Sunday Book Thread
— Monty

Leftist ideology has been part-and-parcel of Hollywood for a long, long time. Ronald and Allias Radosh have written a book that sheds some light on how this came to be. Red Star Over Hollywood isn't the last word on the issue, but it provides some valuable background on how Hollywood became such a bastion of leftist politics. The end of the studio system essentially let the inmates run the asylum -- the notion that Hollywood is driven by money rather than ideology is a lie. (Which has been obvious for years and years, really, and explains movies like Warren Beatty's Reds and Robert DeNiro's Guilty By Suspicion, not to mention George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck.)

A good companion volume, if you're interested in the history of socialist/communist apologia in the United States, is In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. This book provides a lot of insight into why leftists have never really adjusted to the fall of the USSR and the discrediting of the Communist ideology -- the fall of Communist ideology left a hole in the center of the leftist worldview that's never really been refilled. (Leftists attacked Robert Conquest's The Great Terror as baseless Western propaganda for years until the Venona archives and other Soviet-era files proved it to be mostly correct.)

What has everyone else been reading?

Posted by: Monty at 05:17 AM | Comments (98)
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Sunday Morning Non-book Open Thread
— andy

Today could get interesting with the debt ceiling theater ... err, meeting ... at the White House this evening.

Posted by: andy at 04:24 AM | Comments (131)
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Overnight Thread-Just Stuff Edition [CDR M]
— Open Blogger

Evening Moron Nation! A couple of weeks ago I posted in the sidebar a story about the record retention rates in the military and that it was a sign that the economy is in the tank. Now today I see a CNN story that highlights another aspect of the worsening economy and the military. Unemployed? Don't Count On The Military. Yup, we're downsizing and forcing early retirements and pickin' and choosin' who gets to come in.

"The average junior enlisted member, typically with just a high school degree, earns approximately $43,000 per year," Smith said. And that doesn't include benefits like free medical care and a government-paid retirement package that kicks in with 20 years of active-duty service.

I don't think CNN knows what a real junior enlisted member makes but it sure as hell ain't $43K. Hell an E-5 with 10 years in is only pulling down around $35K in basic pay. Before taxes. Nice touch CNN by noting how military pay has increased beyond what the private sector has in the last 10 years but you forgot to mention how military pay was BEHIND the civilian sector for similar type jobs for a long time prior to the last decade. The military was just coming up on par with the civilian sector when the economy went pffttt. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:25 PM | Comments (319)
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Split Between Boehner and Cantor?
— rdbrewer

Update: The original text of the WaPo article, the source of the quote below, appears to be gone. However, Cleveland.com has the text from the original article.

From the Washington Post:

Boehner is under even more pressure than the president and felt the need to tell his restive troops on Friday that no deal was imminent. He has been warned by his colleagues, among them House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), that he will have a revolt on his hands if he tries to strike this deal. Cantor has said he will not support what Boehner seems to be considering.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a split. I've had some doubts about Speaker Boehner's basic negotiating skills ever since that interview with Chris Wallace last winter when he reassured everyone that a government shutdown wasn't on the table. Whether or not that was true, it's not something you would want to reveal before reaching a deal.

Then what kind of deal did we get? Remember the 2011 budget deal? That's the one that was sold to the public as 100 billion in cuts. And then it became 61 billion in cuts. Then it became 38 billion. Then 25 billion. And then something like 352 million, depending on who you read.

And what did Speaker Boehner say last week? He said we had a 50-50 chance of reaching a deal by Sunday. Again, not something you would want to say at that point in time. The rhetorical goal is to bluff the other side until the last possible crumb is gone from the table, and that means acting like your inner gorilla who secretly wants doom is about to come out of the closet. And that you're doing all you can to keep all the other crazy Republican gorillas in their respective closets. (And that's not even all that far from the truth with the new GOP class.) You're likely crazy, and you just might drive the car over the ledge. That kind of thing. Then you get your best deal.

I told Ace and the cobs the Democrats never seem to make this mistake. And about an hour later, Obama warned that both sides stood "far apart" on a debt deal. See? See how it's done? That's the first thing Speaker Boehner should have said.

In fairness, Speaker Boehner did backup yesterday, "ItÂ’s not like thereÂ’s some imminent deal about to happen."

Regardless, in poker you look for tells. I'm getting the impression that Speaker Boehner doesn't like hard negotiation. He favors collegiality. He just wants people to be reasonable and to get along. Heck, I'd prefer that too. But when was Nancy Pelosi ever reasonable? Was she ever concerned with getting along? Every time the Democrats make a hard stand and we compromise, we end up moving closer to their position.

It is beginning to look like Republicans have a tell, Speaker Boehner.

So am I supposed to rest easy now and believe that this crew is negotiating another killer deal for us?

Update: Boehner says no deal:

"Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase."

That's good, but it's likely Obama and the Democrats knew all along the GOP couldn't accept any tax increase, and that the tax increase proposal is really cover for something else--a shield for what they really want. In a way, it has a dual purpose: First, to see if they could get away with it. I mean, hey, might as well. Second, to create a straw man, meant to be knocked over. It's set up specifically for that purpose, to give Boehner, Cantor, and the GOP something to brag about--an excuse to take less. "We didn't get what we wanted, but they didn't get that tax increase!" It gives leadership a way to portray a loss as a victory. We'll see.

Update 2: The straw man: So, the Democrats demanded a tax increase in order to get lower spending cuts? Was that it? Classic. See how that works? Simply by demanding something absurd, something they knew they would never get, the Democrats gave Boehner an excuse to take less. And Boehner even offered the compromise. That might not be it, of course, but it has that look.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 05:40 PM | Comments (114)
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Debt Ceiling Showdown
— Dave in Texas

Two links from James Pethokoukis.

We've been reading and fretting about House Republican leadership, i.e. Boehner et.al. cracking on tax hikes for debt reduction promises. Having been sorely disappointed over the last CR fight, no wonder, right?

I'm not prepared to give up my concerns, mostly because if any of their junior staffers read this thing I want em to know in no uncertain terms, there won't be a job created over a goddamn tax hike on anyone.

HERE'S a concrete example of why caving on "subsidies for big oil", to pick an example, is dead wrong. The tax code grants all US manufacturers of products an incentive, a "loophole", a BREAK, of 7%.

Except for refining gas, which only gets 4%.

You give that up, all that happens is the price at the pump goes up. It gets passed on as a cost to the consumer.

That would, what's the word I'm looking for here? It would f'n SUCK that's what.

I am hopeful the Republican leadership gets this.

Link one I just like the title of it.

WH is demanding major, unambiguous tax hikes. To get spending caps & entitlement tweaks, greater economic pain appears to be the WH’s asking price. It is increasingly likely that we aren’t going to see a ‘big’ deal if the WH doesn’t budge. Speaker looks to be holding strong. …

Their fierce insistence on higher taxes is beyond bizarre.

After months of demanding ‘clean’ increase to avert economic calamity (default), WH threatens economic calamity (default) unless they get economic calamity (trillions in tax hikes). No wonder these guys are governing over an economic calamity (9.2% & growth malaise), w an economic calamity on the horizon (debt explosion as mapped out in president’s budget).

Bizarre? Dope smoking bizarre, to fling these threats down. CRACK SMOKING bizarre if the House R's fall for em.

Link 2. Statement from Boehner's office.

"Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes. I believe the best approach may be to focus on producing a smaller measure, based on the cuts identified in the Biden-led negotiations, that still meets our call for spending reforms and cuts greater than the amount of any debt limit increase."

So the White House is digging it's heels in after empty promises, and we're negotiating downward on the tax hike argument.

I find a) digging in on no tax increases encouraging, but b) scaling down the larger opportunity for reform less so.

I don't believe we can hammer this whole thing down in a weekend argument over the debt ceiling, but I do believe we can dig in enough to win a large part of this argument AND set the landscape for 2012.

And I really believe 2012 is what all this crap is about.

(yes, I have been awarded an MFO*, Fall 200

*Master's of the F'n' Obvious

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:48 PM | Comments (170)
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With "Elites" Like These, Is It Any Wonder We're Screwed?
— andy

The Wall Street Journal has a couple of hilarious pieces on the opinion page this weekend. I would say unintentionally hilarious, but they've published a couple of howlers lately (like this one by a Chicago labor attorney on the NLRB/Boeing flap), which makes me wonder if this isn't part of a slick new marketing strategy by the eevilll Rubert Murdoch.

First up, this one from Bob Herbold, former COO of Microsoft, entitled: China vs. America: Which Is the Developing Country? From new roads to wise leadership, sound financials and five-year plans, Beijing has the winning approach.

You don't even have to get past the subhead for the first "WTF?" moment. Five-year plans? Are you fucking kidding me? In the article, he elaborates (without any sense of irony):

In every meeting we attended, with four different customers of our company as well as representatives from four different arms of the Chinese government, our hosts began their presentation with a brief discussion of China's new five-year-plan. This is the 12th five-year plan and it was announced in March 2011. Each of these groups reminded us that the new five-year plan is primarily focused on three things: 1) improving innovation in the country; 2) making significant improvements in the environmental footprint of China; and 3) continuing to create jobs to employ large numbers of people moving from rural to urban areas. Can you imagine the U.S. Congress and president emerging with a unified five-year plan that they actually achieve (like China typically does)?

Head, meet desk. I'm sure Herbold's a smart guy and all, but you'd think he'd be a little suspicious of this. First, when I hear "five year plan", I think of the Soviet Union's endless series of them. Well, endless until the USSR dissolved, anyway. Oh, this is China's 12th such five-year plan, you say? I rest my case.

Also, these five-year plans seem to lead to the building of a lot of ghost cities and deserted railway terminals. Chinese Potemkin Villages with high-speed rail ... wherever Tom Friedman is, I bet he just sprung a woody.

Wouldn't you think that having communist party drones pitch you the exact same line about their wonderful five-year plans on no fewer than eight separate occasions would set off some alarm bells? Oh, and they typically achieve these plans? Yeah, and Oceania was always at war with Eastasia, too.

But wait, there's more. In his continued laundry list extolling the wonders of modern China, he highlights this contrast in views on human rights and free speech:

In this area, our American view is that China has a ton of work to do. Their view is that we are nuts for not blocking pornography and antigovernment points-of-view from our youth and citizens. (emphasis added)

This is some kind of virtue? On the other hand, it sheds a little light on the stunning success of those five-year plans, doesn't it. Read the whole thing to gain some insight into why MSFT has been dead money for the last dozen years.

If that was bad, though, this is worse because it comes from someone nominally on the home team ... more...

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Did Obama's Auto Bailout Chief Lie Under Oath?
— rdbrewer

Byron York:

Investigators for the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform are asking the White House official who oversaw the government bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler whether he told the truth in recent testimony before the committee. Ron Bloom, Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy, is quoted in a 2009 newspaper account and a 2010 book saying of the auto bailouts that he "did this all for the unions." But when Bloom appeared before the committee on June 22, he flatly denied ever saying those words.

. . .

Rep. Burton: Well, did you say this at a dinner? There was a dinner and it was reported by David Shepardson, Washington correspondent for the Detroit News. At a farewell dinner of the Auto Task Force held in the restaurant Rosa Mexicano in late July 2009 that you allegedly said "I did this all for the unions."

Mr. Bloom: No I did not say that.

Rep. Burton: You didn't say that?

Mr. Bloom: No sir.

Rep. Burton: So, you were misquoted?

Mr. Bloom: That's correct.

That seems clear. There are also claims it was said in jest. But judging from the above, Bloom might have a problem regardless.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 12:40 PM | Comments (78)
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27 Ballplayers Had 3000 Career Hits. Jeter Homers into the Club
— Dave in Texas

Not a bad way to join up.

(full disclosure I am a Rangers fan. I despise the Yankees. I only wish George Steinbrenner was still around to dump on too.)

Still, in baseball, that's quite an accomplishment. He jacked it into deep left. And it was cool that the Rays stepped out and applauded it too.

3-2 Tampa Bay, top of the 4th.

ALSO: Heh. Via Pupster at H2.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 10:28 AM | Comments (68)
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Movie Review: Bad Teacher -- Two and a Half Stars
— Ace

Not nearly as funny as the trailer suggested, though still so-so funny. It's more interesting, oddly enough, as a Rorsharch test on feminism. Because a lot of critics despised Diaz's character, and I think that's due to a mix of (if you can imagine this) a combination of sexism and feminism (which is itself often just a dunderheadedly pro-woman sexism).

First up, the actual movie. This is one of those movies where the trailer does indeed contain all the movie's best jokes. In fact, several good jokes from the trailer were cut, inexplicably, from the film. And the trailer basically previews the template of all the other jokes it doesn't explicitly reveal, inappropriate cursing around children, walking into class bleary-eyed and hung over and high, Diaz dressing like a high-class tramp to teach middle school, etc.

So even the jokes you haven't seen? You've kind of seen them.

This is not a bad movie at all, and not at all unfunny. I've seen bad comedies where literally nothing is funny, where I've actually been confused as to what the filmmakers believed I would find funny.

This is not that kind of total-loss comedy, not even close. The jokes here are funny, but almost all the jokes not in the trailer are the chuckle/smile type, not the explosive laugh type. Almost all the jokes land; few of them land very hard, though.

You won't walk out of the movie quoting lines. In fact, you'll have difficulty remembering any. (Except the ones from the trailer.)

The four leads all help their careers a lot here. An actress I've never heard of before (I think she's British) named Emily Punch is very good as the weird rival teacher, appropriately named "Amy Squirrel." Justin Timberlake proves he can act, at least in an undemanding light-comedy role, and Jason Segal proves he can be a credible leading man/romantic interest in a comedy. I know, he sort of already proved that in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but that was his own movie, written to his own strengths; here he proves he can just show up in a movie not written by himself and play the Handsome (?-- sorta) Love Interest.

And Cameron Diaz plays a role that women usually don't get to play. Much, much, much more on this after the jump.

I'd recommend it, but with those caveats. Turn expectations down to medium-low and enjoy it as a semi-successful, not terribly ambitious or inventive disposable comedy, and it works just fine, and passes the time nicely, and you'll have some small laughs consistently.

On to the sexual politics part. 2011 is going to be remembered as an important year in movies, as the Year of Women in Comedy. Bad Teacher is not nearly as good a movie as Bridesmaids -- not even close -- but it deserves a mention alongside it as far as 2011's female comedy breakout. Because Bad Teacher finally allows female comedy actors to play the role male comedy actors have long enjoyed -- the Rogue. more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:21 AM | Comments (209)
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Happy Birthday to the Republic of South Sudan, World's Newest Nation
— CAC

The United States, Israel, Norway, Egypt, and the Vatican were lightning-fast in recognizing South Sudan, created after years of fighting with its (former) genocidal northern leaders.

Something most shocking about this story, however, was the New York Times' coverage, in which WorseThanHitlerSatanPigDevilMonster himself is (at least partially) credited for this:

Christian groups had been championing the southern Sudanese since the 19th century. And their efforts paid off in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. He elevated Sudan to the top of his foreign policy agenda, and in 2005, the American government pushed the southern rebels and the central government — both war weary and locked in a military stalemate — to sign a comprehensive peace agreement that guaranteed the southerners the right to secede.

On Saturday, one man held up a sign that said "Thank You George Bush."

The American-backed treaty set the stage for a referendum this January in which southerners voted by 98.8 percent for independence.

At 1:20 p.m. on Saturday, the southerners officially proclaimed their freedom.

Oh, little rule for ruthless people everywhere- if you are going to attack a portion of your own nation, try to avoid the part with 85% of your oil.
Full NYT article here.

Posted by: CAC at 09:29 AM | Comments (76)
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