The Hollywood Liberal

Late, Late Night FDL: Good Night Irene
Eric Clapton – Good Night Irene and Eric Clapton – Double Trouble (With Steve Winwood)

Eric Clapton – Good Night Irene

Good Night and Goodbye Irene…!

And just because I can…

Eric Clapton – Double Trouble (With Steve Winwood)

What’s on your mind tonite…?

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Showing the kind of leader he’d be
The nuts of the Right-Wing continue to say insane things — allowing the middle to move ever Right — and Rick Perry wishes to be their empty-headed patron saint.

Apparently Rick Perry figured now was the time to get out his dumbest statements. While much of the nation — but most importantly the national media — was obsessed with their own problems.

And this is Rick Perry and dumb on the Rick Perry scale is pretty impressive.

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie,” Perry said. “It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”

Put that together with his declaration that Social Security is unconstitutional and you have an idea of just how right the far right has become. Even touching the program that used to be the the third rail, now the arguments made by conservatives in the mid-1930s are STILL cutting edge conservative ideas.

If our national media was paying attention this weekend you could assume that would be it for this candidate, he’d be politically finished (not to mention he conveniently makes the Cat Food Commission look like the moderates they dream of themselves as being). But, of course, the national media paid no attention, so it might as well have never happened.

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Japan Still Working on a More Durable Prime Minister
Japan has already burned through five prime ministers in five years, with a sixth, Yoshihiko Noda, expected to take over from Naoto Kan on Tuesday. Kan was forced to resign on Friday following his handling of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country. Noda will lead the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and currently serves as Finance Minister. The DPJ is considered a center-left party. Noda has been called a fiscal conservative and has also suggested raising taxes. On his to-do list: Rebuild the country, sort out the mess at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, do something about Japan’s long economic winter and convince everyone he’ll be around for more than a year. And we think America has governance issues … —PZS AP via Google: As finance minister since June 2010, Noda has been contending with budgets and a strong yen, which hit a post-World War II high against the dollar earlier this month. Noda must also deal with a divided parliament, which has increased gridlock, after the opposition won control of the upper house last summer. Japan has been plagued by rapid turnover in political leadership that has undermined its ability to tackle serious problems. The past five prime ministers lasting about a year each; Kan lasted the longest at nearly 15 months. Read more

Japan has already burned through five prime ministers in five years, with a sixth, Yoshihiko Noda, expected to take over from Naoto Kan on Tuesday. Kan was forced to resign on Friday following his handling of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country.

Noda will lead the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and currently serves as Finance Minister. The DPJ is considered a center-left party. Noda has been called a fiscal conservative and has also suggested raising taxes.

On his to-do list: Rebuild the country, sort out the mess at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, do something about Japan’s long economic winter and convince everyone he’ll be around for more than a year. And we think America has governance issues … —PZS

AP via Google:

As finance minister since June 2010, Noda has been contending with budgets and a strong yen, which hit a post-World War II high against the dollar earlier this month.

Noda must also deal with a divided parliament, which has increased gridlock, after the opposition won control of the upper house last summer.

Japan has been plagued by rapid turnover in political leadership that has undermined its ability to tackle serious problems. The past five prime ministers lasting about a year each; Kan lasted the longest at nearly 15 months.

Read more

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Allen West Says The Palestinians Asking For Statehood Is Like Giving A State To The Appalachians
During a recent trip to Israel, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) sat down with the Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon for an interview about his thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Keinon asked West about what he planned to say to Palestinian leadership he was about to meet with. West responded by downplaying the importance of a Palestinian […]

During a recent trip to Israel, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) sat down with the Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon for an interview about his thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Keinon asked West about what he planned to say to Palestinian leadership he was about to meet with. West responded by downplaying the importance of a Palestinian state, saying it has “never existed before” and that Palestinian statehood would be like carving out part of North Carolina and declaring it an Appalachian state:

KEINON: You are meeting tomorrow with the Palestinian Authority leadership. What is your message to them?

There is one very simple question I would ask: Do you really believe you are a credible peace partner? Because I think with the reconciliation pact with Hamas, that is a very telling thing. The fact is that they are trying to back-door the process by going to the UN for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state, when we don’t have a firm recognition of Israel, we don’t have the renouncing of terrorism. I would also ask, what is a Palestinian state? It is something that never existed before. And even the word Palestine. You take it back to Palestina – which comes from Philistia – which was nothing but a declaration by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 73 AD. This is a region, it is not anything tied to a certain group of people; it would be just the same as saying we should have an Appalachian state, separate from North Carolina. It’s those questions I’d like to ask.

West does not appear to understand the basic facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The analogy he uses — of the Appalachian region of North Carolina trying to secede — assumes that the Palestinians are simply a part of Israel and enjoy the full rights of Israeli citizenship just as those living in Appalachia enjoy the rights of living in North Carolina.

This is not the case. Palestinians are not granted citizenship by the Israeli government (they are not to be confused with Arab citizens of Israel) and are regularly submitted to mistreatment and human rights abuses that they cannot challenge through a democratic process.

In fact, if one takes West’s analogy seriously, then it would seem that he is actually a proponent of a one-state solution — namely, forging one state where Palestinians and Israelis could live side-by-side with the same rights and privileges. Surely, West would likely object to this as well, if he understood what he was proposing.

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On Thursday, the New York Times responded to a demand for a retraction from Oversight Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office regarding a major piece published two weeks ago about Issa’s many conflicts of interest between his congressional work and his vast financial holdings. In the letter, Dean Baquet, the assistant editor of the paper, […]

One of Congressman Issa's many real estate properties, this building leases to a Hooters in Vista, California.

On Thursday, the New York Times responded to a demand for a retraction from Oversight Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office regarding a major piece published two weeks ago about Issa’s many conflicts of interest between his congressional work and his vast financial holdings. In the letter, Dean Baquet, the assistant editor of the paper, debunked claims of factual inaccuracies listed by Issa spokesman Frederick Hill.

In two instances, the Times acknowledged that its reporter Eric Lichtblau made mistakes. In one case, a county assessor provided faulty information. In another, Lichtblau simply used Issa’s own family foundation disclosures; he could not verify their accuracy with Issa because his office refused to respond to three weeks worth of requests by the Times.

The letter, worth reading in its entirety, demolishes what’s left of Issa’s demand for a retraction:

#1) Issa Claim: “Directed Electronics is, in fact, not a supplier to Toyota.”

NYT Response: Issa not only calls himself an “auto supplier” to Toyota on multiple occasions, but his Directed Electronics company has licensing agreements with Toyota for aftermarket parts including car alarms, an iPod adapter, and a remote start interface. The Times then lists Issa’s continued financial ties to the company he once led as an executive.

#2) Issa Claim: A golf course is not visible from one of Issa’s corporate office towers.

NYT Response: The office building overlooks the Shadowridge County Club only a quarter a mile away, and Issa’s realty agency for the building advertises “direct views to golf driving range.”

#3) Issa Claim: “Rep. Issa does not have investments dependent on Goldman Sachss (sic) performance.”

NYT Response: “Your interest in Goldman’s performance is borne out by, among other factors, your extensive holdings in its mutual funds, your investigation into the lawsuit brought against the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2008, and the concerns raised in your July 2011 letter about the impact on Goldman of capital requirements. As was noted in a follow-up column by one of our news columnists, Floyd Norris, Goldman Sachs also underwrote DEl’s initial I.P.O., another indication of the ties between you and the firm.” (ThinkProgress has also reported on Issa’s extensive ties to Goldman Sachs here, here, and here.)

#4) Issa Claim: The discussion of earmarks on West Vista Way “fails to mention that at the time he sought funding for his district he did not own this property.”

NYT Response: As the story noted, you secured two earmarks for the road, before and after you bought the property. (ThinkProgress debunked Issa’s claim about his earmark in April, but Issa continued to try to deceive the press.)

Notably, the Heritage Foundation blog, one of the few outlets still questioning the Times’ reporting, has received donations from Issa’s charity foundation.

View the New York Times response to Issa below:

Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby Bridges is on display at the White House

The little girl in the painting titled “The Problem We All Live With” is walking to school in a white dress, white socks and white shoes. Her hair is parted in neat plaits and she is carrying a book and a ruler. The girl appears confident and proud, even as she is overshadowed by U.S. marshals in muted gray suits. She does not seem to notice the tomato splashed on the painted wall behind her or the racial epithet scrawled above her.

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Iowa congressman and his family retell how they fought off a gun-wielding robber

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He was getting a glass of water in the kitchen, and even without his earpiece, he could sense some commotion on the main floor of his farmhouse. He rushed to the nearby bedroom to check on his wife of 56 years, Dody. She was in bed — nothing wrong.

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House GOP revs up a repeal, reduce and rein-in agenda for the fall

House Republicans are planning votes for almost every week this fall in an effort to repeal environmental and labor requirements on business that they say have hampered job growth.

With everyone from President Obama to his Republican challengers in the 2012 campaign focusing on ways to spur economic growth, House Republicans will roll out plans Monday to fight regulations from the National Labor Relations Board, pollution rules handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency and regulations that affect health plans for small businesses. In addition, the lawmakers plan to urge a 20 percent tax deduction for small businesses.

Read full article >>