The Hollywood Liberal

Early Morning Swim

• Krugman takes down Faux News.
• Uh, NY Post? There is no “Ground Zero Mosque.”
• Great pick, Teabaggers!
• Is the hectoring working?
• The party of personal responsibility.
• New GOP agenda, remarkably similar to old GOP agenda.

• Krugman takes down Faux News.
• Uh, NY Post? There is no “Ground Zero Mosque.”
• Great pick, Teabaggers!
• Is the hectoring working?
• The party of personal responsibility.
• New GOP agenda, remarkably similar to old GOP agenda.

?

Lawyers Run America

By Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons

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Brazil Goes to the Polls
After two terms of Lula mania, Brazilians are going to the polls to elect their next president. The likely winner is Lula’s once chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, a former rebel and all-around bad ass who is poised to be the country’s first woman president. Public opinion polls show a tight race, and if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, a runoff election will be held later this month. —JCL The BBC: Some 136 million Brazilians are voting to elect the successor to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is stepping down after two terms. Mr Lula’s favoured successor, his former chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, is widely expected to win the election. But she needs 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off poll later this month. Read more

After two terms of Lula mania, Brazilians are going to the polls to elect their next president. The likely winner is Lula’s once chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, a former rebel and all-around bad ass who is poised to be the country’s first woman president.

Public opinion polls show a tight race, and if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, a runoff election will be held later this month. —JCL

The BBC:

Some 136 million Brazilians are voting to elect the successor to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is stepping down after two terms.

Mr Lula’s favoured successor, his former chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, is widely expected to win the election.

But she needs 50% of the vote to avoid a run-off poll later this month.

Read more

Related Entries

• September 30, 2010 The Real Democratic Whiners
• September 30, 2010 O’Reilly and Maher Talk Tea Party, Deficit

Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan Lags: Health Overhaul Centerpiece Endures Growing Pains
WASHINGTON — It’s a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s health care remake, a lifeline available right now to vulnerable people whose medical problems have made…

Jim Kenney: Why the Mosque Melee Actually Signals a New Era of Religious Tolerance
for those closest to the ongoing interreligious movement, tolerance just won’t suffice. Real intercultural harmony demands exposure, as well as respect, mutuality, and, ultimately, engagement.

Pearl Korn: Congress Adjourns To Face The Music At Home
Cutting and running 7 days early from their planned Oct. 8th departure, members of Congress fled the hot and toxic atmosphere on Capitol Hill and…

Mike Elk: Did the October 2nd Rally Create Enough Leverage to Achieve “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”?
WASHINGTON, D.C.–On Saturday, tens of thousands of people from all over the country–perhaps 200,000 people–stretched across the Mall in front of the Lincoln Memorial in…

Conservative Immigration Group: Arrest Meg Whitman, And Her Housekeeper Too
A conservative group against illegal immigration has called for the arrest of Meg Whitman, the GOP’s candidate for governor of California, and her former housekeeper Nicky Diaz for breaking immigration laws. The Americans for Legal Immigration PAC said Thursday that Whitman should stand trial and Diaz should be deported.


Meg Whitman – California – Illegal immigration – Law – United States

Sidney Dem: Things Might Be Different If It Wasn’t A Muslim Cemetery
The former Democratic opponent of the town supervisor who wants a Muslim group to dig up two bodies they buried on private property says she thinks the reaction might have been different if the group wasn’t Islamic.


New York – Democratic – Bob McCarthy – Muslim – United States

America at its best: Freedom, the Grand Canyon & Navajo country
I am one of those devoted American patriots who has totally bought into the whole American package — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, Constitutional guarantees, refusal to be enslaved by corporatists, our glorious flag, healthy unions, hand-counted ballots, the Fourth of July, America first, beware the military-industrial complex, government that benefits We the People […]

Paladino Told Spitzer Not to Resign
New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino (R) tells the Los Angeles Times that “he believes the personal failings of elected officials should not be held against them if they’re qualified to govern.”

He cited Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), “whom Paladino supported with campaign contributions, as an example of a capable public servant who never should have left office.”

Said Paladino: “The day before he left I told Eliot, ‘Don’t quit.’ You show me the perfect person. You show me Mr. Perfect out there. Who? Arnold [Schwarzenegger]? The former president, Clinton? … He’s human, Eliot’s human, I’m human.”

Pelosi Doesn’t Mind Attacks from Democrats
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) insisted to the New York Times that she didn’t mind efforts by some vulnerable Democrats in conservative House districts appealing to their constituents by criticizing her.

Said Pelosi: “I say go for it. Just win your election.”

About Those Conservative Political Ads on AlterNet
You may have noticed political ads for conservatives showing up on AlterNet. As a non-profit, we can’t pick and choose political ads.

You may have noticed political ads for conservatives showing up on AlterNet. As a non-profit, we can't pick and choose political ads.

Corrections And Amplifications: On Andrew Mellon, Sebastian Mallaby, And General Motors
1. A group calling itself “Stand Up For America” says I took Herbert Hoover’s treasury secretary Andrew Mellon’s words out of context in my post “Republican Economics as Social Darwinism” (September 26); and that, in any event, today’s Republicans who…


Herbert Hoover – United States – United States Secretary of the Treasury – Andrew Mellon – Next Economy and America

Glad About Pete Rouse
I like Pete Rouse. And I think his presence as White House chief-of-staff will make this Presidency run better. I have only met him a few times although I did have a long conversation with him once and I walked…


Pete Rouse – White House – Washington – Rahm Emanuel – Barack Obama

Tell Israel: Freeze Settlements Or We Slow Down The Aid
The Obama administration’s attempts at seducing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu are getting embarrassing. Netanyahu has made it quite clear he is just not into Obama. According to Haaretz, the latest (and most cringeworthy) moment in the saga came this week…


Israel – United States – Benjamin Netanyahu – Dennis Ross – Prime minister

Paladino Took Government Tax Break By Pledging To Deliver Jobs, But Instead Pocketed The Money

An investigation by the New York Daily News finds that New York GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, a multi-millionaire real estate developer, promised to revive the economy of Buffalo by creating new jobs, received $3 million in state tax breaks to do so, but then pocketed the tax refunds while delivering very few jobs:

A Daily News probe found Paladino’s companies netted $3 million in tax breaks through a program called the Empire Zones – while producing a grand total of 25 new jobs.

To justify tax breaks in one instance, he sold a dozen vacant lots he owned to himself and claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in “real property investments.” Seven years later, these “investments” remain what they were – vacant lots.

His Empire Zone investments consisted mostly of renovating his own buildings – $19 million worth. He completed no new construction and brought no new businesses in any of his Empire Zone projects.

Instead, the Paladino companies such as the Ellicott Group mostly generate income through six big office buildings that collect millions of dollars in rent.

Ironically, Paladino claims his campaign is standing up for taxpayers. For instance, he wants to slash the state’s Medicaid spending by almost half because, he said, New York invites anyone to “come here and sit on the backs of our taxpayers.”

Speaking before New York business leaders this past week, Paladino pledged to cut taxes for the rich, including across-the-board cuts in corporate franchise taxes. “I will provide businesses relief from the onerous taxes and regulations strangling them today,” Paladino said. “I’m going to make our businesses competitive again.” But his own experience suggests that cutting taxes for the wealthiest is hardly the best way to jump-start the economy.

One of Paladino’s properties lost its Empire Zone tax credits during a state review last year, “with the state arguing the property did not create enough jobs to justify the tax breaks.” Perhaps the taxpayers should be telling Paladino: “Don’t tread on me.”

Midterm Scramble for Youth Vote
Dayo Olopade, The Daily Beast
by Dayo Olopade Info Dayo Olopade is a political reporter for The Daily Beast and a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation.Enter your email address:Enter the recipients' email addresses, separated by commas:Enter your email address:Enter the recipients' email addresses, separated by commas: Brendan Hoffman / Newscom Support for the Democrats among voters under 30 has plummeted since 2008. Dayo Olopade on the rappers, iPad apps, and other frantic efforts to get…

A Missed Chance on Climate Change Law
Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker
On April 20, 2010, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman, along with three aides, visited Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, at the White House. The legislators had spent seven months writing a comprehensive bill that promised to transform the nation's approach to energy and climate change, and they were planning a press conference in six days to unveil their work.Kerry, of Massachusetts, Graham, of South Carolina, and Lieberman, of Connecticut, had become known on Capitol Hill as the Three Amigos, for the Steve Martin comedy in which three…

Progressives Have Moved U.S. Forward
Sen. Sherrod Brown, USA Today
ColumnsIn addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of…

Jobs Machine is Clanging to Halt
Mort Zuckerman, US News & World Report

Sliding Into a Tyranny of Good Intentions?
Neil Reynolds, Globe and Mail
Jump to main navigation Jump to main content Nearly 50 years ago, Kenneth Minogue, a professor of political science at the London School of Economics, published The Liberal Mind, his classic study of the dominant philosophy of the 20th century: radical niceness. Rooted in extreme liberal optimism and salvationist aspiration, this triumphant ideology (Prof. Minogue said) tenaciously advanced the notion that history requires the perfection of human society, that governments – in pursuit of this perfection – are obliged “to provide every man, woman, child and dog…