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.
Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you're not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen.
In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI. In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire. More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.
As for airplane fatalities, no American died in a crash of a U.S. carrier in either 2007 or 2008, despite 1.5 billion passengers transported. In 2009, planes certainly went down and people died. In June, for instance, a French flight on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared in bad weather over the Atlantic, killing 226. Continental Connection Flight 3407, a regional commuter flight, crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, that February killing 50, the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial flight since August 2006. And in January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, assaulted by a flock of birds, managed a brilliant landing in New York's Hudson River when disaster might have ensued. In none of these years did an airplane go down anywhere due to terrorism, though in 2007 two terrorists smashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane tanks into the terminal of Glasgow International Airport. (No one was killed.)
The now-infamous Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and his bomb-laden underwear toward Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, had 290 passengers and crew, all of whom survived.
Seven CIA employees were killed and six others injured in a terrorist attack on a base in eastern Afghanistan as the agency steps up its presence in the country alongside thousands more U.S. military forces.
President Barack Obama told Central Intelligence Agency employees yesterday that their colleagues who died Dec. 30 were "patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens and for our way of life."
"In recent years, the CIA has been tested as never before," Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, said in the letter to agency employees.
"... Dick Cheney isn't sorry about any of it." In his ABC News interview he "betrayed no second thoughts - and certainly no remorse - about the policies pursued by the administration that he both served and, according to some, led.
But Cheney's role is an old, if still developing story. After all, he warned us five days after Sept. 11 that our government would work on the "dark side." He told the late Tim Russert, "We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies." ...
The Presumption of Innocence, and other Quaint Ideals
Presumption of Innocence (Innocent until proven guilty)
A principle that requires the government to prove the guilt of a criminal defendant and relieves the defendant of any burden to prove his or her innocence.
The presumption of innocence, an ancient tenet of Criminal Law, is actually a misnomer. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the presumption of the innocence of a criminal defendant is best described as an assumption of innocence that is indulged in the absence of contrary evidence
[...]
the presumption of innocence is essential to the criminal process. The mere mention of the phrase presumed innocent keeps judges and juries focused on the ultimate issue at hand in a criminal case: whether the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the alleged acts. The people of the United States have rejected the alternative to a presumption of innocence-a presumption of guilt-as being inquisitorial and contrary to the principles of a free society.
Still another US air strike killing dozens of civilians in Afghanistan, still another promise by the Pentagon to "investigate", while in Washington President Obama hosts the AfPak summit with "Af" Hamid Karzai" and "Pak" Ali Zardari.
Obama's surge in Afghanistan will ensure a steady supply of "collateral damage", even though sane military voices condemn "democracy at gunpoint" and Taliban "tacticians" mock Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency tactics.
The Bush "war on terror" has been rebranded as "overseas contingency operations" (OCO) by the Obama administration.
Pepe Escobar argues everything remains the same, but with a new twist: Washington selling OCO in AfPak to US public opinion not as an American war - but as a Pakistani war.
Real News Network - May 08, 2009 Killing them softly with air strikes
Pepe Escobar on how the rebranded "war on terror" is being sold as a PAKISTANI war
I used to be a real hotshot pilot in another life. A brilliant master of my stratospheric domain. A truly reptilian, crazed-genius fusion of Han Solo and Kara Thrace. In this life...well, I have a paralyzing fear of flight-but vague recollections in the deepest recesses of my lizard brain seem to confirm a glorious, hot-dogging chapter of my soul's ancient history. It's something I cling to desperately in the current frightful times, because everything else I remember is an ugly black hole of fear. I've always been afraid of something or other, as far back as I can remember. It's shameful and embarrassing to admit, but eventually one has to face up to one's inadequacies, because let's be honest with each other here, man-we've all been in a scary, dark tunnel for a long time now, and I have certain concerns about the light everyone seems to be seeing these days.
There has been plenty of controversy on the issue of conducting a Congressional or independent investigation into the interrogations policy and torture activities of the Bush administration over the last seven or eight years.
One of the primary worries by those who oppose a "truth and reconciliation"-style investigation is that it would preempt possible prosecutions, or at worst, be a cover-up of some of the worst crimes involved. Those who favor such an investigation believe that is only with a broad investigation will all the information really be unearthed.
The hearing today by the Senate Judiciary Committee -- "Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry" -- chaired by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), was called to explore options for investigating past torture and counter-terrorism policy. The committee called six witnesses, some for, some against such an investigation. But a close look at the backgrounds and affiliations of even most of the pro-investigation witnesses should give us deep pause, and ask what kind of commission are we being set up for?
The producers of a unique documentary sent me a DVD copy of their independent documentary, "The Warning." They hoped they would get a good review, and they needn't have worried.
"The Warning," written, produced, and directed by Joseph P. Sottile, consists entirely of interviews with five well-known liberal authors (see below). Rather than questions and answers, the interviewees are allowed to speak for themselves. Occasionally, they even read appropriate selections from their works.
But rather than a boring word fest, the seriousness of the work gives it a riveting feel. The subject is nothing less than the descent of the United States into a ruthless totalitarian state, which relies on state torture, an imperial executive, widespread surveillance, the conscious use of fear-laden propaganda, a docile press, and the influence of a radical Christian core of believers to spread the program in institutions throughout civil society.
Mr. President, have I been rolled? I write today to ask this question, because it is truly, critically important to me as a citizen and a voter. All my life I have derided single issue voters, after all can't they see that there is a bigger picture beyond their issue? That they find it compelling and are sincere in their commitment is not in doubt, but there has to be a balancing of the issues in any democracy. Now, I find myself in the position of being a single issue voter. It is due to the fact that there is finally an issue that is so overriding, so critical to the very notion of what it means for all of us to be Americans that I find myself in this position. That issue, Mr. President, is the extra legal holding, rendition and torture of prisoners in the so-called War on Terror.
Those spreading or falling for the cheney/bush administration spin on the Released Guantanamo Prisoners going directly back into the Guerilla/Insurgent conflict and or Criminal Terrorism might want to educate themselves on the studies exposing that the government numbers just don't Tell The Truth, not surprising!!
On the Rachel Maddow show last night, 1-16-09. she had a discussion with Professor Mark P. Denbeaux, Director of Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, who supervises a group of talented Seton Hall students in preparing a series of Reports concerning the United States Navy Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
As in "PULL YOUR REPTILIAN & LIMBIC BRAINS OUT OF YOUR ASS, AND USE YOUR CEREBRAL CORTEX."
* There are actual numbers to back me up on this, but you know, in the interest of keeping it simple, and the fact that I, as a middle aged housewife with no education typing away with my first cup of coffee, have no interest in googling numbers AT ALL, am going to suggest if you don't get the overall premise, Google may or may not be able to help you anyway. So have at it. I have run-on sentences to write.
Fear reflex is a good thing. It makes you duck when your kid hits a good hard fastball right back at your head when you pitch to him, and you only catch it peripherally too late because you are looking at your flowerbed over his shoulder thinking you should be weeding.
That's what the lower function in your brains are for. They are NOT meant to be your primary data functioning unit.
So, using your cerebral cortex, the best reaction in such a case would be to realize you are becoming as ADD as the rest of America, choose to focus on your kid and the game, rationalize that your child is only young once, think, "FUCK THOSE WEEDS" and PLAY WITH HIM.
Were you to process this, keeping that REPTILIAN BRAIN to the forefront, you would instead think baseball evil, and your child under suspicion of trying to kill you. You would tell your husband for your own safety to ground him to his room forever, and watch his every word and move. Then you would start being suspicious of every one of those Motherfucking OUT TO GET you little bastards in America wearing baseball hats.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you're not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen.
