Health Care Zeke: The other Emanuel
Carrie Budoff Brown
There’s an Emanuel brother behind President Barack Obama's budget, but it’s not the one you think.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, big brother to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, is quickly emerging as a key player in Obama’s health-care overhaul, the biggest push to expand coverage in two decades.
Known as Zeke, Emanuel has labored behind the scenes on the issue for years, well-known to people who follow it closely. But he has significantly raised his political profile by signing on as a top adviser to White House budget chief Peter Orszag. And there he was Thursday, a fidgety presence at the back of the briefing room, nodding in approval as Orszag detailed the budget, and trading conversation with aides around him. “He has been detailed at Peter’s request to be the chief kibitzer on health care reform and health care issues at the OMB,” [Office of Management and Budget] said Robert Reischauer, president of The Urban Institute, who has worked health care.
PermalinkIsraeli policy as evil stupidity: Yeshayahu Leibowitz quotables
PeoplesGeography
Cited in a recent Ha’aretz piece about the decline of the israeli left, the late academic Yeshayahu Leibowitz is described as remarking that he is not sure whether Israel’s policies since 1967 are evil stupidity or stupidly evil. In another, verbatim citation, Leibowitz is quoted as having said, more resolutely, in 1990: “Everything Israel has done, and I emphasize everything, in the past 23 years is either evil stupidity or stupidly evil.“
Along with a number of other academics such as Ilan Pappe and Neve Gordon, journalists such as Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, and other critics of conscience such as David Grossman, it is good to see instances of intellectuals fulfilling their proper role of speaking up. In Liebowitz’s case, he is not as well known outside Israel. In 1969 he reportedly began describing the “inevitable Nazification” of Israeli society. Further, by the time of the (first major, 1982) Lebanon War, he became known for using the term Judeo-Nazi to describe the Israeli army. He also called for soldiers to refuse to serve in the IOF.
The Great Government Swine Flu Conspiracy
by Walter Brasch
More than 230,000 cases of the Swine Flu have been confirmed world wide. About 2,100 persons have died. As much as one-fourth of America's workforce may be infected by Swine Flu when it peaks in Winter, according to studies conducted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
CDC scientists isolated and developed the seed strain of swine flu. Working furiously to manufacture the vaccine are five major drug companies, which received about $1.8 billion in federal funding to produce the anti-virus. Leading the testing, analyses, and education campaigns about the swine flu, in addition to the CDC, are the U.S. Public Health Service, the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Federal Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in addition to the Department of Health and Human Services, which developed the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza protection.
CELEBRATING WOODSTOCK AND JIMI HENDRIX
Allen L Roland
Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock
To me the spirit of Woodstock was not just the spirit of the freedom seeking 60's ~ it was the final set of the weekend when Jimi Hendrix played his solo version of the Star Spangled Banner, which included all the sounds and anguish of war, and which still moves and shocks listeners now as it did then:
40 years ago I was a stockbroker intent on making money while more than 400,000 people converged on the town of Woodstock intent on having fun and watching big names like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
Many feel that the music and spirit of Woodstock during those three days ( August 15 -17,1969 ) was more of a revelation to the millions who listened to the album and saw the movie ~ but I think it was indeed a revelation of human connectedness particularly with the deep on going unrest and divisions of the Vietnam War.
Israel Determined To Provoke Hezbollah In Order To Kick-Start A Regime Changing War Against Iran.
Damian Lataan
Israel seems determined to provoke its enemies hook or by crook in order to get a war going against Iran. If they’re not continually directly accusing Iran of having a nuclear weapons program – despite the total lack of any evidence to even suggest Iran has any nuclear weapons program – then Israel is accusing Hezbollah of wanting to attack Israelis and Israeli interests outside of Israel warning that, if any Israeli is harmed, Hezbollah will be held responsible. Just to help the provocation along, Israel is also still sending their military jets into sovereign Lebanese airspace. In their latest piece of warmongering chutzpah, Israel is accusing Hezbollah of stockpiling rockets in order to strike Israel. The ploy here is to use this as some sort of casus belli to attack Lebanon in the hope of dragging Iran into the fray – and then, of course, the US.
Raising Progressive Offspring
By Emily Spence
One's living in a proactively progressive family is not easy from a number of standpoints. Especially as a youngster, one can feel torn between wanting to fit in with contemporaries and standing up for an altogether different viewpoint and lifestyle -- an alternative that could cause one to be ostracized and shunned by peers.
Relative to this, I well remember the day that Justin, the empathetic son of leftist friends, burst through his kitchen door and started to cry. His mother and I asked him about the reason and he replied that he couldn't figure out the response that he should take in a heartrending situation. Therefore, he simply felt overwhelmed in frustration and anguish.
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