Many military and congressional leaders, however, have registered their opposition to the military cuts in the sequestration, with one saying it would “hollow” the military.

The Foreign Policy Initiative compiled a list of legislative, executive, and military leaders, who have opposed the sequestration cuts.

Here are three highlights from military leaders:

General Raymond Odierno (Chief of Staff, U.S. Army): “With sequestration, my assessment is that the Nation would incur an unacceptable level of strategic and operational risk.” (November 2, 2011)

General James F. Amos (Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps): “We as a nation don’t even know, or have not got a sense of appreciation for, the impact that sequestration’s going to have on the Department of Defense… I don’t think we understand the magnitude of the impact that sequestration would have.” (November 14, 2011)

General Jonathan Greenert (Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy): “…[I]n my view sequestration will cause irreversible damage. It will hollow the military and we will be out of balance in manpower, both military and civilian, procurement and modernization. We are a capital intensive force and going in and summarily reducing procurement accounts here and there will upset quite a bit of our industrial base, which in my view, if we get into sequestration, might be irrecoverable.” (November 2, 2011)

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta expressed exasperation at the looming prospect of the sequestration cuts, saying, “I’ll take whatever the hell kind of deal they can make now with sequestration.”

AEI has said no such thing, though.

Alex Brill of the American Enterprise Institute wrote that the Tax Policy Center’s study—the one so heavily cited by the Obama campaign that claims a President Romney would institute tax hikes on the middle class—actually “falls apart.”

Brill found that, in order to keep the budget revenue neutral under the new tax cuts and closed loopholes, the government would actually have to cut, not raise, taxes on the middle class.

Brill also excoriated the TPC for misusing his work, calling their conclusion “a false interpretation of our research.”

Yet Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has said that the sanctions are not working:

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged Monday that increasingly stiff international sanctions have yet to compel Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Panetta expressed hope that the sanctions would compel Iran to “do what’s right.”

Panetta said, “These sanctions are having a serious impact in terms of the economy in Iran,” but he said that “the results … may not be obvious at the moment.”

“One word American’s don’t like, mandate, they don’t like the word mandate,” Biden said during a forum on health care reform. “I don’t want to make this hard, I want to make this simple, and not susceptible to what some of the insurance companies and the right wing will argue this is: a mandated socialistic system. I don’t want Harry and Louise eating me alive. Remember Harry and Louise?”

“Harry and Louise” is a reference to the fictional couple featured in an ad campaign that is largely credited with derailing President Clinton’s attempt at health care reform in the mid-1990s.

Biden’s assessment turned out to be right. The president’s health care law, on which the Supreme Court is expected to rule sometime next week, remains very unpopular. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll found that 41 percent of Americans want the entire law thrown out, and another 27 percent want the individual mandate to be struck down.

The New York Times reveals that Katzenberg’s silent Chinese partner in the deal is Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Communist Party leader and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

What the New York Times does not reveal is that Katzenberg is the largest donor to President Obama’s Super PAC Priorities USA at $2 million and a major bundler to the Obama campaign, having raised more than $500,000 for the President’s reelection campaign.

Also not revealed by the New York Times, Katzenberg and his studio are currently under SEC investigation for bribing Chinese officials in order to obtain access to the Chinese market.

The Dreamworks deal has raised questions about pay for play on the American side as well. The nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation notes that Katzenberg’s deal was made possible with help from the Obama administration, which arranged a meeting for Katzenberg with Chinese Vice President and heir apparent Xi Jingping after his White House visit in February. Xi traveled from the White House to Los Angeles to sign the deal with the major Obama donor.

The Sunlight Foundation asks if “Katzenberg’s support for Obama fast-track[ed his] movie deal with China?” But Dreamworks would not respond to on-the-record questions from the good government watchdog group.

Vice President Biden also personally engaged in the negotiations with the Chinese government in advance of Katzenberg’s deal that effectively raised the number of U.S. films that could be released in the Chinese market each year—an agreement that made the Katzenberg deal significantly more valuable.

Earlier this month, President Obama embraced Katzenberg just days after the SEC announced its investigation. “I want to thank Jeffrey (Katzenberg) not just for this evening, but for his tenacious support and advocacy since we started back in 2007. He has consistently been there for me, through thick and through thin,” Obama said.

“The only person I don’t have to remind [of how difficult the 2008 campaign was] is Jeffrey because he was there, through all the ups and downs, and occasionally he would call, and he would say, ‘Barack, I don’t think that things are working the way they’re supposed to.’”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Actor George Clooney said Saturday that a fundraising dinner at his Los Angeles home on May 10 would raise $10 million for the president’s re-election, the largest amount ever for a single Obama campaign event. If true, that would exceed the sum the Obama campaign raised from the entertainment industry in the 2008 presidential race.

Obama campaign officials said Sunday that Mr. Clooney’s number may be inflated, but they concurred that the event, priced at $40,000 a person, is likely to be lucrative. And it may signal that Mr. Obama successfully mollified dismayed Hollywood executives when he personally called them in the wake of the January antipiracy decision.

“I believe the next event we have out here will be among the most successful events that we’ve had for him or anybody,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.  and dinner co-host.

DreamWorks Animation and several other major Hollywood studios recently secured a deal to expand U.S. film presence in China. The agreement was announced just days after Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping held an extensive meeting with Obama in Washington, followed by the Chinese Vice President’s trip to Los Angeles to meet with Katzenberg.

DreamWorks also negotiated a $2 billion deal with the Chinese government for the company to build a production studio in Shanghai.

At the time, Katzenberg’s spokeswoman Jennifer Lin told the Free Beacon there had been no collusion between the White House and Katzenberg. However, the New York Times reported that Vice President Joe Biden was personally involved in the negotiations.

According to the White House, “Together, [the Bidens] reported adjusted gross income of $379,035. The Bidens paid $87,900 in total federal tax for 2011. They paid $13,843 in Delaware income tax and $3,614 in Virginia income tax. The Bidens contributed $5,540 to charity in 2011.”

In other words, the Bidens donated less than 1.5 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity.

As documented by New York Times columnist and social science expert Nicholas Kristof, this apparent reluctance to donate to charity is somewhat of an epidemic among the liberal populace.

Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday he believes the right’s “war on women is real” and could be particularly salient during the multiple Supreme Court appointments he expects to come during the next president’s term.

“I think the war on women is real,” Biden said in an interview he sat for with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz as part of a campaign trip to New Hampshire to talk up the Buffett rule. “And, look, I tell you where it’s going to intensify: the next president of the United States is going to get to name one and possibly two or more members of the Supreme Court.”

Biden’s remarks came in the wake of the political firestorm set off by Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, who accused the wife of presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney of having “never actually worked a day in her life.”

Rosen had also suggested that Democrats are not responsible for, and do not use, the term “war on women.”

“Can we just get rid of this word, ‘war on women’?” she said Wednesday on CNN. “The Obama campaign does not use it, President Obama does not use it—this is something that the Republicans are accusing people of using, but they’re actually the ones spreading it.”

The unease comes as two long-time U.S. enemies inch closer toward nuclear power.

The Obama administration is facing two critical foreign-policy challenges this week that Republicans and Democrats say could define President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy record as he seeks re-election.

Both of the developments—a planned rocket launch by Pyongyang and talks aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program—offer opportunities and serious tests for the White House.

Biden told supporters in October 2008 that “we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

He told the crowd that the best way to prepare for such crises would be increased campaign donations to Obama, before advising supporters to “gird your loins.”