gaddafi's troops closed in on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on March 15, President Barack Obama put the fate of the city's 1 million residents in the hands of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. At a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) that afternoon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, leery of another war in the Middle East, told Obama a U.N.-proposed no-fly zone would not stop Gaddafi from taking the town.