To most Glenn Beck fans, Saturday's "828 Restoring Honor" rally was a success. Supporters surrounded the reflecting pool, as the conservative lightning rod ditched his tri-cornered political commentator's hat and donned a religious one instead. "This is like a big revival," Cherrie Welch said minutes before Beck took the stage. She attended the rally with her husband, Tracy. "Sorta like a huge non-secular revival." Tracy insisted that he was not a tea party member. While Beck did not promote a religion, and his supporters were hesitant to use that word, his speech focused on America's need to "turn to God." It was a sentiment that was echoed by Beck fans. "He's down to where we must put our faith back in God and we must get back to what we were founded on," Anthony Foster said. "The true foundation of the country -- that's where God comes in." "This country was created by God, our creator. The problem is, the country is becoming Godless," said Greg Rinehart. "[Beck] said that a lot of people have lost Christ. The country is on the verge of becoming chaotic." When Beck took the stage, he set the tone that this would be anything but a secular event. "We must go to God boot camp." The event opened with a prayer and closed with a prayer and a rendition of Amazing Grace. Beck urged his audience to pray more. Anyone looking for an "Obama is a racist" moment would have been disappointed, as neither President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- Calif.) or any other politician was mentioned. It was by design; Beck urged his supporters not to bring signs to the event (virtually all did not), and the Fox News and radio host did not talk politics. "Glenn [Beck] said it would not be, and it wasn't," said Foster. "I thought it would be more like a political agenda," said Al Floyd, 25. This reporter first spotted Floyd stretched out atop two portable toilets, watching between the trees because he was unable to get a good vantage point from the crowd. He left his hometown of Winston-Salem, N.C. at 2 a.m. with his uncle, Rickey Martin. "Ya gotta have faith in God or you'll fall for anything," Martin said. He said that he knew it would not be a political rally, which "helped the rally." He said that he never thought of Beck as a religious figure, nor would he begin thinking of him as a religious leader, "Just honest. Just the only honest figure in the media." Beck's claim that the event, which was first promoted as a Civil Rights rally in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr, then a salute to the troops, and finally as a world-changing event was met with of skepticism by Ben Franklin impersonator Wayne Massillon. "I'm Glenn Beck," Massillon said while patting himself on the back, a gesture mocking Beck's sense of self-importance. "'I'm going to change the world.' It's not going to be an earth-changing, world shaking event." "I think that what changes the world is that each human being gets up and says to themselves 'what am I going to do that's significant and important for myself, for my family, for the society," Massillon said. "We seem to want heroes, whether it's Glenn Beck or Brett Farve. The heroes in America are us." After Beck finished, some tea party members crossed the mall to get to Michele Bachmann's political "tea party" rally, which featured, among others, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R- Texas). At the rally, Bachmann urged members to not "vote everyone out of office," as there were "deserving members" that she said should stay around.

The Upshot - Glenn Beck talked a lot about American presidents during Saturday's "Restoring Honor" rally—just not the current one. He lavished praise on George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and even read a bit from the "Gettysburg Address." Beck, a conservative radio and television host, has long said the Lincoln Memorial event would be nonpolitical. So [...]

WASHINGTON — Glenn Beck is borrowing some lines from President Barack Obama. At his rally with tens of thousands on the steps of Lincoln Memorial, Beck used the closing lines of then-candidate Obama's campaign stump speech of 2008. "One man can change the world," Beck told the crowd. "That man or woman is you. You make the difference." Obama used a similar message on the campaign trail. He used to say that one voice could change a room, one room could change a city, and one city could change a state. Obama liked to say that state could change a country and urged supporters to go out and change the world. Beck says his supporters should do the same. He says, "Look to the heavens. Look to God. And make your choice." THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. WASHINGTON (AP) – Glenn Beck is borrowing some lines from President Barack Obama. At his rally with tens of thousands on the steps of Lincoln Memorial, Beck used the closing lines of then-candidate Obama's campaign stump speech of 2008. "One man can change the world," Beck told the crowd. "That man or woman is you. You make the difference." Obama used a similar message on the campaign trail. He used to say that once voice could change a room, one room could change a city, and one city could change a state. Obama liked to say that state could change a country and urged supporters to go out and change the world. Beck says his supporters should do the same. He says, "Look to the heavens. Look to God. And make your choice."

AP - Glenn Beck is borrowing some lines from President Barack Obama.

Forty-seven years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. headlined the March on Washington. Saturday brought another big demonstration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, this one led by conservative commentator Glenn Beck. And that spurred a counter-rally from Al Sharpton. Guest host Audie Cornish talks with NPR's Andrea Seabrook, who was at the Beck rally. » E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Any attempts to simplify the complicated U.S. tax code will produce lower taxes for some people and higher payments for others, including some of the middle-class families President Barack Obama has promised to shield from tax increases, a new report says. The Washington Post flags these eye-popping figures from the report that illustrate what a painful ordeal filing taxes has become under America's labyrinthine tax code: American taxpayers spend 7.6 billion hours and roughly $140 billion a year to comply with the bewildering thicket of requirements in the federal tax code. Obama asked his Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, to review the pros and cons of three tax issues: simplifying the tax code, getting people to pay up and overhauling the corporate tax structure. He specifically asked the board not to consider policies that would increase taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year, or for individuals making less than $200,000 . But the report by the board's tax subcommittee said the panel took Obama's request to mean that "not every option we considered must avoid a tax increase on such families" but rather that the options together should be "revenue neutral" for this particular income category. So while taxes would not increase on the group as a whole, the report says some families would end up paying more and others less if the tax code is simplified. But higher taxes on any family earning less than $250,000 a year and on any person making less than $200,000 annually could prove dicey for Obama, given his promise not to raise taxes on them at all. The report does not recommend any options over others, but rather lays out the pros and cons of all the ideas it considered. The board voted Friday to send the report to Obama. Volcker said the goal was to set out as clearly as possible all the competing considerations and hope that the administration and Congress will draft legislation or put in place practices that can help make navigating the tax system easier. "That's all we can hope for," Volcker said. Meanwhile, the White House and Congress will have to grapple with a more immediate tax issue in the run-up to the Nov. 2 midterm elections. A series of tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush are scheduled to expire in January. Obama wants to renew only those tax cuts that apply to middle-class and lower income taxpayers, those whom Obama says have suffered the most during the recession and could use the break. Republicans want the tax cuts extended for all, including the highest wage-earners. Some of the options in the report for simplifying the tax code include consolidating multiple benefits for children, education and for savings and retirement. The panel also looked at options for overhauling the corporate tax code and for getting more taxpayers to pay what they owe.

Politico - Organizers pulled event permits for up to 300,000 people, and expected at least 100,000 to show up.

Since the levees broke, independently run New Orleans charter schools educate more than 60 percent of the students compared to about three percent nationally. To help pay the bills, New Orleans will receive a $1.8 billion reimbursement for schools that were damaged or destroyed in the flooding after Hurricane Katrina. It's "good news out of bad," says NBC's Brian Williams. Five years post-Katrina, what can school officials, educators, policy analysts and parents learn about how to best educate the nation's children ? (Newsweek, The New York Times, GOOD and The [New Orleans] Times-Picayune)

AFTER months of debate, Senate Democrats this summer broke a Republican filibuster against a bill to extend unemployment benefits. But the Republicans insisted on applying a technicality in the Senate rules that allowed for 30 more hours of floor time after a successful vote to end debate. As a result, the bill -- with its desperately needed and overdue benefits for more than 2 million unemployed Americans -- was pointlessly delayed a few days more.

Judging by his record of job creation, which has been rather benign during the worst employment drought since the Great Depression, it should be clear by now that Barack Obama is no Franklin Roosevelt. Although he admires the Roosevelt legacy, he seems to have learned too little from history. But it doesn't have to be this way, if he followed up on what he's accomplished so far. To his credit, Obama began his presidency by keeping a promise he made the month before he took office when he proposed the elements of his economic recovery program, which included public works. As he said, "We need action-and action now." He said he would invest record amounts of money, about $700 billion, in a vast infrastructure program, including work on schools, sewer systems, mass transit, dams and public utilities. Toward those ends, Obama shoved through the Congress, with no help from Republicans, the $784 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act., along with $170 billion for an economic stimulus (less than what he wanted), $3 billion for the popular "cash for clunkers," $100 billion to refinance defaulting mortgages. and $90 billion in emergency unemployment insurance. The outgoing Bush administration contributed $600 billion for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), under which the government bought shaky assets from banks. In addition, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury invested or loaned billions (much of which has been paid back with interest) to bail out giant banks and two of the big three auto manufacturers. In spite of almost unanimous Republican opposition, the states lined up to get their share of stimulus money, after several vowed that they would take nothing from the federal government. The latest flip-flopper is Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who was moved to change his position in the face of a ten percent unemployment rate in his state. Despite criticism of TARP and the assorted bailouts, two eminent economists, Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Economy, and a former adviser to Sen. John McCain, and Princeton's Alan Blinder, former vice-president of the Federal Reserve Board, pronounced the Obama programs successful in averting "what could have been called Great Depression 2.0," In their 23-page paper entitled, "How The Great Recession Was Brought To An End," they note that "the government's response (which began in the last days of the Bush administration)to the financial crisis and ensuing Great Recession included some of the most aggressive fiscal and monetary policies in history...Yet almost every one of these policies remain controversial...with critics calling them misguided, ineffective or both." But, they added, "we estimate that without the government's response the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2010 would be about 11.5 percent lower, payroll employment would be less than 8 ½ million jobs and the nation would now be experiencing deflation." Despite the persistently high unemployment rate, they claim the fiscal stimulus alone raised this year's GDP to 3.4 percent and 2.7 million jobs were saved or added. But the latest economic news, including a lower GDP and deeper unemployment, accompanied by spreading poverty among working and middle class families, has blemished their optimism. Part of the problem: Of the $784 billion in the recovery act, more than $266 billion has not yet been spent and the deaf and dumb Republicans want that amount suspended and used to reduce the deficit. The administration says 80 percent of the projects are under contract and another $50 billion are in the process of being awarded. Nevertheless, cities are turning out street lights and replacing paved roads with gravel to save money. The fact is that the recovery act and the inadequate stimulus have yet to put much of a dent in the unemployment rate, which is far above the official rate of 9.5 percent. As Bob Herbert reported in the New York Times, the reason the rate is not higher is because 181,000 workers left the labor force this summer. One economist, Charles McMillion, who analyzes employment trends. told him that "over the past three months 1,155,000 unemployed people dropped out of the active labor force and were not counted as unemployed. Even ignoring population growth, if these unemployed had not dropped out of the labor force...the official unemployment rate would have risen from 9.9 percent in April to 10.2 percent in July. When you combine the long term unemployed with those who are dropping out and those who are working part time because they can't find anything else. It is just far beyond anything we've seen..since the 1930s." Yet, said Herbert, Washington, including the president, who says, "I feel your pain,"is not doing much about the crisis. "With 14.6 million officially jobless, and 5.9 million who have stopped looking but say they want a job. And 8.5 million who are working part time...you end up with 30 million Americans who cannot find the work they want and desperately need...There are now 3.4 million fewer private sector jobs than there were a decade ago. In the last ten years. We've seen the worst job creation record since 1928-1938." What can be done? How about following the advice of a couple of Nobel Prize winning economists, Joseph Stiglitz and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman? Stiglitz, former chief economist for the World Bank told Bloomberg TV that the administration's stimulus and public works effort were "a big gamble and it doesn't look like it's paying off. The recovery is so weak that it's not strong enough to generate new jobs for the new entrants in the labor force, let alone to find jobs for the 15 million who would like to get a job, but can't find one." One reason the recovery act has been slow in creating jobs is that many of the projects and contracts must go through the slow process of being approved by state and local jurisdictions and competing labor unions. That's why Stiglitz, Krugman, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Blinder have called for the resurrection of New Deal-style job creation programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and, for younger men and women trying to enter the labor force who need to do useful work, the once popular Civilian Conservation Corps. Reich noted that the U.S. already has a "giant jobs program," the thousands of men and women in the military, sapping valuable taxpayer funds that are justified as necessary for national security, when a nation with so many jobless is economically insecure. Noting the U.S. had a National Defense Education Act, during the Eisenhower presidency, Reich said "maybe this is the way to convince Republicans to spend more federal dollars putting Americans back and working on things we genuinely need: call it the National Defense Full Employment Act." When the Washington Post's Ezra Klein asked Blinder what needs to be done to give a blood transfusion to the anemic recovery, Blinder said, "I would do two things, both aimed at jobs. I would do the so-called new jobs tax credit on a much bigger and better scale than the HIRE Act, which was a baby step. The second thing I would do is a WPA-like program of direct, public hiring. People could work in parks in maintenance, the many paper-shuffling jobs in government." Actually, the WPA and CCC did a lot more than that. Here's what I wrote months ago when Obama offered what became too little: "The WPA, born in 1935 at an initial cost of $4.8 billion, was at the time, the largest "relief" program in American history (now it's called "stimulus"). By 1941, when spending on the coming war pulled America out of the lingering slump, WPA had cost $11.4 billion and put eight million men and women to work building 1,634 public schools, 105 airports, 3,000 tennis courts, 5,800 libraries, 3,300 storage dams, hundreds of miles of roads, sewer lines. At the same time the CCC built roads through national and state parks, fire towers, and scores of campgrounds, many of which are in use today. "I doubt if George Bush even suspected that his weekend retreat, Camp David, which Franklin Roosevelt called Shangri-la, was built by the WPA and CCC as a recreation area in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. Do baseball fans know that WPA workers built Doubleday Field, in Cooperstown, NY., in 1939 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of America's pastime on that hallowed ground? "The architecturally unique bridges of the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut were built by the WPA. Not until 1937 did New York City get an airport, La Guardia Field (named after the city's New Deal era mayor), with its beautiful art-deco main terminal, all built by WPA labor. "The WPA, I should add, hired women, although the agency's boss, Harry Hopkins, frowned on giving work to both and a wife and leaving children unattended. About 15 percent of the workers were in the Women's Division and they received equal pay, which was the local prevailing wage, from $19 to $94 a month for a maximum of 30 hours of work each week. The WPA also provided jobs for 350,000 blacks, and helped dent some color barriers. And the WPA's Education Division, gave work to teachers who taught reading to thousands of illiterate blacks and whites." But the WPA, which was ridiculed by Republicans (naturally) as a make-work program (and nothing is wrong with make-work when there are no other jobs), was paired with the CCC in putting Americans in useful jobs. The genius of the CCC is that it concentrated on young men 18 to 24 (later 18-28), many of whom were roaming the country like hoboes to give them work that needed doing, providing them the discipline of a military-like structure and seeing to it that they sent part of their wages to their struggling families at home. As New York State's governor, Roosevelt, an ardent conservationist, had run a similar program. But barely three weeks into his presidency, on March 21, 1933, he told the Congress. "I propose to create a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. I call your attention to the fact that this type of work is of definite, practical value, not only through the prevention of great financial loss, but also as a means of creating future national wealth." Today, I suppose the Republican right (e.g., Rep Michele Bachmann of Minnesota) would accuse Obama of trying to put America's youth into concentration camps. But the law that created the CCC, for Emergency Conservation Work, was passed ten days after Roosevelt proposed it. And he promised it "would give 250,000 young men meals, housing, uniforms and small wages for working on national forests and other government properties." Those numbers grew as the depression deepened. If you travel to a national forest, you'll notice that many of the fire watch towers were built by the CCC. My late brother-in-law and a close friend left their depression-weary urban homes for service in the CCC. But among the more prominent alumni were Hyman Rickover, who became a four-star admiral and the father of the nuclear submarine fleet; actors Raymond Burr, Robert Mitchum and Walter Matthau; baseball greats Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst and test pilot Chuck Yeager. Volunteers came from every state, including the then territories of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to Wikipedia, the CCC became the most popular New Deal program among the public, eventually providing jobs for 3 million men, most of them from families on relief. Then Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, insisted that black youth were included and 200,000 signed up, although they were segregated. During its life, from 1933 to 1942, CCC volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America, constructed more than 800 parks nationwide, most of which became state parks, and a network of thousands of miles of roads in forests and rural lands. The Indian Division of the CCC built schools and operated extensive road building projects on Indian lands. Crews built dams, sowed grass to stop erosion. In addition, it trained men to be carpenters, truck rivers, radio operators, mechanics and stock raisers. About 24,000 of the 85,000 Indian enrollees later served in the military and 40,000 left the reservations for war jobs in the cities. What was it about the Roosevelt presidency that enabled the passage and creation of the WPA, the PWA, the CCC, not to mention regulatory agencies (the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, FDIC, the Securities Exchange Commission, SEC, the Federal Trade Commission, FTC) and laws, The Glass-Stegall Banking Act? The Obama presidency, which promise a revival of Rooseveltian hope, has steadily weakened with compromise virtually every New Deal era effort to deal with funny money Wall Street and financial shenanigans. It's true that Obama has confronted highly partisan and an ideologically extremist Republican Party, but has he fought them? Roosevelt, who ran in 1932 on a promise to balance the budget, abandoned that vow when faced with the misery and crises of the Great Depression. Obama has endorsed a right-wing budget-cutting deficit commission, which wants to cut Social Security benefits, among other federal programs. Roosevelt said he welcomed the opposition from what he called the "economic royalists," whose business-loving Republican Party had run the country for more than a dozen years, with Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. Roosevelt, with the courage of his convictions and prodding from Eleanor, did not seek bipartisanship but fought the Republicans and their banker allies. In the vernacular, Roosevelt stayed with the voters who brung him to the presidency. In 1934, the people supported him, winning nine seats each for Democrats in the House and Senate, which happens rarely for the party in power. But even as the depression got worse, the voters responded to FDR's partisanship and set the stage for the best of the New Deal that was to come. Surely there's a lesson in this for today. Here is part of another Bob Herbert column: " The problem with the U.S. economy today, as it was during the Great Depression, is the absence of sufficient demand for goods and services. Consumers, struggling with sky-high unemployment and staggering debt loads, are tapped out. The economy cannot be made healthy again, and there is no chance of doing anything substantial about budget deficits, as long as so many millions of people are left with essentially no purchasing power. Jobs are the only real answer. "President Obama missed his opportunity early last year to rally the public behind a call for shared sacrifice and a great national mission to rebuild the United States in a way that would create employment for millions and establish a gleaming new industrial platform for the great advances of the 21st century. "It would have taken fire and imagination, but the public was poised to respond to bold leadership. If the Republicans had balked, and they would have, the president had the option of taking his case to the people, as Truman did in his great underdog campaign of 1948. "During the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt explained to the public the difference between wasteful spending and sound government investments. "You cannot borrow your way out of debt," he said, "but you can invest your way into a sounder future." write saulfriedman@comcast.net Friedman also writes for www.timegoesby.net

At the end of July, Blue America and our pals at the Americans Fir America PAC launched the first in a series of videos that highlights what kind of people now lead the Republican Party. We featured Sarah Palin, Rand Paul and John Boehner. And we asked the readers at DWT, C&L and Digby's Hullabaloo to tell us who to do the next ad for. Lots of votes for Ken Calvert and Michele Bachmann but it was North Carolina reactionary haridan Virginia Foxx who got the most "support." As you can see in the ad above, there are a lot of things that the voters in western North Carolina need to think about when they consider returning Virginia Foxx for another term in Congress. But there's also an outstanding alternative. Populist champion Billy Kennedy would make a far better Representative for ordinary working families, a part of the population Foxx is dismissive of. Foxx already has $1,270,733 on hand. Her biggest donors are the sugar lobby, banks, the Medical Industrial Compex, alcoholic beverage companies, gambling interests and foreign powers with their own agendas. Meanwhile Billy Kennedy has $70,406 on hand. He addressed the probelm on the cascade of corrupt corporate cash flooding into congressional campaigns: "The case of Citizens United v FEC was heard by the Supreme Court back in January. When all was said and done, the Court ended up changing the law so that corporations can now spend as much as they like on political campaigns without even identifying themselves. That's right-- average working people get the short end of the stick. Again. So the US House has now just passed the "Disclose Act," a law which will at least require that these corporations tell us who they are when they put their fancy, high-dollar commercials on TV that attack anyone who would dare come up against them. The "Disclose Act" could most certainly be better than it is. If we didn't have so many politicians in Washington beholden to corporate interests, we'd surely have gotten a better bill in the end, but the bill is at least a start. Even so, I wasn't surprised to hear Rep. Virginia Foxx rail against the "Disclose Act" on WPTF radio Thursday. I wasn't surprised because Rep. Foxx's record is pretty clear on this kind of thing. Her take is that working people need to get in line and work longer hours for less money and be thankful they've got any job at all. Corporations and rich people, on the other hand, deserve better because they're the ones providing jobs for longer hours and less money. It sounds like code for "we can't do it because it's too complicated." It's worth noting that Rep. Foxx never said a word on any radio stations when the Supreme Court made sure individual Americans' rights came up short against corporate rights. She wasn't on talk radio, outraged, when Americans woke up one morning to find out they'd been sold out by corporate interests again. Not at all. The only thing on this whole issue that got Rep. Foxx in a tizzy and made her want to "sit down and cry" (as she said on the radio) was that someone in Washington was actually trying to do something about it. Rep. Foxx didn't show up at any radio stations the morning after corporations stole the peoples' power in the dead of night. But she showed up pretty quick to be outraged when some brave folks in Washington tried to reclaim it. Rep. Foxx has been in Washington too long. She's forgotten what she's supposed to be doing up there, and she will say anything to be re-elected. It's time to send her home." If you'd like to help us put the ad on TV in the Piedmont and the suburbs of Winston-Salem, just click on Foxx's face-- and, no, that photo is not photoshopped.

AP - Bosnia and Serbia have restarted an old steam-powered train in an effort to increase tourism in a region that was devastated by war in the 1990s.

AP - Rwanda has threatened to withdraw its troops from United Nations peacekeeping operations if the world body publishes a report accusing the Rwandan army of committing possible genocide in Congo in the 1990s, Rwanda's foreign minister says in a letter sent to the U.N.

Bailout Roy Blunt took over $1.6 million in contributions from Wall Street special interests, and was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress. Roy Blunt isn't just in Washington -- he IS Washington. From: dscclive Views: 2195 8 ratings Time: 00:32 More in Nonprofits & Activism

Amid all the junk mail pouring into your house in recent months, you might have noticed a solicitation or two for a "professional card," otherwise known as a small-business or corporate credit card. If so, watch out. While Capital One Financial Corp.'s World MasterCard, Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank CitiBusiness/AAdvantage Mastercard and the others might look like typical plastic, they are anything but.

AP - Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium offered to keep a sexual molestation case against a bishop secret until the bishop retired, an official said Saturday.

In a blunt memo, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admonishes intelligence community personnel to stop “blabbing secrets” and said he is concerned about “recent leaks” of classified information. Normally, reporters would use the word “surprisingly” before “blunt” when describing an official communique that is written in clear, concise English, but Clapper’s memo reflects the man: plainspoken, not given to nonsense or ornamental language. Officials would not say which leaks troubled Clapper, but there is a menu; just yesterday, a State Department analyst was indicted for allegedly telling Fox News what U.S. intelligence agencies concluded about how North Korea would respond to diplomatic and military pressure. Wikileaks is currently processing a new round of Afghan war cables and traffic and last week released a classified CIA red cell assessment. My guess is that the New York Times and Washington Post’s recent reporting about high-ranking Afghanistan government officials on the CIA payroll produced significant consternation at the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Defense. Former CIA officials believe that these leaks originate from elements of the military who think that the CIA’s parochial interests undermine, and even work against, the president’s strategy.  In turn, Pentagon officials have not been happy with recent reporting about the expanding intelligence-gathering role of special operations task forces, believing that these leaks originate with the CIA. Clapper, in other words, might be trying to tamp down on the use of leaks to influence policy. “We have established procedures for authorized officers to interact with the media. For everyone else, unauthorized disclosure of our work is both a serious matter and a diversion from the critical tasks we face. In other words, blabbing secrets to the media is not ‘in’ as far as I’m concerned,” Clapper says in the memo.  “Let’s get on with our mission by keeping our secrets and serving our country.” The nation’s top counter-intelligence officer, Bear Bryant, continues to work on a policy that would discourage leaks by tightening internal penalties and providing new channels for would-be whistle-blowers to talk to senior officials with less fear of retribution.   To Members of the Intelligence Community     As members of the Intelligence Community, we are entrusted with confidential information.  It is our lifelong duty to protect that information.   I am concerned that recent leaks regarding our work have received prominent attention in the media.  I remind all members of the Intelligence Community that being in the intelligence business demands serious commitment to our work and an obligation not to share secrets with others, including the media.   When President Obama announced my appointment I said that people in the intelligence business should be like my grandchildren – seen but not heard.   We have established procedures for authorized officers to interact with the media.  For everyone else, unauthorized disclosure of our work is both a serious matter and a diversion from the critical tasks we face.  In other words, blabbing secrets to the media is not “in” as far as I’m concerned.  Let’s get on with our mission by keeping our secrets and serving our country.   James R. Clapper New York Times – Washington Post – United States – James R Clapper – Warfare and Conflict

Same-sex marriage is back as a front-burner issue in American politics. On Aug. 4, a federal judge in San Francisco held that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, striking down part of the California Constitution defining marriage as one man and one woman. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ordered an expedited schedule to consider this case, with arguments to be held in December. Now former RNC chairman and 2004 Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman came out this week, announcing he's gay, pushing the Republican Party to support the gay-rights agenda. Republicans leaders are beginning to weigh in on where they stand, including on the agenda's centerpiece: Redefining marriage. The Republican Party has an official position on same-sex marriage. It's found in the 2008 GOP platform, which is the clear and incontestable Republican position until the 2012 convention. When one of your authors (Blackwell) was serving as vice chairman of the GOP Platform Committee, there was a singular focus on producing a party platform that fully reflects the vast majority of Republican Party members. The GOP platform could not be more explicit: Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The fundamental institution of human civilization should be preserved as it has been known through the entirety of American history and Western civilization. Supporters of same-sex marriage had the full opportunity to make their case to the party. They made it, and they lost. But whether same-sex marriage should be legal is a completely separate issue from whether there's a right to same-sex marriage in the U.S. Constitution. A person can support same-sex marriage but admit that it's a state issue to be decided locally, not a right that can be imposed on a state -- or the nation -- by federal judges. That's where supporters of same-sex marriage cannot have it both ways. Central to the Republican agenda is that the U.S. Constitution must be interpreted according to its original meaning. If the Constitution must be changed, then we do so democratically through the amendment process. Republicans demand that judges interpret the Constitution as written, not rewrite it from the bench. The judicial activism that Judge Walker in San Francisco displayed in declaring a constitutional right to same-sex marriage is the same activism that Republicans decry on every other front. It's the same activism found in Roe v. Wade, declaring a right to abortion. It's also the same activism that would uphold Obamacare as constitutional. It's the same activism that declares foreign terrorists are protected by the Bill of Rights and habeas corpus. You cannot have it both ways. Do you want to see Obamacare struck down as unconstitutional? Then you can't have a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Republican leadership is working hard to prevent a party split. Millions of Tea Party people are justifiably fed up with the GOP and threatening to abandon the GOP in favor of a third party if Republicans do not fully attack out-of-control federal spending and power with a commitment to constitutional government. That danger cuts both ways. Social conservatives cannot be played as fools by the Republican Party. They are not "useful idiots." If Republican leaders abandon social conservatives and the party platform, then they will face the same disaster as if Tea Partiers abandon the GOP. Millions of social conservatives will either stay home, or will vote for a third-party candidate who takes up the mantle of marriage, life, faith and family. As we discuss in the introduction of our book, The Blueprint, this is exactly what President Obama wants to see. If a majority of Americans reject the agenda of President Obama and his Democratic Party -- as, based on a number of polls, they do today -- the only way that Obama and the Dems can hold on to power is to split the opposition vote. If the GOP splits either over economic issues or over social issues, then President Obama could be reelected with as little as 40% of the vote. It's happened before in American politics, with 1912 as a perfect example. The year 2012 will be the 100-year anniversary of when a Republican split gave America a Democratic president. If Republicans flinch on marriage, America could have eight years of President Obama. Ken Blackwell was vice chairman of the 2008 Republican National Convention Platform Committee and senior fellow with the Family Research Council. Ken Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union and a research fellow with Liberty University School of Law. They are the authors of the national bestseller The Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.

AP - Sarah Palin says the way to honor Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy is to honor those men and women in the military who protect the United States.

AFP - Three days before the official end of the US combat mission in Iraq, US President Barack Obama said on Saturday Iraq was now a "sovereign" nation free to determine its own destiny.

A few years back when Washington was preparing for the then highly touted Annapolis Peace Conference, I remember commenting that I was "hopeful, but not optimistic". As we approach the latest incarnation of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, I'm even finding it difficult to be hopeful, though I will continue try to be supportive recognizing, as I do, the consequences of failure. Convening these talks at this time is certainly a gutsy move for President Barack Obama. Knowing that the odds of success are slim and the costs of yet another let down are great, one can only hope that the President and his seasoned and accomplished team (including Secretary of State Clinton and Special Envoy Mitchell) have a trick or two up their sleeves, ready to play at the appropriate moment. But we've been down this road too many times, under far better circumstances, to easily give oneself over to the notion that this time surely will be different. To begin with, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, while insisting that these talks occur without preconditions, has clearly defined enough conditions of his own (though being "too clever by half" by terming them "priorities"). His insistence, for example, that Palestinians recognize Israel as a "Jewish State", while viewed an innocent "no-brainer to most Americans, is an especially loaded term for Arabs. Acceptance of this, unless carefully defined, permanently disenfranchises the 20% of Israel's population who are Palestinian Arabs. It is also intended to rule out any repatriation for Palestinian refugees whose "right to return to their homes" is considered an "existential threat to the Jewish State". Netanyahu's further insistence on "security guarantees" is also seen as a logical requirement to many in the U.S., but his definition of security is overly broad including an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley while placing severe limits on the independence of the future Palestinian state's ability to control both its territory and access and egress at its borders. What is especially troubling is the failure of those who are most optimistic about these talks to recognize that the language they use and the framework they have embraced is so thoroughly tone deaf to Palestinian realities and concerns as to be "Pollyannaish", at best, or insulting, at worst. For example, they flippantly toss out terms like "land swaps", "settlement blocks", and "Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem" without any acknowledgment of what they mean to Palestinians or what consequences each has in predetermining realities on the ground. For example, "neighborhoods in Jerusalem" to most Americans sounds like an innocent enough term, but to Palestinians it means sprawling massive settlements like the one on Jabal Abul Ghnaim, which was built, over the strenuous objections of the Clinton Administration, on confiscated land in north Bethlehem. Likewise, maintaining "settlement blocks" and accepting "land swaps" means that Palestinians must recognize as a "fait accompli" prior theft of land to build settlements deep in their territory - colonies that were designed and placed with the goal of making the establishment of a future Palestinian state more difficult. And their easy dismissal of the "right to return" (saying without hesitation or qualification that Palestinians would have to forgo this right and accept, at best, a return only to a future Palestinian state) also ignores what for many Palestinians is the sine qua non of any peace agreement. Granted that many of these concepts emerged out of earlier Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (like the unofficial "Geneva Accords" - which I supported), but these compromises resulted from hard fought negotiations and were reached under dramatically different circumstances. Back then, the unofficial negotiators sat as peers and each gave way in good faith. Now, these same compromises that were reached as part of a package deal are viewed merely as a starting point for Israel's insistence on yet further compromises. Add to that the fact that back then, conditions were different and the two sides, themselves, were different. There was no barrier/wall delineating unilaterally the de facto Israeli border. There were one hundred thousand less settlers in the West Bank. And there was no political division of the Palestinian polity and territories. All this considered, I find it hard to be optimistic and, while wanting to be hopeful, that too requires a bit of a stretch. Nevertheless, here's what I hope for. I hope that Hamas, which has been critical of the talks, maintains its current restraint and does not engage in reckless and dangerous acts of violence (as it did during the 90's in an effort to sabotage talks). I hope that the Israeli government or its settler movement do not engage either in provocations of their own or act to reignite passions by starting new construction or imposing new hardships on the Palestinians. Should either side behave badly, I hope the U.S. is balanced in its application of pressure. And since it is the U.S. President who wants these talks and understands, and has stated, that success is in "the national security interests of the United States", I can only hope that he has prepared a well thought out "Plan B" should these talks ("Plan A") fail to break the impasse. And finally I might add that I can only hope that this Plan B involves new thinking taking into consideration the just requirements and the concerns not only of the Israelis but of the Palestinian side, as well. This U.S. initiative might not be pretty and most certainly won't be perfect, but it will have to be seen by majorities as fair. Even then it will be a heavy lift requiring the President to sell the necessary compromises to both sides, building a constituency for peace that can reshape the political landscape making an Israeli-Palestinian peace possible. It may be a lot to hope for, but that's where we are.

Politico - A tiff is boiling between the GOP and Joe Miller.

My first post about Arianna Huffington's new book, Third World America: How Our Politicians are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream talked about the Great Recession, the Great Bailout, and the Great Cover-up of financial crimes, including massive and widespread predatory lending fueled by phony securities and derivatives. My second post talked about corruption and mismanagement that led to local fiscal problems and problems in city services. I used the Chicago Police Department's problems as an example and mentioned an essay by Lt. John Andrews, a 25-year CPD veteran, which was posted on his personal blog. Yesterday's Chicago Tribune reported that Internal Affairs Department is investigating Lt. Andrews because of his essay. (The investigation was initiated before my August 25 post, but I was unaware of the investigation at the time I posted.) According to the Tribune: The charge against Andrews points to a comment he made regarding recently promoted Cmdr. Anthony Carothers. Carothers' brother Isaac is a former alderman who was sentenced to 28 months in federal prison this summer on bribery and tax charges. Andrews referred to Carothers' promotion as a "recent example of alleged political corruption ties to top tier leadership." He said his promotion less than a month after his influential brother's sentencing gave the appearance of impropriety. Police Superintendent Jody Weis wouldn't comment specifically on Andrews' case this week but spoke about how leaders are people who "look to inspire, motivate and look for solutions to challenges." Lt. Andrews took a courageous step when he made his concerns about the Chicago Police Department public. He's an adult, and he knew there could be serious repercussions. He stepped forward anyway. The Chicago Tribune points out that if Lt. Andrews was speaking up as a matter of public interest as a concerned citizen, and not airing a private grievance, his essay should enjoy First Amendment protection: There is a serious First Amendment issue here," said Sheldon Nahmod, a constitutional law and civil rights professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Nahmod said free speech law should permit Andrews to post his comments without discipline as long as he's speaking as a public citizen and out of public concern, rather than simply airing personal grievances. "(Andrews) was griping about the morale of the Police Department in general, the support it's getting from its supervisors, superiors and from politicians, and that's not the same thing as a personal gripe," Nahmod said. After re-reading the essay, it seems to me it should enjoy First Amendment protection. You can decide for yourself, since his essay, "A City at War with Itself : Chicago -- Fast Tracking to Anarchy Understanding the Organizational Paralysis of the CPD and the Mission to Recovery," is still posted.