Wednesday's Daily Brief: Drone Debate Upends DC's Right/Left Divide, Obama Doesn't Have High Hopes For Budget Deal

Wednesday, March 13, 2013 The Drone Debate Upends DC's Right/Left Divide Arianna Huffington: It's become accepted wisdom that Washington has become pathologically polarized and partisan, with every new debate inevitably breaking down along party lines. That's why it was so remarkable last week when Rand Paul's old-fashioned talking filibuster scrambled the even more old-fashioned right-vs.-left way of looking at the world. The Paul-provoked debate on the confirmation of John Brennan to head the CIA in turn provoked a wider and critical debate about the use of drones -- a debate that needs to continue well beyond Brennan's confirmation. Since 2004, only 2 percent of those killed have been confirmed as militant leaders. From mid-2004 to mid-2012, between 474 and 881 civilians were killed in Pakistan. This includes 176 children. Last week's debate allowed Americans to put themselves in the position of those living under drones overseas -- imagining, even hypothetically, life under drones. And, not surprisingly, most of us didn't like it. POLITICS Obama Doesn't Have High Hopes For Budget Deal RELIGION Black Smoke At Sistine Chapel Indicates No Pope Elected POLITICS Obama Takes Step Forward On Gay Marriage CRIME Ohio 'Rape' Teens: The Photo Was A Joke HEALTHY LIVING 8 Sugary Drink Myths, Busted BLOG POSTS Michael Moore: America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA) Someday a Sandy Hook mother - or a Columbine mother, or an Aurora mother, or a mother from massacres yet to come - will say, like the mother of Emmett Till, "I just want the world to see." And then nothing about guns in this country will ever be the same again. Lee Woodruff: Living His Art The first time I met acclaimed artisan Barney Bellinger, he was walking in my sister's house with a school kid's grin and a big basket of mushrooms. Jonathan Jackson: Why I Changed My Last Name When I Got Married--Even Though I Have A Penis Not everyone in his life was supportive. Daniel Ellsberg: A Salute to Bradley Manning, Whistleblower, As We Hear His Words for the First Time Today, the Freedom of the Press Foundation has published an audio recording of Bradley Manning's speech to a military court from two weeks ago, in which he gives his reasons and motivations behind leaking over 700,000 government documents to WikiLeaks. Frank Niles, Ph.D.: How to Find Joy on the Job and in Life When we choose to say yes to what we are given by living in the present, making meaning of each day, our experiences go from dread and "I can't wait until today is over" to appreciation and purpose.

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