The Hollywood Liberal

Cats and dogs on Capitol Hill. Literally, this time.

Congress is no stranger to the visiting dignitary. Heads of state and military heroes are always dropping by — even President Obama graced the Capitol last month to deliver a speech.

On Thursday, lawmakers will greet another illustrious guest: Bodie, the French bulldog who starred in the bawdy buddy movie “Due Date,” is slated to appear at the Animal Health Institute’s “Celebrity Pet Night” on Capitol Hill, our colleague Emily Heil reports.

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Fact checking Obama’s Rose Garden statement on taxes and spending

Analysts have decreed that President Obama’s speech in the Rose Garden on Monday was a political statement designed to rally his political base rather than engage in real negotiations with Republicans on Capitol Hill — who may be beyond negotiations with this president in any case.

 But we deal in facts. How factual were various assertions made by the president?

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Obama says U.S. Embassy in Libya will reopen

NEW YORK—President Obama announced Tuesday that he is reopening the U.S. Embassy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli and returning the ambassador, mixing a pledge to stand by Libya’s post-revolution government with warnings that “difficult days lie ahead” as the country attempts to build a new government and economy.

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Donor to Lindsey Graham accused of funneling money to senator’s campaign

A major donor to Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) is accused of stealing more than $3.6 million in federal grant money and illegally funneling foreign cash to Graham’s campaign, according to federal charges announced this week.

Jian-Yun “John” Dong of Mount Pleasant, S.C., is accused of fraud, making illegal campaign contributions and dozens of other crimes in a pair of indictments brought by a U.S. grand jury in South Carolina. Dong’s wife, Danher Wang, is also charged in the case, according to court records.

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More Spending Is the Wrong Jobs Formula

The U.N.’s Debacle
Yossi Klein Halevi, Los Angeles Times
After decades of failed negotiations over a Palestinian state, it is tempting to imagine that the potential vote in the U.N. General Assembly on Palestinian statehood might help finally resolve one of the most vexing problems that the world has inherited from the previous century. And after all, that's just how a Jewish state was born — by a U.N. General Assembly vote in 1947.But a U.N. vote that seeks to bypass negotiations and impose a fait accompli on Israel will only undermine a two-state solution. By deepening Israel's isolation, the vote will reinforce the sense…

The “Class Warfare” Sham
Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
The biggest problem in our politics for the last 30 years has been . . . what? Fill in the blank. Too much spending? Debt to future generations? Cultural politics? None of those. Plain and simple: taxes. The anti-tax revolt that started in 1978 in California (Proposition 13) has destroyed this country. Our taxophobia has made the rich vastly richer and reduced the amount of money for the public benefits the rest of us depend on, and a hundred other horrible things besides. If I’ve written one sentence over the years more than any other, it’s the sentence that goes…

Poll: Federal Gov’t Wastes Over Half of Every Dollar
Jeff Jones, Gallup
Americans estimate that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every dollar it spends, a new high in a Gallup trend question first asked in 1979.The current estimate of 51 cents wasted on the dollar is similar to what Gallup measured in 2009, but marks the first time Americans believe more than half of federal spending is wasted. The low point in the trend is 38 cents wasted on the dollar, in 1986.