The Hollywood Liberal

Late Late Night FDL: The Wedding Sketch Dupe
The Wedding Sketch Dupe – from episode 310 of The Muppet Show.

The Wedding Sketch Dupe – from episode 310 of The Muppet Show.

Grab your popcorn, put your feet up on the coffee table, and try to keep the spitballs off the screen please.  This is Late Late Night FireDogLake, where off topic is the topic … so dive in.  What’s on your mind?

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Strong-Arming the Lawyers
It’s easy to beat up on a big corporate law firm for acting cravenly in its financial self-interest. In the case of King & Spalding, the Atlanta firm that abruptly reneged on its commitment to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the pummeling is entirely deserved. By Ruth Marcus

It’s easy to beat up on a big corporate law firm for acting cravenly in its financial self-interest. In the case of King & Spalding, the Atlanta firm that abruptly reneged on its commitment to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the pummeling is entirely deserved.

GOP Strategist: ‘May Is Going To Be The Huntsman Month’
WASHINGTON — U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is returning to the United States this weekend amid speculation that he could be mounting a Republican…

David Paleologos: Floridians Unsure of Governor Scott’s Prescription
Being a CEO is a results-oriented job where one answers to shareholders once a year. This contrasts sharply with the ongoing dialogue of public life — a dialogue that up to this point Rick Scott has all but ignored.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Hold On, Alabama, Your Country’s Here For You
Why talk about music in an hour of tragedy? Because music’s an expression of the heart, and our hearts can be close even when our politics aren’t.

Obama Meets With Rep. Giffords At Cape Canaveral
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama met with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) for 10 minutes Friday during his visit to Cape Canaveral for the space shuttle…

Effort To Recall Michigan’s Republican Governor Clears First Hurdle
April 29, 2011 8:25:37 PM DETROIT, April 29 (Reuters) – A group seeking to force new Michigan Governor Rick Snyder into a recall election…

Right-Wing Media Exploit Deadly Tornadoes To Attack Global Warming Science

Right-wing media have used the recent tornadoes that killed nearly 300 people throughout the South to cast doubt on global warming or to attack global warming activists.

Right-Wing Media Use Tornadoes To Cast Doubt On Climate Change, Attack Global Warming Activists

Wash. Times: “Global Warming Crowd” Should Ask, “What If Everything They Have So Deeply Believed And Trusted Over The Years Turns Out To Be Completely Wrong?” In an April 28 editorial, The Washington Times accused “[c]limate-change fanatics” of “search[ing] for new meaning in tragedy” and stated that “the global-warming crowd should be asking themselves: What if everything they have so deeply believed and trusted over the years turns out to be completely wrong?” From the Times:

This year is seeing one of the worst tornado seasons in decades, and speculation is rampant about whether climate change is involved. When the dust settles, it’s obvious that the rolling collapse of the case for global warming has forced alarmists to argue that even without scientific evidence, the risk is too great to reach any other conclusion.

[…]

Tornadoes fit well with the de rigueur notion of “global climate disruption” being pushed by White House science adviser John P. Holdren. After all, nothing says disruption quite like a tornado. Conclusively linking increases in the frequency and destructive power of tornadoes to human activity would push the climate-alarmist agenda much more dramatically than other alleged effects of carbon-dioxide emissions. Amateur video of houses being ripped apart by killer storms is more riveting than footage of supposedly melting glaciers.

[…]

There is no evidence that America is facing an increased risk from tornadoes based on human activity or carbon-dioxide emissions, but what if it is? Can we accept that risk? “What if global warming *does* cause more and more powerful tornadoes in the south?” asks The Atlantic. “What then?” This type of non-argument is typical of the reasoning the alarmist camp has been forced to employ as the factual basis for their pet theory crumbles. The questions the global-warming crowd should be asking themselves are: What if everything they have so deeply believed and trusted over the years turns out to be completely wrong? What if the belief system that has given their lives meaning for decades can no longer sustain its inner contradictions? What if their god dies? What then? [The Washington Times, 4/28/11]

Drudge: “Sorry, Al: Tornadoes Whipped Up By Wind, Not ‘Climate Change.’ “ On April 28, the Drudge Report linked to an article about the tornadoes with the headline, “Sorry, Al: Tornadoes whipped up by wind, not ‘climate change.’ ” The article to which Drudge linked indeed quoted several climatologists who “dismissed … climate change as a factor” in causing the tornadoes. but none of the experts quoted in the article claimed that climate change is not happening. From the Drudge Report:

[Drudge Report, 4/28/11]

Illinois Man Convicted Of Making Terroristic Threats In Koran-Burning Standoff
A 51-year-old Illinois man who allegedly threatened to kill President Barack Obama during an eight-hour standoff with federal authorities last September was convicted Wednesday of making a false threat to detonate an explosive device and influencing a federal officer by…

Amid Probe Of ‘Project Gunrunner,’ Obama Seeks Comments On ATF’s Anti-Gun Trafficking Rule
As House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) probes Project Gunrunner — the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) effort aimed at combating gun trafficking on the Mexican border that went awry — the Obama administration is seeking…

Presented By:

The Other Secret To Donald Trump’s Rise
It’s pretty obvious that the main reason Donald Trump is doing so well in the polls (among Republicans) is that he is openly appealing to racism. Say what you will about the other GOP “hopefuls,” none of them (not even…

Leaving Afghanistan
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Pakistan is urging Afghanistan’s President Karzai to ask American troops to leave. Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan’s president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan–and…

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS: Town Halls Spawn Main Street Movement Pushback On Republican Ideas

Town hall attendee in Orlando

The GOP-led House’s passage of a 2012 budget — engineered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) — has laid the Republicans’ values out in the open for all to see: Strip huge amounts of funding from Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs aimed at supporting middle- and lower-income Americans, all to balance the budget (depending on whose numbers you believe) while keeping taxes on the wealthy at unprecedented lows.

Now that Republican representatives have returned to their districts for the congressional recess, everyday Americans at town hall meetings across the country are reacting with outrage at the perverse priorities of the Ryan budget. And this latest manifestation of the burgeoning Main Street Movement against the right’s economic agenda has only grown in intensity since both ThinkProgress (and even some mainstream media outlets) began reporting on the phenomenon.

Watch a compilation video of some highlights from town halls across the country over the past week:

GOP Freshman Ends First Town Hall After Tough Questions On Tax Cuts For The Wealthy: ‘We’re Done’

Freshman Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR) became the latest Republican to face the ire of his own constituents for voting for the Medicare-ending GOP budget when he was repeatedly challenged by attendees at a town hall meeting in Jonesboro, AR last night. At his first town hall since being seated, Crawford had attendees write their questions on index cards and then read them out loud, “but a handful of audience members weren’t satisfied and shouted at Crawford from their seats.”

While Republicans have insisted that their budget saves Medicare, Crawford veered off message at one point, responding to the question “why are you going to end Medicare as we know it?” by saying, “the answer to that is because Medicare as we know is bankrupt.”

Later, Crawford faced a heated question about why the GOP budget cuts taxes for the wealthy and corporations while slashing social services. Crawford replied, “I don’t support tax cuts for the wealthy over help for socio-economically challenged individuals.” A number of his constituents repeatedly challenged him on this claim, accusing Crawford of “class warfare against the poor people” and explaining that tax cuts don’t create jobs. Crawford apparently did not appreciate this, and ended the session:

CONSTITUENT 1: [The GOP budget ] is a significant tax cut for the wealthy.

CRAWFORD: A 10 percent tax cut?

CONSTITUENT 2: Wouldn’t that be class warfare against the poor people?

CRAWFORD: Well, you’re asking me if I want to continue taxing at a higher rate the people that are creating jobs and no –

CONSTITUENT 2: They’re not creating jobs, though! They haven’t created any more jobs! … They’re taking them all overseas!

CONSTITUENT 3: Are you taking any more questions?

CRAWFORD: No, we’re done.

CONSTITUENT 3: We’re done?

CRAWFORD: We’re done.

CONSTITUENT 4: During the Bush administration, and the tax cuts, how many jobs were created?

CRAWFORD: I don’t have those numbers.

CONSTITUENT 4: Three million. During the Clinton administration, where he raised taxes on the highest bracket to 39.5, how many jobs were created? 22 million. You’re going to tell me that tax cuts create jobs?!

Watch a video shot by Arkansas progressive blog Blue Arkansas, and edited by ThinkProgress for length (full videos here):

Crawford walked away from the podium and left the meeting moments later.

Obama appalled by tornado damage in Alabama
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — President Obama joined thousands of storm victims across the tornado-ravaged South on Friday in making his way past splinteredhouses along devastated streets, and he promised federal aid to help communities rebuild.

The conservative coup: Now, on the debt ceiling
First, it was the Bush tax cuts. Then it was cuts to the 2011 budget. Now it’s spending cuts as a condition on raising the debt ceiling. In each instance the left opposed the Republicans’ position. In each case the Democrats in Congress huffed and puffed. And in each case the Democrats capitulated.

GOP hopefuls court primary voters in New Hampshire
MANCHESTER, N.H. — It lacked the showbiz-style pizazz of a Donald Trump entrance, but a Republican forum here Friday night featured something else — top-tier political figures sharing the billing, signaling to grass-roots activists that this was the kickoff of the GOP’s 2012 race for the White House.

Trump Now His Own Worst Punchline
Scot Lehigh, Boston Globe
What a sad day Wednesday must have been for the collection of kooks who have made birtherism their consuming cause. Just think: All your cockamamie cobwebs of conspiracy swept away in one quick stroke when the White House released the president’s long-form birth certificate.Yet perhaps all is not lost in Cloud Crazy Land. Like the 9/11 Truthers, the left-wing and libertarian nuts who think the Bush administration was complicit in the attack on the World Trade Center, the birthers have clung tenaciously to their beliefs. Cite the various news or fact-checking organizations that have…

The Keystone to Obama’s Re-election
Tom Bevan, RealClearPolitics
If you're looking for ways to boil the 2012 Presidential race down to its simplest form, here's one of the easiest: it's nearly impossible to envision any way Barack Obama can win re-election next year if he loses Pennsylvania. No Keystone State, no second term. It really is that simple.As of right now, things are looking dicey for the President in Pennsylvania. Two weeks ago, the Democratic polling firm PPP released a survey showing the President's job approval rating at just 42% among Pennsylvania voters. Receive news alertsYesterday, Quinnipiac University confirmed…

Democrats Form Independent Spending Groups for 2012

Obama’s Silence on Boeing Is Unacceptable
Gov. Nikki Haley, WSJ
In October 2009, Boeing, long one of the best corporations in America, made an announcement that changed the economic outlook of South Carolina forever: The company's second line of 787 Dreamliners would be produced in North Charleston.In choosing to manufacture in my state, Boeing was exercising its right as a free enterprise in a free nation to conduct business wherever it believed would best serve both the bottom line and the employees of its company. This is not a novel or complicated idea. It's called capitalism.