The Hollywood Liberal

Budget Cuts Will Hurt Economy
Trumka & Bloomingdale, Philly Inquirer
SOLUTIONS to big problems don't fit on a bumper sticker. Working people need comprehensive and proven policies that will build shared prosperity for everyone in America who works hard and plays by the rules.It can't be a nip here or a tuck there. We need policies with the scale and boldness to turn around our economy, so it isn't run by and for the richest Americans any more.Good people can disagree, but America has not had honest and meaningful debate for a long time. Here are some ideas to consider.

Ryan & the GOP Medicare Killers
Paul Krugman, New York Times
Paul Ryan's speech Wednesday night may have accomplished one good thing: It finally may have dispelled the myth that he is a Serious, Honest Conservative. Indeed, Mr. Ryan's brazen dishonesty left even his critics breathless.Some of his fibs were trivial but telling, like his suggestion that President Obama is responsible for a closed auto plant in his hometown, even though the plant closed before Mr. Obama took office. Others were infuriating, like his sanctimonious declaration that "the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for…

Romney Shakes the Etch a Sketch
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
Finally, Mitt Romney shook the Etch a Sketch. Having given conservatives everything they had asked for – from switching his positions on abortion and immigration to picking their favorite as his running mate — Romney turned Thursday night to his essential task: converting some President Obama’s 2008 supporters into Republican voters.At a convention where the rhetoric was harsh and often indifferent to facts and even the truth itself, Romney took the path of quiet persuasion. For the most part, he chose not to speak to the fervor and anger of political activists on the…

Obama Was Too Late to Save Janesville
Jennifer Granholm, Politico
June 3, 2008. It’s an important date in American history.On June 3, 2008, Sen. Barack Obama clinched enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.On June 3, 2008, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner announced that, because of shifting consumer purchases, four GM auto plants would close by 2010 or “sooner if demand dictates.” On his list was the SUV plant in Janesville, Wis.

RNC a Hard Act for Dems to Follow
Steve Huntley, Chicago Sun-Times
Republicans in their national convention in Tampa set a pretty high bar for the Democrats for their gathering in Charlotte next week. The GOP program kept to the great issues of jobs, taxes, spending and entitlements at the core of the nation’s economic malaise and stayed away from the character assassination tactics at the heart of Democratic strategy so far in this presidential race.Yes, President Barack Obama came in for a lot of tough talk for his policy failures crippling the country with the most anemic economic recovery in modern history. But absent were the reprehensive kind…

GOP Ready to Rumble on Health Care
Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
When Mitt Romney chose Rep. Paul Ryan to be his running mate Democrats rejoiced. They were sure that the elevation of the author of the Republican Congress budget plan that called for reform of entitlements like Medicare guaranteed the president’s re-election. They had already been planning to run hard against the Ryan budget no matter who was on the GOP ticket. But having Ryan as their piñata seemed like a dream come true.But tonight at the Republican National Convention, as Ryan got his prime time spot accepting his nomination, the rest of the country began to…

The Fed Can’t Save the Economy
David Smick, The International Economy
Lately it seems the industrialized world’s central bankers are like the actors in themovie Mission Impossible. Officials are being unfairly asked to do the miraculousin covering up for governments’ lack of fiscal and regulatory common sense. Central bank balance sheets, quantitative easing, and zero interest rates have become the new policy tools of choice to try to fix the global economy. The mission may be impossible.The purpose of these new monetary tools is to try to keep long-term interest rates low. The economy’s “animal spirits” will…

A Fireside Chat With a Nation in Crisis
Joel Pollak, Big Government
It's a form of leadership we rarely see. In 2008, Barack Obama impressed pundits with his intellect and rhetoric, but beyond his high-flown hyperbole, much of what he offered was mere sophistry. Obama is a man of words, not ideas–of letters but not leadership, as Ryan pointed out tonight. Ryan's own ideas are not only substantively better but also seem more deeply felt, more passionate and authentic–without trying too hard to be so.Ryan's commitment to ideas includes respect for ideas with which he disagrees–which is different than Obama's skill in reciting (or…

A Very Strange Argument for Mitt Romney
Ezra Klein, Washington Post
The first two nights of the Republican National Convention ended with stirring, rousing speeches. They just weren't stirring, rousing speeches that made much sense as endorsements of Mitt Romney.Chris Christie and Paul Ryan hit the same themes. We have hard choices facing us. We need leaders who won't flinch before those choices. Leaders who won't be deterred by the polls. Leaders who won't compromise their principles. Leaders who won't duck the tough issues. Leaders who won't hide the hard truths.

Chris Christie: The Statesman
Robert Costa, National Review
He may be a YouTube sensation, best known for arguing with lefty hecklers, but Governor Chris Christie’s keynote speech late Tuesday was a temperate oration, forceful yet muted.“Frankly, that is the Chris Christie I know,” says Pennsylvania congressman Pat Meehan, a former United States attorney who has been friends with the New Jersey governor for years. “The attack-dog part is what the media covers, but he has been a positive, forward-thinking, aggressive guy since the first time I met him.” 

Nomination Secure, Romney Pitch Starts
Jeff Zeleny, New York Times
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts who has aspired to reach the White House since his father first sought the office four decades ago, was nominated by the Republican Party here on Tuesday as its choice to become the 45th president of the United States.The elevation of Mr. Romney at the Republican National Convention completed his six-year quest to navigate the contours of a changing party and opened a well-choreographed effort led by his wife, Ann, to swiftly reintroduce him to Americans in the hope of gaining the trust of voters and bolstering his campaign to defeat President…

Ladies Night: GOP Speakers Answer Dems
Caitlin Huey-Burns, RCP
TAMPA — Republicans have been chafing at the Democrats' signature 2012 campaign narrative that the GOP has embarked on a “war on women,” but they have struggled with how to counter it.On the first night of their convention here Tuesday, however, the GOP gave an answer. It came in the form of 10 female speakers, including Ann Romney, along with the imparted wisdom from a Sicilian-American woman who passed away eight years ago — the mother of keynoter Chris Christie.Ann Romney was hardly coy. "I love women!" she told the appreciative crowd, many holding up…

Democrats Play the Race Card – Again
Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times
Huzzah, America, our centuries-old struggle with racism and bigotry may be coming to an end.This news was confirmed by none other than Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology and the author of 18 books on race, racism, racial history, black culture, and black history. Suffice it to say, he knows a lot about prejudice and bigotry.Yet in response to Mitt Romney's lame joke about not needing a birth certificate to prove he was from Michigan, Dyson proclaimed, to the approval of a collection of sage pundits on MSNBC, that Romney was resorting to "some of the basest, most…

GOP Adults Begin Takedown of Obama
Charles Hurt, Washington Times
TAMPA, Fla. "” Ron Paul can justifiably take credit for deeply imprinting on the Republican Party agenda this year.Though he was a pariah four years ago, his fierce defense of liberty, fiscal conservatism and containment of the federal government guided every campaign in the endless and tumbling Republican primary at least to some degree. Mitt Romney's announcement this week that he supports auditing the Federal Reserve is but the latest example of Mr. Paul's fingerprints.But it is another Paul who deserves nearly as much credit for shaping the current Republican…

Obama’s Team of Idolizers Has Drunk the Kool-Aid
Roger Cohen, NYT
NEW YORK — When Barack Obama was on the presidential campaign trail the first time, he used the title of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincoln biography, “Team of Rivals,” to describe the entourage he would seek at the White House, a combative group from across the political spectrum who would challenge his every idea. (He also compared himself to Abraham Lincoln in announcing his candidacy at the Illinois State capitol: “The life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible.”)Well, four years…

Romney Cribs From Willie Horton Playbook
Timothy Noah, New Republic
The ugliest presidential campaign I ever hope to see was the one George H.W. Bush waged against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Poppy Bush governed like a (relative) moderate, but in 1988 he campaigned like a hard-right bigot, relentlessly attacking Dukakis over an assault-rape committed by the convicted murderer Willie Horton, a very scary-looking African American, during a prison furlough (under a program created by Dukakis's Republican predecessor as Massachusetts governor). Say what you will about 41's son and eventual successor, George W. Bush"”as a campaigner,…

Can Sandoval Pull Latinos to the GOP?
Caitlin Huey-Burns, RCP
TAMPA — Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval will be the first of a handful of prominent Hispanic Republicans to address the GOP convention when he takes the stage in prime time Tuesday night.The popular first-term governor is a rising star in a party with a growing list of up-and-comers to watch — a roster that includes other Latinos, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez. But Sandoval stands out in his own right. In fact, he might stand more toward the middle in a party steadily shifting rightward. He favors abortion rights, and recently worked with state Democrats…

Afghanistan Strategy Is Rapidly Unravelling
Simon Tisdall, Guardian
The latest killings in Afghanistan are a stark reminder to western leaders of the folly of ignoring the situation in the countryThe killing of 17 people by Taliban insurgents in Musa Qala, the deaths of 10 Afghan army personnel in a separate, large-scale assault in Helmand, and the killing of two US soldiers by an Afghan national army recruit could be dismissed as just another bloody day in Afghanistan.Alternatively these gruesome events, taken together, might sensibly be seen as another urgent warning to neglectful western politicians that their policy of gradual, go-slow withdrawal is…

1976’s History-Making GOP Convention
Craig Shirley, Washington Times
Things were going bumpily according to plan for the men in charge of the President Ford Committee at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Mo., in August 1976. With so many moving parts, however, most campaigns are at best “garbage moving in the right direction,” as GOP operative Eddie Mahe once quipped.The Ford campaign was no exception.The battered GOP gathered in a glass, steel and concrete edifice called Kemper Arena amid heat, humidity, tension, polyester, cigarette smoke, bouffant hairdos and visceral contempt between supporters of Gerald R. Ford and…

CNN Looking for Its Own Game Change?
Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times
With the Democratic and Republican national conventions just days away, there's already suspense behind the camera: CNN is staring down one of the worst crises in its 32-year existence. The cable news network that dominated the political discussion during the 1990s has slumped to record ratings lows this year, with its prime-time audience plunging by more than 40% compared with four years ago (No. 1 Fox News and runner-up MSNBC have each posted double-digit increases). Critics are attacking the Time Warner-owned network's coverage as dull and rudderless. CNN Worldwide President Jim…

GOP the Grand Racist Party? Only on MSNBC
W.W., The Economist
CHRIS HAYES, host of MSNBC's “Up with Chris Hayes”, said on air this past weekend, “It is undeniably the case that racist Americans are almost entirely in one political coalition and not the other”, by which he means most American racists lean right, not left. This has since been proven false by Alex Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason University, and John Sides, a political scientist at George Washington University, both of whom have denied Mr Hayes' contention, persuasively.Mr Tabarrok dips into the General Social Survey and fishes out some data difficult to…

Death of the Middle Class Overrated
Robert Samuelson, Washington Post
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much, but they do agree on this: the middle class. At their conventions, the two parties will compete fiercely for its support. Republicans will accuse Barack Obama of destroying the middle class through policies perpetuating high joblessness and feeble economic growth. Democrats will portray Mitt Romney as a tool of the rich who doesn't understand the middle class. To the victor may go the election, because “saving the middle class” has arguably become the campaign's defining issue.This is mostly political…

Did Buffett Bet Against Obamanomics?
Charles Gasparino, New York Post
Is the sky really falling on state and local governments, as Warren Buffett's recent bearish bet on municipal debt suggests?Much of the media and even some sophisticated investors think so "” even if Buffett's bet against munis was only cryptically disclosed in a quarterly filing of his investment company Berkshire Hathaway (he has yet to make a public comment on it).

You Are Worse Off Than You Were Four Years Ago
Timothy Noah, TNR
In March, the Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez shocked a lot of people by calculating that during the first year of the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession, incomes for the top one percent grew by 11.6 percent while incomes for the bottom 99 percent grew a mere 0.2 percent. (All figures here are in “real dollars,” i.e., they discount for inflation.) Granted, the one percent had taken it on the chin during the recession; from 2007 to 2009, incomes had fallen twice as fast for the one percent (36.3 percent) as for the average family (17.4 percent). The rich always lose big…

Will We Ever Get Serious About Gun Control?
Amy Sullivan, TNR
Earlier this morning, a man with a gun opened fire outside the Empire State Building in busy downtown Manhattan. Last night, 19 people were shot across the city of Chicago in seven different incidents. Thirteen of those victims were shot within one 30-minute period. A man walked into the Washington, DC building that houses the Family Research Council last week and shot a security guard. At the beginning of this month, a white supremacist shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, wounding four others. And we are barely one month removed from the horrific mass shooting…

Romney, Ryan & the Spirit of 1776
Matthew Continetti, Weekly Standard
‘America is more than just a place,” Paul Ryan told the Norfolk, Virginia, crowd during his first speech as Mitt Romney’s running mate. “It’s an idea. It’s the only country founded on an idea. Our rights come from nature and God, not government.” The audience roared at this mention of natural rights. Ryan uses similar language in almost every stump speech. He wins applause every time.Mitt Romney’s selection of Ryan was significant for many reasons, but here is one that hasn’t been much commented on: It…

Five Myths About Ryan’s Budget
Peter Orszag, Washington Post

Romney Edges Toward Banking Reform
Fred Bauer, A Certain Enthusiasm
James Pethokoukis, Erick Erickson, and others have pondered the electoral and policy benefits of Mitt Romney's campaign taking up banking reform.  Well, now it seems as though Romney is ready to address this issue, if this interview with Time is any evidence (emphasis added): STENGEL: Another sort of related business question, if you look at the regulatory environment for the banks now and there are basically five big banks that in terms of assets disproportionately outweigh everybody else, is there a situation of moral hazard now related to those banks? And what would you do to…

Obama’s Silent Second-Term Agenda
Kimberley Strassel, Wall St. Journal
President Obama has a reputation for talking, but not necessarily for saying much. He has achieved new levels of vagueness this election season. Beyond repeating that he's in favor of making the “rich” pay for more government “investment,” he hasn't offered a single new idea for a second term. This is deliberate.The core of the Obama strategy is to make Americans worry that whatever Mitt Romney does, it will be worse. That's a harder case for Mr. Obama to make if he is himself proposing change. And so the Obama pitch is that this election is a choice between…

How German Islamists Recruit Youth for Jihad
Ozlem Gezer, Der Spiegel
Young Muslim men in Germany are systematically trying to recruit their peers for jihad using sophisticated rhetoric and psychology and by targeting vulnerable youths who are searching for direction in life. Two men who have quit the scene tell their story to SPIEGEL, providing a rare look into a dangerous underground.He worked at his uncle's falafel stand and read Immanuel Kant, and later Plato and Nietzsche. In the end, he became a radical Islamist, recruiting new talent for a Muslim holy war in the middle of the German city of Hamburg. Djamal was the hunter.

Romney’s Tech-Centric Energy Plan Will Create Jobs
Mark Mills, Forbes
Presidential energy plans.  Talk about a field littered with ignominious failures.  It’s not just this Administration’s anemic results from its $70+ billion stimulus for alternative energy.  Remember Carter’s Synfuels Corporation, or Clinton’s Partnership for a New Generation of (80 mpg) Vehicles?  Thus far, every energy plan would work better in Hollywood than Houston.  Romney’s new plan is the first that has a shot at succeeding because it reflects technology reality.Why? …

GOP Recasts Path to Senate Majority
Caitlin Huey-Burns, RealClearPolitics
Pressing on with his Senate bid against the broader GOP's wishes, Missouri Republican Todd Akin introduced a new campaign theme Wednesday: “Let the people decide; not party bosses.” Of course, such is the premise of all elections. But the “party bosses” in this case are looking at a much bigger picture than Akin is, and facing a critical decision of their own: How to win control of the upper chamber if Missouri stays in the Democratic column?Republicans need to gain four seats in November — three if Mitt Romney wins the presidency and Paul Ryan subsequently holds any…

Voter Suppression and the American People
Ben Jealous, Huffington Post
“To him, your celebration is a sham; … your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery….”In 1852, Frederick Douglas spoke these words to express the sentiments of the American Slave to an audience observing Independence Day. Now, 170 years later, these same words could reflect the feelings of hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvania residents on Election Day who will have their rights suppressed because of new voter suppression laws.This month a Pennsylvania judge upheld a strict government voter photo ID requirement that could block nearly 800,000 voters (9 percent of the…

President Obama’s Imaginary Recovery
Conn Carroll, DC Examiner
It is not easy being the deputy campaign manager for a president seeking reelection with an economic record as terrible as President Obama’s. So really, Stephanie Cutter should be forgiven for the alternative reality she has created in order to defend her boss. Asked yesterday by MSNBC’s Willie Geist what she would tell someone who said about Obama, “Well, that hasn’t worked for four years, it’s time for a change,” Cutter responded:Well, I think that worker probably has a good understanding of what’s happened over the past…

Ryan Revives “Death Panels” Canard
Jesse Singal, The Daily Beast
Death panels? Again? Really? In 2012? If a recent comment from Paul Ryan is any indication, we've cycled back to the ugly idea that marred much of the debate over President Obama's Affordable Care Act.Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential candidate, told an audience at Florida's largest retirement development that Obama's health care law “puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors.”

GOP Obstruction Halts Obama’s Efforts
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, USA Today
According to a new poll, nearly nine out of 10 Americans disapprove of the 112th Congress “” and for good reason. This is one of the least productive Congresses in history, reported USA TODAY “” even worse than the “do-nothing Congress” President Truman lambasted in 1948.It doesn't have to work this way, even with a House controlled by Republicans and a White House and Senate controlled by Democrats. Recent history proves this point.

Akin Must Decide Whether to Quit Race

Big Government Becomes the Big Issue
David Davenport, Forbes
When Bill Clinton’s political consultant, James Carville, posted the big issue for the 1992 presidential campaign on a sign at headquarters—“The Economy Stupid”—he turned out to be foreshadowing the 2012 campaign as well. But with Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, that slogan takes a subtle turn. The 2012 campaign is still about the economy, but the variation on that theme is now more specifically the role of government in the economy.Paul Ryan, as Chair of the House Budget Committee and the…

Why Obama Needs to Visit Israel – and Soon
Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg
It has been a tumultuous couple of weeks in the Iran-Israel War, and it hasn't even started yet.Over the past few days, Iranian leaders have promised Israel's coming destruction about half a dozen times, and have gotten so overheated they've begun to mix metaphors: There has been much talk about wiping the cancerous tumor of Zionism from the map, and so on. The Iranians' language has become sufficiently genocidal that even the secretary general of the United Nations, not generally known as a hotbed of Zionist feeling, said he was “dismayed by the remarks threatening…

Draft Hillary, Obama Needs a Bounce
Laura Washington, Chicago ST
Here she comes again. She’s going to cue up that broken record, once again. She’s going to beat that old horse down, down into the ground.Here’s my pitch, one more time. Hillary Clinton for vice president is a hands-down, sure-fire victory strategy for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.It’s still not too late for the Clinton/Biden switch.

Todd Akin: When Dumb Talk Is Inevitable
Debra Saunders, SF Chronicle
There are two sides within the anti-abortion movement. On one side, stand men and women who care deeply about human life and fear that abortion devalues society by creating a caste of disposable people. On the other side, lurk crabbed adults who think women should be punished for having extramarital sex and that pregnancy is fit punishment that (luck of the draw) spares men and falls instead on women and girls.I think we all know which corner hosts Rep. Todd Akin. When TV reporter Charles Jaco asked Akin whether abortion should be illegal if it is the result of rape, the Republican Party…

Why We Can’t Shrink Federal Spending
Larry Summers, Washington Post
With the selection of Paul Ryan as the Republican vice presidential candidate, it is clear that the central issue in the presidential election will be the scale and scope of government involvement in the economy. There is disagreement over what constituted "normal" levels of spending in the past and, indeed, over what constitutes "spending." But there is a widespread view in both parties that it is feasible and desirable that in the future the federal government should be no larger as a share of the overall economy than it has been historically.