The Hollywood Liberal

Panetta and the question of military retirement

Less than two months on the job and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has put his foot on a Pentagon third-rail issue by saying he is willing to look at reform of the 100-year-old military retirement system to save money.

A recent example: The first question to Panetta after a recent general talk at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., was from an officer in the business school. The officer referred to the threatened $600 billion in national security reductions and then asked, “Many of us have seen the Defense Business Board’s recommendation for retirement, what is your stance on the military’s retirement, sir?”

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‘In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir’ by Dick Cheney

If this book were read by an intelligent person who spent the past 10 years on, say, Mars, she would have no idea that Dick Cheney was the vice president in one of the most hapless American administrations of modern times. There are hints, to be sure, that things did not always go swimmingly under President George W. Bush and Cheney, but these are surrounded by triumphalist accounts of events that many readers — and future historians — are unlikely to consider triumphs.

This is not surprising. The genre of statesman’s memoir rarely produces self-criticism, or even much candor. Apparently, the point is to redeem your large advance from the publisher with a brisk, self-complimenting account of your life and times, with emphasis on your moment in the limelight. There should, of course, be a dash of “news” and a few frank passages about your true feelings — about others, not yourself.

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Hoyer: Stronger oversight of defense spending needed

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday that the country needs to strengthen its oversight of defense spending to prevent federal dollars from going to waste.

His comments came in response to a Washington Post op-ed by the co-chairs of the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Report offers lessons on government reorganizations

The cover of a report about key government reorganizations in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks shows busy bees working in a hive.

It’s a curious pick for the cover because the hive represents what the new agencies were not — well-organized.

The report’s title, “Securing the Future,” clearly represents what the bees are doing. But the subtitle, “Management Lessons of 9/11,” more accurately represents what government leaders involved in reorganizations should do — learn from the many problems encountered when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) got started.

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Perry and Bachmann have made conflicting statements on gay marriage

The tea party has backed Republicans into a corner when it comes to states’ rights and gay marriage.

The clash is between two converging branches of the conservative movement: the social conservatives who wants to outlaw gay marriage at all costs, and the newly in vogue brand of tea party federalists holding that, regardless of how you feel about the controversial issue, it’s a matter for the states.

Already, 2012 presidential contenders and tea-party favorites Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) have essentially taken both sides – supporting the idea that states should have the right to decide the issue but also backing a federal amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. That amendment, of course, would effectively take the issue out of the states’ hands, so it’s hard to marry (no pun intended) the two positions.

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Let’s Manufacture What We Invent
Susan Hockfield, New York Times
Cambridge, Mass. THE United States became the world’s largest economy because we invented products and then made them with new processes. With design and fabrication side by side, insights from the factory floor flowed back to the drawing board. Today, our most important task is to restart this virtuous cycle of invention and manufacturing. Rebuilding our manufacturing capacity requires the demolition of the idea that the United States can thrive on its service sector alone. We need to create at least 20 million jobs in the next decade to offset the effects of the…

A Perfect Storm of Hype
Toby Harnden, Daily Telegraph
For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”

Europe’s Big Mistake
James Surowiecki, The New Yorker
In July, 2008, on the eve of the biggest financial crisis in memory, the European Central Bank did something both predictable and stupid: it raised interest rates. The move was predictable because the E.C.B.’s president, Jean-Claude Trichet, was an inflation hawk; he worried about rising oil and food prices and saw a rate hike as a way of tamping them down. But the move was also remarkably ill timed. The crisis was already under way, European economic growth had slowed to a crawl, and within a couple of months the global economy had collapsed, inflation had disappeared, and the…

Beijing Is a Prison Where People Go Mad
Ai Weiwei, The Daily Beast
Beijing is two cities. One is of power and of money. People don’t care who their neighbors are; they don’t trust you. The other city is one of desperation. I see people on public buses, and I see their eyes, and I see they hold no hope. They can’t even imagine that they’ll be able to buy a house. They come from very poor villages where they’ve never seen electricity or toilet paper. Every year millions come to Beijing to build its bridges, roads, and houses. Each year they build a Beijing equal to the size of the city in 1949. They…

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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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell characterizing former Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism at members of the Bush administration in his new memoir, In My Time, as “cheap shots,” CNN reports.

Powell said Cheney “had a long and distinguished career, and I hope in his book that is what he will focus on, not these cheap shots that he’s taking at me and other members of the administration who served to the best of our ability for President Bush.”

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Said one former Republican governor: “He’s like Bush only without the brains.”

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