The Hollywood Liberal

Bloomberg-Scarborough?
Howard Fineman: “There’s no campaign yet, and there may never be, but New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and MSNBC’s morning talk-show host Joe Scarborough have begun trying to figure out whether they could be an independent presidential ticket in 2012 — and who would be better to be on top if it happens.”

Seriously, Jail the Bankers or This Economy Will Never Fully Recover
By refusing to hold the corporate criminals at the heart of the housing crisis accountable for their crimes, we’re creating powerful incentives for future malfeasance.

By refusing to hold the corporate criminals at the heart of the housing crisis accountable for their crimes, we’re creating powerful incentives for future malfeasance.

We Might Be More Racist Than We Think We Are
The good news is that our prejudices are not inevitable — we can fight them with broad social efforts to challenge stereotypes and by working together across group lines.

The good news is that our prejudices are not inevitable — we can fight them with broad social efforts to challenge stereotypes and by working together across group lines.

Derrick Jensen: Consumer Culture Is Killing the Planet — We Need to Build a Culture of Resistance
Derrick Jensen on why a society built on non-renewable resources cannot last.

Derrick Jensen on why a society built on non-renewable resources cannot last.

David Leonhardt, Please Shut Up
Compañeros, I have a dream today. No it’s not the dream where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers . . . I have…

Trade Flows and Currency Values for the G-20
It would be great if the leaders of the G-20 countries knew a little economics. It might make their meetings more productive and less confrontational. The central area of dispute at the recently concluded meeting was the decision by the…

Beck/Soros: AJC, AIPAC Forbidden To Use Term “Six Million Jews” Again ++ Keith O on Beck
KEITH OLBERMANN ON BECK & JEWS It is good news that the Anti-Defamation League has come out swinging against Glenn Beck for using Nazi imagery and themes in his war against George Soros. (The ADL’s edit of Foxman’s condemnation is…

Key House Republican Vows To Block Middle Class Tax Cuts If Rich Aren?t Given Their Fair Share
One of the key votes that will take place during the lame duck congressional session that began yesterday is what to do with the Bush tax cuts. President Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend the cuts for just middle class families, noting that extending the cuts for the richest two percent of Americans will […]

One of the key votes that will take place during the lame duck congressional session that began yesterday is what to do with the Bush tax cuts. President Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend the cuts for just middle class families, noting that extending the cuts for the richest two percent of Americans will add $830 billion to deficit over the next ten years. Republicans demand an extension of all the cuts, but have so far failed to put forward any convincing (or truthful) arguments explaining why giving the wealthiest Americans another tax break is the best use of almost a trillion dollars while the nation faces painful cuts to valuable government programs.

Today, a compromise emerged, which would split the issue into two votes — one for extending the tax cuts for the middle class, and another for the rich.

But as soon as the potential deal was floated by White House allies, a leading Republicans shot it down. Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), who plays a key role in GOP tax policy as the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles taxes, “said the GOP will block any proposal that extends tax cuts for the middle class for a longer period than those for the wealthy.” If Democrats insist on a longer period for the middle class cuts, “I think this issue will end up getting kicked into next year,” Camp said:

In a speech to the Tax Council, a business group, Mr. Camp called that plan “a terrible idea and a total nonstarter. We would be foolish to fall for it,” he said.

Appearing on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s radio show today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) struck a similar tone, saying, “There’s only one thing that’s acceptable and that’s to not raise taxes on anyone.” “We’re not going to go along with…splitting it into two different sets of Americans”:

As New York Times columnist Frank Rich pointed out Sunday, “It’s the very top earners, not your garden variety, entrepreneurial multimillionaires, who will be by far the biggest beneficiaries” of an extension on the cuts for rich. Thankfully, congressional Republicans have signaled they will not rest until those “very top earners” get their cut — even it means going home without a vote and letting the tax bill go up for middle class families come January 1.

Democrats Trail In Five Undecided House Races

The Pleasures of Hitch
Christopher Caldwell, New York Post
There is an odd thing about Christopher Hitchens. Having entered journalism as a Trotskyist in 1970s Britain (which he memorably described as “Weimar without the sex”), he has spent the last decade as a leading advocate of bombing Afghanistan “back out of the Stone Age.” Yet this ideological change has had little effect on the pleasures of reading him.One would — at least I would — as happily read something he wrote about Nicosia in 1975 as something he wrote about Barack Obama this morning. The moving articles that Hitchens has written since being diagnosed with…

The Opportunity Cost: Safety Nets vs. Jobs
David Dickey, OC Register
Intellectually, most of us recognize that we cannot have both “guns and butter.” The necessity to make such fundamental choices results from the fact that resources are both finite and scarce. When it comes to politics, however, our emotions seem to overwhelm our intellect. Possibly due to our nation's legacy of economic success, the passion to “have it all” has become a pervasive American trait. Alas, reality dictates that, collectively, this dream remains a fantasy "“ even for we Americans, the most blessed of all peoples.

Ratify START Treaty Now

Curb the Outrage, Safety is at Stake
Joanna Molloy, New York Daily News
The words are immortal now. Not “honor thy neighbor as thyself,” or “to be or not to be” – but “Don't touch my junk.”This phrase entered the lexicon over the weekend, when passenger John Tyner refused to undergo a full-body scan – or a patdown that included a “groin check” at the San Diego airport.He told a Transportation Security Administration officer: “If you touch my junk, I am gonna have you arrested.”