The Hollywood Liberal

Clinton’s Convention Role Negotiated
Sen. Hillary Clinton “won a hefty 1,600 convention delegates in six months of primaries. A big question now is whether to let them vote at the Democratic convention,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

“High on the list of matters that Sen. Clinton and likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama are negotiating as her campaign closes down is whether and how her name is put into nomination at the August convention in Denver.”

Could McCain Pick Fiorina as His Running Mate?
Dana Milbank looks at the potential of former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as Sen. John McCain’s running mate.

“Fiorina’s brazen breakfast talk demonstrated why she’d be such a risky running mate for McCain — and yet also, potentially, the most rewarding of his options. She’s the most prominent and visible of the women believed to be under consideration for the vice presidency, and her attributes are many: a woman who could appeal to disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters… At the same time, she’s unvetted and untested, as her breakfast conversation demonstrated anew (religious conservatives frown on Viagra-and-contraceptives talk) that she’s new to the game.”

Fed: Responsibility Still For Little People
It’s a hard job. But someone has to keep the money spigots open and ensure executives and hedge fund operators keep raking in huge bonuses for driving their companies into insolvency and crashing the economy.

Seems the Fed may not be ending those temporary loan facilities yet.

Translated Fed:

What, you were stupid enough to think there was even the smallest chance that we wouldn’t extend the lending facility where we take in securities so worthless that no one in the private sector would buy them, and lend back grade-A securities worth 99 cents of the face value Wall Street can’t get from anyone else?

We here at the Fed exist to make sure that when Wall Street and the Banks are given as much money as they need. In good times they get all the profits from the free money. In bad times, when the stupid loans they’ve made, the lousy securities they’ve issued and the bad trades they’ve engaged in come back to haunt them, you can count on us to make sure that bonuses keep flowing and as few rich people get hurt as possible.

The truest principle of capitalism is that the rich should make the profits in the good times, and in the bad times, ordinary people should pay for their losses. Heads Wall Street wins, tails taxpayers lose.

It’s a hard job. But someone has to keep the money spigots open and ensure executives and hedge fund operators keep raking in huge bonuses for driving their companies into insolvency and crashing the economy.

Responsibility, just like bankruptcy, is for little people.

Big people have personal bankers like Helicopter Ben Bernanke and Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan to make sure that the buck never, ever, stops at the top.

Librarian Booted From McCain Event in Denver

Via Progress Now, which captured the video, Carole Kreck, a 61 year librarian was waiting in line this morning at the Denver Center for Performing Arts to attend the John McCain town hall meeting. She held a sign that said “McCain = Bush.”

McCain's security detail told her to leave. The police were called. They issued her a ticket for trespassing and escorted her out.

The event was open to the public. They advised people to arrive a few hours early. How can you trespass on public property if you’ve been invited to the event being held on that property?

Timetable
According to the Associated Press-Wankers, Iraq’s national security adviser sez no security deal unless there’s a timetable for withdrawal. The White House does not want.

The sweet smell of sovereignty.

Late Night

Here’s a cat because Coeruleus took a picture.

A Lesson From the ’04 Election in Ohio: How Latinos Were Disenfranchised
An excerpt from a new book describes how Ohio’s voting system failed Latino voters.

Late Night: Jessie’s Girl and Open Thread
In case you weren't one of the 7 million people who watched the Bachelorette finale last night, Deanna picked my favorite, Colorado Snowboarder Jesse Csincsak. As I predicted, more than 1,000 fans signed up on Jesse's MySpace page today (which overnight became a joint page for him and Deanna). But, more than 2,000 fans signed onto Jason's page today. I was on the media conference call with them today — two segments, one with Deanna and Jesse and the other with Jason.
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LeftWord: The Best Liberal Blog Posts

Today’s Must Read
It’s not just FISA and warrantless wiretapping. There’s a whole web of government domestic surveillance that goes unnoticed and largely unregulated….

Cheney reportedly wanted cuts in climate testimony
Cheney reportedly wanted cuts in climate testimony

Obama denies shifting to reach ‘center’
Obama denies shifting to reach ‘center’

Huckabee Faults Obama For Not Having The Convictions Of Segregationist Jesse Helms
Yesterday, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee appeared on Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes to talk about Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) lack of “convictions.” Huckabee held up the late conservative senator Jesse Helms as an example of someone Obama should aspire to be: HUCKABEE: Well, Americans have consistently rejected the George McGoverns and the Michael Dukakises, […]

Yesterday, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee appeared on Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes to talk about Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) lack of “convictions.” Huckabee held up the late conservative senator Jesse Helms as an example of someone Obama should aspire to be:

HUCKABEE: Well, Americans have consistently rejected the George McGoverns and the Michael Dukakises, the people who clearly and unapologetically are out there on the left — the Walter Mondales who said, I’m going to raise your taxes.

So when liberals are honest about being liberals, they get beat. I think it’s a situation — you know, you had the little clip of Jesse Helms at the opening of the show, and I’m thinking, what a contrast. The thing that many of us loved and admired about Jesse Helms was that, here was a guy, he didn’t care what you thought about his view, but you were going to always know where he stood because he stood for something and he stood clearly.

I think we’re not seeing that in Barack Obama especially in relationship — to his position on the war.

Watch it:

Conservatives have held a love fest for Helms since his death, holding him up as a “courageous champion” (Mitch McConell), “conservative icon” (Bob Dole), and guilty of nothing more than “victory-making political incorrectness” (National Review). Both Huckabee and Hannity conveniently leave out any mention of what Helms’s convictions were, because they would have then been in the uncomfortable position of defending racism and segregation.

Helms once called Martin Luther King, Jr. a “sex pervert” and a “Communist” and staged a filibuster against making his birthday a federal holiday. He fought against funding AIDS research because he said the disease resulted from “unnatural” and “disgusting” homosexual behavior. He also waged vicious campaigns exploiting racial tensions. One ad he helped create demagogued, “White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories?”

It’s unsettling that Huckabee thinks Obama should take his cues from a man who believed that “[c]rime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life.”

Close Kerry-McCain Kinship Has Dissolved Since 2004
Those who know them say they once shared a genuine affection for each other, born in large part from their shared experiences serving in the Vietnam War and their work together in the early 1990s on a Senate committee investigating the fate of prisoners of war and of those missing in action during…