The Hollywood Liberal

Crack Down on Corporate Welfare

Corralling Mobsters, But Not Big Banks
Gretchen Morgenson, NY Times
EVERYONE knows about the mobsters and terrorists that Mary Jo White successfully put behind bars during her nine years as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Less well-known is Ms. White’s record bringing cases against large financial institutions during her stint as the top criminal prosecutor in New York. Ms. White, who has been nominated to become the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, ran the Justice Department’s unit in the Southern District, which includes Manhattan, from 1993 until January 2002. She is expected…

Sen. Paul Shames Obama, Fires Up Conservatives

CPAC Can Learn a Lot From Chris Christie
Roger Stone, The Stone Zone
“Politics” said former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean “is the art of inclusion.” The decision by the American Conservative Union, sponsor of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference not to invite current New Jersey Governor Chris Christie demonstrates some conservatives and Republicans haven't learned that lesson. This is the same stupid thinking that blocked Ron Paul from having his name put in nomination at it's 2012 Convention and refused to acknowledge or even count the votes of delegates who cast their votes for the veteran Republican…

Bob Woodward’s Dark Days
Max Holland, Newsweek
For the past week Washington has found itself debating Bob Woodward. The occasion: his very public argument with White House senior official Gene Sperling, in which Woodward left the impression that Sperling had somehow tried to intimidate him"”only to see this accusation undermined by the release of an email exchange in which the pair sounded rather conciliatory.Bob Woodward at his home in Georgetown. (Andrew Cutraro/Redux)Almost all the commentary about this flap fits neatly under the heading, "What the Hell Happened to Bob Woodward?" But posing that…

Government Shoots Itself in the Foot
George Will, Washington Post
Rodney Francis is insufficiently ambitious. The pastor of the Washington Tabernacle Baptist Church in St. Louis has entered the fray over guns, violence and humanity’s fallen nature with a plan for a “buyback” of children’s toy guns. And toy swords and other make-believe weapons. There is, however, a loophole in the pastor’s panacea. He neglects the problem of ominously nibbled and menacingly brandished breakfast pastries.

No to Keystone. Yes to Crazy
Thomas Friedman, New York Times
I HOPE the president turns down the Keystone XL oil pipeline. (Who wants the U.S. to facilitate the dirtiest extraction of the dirtiest crude from tar sands in Canada’s far north?) But I don’t think he will. So I hope that Bill McKibben and his 350.org coalition go crazy. I’m talking chain-themselves-to-the-White-House-fence-stop-traffic-at-the-Capitol kind of crazy, because I think if we all make enough noise about this, we might be able to trade a lousy Keystone pipeline for some really good systemic responses to climate change. We don’t get such an…

McCain, Graham Need to End the Super-Hawk Crap
Ace, Ace of Spades
I still consider myself a hawk. But I don't consider myself a super-hawk. Post-9/11, I became a super-hawk. I'm not one any longer. John McCain and Lindsey Graham are still pushing a super-hawk line that the public widely rejects.