The Hollywood Liberal

Thanks for pretending to finally care
Nobody in power can ever anticipate anything, except that nothing ever comes of anything that should have consequences.

Somebody needs to make sure his Q-rating stays high:

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein’s bio-weapons capability.

Because the time to do that is definitely eight years later, not before you personally go out and base your case for war upon it.

“It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable,” he told the Guardian . “The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA as to why this wasn’t known before the false information was put into the NIE sent to Congress, the president’s state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN.”

Oh it’s “delightful” how willfully naive old hands get to appear in this country for the sake of their own reputations. Somehow all the policy-makers are both blameless and guileless in manufacturing this crap at the time. And then they pretend to demand answers a generation later.

This is modern America Mr. Powell, the one you helped make. The Village never looks back on the old lies, they just move on to pushing the new ones.

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Late Late Night FDL: F**ckin’ Perfect
Pink — F**ckin’ Perfect.

Pink — F**ckin’ Perfect.

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Arnold’s Next Act: Another ‘Terminator’?
Well, really, what else did you think former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would do with his free time? Having left the Golden State’s governor’s post to non-action-hero Jerry Brown, Schwarzenegger promptly tweeted his hopeful return to Hollywood …

Well, really, what else did you think former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would do with his free time? Having left the Golden State’s governor’s post to non-action-hero Jerry Brown, Schwarzenegger promptly tweeted his hopeful return to Hollywood …

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KEYES: If these cuts, either defunding or dismantling Obamacare, either dies in the Senate or dies at Obama’s veto pen, would you be willing to join Jim DeMint and others who have said that this is worth trying to have a showdown and potentially a government shutdown just to show how serious we are about this?

KELLY: I don’t know that you have to have a government shutdown. We can do things with funding. At the end of the day, Congress controls the purse strings. So when you defund and you take the funding away from certain things, you in fact shut down that part. But shutting down the government, nobody wants to hear that. The other thing is, I don’t like that terminology of shutting down the government because really, it’s a fear factor. People know it’s not realistic. The government is not going to shut down, it’s not going to stop. People aren’t going to lose their Social Security checks and they’re not going to lose their access to Medicare and Medicaid. I think we have to be careful when we use that kind of talk. I think what we’re talking about is, look, we control the funding, let’s make sure we’re doing the right thing for the people.

KEYES: So even if that were to happen, theoretically, it wouldn’t be as bad as people make it out to be?

KELLY: No, I don’t think so. I really don’t.

Watch it:

Kelly’s assertions are simply not true. One need look no further than the federal government shutdown of 1995 for proof. During the nearly four-week shutdown, Social Security checks were not mailed and Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements were disrupted. According to a Center for American Progress report entitled “The Big Freeze,” the shutdown ultimately “cost the American taxpayer over $800 million and rattled the confidence of international investors in U.S. government bonds.”

But don’t take ThinkProgress’ word for it. Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show yesterday and said a shutdown would be nothing short of a “trainwreck”:

INGRAHAM: Would you accept, or even demand, a government shutdown if you don’t get the entitlement reform that you said is necessary as we move forward?

BACHMANN: I don’t think anybody wants to see the government shut down. That’s a trainwreck when something like that happens because quite literally, no checks go out, everything stops. You can’t do that, you can’t just have the military stop. We have to have protection.

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During last year’s election season, some of the most vitriolic anti-government rhetoric came from GOP officials in the state of Georgia. Across the state, Republican lawmakers ranging from members of Congress all the way up to gubenatorial candidate Nathan Deal demonized the government and praised the free market as the solution to all of the state’s problems:

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– Sen. Johnny Isakson: Isakson campaigned on a promise to “stop out-of-control federal spending,” saying that “Congress continues to spend money at an alarming and unsustainable rate, and it is a recipe for disaster and failure.” [3/12/10]

– Sen. Saxby Chambliss: Last summer, Chambliss appeared on the Republican Party’s weekly radio show and complained about how “Congress and this White House still continue to splurge” on federal spending. He warned that future generations would have to “pay higher taxes to foot the bill for Democrats’ out-of-control spending.” [7/3/10]

– Then-gubenatorial candidate Nathan Deal: Deal’s stand against government spending was so extreme that one his spokesmen even compared federal dollars to illicit drugs: “The thing with this federal money is it’s like a drug dealer: the first one’s free and then they’ve got you hooked and you play by their rules.” [8/3/10]

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– Rep. Jack Kingston: Kingston complained that he “would’ve liked to see more” federal spending given to the port project. [2/14/11]

– Sen. Johnny Isakson: Isakson said it was “critically important that we expand the harbor to ensure it continues to act as a gateway for business to Georgia and to the nation” and that he would work “relentlessly” to get the funding he had requested. Amusingly, the senator also put out a press release the very next day blasting Obama’s budget because it “spends too much.” [2/14/11, 2/15/11]

– Sen. Saxby Chambliss: Chambliss promised to “continue to fight, along with my Georgia colleagues, to fund the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project.” [2/14/11]

– Gov. Nathan Deal: Deal, apparently no longer willing to compare the federal government to a drug dealer, said the state “obviously hoped for a much greater show of support from the president.” The governor even went as far as to say that the Constitution mandate that it’s the federal government’s “responsibility” to pay for ports. [2/15/11, 2/14/11]

Kingston, responding to a tweet asking about the port project from the Georgia Young Democrats on CSPAN, lavished praise on the port project, saying that “infrastructure spending can create jobs.” “There’s a big case out there for infrastructure spending,” Kingston concluded. Watch it:

There is, of course, nothing wrong with Georgia Republicans or lawmakers anywhere requesting funds for important infrastructure projects like those taking place at the Savannah Port Authority. It is however highly inconsistent to run political campaigns demonizing government and promoting the free market as the solution to all economic problems and then complain when you are unable to receive federal dollars for your home-state project — which you are willing to admit creates jobs and helps the economy.

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