I picked this off of google cache, written post election, Nov 18 2008, marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives
Obama Wants Orszag At OMB
18 Nov 2008 03:05 pm
Barack Obama has tapped CBO director Peter Orszag to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, my collegues at National Journal report today.
He's a youngish overachiever, just 40, and subscribes to the theory of what he once called "cool-headed, warm-hearted" economic policy. Judging by his blog, Orszag has smart and interesting things to say about the intersection of psychology and economics, the long-term vs. short-term effects of climate change legislation, honest budgeting and accounting, and lots more.
OMB is the executive branch's budgetary arm and management oversight evaluator. The director serves as a key presidential adviser on the economy and is responsible for projecting the fiscal consequences of any presidential decision. OMB would figure out how much Barack Obama's health care plan will cost, for example, as it gets introduced in Congress. It'll score every bill that Congress sends to Obama. It's the repository of policy, responsible for official statements. More to the point, though, is that OMB will administer Obama's transparency agenda. Regulatory reform will originate at OMB.
This is going to be an action packed weekend in DC and around the nation. On Friday, there will be protests of Yoo. On Saturday, there will be a massive antiwar demonstration (there will also be demonstrations in Philly, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and South Dakota, among other places). On Sunday, there will be a large march for immigration reform. And there will be other related events around the country, along with the small protests and events that happen all the time.
So join me below the fold to see how you can effect change this weekend.
A reporter with the Scotland Herald, Mr. Rob Edwards, is reporting that the U.S. may be gearing up for an attack on Iran.
According to the report, "A shipping company based in Florida, Superior Maritime Services, will be paid $699,500 to carry many thousands of military items from Concord, California, to Diego Garcia."
Also, it is reported that among the cargo are "192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs."
Can this be true? I'm very, VERY skeptical about this report for a few reasons.
"People who heard what Biden said [to Israeli officials behind closed doors] were stunned," the centrist Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported. "'This is starting to get dangerous for us,' Biden castigated his interlocutors. 'What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace.'"
"In language that could only have been finalized shortly before he delivered the speech, Biden reiterated that it was Israel's perceived breach of trust that had been so galling - at a time, with the fragile proximity talks just getting under way, when trust was at a premium," Jerusalem Post editorialist David Horovitz wrote Thursday.
Ackerman:
http://attackerman.firedoglake... Today Secretary Clinton got in the act. Netanyahu is an obstructionist and it's good to see the Obama administration remind Israelis that its interests are not abstract things. The truth is it's not "starting" to get dangerous for us.
My friend Daniel Levy has forgotten more about Israeli politics than I'll know and he writes that Netanyahu may be the last best hope for the two-state solution. For the life of me I just don't understand the logic. As best as I can understand, Daniel believes Netanyahu's obstructionism, combined with statebuilding efforts from Salam Fayyad in the West bank, will strengthen international support for... what? Imposing a solution on Israel?
Catch the commenter #8 on March 14th 2010 at 11:09 am, at FDL
Roll out the sternly worded speeches.
Did Biden really say the U.S. troops are fighting in Pakistan? And there weren't headlines on that?
"undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Aye yup. When one pits one Muslim country after another, against another non Muslim country, one who is already small in size but mighty in power, with a history of justified paranoia because of World War II, it can get dangerous for the perpetrator. But who ever thought it would be .... us ?
It is being reported that the television show '24' is ending. Good riddance. If you don't know about the show, it featured a character named Jack Bauer, who, when faced with "ticking time bomb" scenarios wasn't afraid to use a little torture to get the plot and save the day.
But, what was '24' ACTUALLY used for, and, what was the result of it?
Having been to Iraq during two wars, the Gulf War in 1991 and the Iraq Invasion in 2006, there are differences I found between the two wars, and my experiences, that I have wanted people to read.
Four War on Terra stories for a Wednesday afternoon:
1. The House of Representatives just voted No on a resolution to direct the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan within 30 days, or by Dec 31, 2010 if a later date is safer. 65 to 356. H Conn RES 248 was sponsored by Dennish Kucinich of Ohio and had 19 co sponsors. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201...
Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) is down as a NO vote inspite of this story on HuffPo where he yells at the MSM for not paying attention to this national debate. "We're talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press! No press !" WTF? No vote, dude! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The Yes on withdrawal votes were as follows. We thank the 5 Republicans who also voted for this (marked with ••).
Baldwin
••Campbell, John, CA 48
Capuano
Chu
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Crowley
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
Doyle
••Duncan John TN- 2
Edwards (MD)
Ellison
Farr
Filner
Frank (MA)
Grayson
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hastings (FL)
Jackson (IL)
Jackson Lee (TX)
••Johnson Timothy (IL- 15)
Johnson, E. B.
••Jones Walter NC -3
Kagen
Kucinich
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Lewis (GA)
Maffei
Maloney
Markey (MA)
McDermott
McGovern
Michaud
Miller, George
Nadler (NY)
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Obey
Olver
••Paul, Ron, TX 14
Payne
Pingree (ME)
Polis (CO)
Quigley
Rangel
Richardson
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Schakowsky
Serrano
Speier
Stark
Stupak
Tierney
Towns
Tsongas
Velázquez
Waters
Watson
Welch
Woolsey
Less than two weeks after the well-publicized capture by Pakistani security forces of the Taliban's 2nd in command, Pakistan scored an even bigger coup by assisting in the capture of the leader and founder of the notorious terrorist group Jundallah, Abdolmalek Rigi.
Unlike the capture of the Taliban leader, Rigi's capture has received very little press attention in America. There is an obvious reason for it.
Moslehi said Rigi had been in a US military base 24 hours before his arrest and was carrying an Afghan passport supplied by the US.
Since then Rigi has confessed to one of the most open secrets in southern Asia.
In the tape, Mr Rigi alleged that the US had promised to provide his group with military equipment and a base in Afghanistan, near the Iranian border.
He says he was on his way to a meeting with a "high-ranking person" at the Manas US military base in Kyrgyzstan when he was captured.
And not only as to those leaders who send our Military to wars of choice but also the war profiteers who reap wealth from the huge defense budgets spent and these wars!
That was the slogan used by William Randolph Hearst and The New York Journal to stoke American public opinion into war with Spain after the U.S.S. Maine sunk in Cuban waters in 1898. However, Hearst started in the publishing business in 1887, when he took over the San Francisco Examiner.
William Randolph Hearst bought the failing New York Journal in 1896. His sensational journalism style, now called "yellow journalism", drove the failing paper to prominence. While there is no historical evidence of collusion between the government and the Journal to get public support for the war, and, in fact, the government wanted no part of going to war with Spain, there is plenty of evidence that there was collusion later. After spending time in the House of Representatives from 1903-1907, Hearst started several new papers in various cities with the help of the Democratic National Party in the 1920's.
The story of William Randolph Hearst is now history, but, history has a way of repeating itself. You see, Hearst saw profit in the Cuban revolt that occurred in 1895 and had been selling papers for years sensationalizing the Ten Years War in Cuba.
Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted -- but he also tread carefully on the issue, in line with his reputation for seeking to bridge the partisan divide. He worried that such a probe could be spun as "a partisan witch hunt." However, he said that equation changes if there was willful criminality, because "nobody is above the law."
The question was inspired by a recent report by ABC News, confirmed by the Associated Press, that high-level officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cabinet secretaries Colin Powell, John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld, among others, met in the White House and discussed the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques on terrorism suspects.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Raw Story
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
President George W. Bush's offhand acknowledgement in an interview Sunday with Fox's Brit Hume that he personally authorized the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may create thorny legal and moral problems for incoming President Barack Obama.
Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Monday, "We now have President Bush speaking quite candidly that he was in the loop, we have Dick Cheney who almost bragged about it. The question for Barack Obama is whether he wants to own part of this by looking the other way."
Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, "We have not made final decisions, but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward."
All most bragged about it? How about admitted it. Not only did the media "yawn", so did the Obama and the Justice Department
In that parallel world from the reality around them and elsewhere, you'll get some as you go down but the kicker is the last report.
This type of thought process by the hawkish must end, unless the rest of the world communities want perpetual war and criminal terrorism as we've experienced over the last decades and now the chances of even more have been greatly enhanced with the death and destruction wrought by the so called mighty who followed same thought process into the creation of greater hatreds and enemies!
Framing, as a theoretical concept, emerged from agenda setting--the notion that media coverage does not tell the public what to think, but it does have an effect in telling them what subjects to think about. (3)
Framing took agenda setting beyond audience salience and added that media coverage also indicated how that subject was to be approached by the audience, the acceptable range of terms, connections, and interpretations [...]
Framing also has roots in cognitive theories about how the human brain works. (6) It ties into schema theory, the idea that the synapses of our brains do not purely save and store facts. Instead, our brains link related ideas in associative patterns; ideas fitting patterns more easily find room than those with no existing "hook" to hold them.
Ideas need the right frame to have a lasting impact.
A frame must find a common "hook" in order to take up its new residence.
As part of a recent assignment, I was required to write up short, snappy summaries of candidates who are running this election cycle for political office. In so doing, I had to make sure to showcase their legislative accomplishments as well as to provide a bit of the personal to ensure that they seemed human and approachable, rather than robotic policy wonks. In the course of my work, what I couldn't help but notice was that, regardless of how Progressive a candidate claimed to be, he or she was always very careful to highlight his/her strong support of the military and of those who either currently served or had served in times past. To back up this claim, close family members and other relatives who had served in combat were visibly invoked, as were the specific bills proposed to assist both veterans and military families. This deliberate posturing was true to a person, even candidates who were bold enough to promote themselves as peace-loving doves.
As a rule, Quakers are strict believers in pacifism. Though I was not born into the faith, I have often attempted to reconcile my original thoughts on war with those which I believe now. I find, as is sometimes the case, that the two of them are often in conflict. Those who have studied wars in much detail, as I have, know that there is something about them that translates well to stirring narrative and romantic retelling. In time, the horror of battle subsides, as well as its impact upon the civilians caught in the middle, and we are left with a sort of gloried nostalgia that any sports fan can understand as he or she recalls in conversation some past victory and close defeat. Perhaps this is what Robert E. Lee meant when he said, "It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it."
Two choices lay before me. I could go out of my way to mention that this particular section of the work went against my religious beliefs, but doing so would draw attention to myself, perhaps unduly and to no good end. I would then be obligated to specify why I found it so objectionable, and while I have no doubt that my reservations would be noted and taken seriously, I'm not really sure that anyone would truly understand why I found the matter so odious and offensive. Or, instead, I could choose complete the task in full, not feeling especially good about it, and simply pass the baton to someone else so that it would no longer be my problem anymore. I regret to report that I chose the latter, since delegating an additional task to someone else already overburdened with work would cause delays and potentially result in resentment from whomever had to pick up where I left off.
Life, of course, is full of such compromises. I have no doubt that those of you reading this have run up against similar circumstances in your own lives. It may be a simple matter of, pardon the expression, knowing how and where to pick our battles. Few of us are fortunate enough to have the ability to be purists in all circumstances. In politics, only those fortunate few who run for office in cities, districts, or states overwhelmingly in support of one particular way of thinking ever truly get the ability to present a public face anything in line with their own private convictions. The game of politics as we know it states, in part, that one is only really indebted to one's last position statement, and moreover, anything said today can be compellingly rationalized away tomorrow if needed. It isn't just politicians who have a genius for rationalization. Humans have managed to become masters at the process.
Returning to the earlier point, my own inward leanings against war of any sort take me once again to the Sermon on the Mount and those old, familiar passages that many have committed to heart.
"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus doesn't equivocate here. He doesn't give us any wiggle room. He doesn't say, "Forgive your enemies, unless you're in danger of losing your job." He doesn't say, "Some of you were taught that if someone were to pluck out your eye, you have a right to pluck out theirs in retaliation, but don't do that, unless, of course, the laws on the books tell you otherwise." He doesn't say, "Love those who hate you, but I certainly concede that there are some people who simply aren't able to be loved without turning on you." Jesus wasn't exactly someone who practiced the art of Triangulation or who talked out of both sides of his mouth.
Emerson famously mentioned that to be great was to be misunderstood and I have always been uncomfortable with the phrasing and the sentiment. It can be easily construed as a justification for egotistical conduct and as a crutch to forgive deplorable behavior. I'd much rather put it another way alogether. To be a servant, putting yourself last and service to your fellow person first, is to be misunderstood. To live a spiritual life is to be misunderstood. To chart a course between pragmatism and idealism is to be misunderstood as well, but don't forget that to be fully misunderstood is to stick to your convictions even when others don't understand them. After all,
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
"Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God.
"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
These words are as shocking now as they were then and just as applicable.
As many know, there is a new movie out called, "The Hurt Locker", which is about a military Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team in Iraq.
A former EOD technician myself that was in Iraq in 1991, and, who was in Iraq in 2006 as a contractor, I was only able to watch half the movie before I had to turn it off. Some of the things in the movie were 100% true, and others, IF they were based on true events, totally astounded me. So, imagine my surprise that anyone would admit that the movie was based on THEIR actions.
That is what has occurred. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver is suing under the claim that he was the person that the movie was based upon.
There are two things I am going to discuss; the movie and Sarver's actions, and Iraq's claim that they may ask some of our troops to stay beyond the "leave" date.
This isn't rocket science, if the country had paid attention as we were returning from Vietnam and recognizing what that did to many of our brothers, thousands then, as we tried for decades to push the issues into the public conscious we'd be much more advanced in the understanding of what war and extreme trauma does to the human mind, especially from wars of choice. And it wasn't only as to our brothers! There also would have been a better understanding as to the civilian populations of these conflicts as well as those anywhere who live through the extreme trauma's, of many descriptions, that affect individuals in their own lives
Instead of writing a blog post and further destroying my wrists in the process, I figured I'd try something a little different.
Below you'll find a video that I cobbled together from pictures I found online and designs created by my partner, a talented graphic designer who was kind enough to take a few moments to indulge me. I am not a film director, nor do I desire to be one. It shows.
The song, however, is one that I think many people here will enjoy. It's called "Money Machine", and it was recorded live at Eddie's Attic in Atlanta. The album is entitled Jeff's Last Dance, by Kahler & Mullins. I was at this show. It's just two guys singing, one of whom plays the hell out of the congas. I suppose my affinity for this song results from the fact that I do possess an inner hippie (shhh!). The song is all about corporate greed & US militarism, but it actually manages to not sound cheesy. In fact, it happens to rock. I hope you enjoy my amateurish iMovie editing, which was intended to convey visually the sentiments expressed in the lyrics (with a bit of snarkiness). Even if you dislike the editing, I hope you'll enjoy the tune.
Forced to clean up what was left and wasn't even considered as we sent our soldiers, not into one more failed policy War and long Occupation of others but a second one as well, both still ongoing, both still creating soldiers and veterans, as well as families of, who are owed, more then any previous as they serve in both theaters and multiple tours, adding to all those that preceded and the numbers grow even as us older vets pass on, some getting the help some not and being fought for every step of the way!
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
Less than two weeks after the 
