The Hollywood Liberal

Boehner Threatens Not to Hold Debt Limit Vote
House Speaker John Boehner “won’t guarantee a vote on raising the debt limit, the latest threat in an increasingly high stakes game of chicken with the White House over whether Congress will inch closer to letting the nation default on its credit,” Politico reports.

Said Boehner: “If the president doesn’t get serious about the need to address our fiscal nightmare, yeah, there’s a chance it could not happen. But that’s not my goal.”

Quote of the Day
“I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard? I’m thinking about it, I’m
certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”

— Donald Trump, in an interview with the AP, saying President Obama wasn’t Ivy League material.

1967 Borders: Disruptive Innovation
Suddenly, it seems a forgone conclusion that the White House will be presenting a plan of some sort in advance of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress in May. For those of us who have been advocating…

The Budget Debate, Revealed? Not Yet.
One of the better sketches of at what’s at stake in the budget debate comes from The New York Times’ Richard W. Stevenson, who suggests that it’s opening the philosophical and political chasm between two camps. Well, sort-of. On one…

Allen West: Liberal Women Are ?Neutering American Men?

Last week, Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-FL) addressed his base at a Women Impacting Nation (WIN) meeting in Boca Raton, FL. WIN’s mission is to “educate and equip women with knowledge of God’s truth” and “to support those who take a stand for those Judeo-Christian values upon which our country is founded.” West used examples of “historical fiction” to instruct attendees on the proper role for American women — namely, to make strong men.

West first weaved the ancient society of Sparta — a culture that practiced eugenics and inspired Adolf Hitler — into an example of the role of women. “What made the Spartan men strong, it was the Spartan women,” he said. “Because the Spartan women at the age of nine gave up their male sons” to train for the army. West then exulted conservative women to come forth and “lock shields” to “strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you.” Painting women’s rights advocates as “women that have been neutering American men,” West charged attendees to fight these apparent castrators who want to force male subservience:

WEST: We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to the fight for you. To let these other women know on the other side — these planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness — to let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient. That’s what we need you to do. Because if you don’t, then the debt will continue to grow…deficits will continue to grow.

Watch it:

West’s blatant misogyny is made all the more ludicrous by the sources of his historical wisdom. In heralding Sparta, West holds up Spartan Queen Gorgo as the essential example of a woman who, speaking “out of turn” to a male emissary, said “Persian, beware, for it is Spartan women who raise Spartan men.” But this stirring confrontation comes not from ancient history but from slightly-less-ancient director Zack Snyder’s 2006 film, 300. In the movie, Queen Gorgo confronts a Persian man as West describes. But according to Plutarch, who first recorded the statment, Gorgo “is said to have” uttered the principle in response to “some foreign woman.”

West continues in this vein, next heralding the 2003 film The Last Samurai as an example of the Samurai women raising “300 Samurai warriors.” West recounted a story of Samurai leader Saigo Takamori who West said died to protect “the old way” and to stand “against that technology that was brought before them, the repeating rifles, the Gatling guns, the cannons.” Of course, the fact that Takamori had 400 Samurai at the Satsuma Rebellion and actually used the Western military methods, guns and cannons takes away from the more dramatic interpretation starring Tom Cruise. “That’s a true story,” said West of the 2003 film. “That’s historical fiction.”

ThinkFast: April 25, 2011

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) budget proposal is the “only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget.” Krugman writes that serious deficit reduction must include raising revenues and that the CPC budget does exactly that.

A new International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysis concludes that “China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.” The IMF estimates that under purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy will expand to $19 trillion in 2016 while the U.S. economy will expand to $18.8 trillion.

The Senate is moving a bill to cut the number of administration posts that are subject to Senate approval, a “rare voluntary surrender of Congressional clout” that is backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “We are losing very good people because the process has become so onerous, so lengthy and so duplicative,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

The Obama administration is considering sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over “the increasingly violent crackdown against anti-government protesters.” The possible executive order would institute sanctions against Syrian officials leading the crackdown and may include freezing assets and banning business dealings with the U.S.

Televangelist Franklin Graham suggested he was unsure about whether President Obama was American, saying on ABC’s This Week yesterday that potential presidential candidate Donald Trump “may be right.” Graham went on to praise Trump and implied that he may end up endorsing the real estate mogul.

On CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) floated the possibility of a grand jury investigation into rising gas prices and whether they stem from illegal manipulation of oil markets. Blumenthal said the Justice Dept. should send a “very strong deterrent message” that illegal activity will not be tolerated.

The Obama administration is planning to unveil a proposal to overhaul corporate taxes, possibly as early as May. Economic advisers are exploring the willingness of business leaders to accept a closing of many corporate tax loopholes in exchange for dropping the top corporate rate from 35 percent to 26 percent.

And finally: Hollywood train wreck Charlie Sheen doesn’t want you to vote for potential presidential candidate Donald Trump, but not because of Trump’s birtherism. Sheen told an audience that Trump once gave Sheen a pair of faux cufflinks that Trump had said were platinum-and-diamond Harry Winstons worth $100,000. But when Sheen got the cufflinks appraised, he found out they were “f—king tin,” worth about $60.

For breaking news and updates throughout the day, follow ThinkProgress on Facebook and Twitter.

Featured Advertiser

Excessive rhetoric on Social Security and Obama’s budget plan
Alex Wong/Getty Images

Giffords cleared to attend shuttle launch
Doctors have given Rep. Gabrielle Giffords the go-ahead to travel to Cape Canaveral this week to watch husband Mark Kelly’s space shuttle launch, Kelly says. (April 25)

Pawlenty inches closer to presidential run
Former Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) announced he will explore a presidential run in 2012. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza takes a look at Pawlenty’s background.

The Origins of Obama’s Foreign Policy
Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker
Barack Obama came to Washington just six years ago, having spent his professional life as a part-time lawyer, part-time law professor, and part-time state legislator in Illinois. As an undergraduate, he took courses in history and international relations, but neither his academic life nor his work in Springfield gave him an especially profound grasp of foreign affairs. As he coasted toward winning a seat in the U.S. Senate, in 2004, he began to reach out to a broad range of foreign-policy experts––politicians, diplomats, academics, and journalists.As a student during the…

In Debate Against Cicero, Put Money on Hitchens
Martin Amis, Guardian
Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle,” confessed Vladimir Nabokov in 1962. He took up the point more personally in his foreword to Strong Opinions (1973): “I have never delivered to my audience one scrap of information not prepared in typescript beforehand “¦ My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French.”At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts “¦ nobody should ask…

Corporate Taxes Enter Debt Debate
John Harwood, New York Times
The Obama administration is preparing to inject an unpredictable new variable into its economic policy clash with Republicans: a plan to overhaul corporate taxes.Economic advisers have nearly completed the process initiated in January by the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, at President Obama’s behest. That process, intended to make the United States more competitive internationally, has explored the willingness of business leaders to sacrifice loopholes in return for lowering the top corporate tax rate, currently 35 percent.

Why Isn’t the Government Selling Its AIG & GM Stock?

Politicians, Not Public, to Blame for Debt Crisis
David Paul Kuhn, RCP
Americans are reportedly childish about the debt crisis. The public says the budget deficit is a serious issue. So serious that Americans will let other people sacrifice. Rich people. We know the enemy of U.S. debt, and it's us. You, dear reader, are framed as a hypocrite. But is that true?Last week's Washington Post carried a familiar headline: “Poll Shows Americans oppose entitlement cuts to deal with debt problem.” Bloomberg News led a December article: “Americans want Congress to bring down a federal budget deficit that many believe is ‘dangerously out…

Late, Late Night FDL: Sex Kills
Joni Mitchell – Sex Kills

Joni Mitchell – Sex Kills (Lyrics)

Happy Easter to ya’ll…!

What’s on your mind tonite…?

?

A real confidence builder
Leaked documents bring the banality of GITMO and much of the so-called War on Terror back to light.

An iconic image of GITMO from NewsHour at flickr.com

The New York Times has published files related to the prisoners of GITMO since the Fall of 2001 and the details are about as uninspiring and depressing as you would imagine…though it could get more depressing in a pinch.

In May 2003, for example, Afghan forces captured Prisoner 1051, an Afghan named Sharbat, near the scene of a roadside bomb explosion, the documents show. He denied any involvement, saying he was a shepherd. Guantánamo debriefers and analysts agreed, citing his consistent story, his knowledge of herding animals and his ignorance of “simple military and political concepts,” according to his assessment. Yet a military tribunal declared him an “enemy combatant” anyway, and he was not sent home until 2006.

That’s a real endorsement of the military tribunals. I’m sure this gentlemen is now a real fan of American values.

And speaking of which:

The documents show that a major reason a Sudanese cameraman for Al Jazeera, Sami al-Hajj, was held at Guantánamo for six years was for questioning about the television network’s “training program, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo, and Afghanistan…He was released in 2008 and returned to work for Al Jazeera.

I guess it could have been worse, the Bush Administration could have “accidentally” blown him up again and again and again.

?

Kissing GOP Frogs

By Adam Zyglis, Cagle Cartoons, The Buffalo News

Related Entries

• April 24, 2011 ‘Left, Right & Center’: The New Corporate World Order; Religion in American Politics
• April 24, 2011 Economists Frown on Fed Strategy

Armenian Remembrance and the Politics of Genocide
Today is Armenian Remembrance Day, celebrating the lives of the 1.5 million Armenians killed in 1915. Yet, nearly a century later, the issue is still highly charged, with President Obama taking note of the “horrific events” but refraining from using the word genocide. —JCL USA Today: Turkey, a key Islamic ally of the U.S. that angrily denies accusations of genocide, attacked Obama’s statement as “one-sided.” “The statement distorts the historical facts.” said the Turkish foreign ministry. “Therefore, we find it very problematic and deeply regret it … One-sided statements that interpret controversial historical events by a selective sense of justice prevent understanding of the truth.” In his statement—issued late Saturday—Obama said: “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. A full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts is in all our interests.” In the meantime, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, Ken Hachikian, criticized Obama for a “disgraceful capitulation to Turkey’s threats” and failing to acknowledge what many historians describe as genocide. Read more

Today is Armenian Remembrance Day, celebrating the lives of the 1.5 million Armenians killed in 1915. Yet, nearly a century later, the issue is still highly charged, with President Obama taking note of the “horrific events” but refraining from using the word genocide. —JCL

USA Today:

Turkey, a key Islamic ally of the U.S. that angrily denies accusations of genocide, attacked Obama’s statement as “one-sided.”

“The statement distorts the historical facts.” said the Turkish foreign ministry. “Therefore, we find it very problematic and deeply regret it … One-sided statements that interpret controversial historical events by a selective sense of justice prevent understanding of the truth.”

In his statement—issued late Saturday—Obama said: “I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. A full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts is in all our interests.”

In the meantime, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, Ken Hachikian, criticized Obama for a “disgraceful capitulation to Turkey’s threats” and failing to acknowledge what many historians describe as genocide.

Read more

Related Entries

• April 24, 2011 ‘Left, Right & Center’: The New Corporate World Order; Religion in American Politics
• April 24, 2011 Economists Frown on Fed Strategy

Workers Recover Body Of Trapped Idaho Miner
BOISE, Idaho — Workers at a northern Idaho silver mine have recovered the body of a miner who was trapped when a tunnel collapsed nine…

Gabrielle Giffords Cleared To Attend Shuttle Launch
HOUSTON — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will attend husband Mark Kelly’s space shuttle launch in Florida on Friday, Kelly said, allowing the Arizona congresswoman to travel…

Howard S. Friedman, Ph.D.: We’re Not Really Living Much Longer
The truth of the matter is that we are not really living much longer. We hear the propaganda repeated endlessly: “The average American can today…

Mark Green: How the GOP Will Re-elect Obama in 2012
The Slur de Jour election has begun. The GOP presidential nominee won’t be able to survive the taint of wingers competing for headlines.

Irony: Hannity Special On “Liberal Bias” Features Laughably Distorted Quotes

Sean Hannity devoted an episode of his Fox News show to an hour-long special on what he claimed was the media’s “liberal bias.” However, several of the quotes he used as examples of this purported bias were deceptively cropped to leave out crucial context.

Hannity Promises “Close-Up Look” At Media’s “Liberal Bias”

Hannity: “[I]t Is Common Knowledge That The Mainstream Media … Are Biased Against The GOP.” From the April 22 edition of Hannity — his “Behind the Bias” special:

HANNITY: And welcome to this special edition of Hannity. Behind the bias, a close-up look at the Obama-mania media’s liberal bias. Now, it is common knowledge that the mainstream media from the major television networks to the country’s most influential newspapers are biased against the GOP. Tonight, we’ll examine some of the major scandals that resulted from this bias, and the victims that it has left in its wake. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/22/11]

Hannity Deceptively Crops Couric’s Description Of Author’s Opinion

Hannity Clip Shows Katie Couric Calling Reagan “An Airhead.” From Hannity’s “Behind the Bias” special:

KATIE COURIC: Good morning. The Gipper was an airhead. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/22/11]

Full Context: Couric Was Citing A Conclusion From A Reagan Biography That Drew A “Tremendous Amount Of Interest And Fire.” From the September 27, 1999, edition of NBC’s Today:

KATIE COURIC, co-host: Good morning. The Gipper was an airhead. That’s one of the conclusions of a new biography of Ronald Reagan that’s drawing a tremendous amount of interest and fire today, Monday, September the 27th, 1999.

Announcer: From NBC News, this is TODAY, with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, live from Studio 1A in Rockefeller Plaza.

COURIC: And good morning, everyone. Welcome to TODAY on this Monday morning. I’m Katie Couric.

ANN CURRY, co-host: And I’m Ann Curry. Good morning, everybody. Matt’s back tomorrow. Perhaps he’s still celebrating with the American team that won the Ryder Golf Cup tournament yesterday.

COURIC: That’s right. We hope he’s having a great time. We’ll see him tomorrow. But this morning we’re going to begin by looking at this new biography of Ronald Reagan called “Dutch.” The author was actually hand-picked by Ronald and Nancy Reagan, which is why some of his conclusions are so startling. The author, Edmund Morris, will be here for a three-part interview later this week. But in advance of that, we’re going to see why Morris thinks Reagan was an airhead, but still a great president. [NBC, Today, 9/27/99, via Nexis]

Hannity Deceptively Crops Cooper’s Report On Plame

Hannity Clip Shows Anderson Cooper Labeling Outing Of CIA Operative Valerie Plame As A “Smear Campaign.” From Hannity’s “Behind the Bias” special:

ANDERSON COOPER (CNN host): He is the victim of a Bush administration smear campaign. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/22/11]

Full Context: Cooper Was Reporting Wilson’s Allegations. From Cooper’s July 17, 2003, CNN report:

COOPER: A former U.S. diplomat who investigated Africa’s suspected link to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program now says he is the victim of a Bush administration smear campaign.

Administration officials say former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s report on Niger last year supported the now discredited claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.

Wilson says that is not true. He spoke exclusively to “TIME” magazine today. He accuses the administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. [CNN, 7/17/03, via Nexis]

Hannity Falsely Depicts Wallace As “Apolog[etic]” For The Soviet Union

After Stating That Media “Apologiz[e] For “America’s Enemies,” Hannity Suggests Mike Wallace Was Speaking Positively About Stalin. From Hannity’s “Behind the Bias” special:

GERARD ALEXANDER, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSITUTE: To have a fundamentally conflicted attitude about not just the United States, but whether the United States is a constructive force in the world, that is something that I think really does separates a lot of liberals and conservatives.

HANNITY: The media have been apologizing for America’s enemies from the cold war through the war on terror.

MIKE WALLACE, FORMER CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Many Soviets viewing the current chaos and nationalist unrest under Gorbachev look back almost longingly to the era of brutal order under Stalin. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/22/11]

Full Context: Wallace Was Portraying Nostalgia For Stalin As Surprising, Given His “Atrocities.” From the February 11, 1990, edition of CBS’ 60 Minutes:

MIKE WALLACE, co-host: During this past extraordinary week in Moscow, Soviet citizens have had a chance to hear with stunning candor reports of a boisterous public debate about the Communist Party unparalleled in the history of the Soviet Union, and it is that current candor, that current glasnost, that is also giving Soviet citizens their most horrifying look at the crimes of their founding father, Joseph Stalin. During the quarter century that he ruled the Soviet Union, at least 20 million Soviet citizens died, victims of Stalin’s bloody paranoia, his mindless assault on any and all that he perceived as in any way dangerous to him. An unofficial group called Memoriale in 200 cities across the Soviet Union is digging, researching and publicizing a record of the horrors, the murders, the atrocities committed in the name of, at the direction of Joseph Stalin.

There is a newly discovered mass grave just off the main road linking Moscow and its airport. At the end of a trail, a wooden cross directed a few months ago by Memoriale. Tens of thousands are buried in this ground. No one yet knows how many–slave laborers from Stalin’s prison camps. They were among the hundreds of thousands who perished nearby from hunger, disease, exhaustion, worked to death.

[…]

WALLACE: When did this all become known to the Soviet citizens?

STEPHEN COHEN [Princeton University professor]: That is a painful question that’s being debated here. People say: We didn’t know. We didn’t know.

GALENA IVANOVA LEWINSON [Memoriale]: The same thing that happened in Germany when Hitler came. Hitler came. Many people said that: We didn’t see anything. Nothing happened–the same thing exactly.

COHEN: People worshipped Stalin as a kind of living god. It was bizarre. It’s hard for us to even imagine it. It’s hard for Soviet citizens today. I know hundreds of them who lived through that–to remember and imagine and understand how they themselves paid homage to this cult.

WALLACE: Incredibly, even many of Stalin’s victims didn’t believe it was Stalin who was responsible for all the killings, all the arrests. They continued to have faith in their great leader Stalin and his system.

And we say: We believed in him–a lot of us.

LEWINSON: Yes, yes.

WALLACE: As a matter of fact, a lot of Russians still believe in him.

LEWINSON: Yes. That’s a trouble. That’s a trouble, and that’s a question we can’t answer ourselves. You’re asking me, but we–I can’t answer it myself.

WALLACE: Is there resistance to the work of Memoriale in the Soviet community?

COHEN: Powerful resistance. Stalin’s grip on this society has not yet been broken. His legacy is everywhere here.

WALLACE: Many Soviets viewing the current chaos and national unrest under Gorbachev look back almost longingly to the era of brutal order under Stalin. In a Moscow marketplace, we conducted our own informal public opinion poll.

What do you remember of Joseph Stalin?

WOMAN #1 (through interpreter): Ah, about Stalin. I remember all the best things about Stalin. I am simply delighted with him. I remember from my childhood that we could see how he cared about simple people, about our nation, about children.

WALLACE: Would you like Stalin back in the Soviet Union?

MAN #1 (through interpreter): Yes, yes, yes, I would like him back. If this was Stalin’s time now, people wouldn’t be standing about in the marketplace. Half of them would be in prison now, and everyone would work. As it is, there is no one but loafers here, speculators and loafers.

WALLACE: Why do so many people here like Joseph Stalin? They’re for Stalin. Why?

WOMAN #2 (through interpreter): There is so much chaos in this country now that everyone wants a new iron hand complete to bring things back to order.

WALLACE: And they’re willing to pay the price of Joseph Stalin if necessary.

WOMAN #2 (through interpreter): Yes, they’re ready for another Stalin. They’re ready, and they are willing to pay the same price of blood.

MAN #2: I’m a Soviet army lieutenant colonel. I’m 37. What I think–that Stalin is in the same boat with Hitler. He’s one of the–one of the most terrible tyrants history has ever known. And I hate this man’s guts. He murdered in cold blood tens of millions of people.

WALLACE: OK. If that’s true, then why do so many people that I’m talking to here say: We need Stalin back?

MAN #2: Stalinism has very deep roots, and . . .

WALLACE: Why?

MAN #2: . . . in these people.

WALLACE: Why?

MAN #2: Because this country has never had democratic traditions, and now the democracy’s an infant in this country.

WALLACE: Look. We are at a market. Food is hard to come by, soap, razorblades, everything is hard to come by, and people are saying: Perestroika, fine, but, you know, we don’t have food on our tables, so let’s get rid of Gorbachev, get the strong hand of Stalin or somebody like that back.

MAN #2: I do not understand that, no.

WALLACE: But you hear it.

MAN #2: Yes. Yes, I do, and I’m very sorry. I’m very sorry. That means that some time must pass before people realize what–what–that freedom is more than a pan of sausage.

WALLACE: Is it possible that what happened to you, what happened to millions of others, could happen again in this country?

LEWINSON: I don’t think so, really. I really don’t think so. But it depends on the humans. That’s what our Memoriale is for. Memoriale is for that. We hope not, but that doesn’t depend on us anymore. It’s the young ones. [CBS News, 60 Minutes, 2/11/90, via Nexis]

9/11 First Responders To Be Run Through FBI Terrorism Watch List Before Getting Health Care Benefits
Medical providers will soon inform 9/11 first responders about a provision in the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation law that requires them to be run through the FBI’s terrorism watch list before they can receive health care benefits.

Republican Obama Supporter Resigns As Ambassador, Says State Dept. Nixed Reagan Article
Doug Kmiec, a prominent conservative supporter of President Barack Obama who submitted his resignation as the U.S. ambassador to Malta earlier this month, says the State Department improperly clamped down on articles he wrote about his Catholic faith and his admiration for President Ronald Reagan.

Michigan GOPers Put Teachers On Notice, As Strike Looms
On Wednesday, the Michigan House’s Committee on Education discussed two bills aimed at upping the consequences on teachers who strike illegally, amid reports that the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is considering just such a move….