Some of the country's leading court watchers weigh in with their picks for whom Obama will appoint to a vacant Supreme Court seat. Harris, Karlan, Liu, and Watford lead the pack — but it “depends who quits, if anyone.”

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

WASHINGTON, DC — Barack Obama's Supreme Court appointments — he could make several, or none, in his second term — will be key elements of his legacy. Rare opportunities that will last long beyond his presidency.

Four justices — Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, both appointed by President Reagan; Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both appointed by President Clinton — are older than 70. Ginsburg is the oldest, nearing 80 and twice having been treated for cancer.

In the first two court vacancies during Obama’s presidency, he named Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the bench — replacing now-retired Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens

One key, if unofficial, variable in who Obama might name next: Who the new appointee replaces, a factor that could impact everything from the gender to the ideology of any nominee.

“Depends who quits, if anyone," noted NPR's veteran Supreme Court reporter, Nina Totenberg.

But close watchers of the court have begun to settle on the frontrunners for the next open seat — though not all of them would talk about them publicly.

“I’d much prefer to convey my thoughts on subjects like this directly to him and not in any public venue or forum," Harvard Law School professor and Obama adviser Laurence Tribe told BuzzFeed.

SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe, Above the Law’s David Lat, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, Jenner & Block partner Paul Smith, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone and UCLA law professor and blogger Eugene Volokh provided BuzzFeed with five (or more) potential picks.

Only four people were named by half or more of BuzzFeed’s panel — some liberal champions who would thrill the left, others compromise candidates who could face simpler confirmations. Those front-runners:

• Kamala Harris, 48: The California attorney general, Harris was elected to the job in 2010, when California’s statewide victories were among the only Democratic highlight in an otherwise bleak election for the left. Harris, a former line prosecutor who was elected San Francisco district attorney, has been named regularly as a possible Supreme Court pick, and she is a longtime Obama backer. As she said while campaigning for the president in North Carolina, “I've been supporting the president for a long time; he's been supporting me for a long time.” Harris, like Obama, comes from a multiracial background — her father is black, her mother Indian — and her nomination would fit in the mold of his stated “commitment to ensure that the judiciary resembles the nation it serves.”

• Pam Karlan, 53: A Stanford Law School professor, Karlan is on the administration’s judicial radar and is a leading voice on the legal left, making her a perennial favorite pick for liberals. That fact alone would lead to some potential difficulties for such a nomination, but Karlan’s undeniable legal prowess keeps her on people’s minds. “Longingly” so, Lithwick said. Unless the administration — and, thus, Obama — decide to take a more aggressive position on judicial nominations in his second term, a Karlan nomination would seem to be unlikely. Karlan, an out member of “the LGBT crowd,” told The New York Times that “the White House asked her in February 2009 if she was interested in being considered” for a federal appeals court spot, but she never heard anything further from the administration.

• Goodwin Liu, 42: A justice on the California Supreme Court, Liu would appear to be one of the least likely Supreme Court nominees from Obama given that his nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was scuttled by Republican opposition in 2011. Like Karlan, Liu has been a leading voice on the academic legal left — but his removal from that world due to California Gov. Jerry Brown’s appointment of Liu to California’s Supreme Court months after the Senate rejected his federal appeals court nomination could give comfort to some Republicans whose voiced concern was his lack of practical legal experience. On the other hand, some opposition to the young, Asian-American Liu’s Ninth Circuit nomination was doubtless because of the very fact that he would be an attractive Supreme Court nominee if given an appeals court perch.

• Paul Watford, 45: A judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Watford was named by more of the panel than anyone else — and is by far the least well-known possibility of the four. Nominated to the appeals court by Obama in 2011, Watford was confirmed by the Senate in May — with support from nine Republicans, including Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham. Before being named to the appeals court, Watford, who is black, worked in private practice in California but also spent some time working as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Clinton administration. Previously, Watford clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — notable because Kozinski is one of the leading conservative appeals court judges, and Ginsburg is a solid liberal vote on the Supreme Court.

Among the names that court watchers most often mention for possible Supreme Court vacancies — depending on whose departure leads to the opening — are Paul Watford, Kamala Harris, Goodwin Liu, and Pam Karlan.

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

Nomination-guessing being what it is, however, the pool of candidates from which Obama will be selecting any nominee is much larger.

Seven other names were mentioned by more than one of BuzzFeed’s panelists. They include three current federal appeals court judges: Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit, Adalberto Jordan of the Eleventh Circuit, and Jacqueline Nguyen of the Ninth Circuit. Also in this group are Caitlin Halligan, whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit was blocked in 2011 but who was again nominated to the post by Obama earlier this year; DC Circuit nominee and administration appellate lawyer Sri Srinivasan; former Obama administration acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal; and former administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for Obama and law professor Cass Sunstein.

The wild card possibilities named by one panelist each were former Office of Management and Budget general counsel Preeta Bansal, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sekauye, Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ninth Circuit Judge Mary Murguia, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken of Manhattan, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former Stanford Law School dean Kathleen Sullivan and Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Wood.

In any event, elections have consequences, and judicial nominations are among the clearest.

Former George W. Bush administration Solicitor General Ted Olson — who played Vice President Biden in Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s vice-presidential debate prep — provided no names to BuzzFeed, simply noting of Obama’s judicial selection process: “He won’t be checking in with me.”

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“Forward” — one clean, action word — was superior to Romney's trite and stagnate “Believe in America.” But did the president's team look backward to find it?

Churchill College — part of Cambridge University and named after Sir Winston — has as its motto:

"Forward."

It has been the college's motto since it was established in 1958. The college took it from the final phrase of Churchill's famous first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister in 1940, his "Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat" speech, in which he said "Come, then, let us go forward together."

Addn: As a commenter pointed out,"Forward" is also the state motto of Wisconsin.

So maybe the President was just trying to secure those electoral college votes.

Katy Perry definitely profited from the slogan.

As you can see below, conservatives were all over Forward.

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Instead, McCain held a press conference attacking the administration's investigation of the deadly attack.

I really don't have the words so please watch this most wonderful Bill O'Reilly clip and let an animated GIF do the talking for me.

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Go ahead! Enjoy the whole segment!

Just in case you don't have Flash installed on your computer...

The president says he's not sure how many candles they'd need for the cake. Bipartisan fun as lawmakers begin negotiations over the fiscal cliff.

Source: youtube.com

We were hoping he'd sing the "Boehner Birthday Song"

Source: youtube.com

Leslie meets her hero.

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“We have the cornerstones of being able to figure something out,” says Reid. But tax hikes for rich, entitlement reform may be sticking points.

Image by Olivier Douliery-Pool / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC — Congressional leaders expressed optimism after their first meeting with President Barack Obama on averting the fiscal cliff.

"We have the cornerstones of being able to figure something out," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters at the White House after the meeting, which each lawmaker called "constructive."

In a positive change from the contentious debt-ceiling negotiations 15 months ago, all four leaders addressed reporters together, taking turns by party at the microphones.

"While we're going to continue to have revenue on the table, it is going to be incumbent for my colleagues to show the American people that we're serious about cutting spending and solving our fiscal dilemma," Speaker of the House John Boehner said.

"We had a recognition that every person in America knows that we must reach agreement," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, adding that a deal must be reached by Christmas to avoid an erosion of consumer confidence, and warning that if no deal is reached, there will be an "economic downturn."

Boehner said specifically that he was open to a deal involving tax reform and did not mention tax hikes on the wealthy, which he and his party have a stated opposition against, and Obama has promised to achieve.

And in a sign of a potential sticking point for Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said his focus was on reforming entitlement programs, which many House Democrats have said they are dead-set against.

"You can't save the country until you have entitlement programs that fit the demographics of the changing America in the coming years," McConnell said. We are prepared to put revenue on the table, provided we fix the real problem."

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Obama is committed to a deal that includes "both revenues and cuts in spending and encourages our long-term economic and job growth."

"Both sides agreed that while there may be differences in our preferred approaches, we will continue a constructive process to find a solution and come to a conclusion as soon as possible," he said.

Reid said the leaders and their staffs would work together next week and resume formal negotiations the week after Thanksgiving.

“Clearly the security measures were not adequate despite an overwhelming and growing amount of information showing the area of Benghazi was dangerous and particularly the date of September 11,” says Sen. Marco Rubio.

Image by Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC — Senate Republicans Friday appeared to shift positions on the assault on the American consulate in Benghazi, moving away from political attacks on Ambassador Susan Rice to calls for further inquiries into substantive issues relating to security and intelligence gathering.

For weeks Republicans have hammered Rice for claiming the attack was in response to an anti-Islam YouTube video during a Sunday show appearance following the incident.

Democrats have bitterly complained that the assault on Rice, who they say was just repeating a CIA briefing — and whom President Barack Obama appears dead set on nominating as Secretary of State. Her defenders call the attacks purely political in nature, pointing out that her comments have resulted in no policy changes and that she was working with the information provided by the intelligence community.

"Increasingly the focus is going to be on the fact that despite a growing and significant amount of information being provided to the state department about the growing risk in the Benghazi area, they did not take adequate enough security measures," Sen. Marco Rubio said bluntly after a closed-door hearing with former CIA chief Gen. David Petraeus. "I think that’s what the growing amount of inquiry should be about in the coming days.”

“I think that’s what we’ve got to find out. Clearly the security measures were not adequate despite an overwhelming and growing amount of information showing the area of Benghazi was dangerous and particularly the date of September 11 was a significant date,” Rubio added.

Likewise, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stressed the need to continue investigating the Benghazi attacks and the failures of intelligence gathering and security.

“There are any number of issues in this scenario because we’re not on the ground … there are still a lot of outstanding questions,” Chambliss said, adding that he was happy with the hearing. "We’ve still got to determine, number one, how did this group penetrate the facility we had in Benghazi? Who were these folks? We have a pretty good idea now, we’re getting closer to determining that," he said.

“It’s delving into more depth on issues like that that we’ve got to do,” Chambliss said.

And while Chambliss rejected the idea that the attack was anything but terrorism, he was notably mum about Rice until pressed by reporters. Even then, his comments were significantly toned down.

Indeed, Chambliss acknowledged that “the problem with what Susan Rice said was not whether she stuck with the talking points, were they correct. They were. “

However, Chambliss did take issue with Rice’s decision to also tout the administration’s efforts against Al Qaeda given the fact that intelligence seemed to show they were involved in some way with the attack.

Even Sen. John McCain, who has been one of Rice’s chief critics in the Senate, was largely mum on the subject following the hearing, opting instead to lambaste the Iraqi government for freeing Ali DaqDuq, a Hezbollah leader connected to multiple American deaths.

Democrats were clearly pleased following the hearing.

“In fact, what the U.N. ambassador stated was the talking points that had been given, approved, declassified to the House Intelligence Committee and that’s what she, I am told, restated,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, a member of the community.

“So much of this confusion has arisen because of the difference between what is classified and what is unclassified,” Sen. Kent Conrad said. “When people are talking in a classified setting, they can say much more than they can say in an unclassified setting. The notes that Ambassador Rice was speaking from were from an unclassified setting.”

“She used the unclassified talking points that were signed off on by the entire intelligence community,” Conrad said.

Putting off the trickiest decisions until after the fiscal cliff. For now, everything is on the table.

Image by Olivier Douliery-Pool / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC — In their meeting at the White House on Friday, congressional leaders and President Barack Obama agreed that major reforms to the tax code and entitlement programs will not be part of legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.

Instead, House Speaker John Boehner said a solution to the fiscal cliff should ensure that those larger issues be addressed in 2013, when lawmakers will have more time to craft long-term fixes.

"This is a construct all present agreed was needed," an aide to Boehner wrote in an e-mail.

As the fiscal cliff negotiations move forward, perhaps no one will play such a key role in fostering compromise as Boehner, making his thinking at this early stage of particular significance.

At the meeting, Boehner "said Republicans recognize neither side is going to get everything it wants, and noted Republicans have put revenue on the table to demonstrate their seriousness about finding common ground," the aide said.

The meeting brought together Boehner, Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The lawmakers agreed that proposed frameworks for a fiscal-cliff solution would be presented immediately after Thanksgiving.

Those frameworks will likely outline target ratios of spending cuts to revenue, which would enable party leaders to begin working out the specifics of their plans.

Already, Democrats and Republicans have sparred over the issue of revenue, with Democrats contending that tax cuts for the wealthy must be allowed to expire, while Republicans have said that sufficient revenue can be attained by closing tax loopholes and making reforms to entitlement programs, including Medicare.

But, for now, leaders of both parties have agreed to put everything on the negotiating table.

“You don't need to ask someone 'in charge' what addresses need help. You can help yourself help someone else.”

Storm-affected residents of Rockaway Beach, Queens, at an Occupy Sandy–operated shelter. Text messaging and Twitter helped direct volunteers and donations to shelters and distribution hubs after the hurricane.

Image by Andrew Burton / Reuters

Katie Benner is normally a writer for Fortune, but after Hurricane Sandy, she half-jokes, "I'm going to be the relief yenta." Her Tumblr, Sandy Sucks, helps hook people up, but not for romance: It offers daily lists of ways anyone can chip into the hurricane relief effort, thus connecting those in need with those who want to help. It's one of many ways social media users have stepped up to the massive informational challenge posed by the storm.

Sandy has seen one of the most extensive social media responses of any American disaster, and volunteers' use of various social media platforms revealed their power — and their limitations — as tools of disaster relief.

Immediately after the hurricane, two things were apparent: immense devastation and human suffering, and an intense desire to help relieve it. The weekend after the storm, as thousands remained without power or surveyed the wreckage of their homes, volunteers were pouring in to affected areas as well. The Brooklyn Donor Center's time slots for blood donations filled up; a sign-up sheet for volunteers at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope quickly overflowed with names. Communicating the quickly changing needs of storm-ravaged neighborhoods to the various organizations and individuals eager to help turned out to be a challenge — but one to which savvy volunteers swiftly rose.

Benner points out that before the storm, many of us had become a bit spoiled when it came to getting information at the tap of a touchscreen: "We're kind of used to being able to go online and get what we need easily," she says. Post-Sandy, that wasn't always possible — even if you were lucky enough to have power, information about storm relief was a bit decentralized. Local blogs and national news organizations (including BuzzFeed) had lists of ways to help, and relief organizations from Occupy Sandy to the Red Cross maintained Web presences, but the sheer amount of information and its decentralized nature could be overwhelming to a would-be volunteer.

The Sandy Sucks Tumblr.

Via: sandysucks

Benner wanted to create a one-stop shop: "I wanted people to be able to go on and have the first post be 'three to ten things I can do today.'" And she wanted Sandy Sucks to be "something people can use no matter what their day-to-day lives look like." Those with free time could find volunteer opportunities, but those stuck in offices could get recommendations of places to donate, petitions to sign, or useful articles about the storm. Benner started Sandy Sucks on November 8, and within four days it had gotten 3,000 unique visitors.

Others are using social media to directly coordinate volunteers. A group of New Yorkers started the Red Hook/Rockaway Recovery Facebook page as a kind of dispatching hub and message board to send volunteers to flood-damaged neighborhoods. Co-organizer Ian Colletti says Facebook isn't ideal, but for now "it's something that everyone checks and something that everyone can refer to, and you can post chronologically." Recent posts include a message about a donation drop-off location in Greenpoint, and a car leaving Williamsburg for the Rockaways with space for volunteers.

Colletti says Facebook's limitations on newsfeeds mean Red Hook/Rockaway Recovery's posts reach fewer users than he'd like, but adds that Facebook's user-tagging feature has been useful — by tagging known volunteers in posts, Red Hook/Rockaway Recovery can make sure they see them.

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Donate now, get a Twinkie!

WASHINGTON — Within hours of the news that Hostess — makers of the Twinkie — would be closing forever, someone found a way to turn the news into a fundraising pitch.

And GOProud, the bombastic gay conservative group, should win some kind of award for this email to supporters:

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“I'm on Saturday Night Live enough… Don't go to Devil Dogs, David, don't try it…”

Source: youtube.com

We've reached peaked meme.

President Barack Obama jokingly mimics U.S. Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney's "not impressed" look while greeting members of the 2012 U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams in the Oval Office, Nov. 15, 2012. Steve Penny, USA Gymnastics President, and Savannah Vinsant laugh at left. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Via: whitehouse

Romney will carry the party's baggage off stage. “Toxic assets” into the bad bank of Mitt.

Image by Brian Snyder / Reuters

Ten days after at least some Republicans were surprised to see Mitt Romney lose the presidency, the candidate is gone without a trace.

There appears to be no Romney Republicanism to propagate. No Romney strategy to emulate. No Romney technology to ape. No generation shaped by his failed effort. And no Romney infrastructure to inherit, though he may still be asked to write and bundle quite a few checks. Romney's bewildering post-election explanations of his defeat — Obama, he said, had bought off Americans — drew almost universal condemnation from leaders of his party, but the comments were more excuse than cause; party figures from Ari Fleischer to Bobby Jindal appeared to be waiting to kick Romney to the side of the road. The candidate did them a favor when he complained that Democrats had simply bought off young people and minority voters, a churlish line that erased any lingering Republican affinity for him as, when all else failed, a good-hearted guy.

Romney is being erased with record speed from his party's books for three reasons. First, many Republicans backed him because they thought he had a good chance of winning; that appeal, obviously, is gone. Second, Romney had shallow roots, and few friends, in the national Republican Party. And those shallow roots have allowed Republicans to give him a new role: As a sort of bad partisan bank, freighted with all the generational positions and postures that they are looking to dump.

"Romney is now a toxic asset to unload," the historian Jack Bohrer remarked Saturday. "The only interesting thing left to his story is how they dispose of him."

The simplest reason for Romney's quick fadeout is that his central promise was that he could win. He delivered immense fundraising prowess and ideological flexibility. He was never going to win partisan hearts like the two iconic, beloved losers of his father's generation, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern.

"This is ever the sad fate of the 'electability' candidate who fails to get elected," tweetedRed State editor Dan McLaughlin.

But other electability candidates have not been subject to the sort of forced amnesia already washing over Romney. John Kerry and John McCain both faced, perhaps, even more bitter recriminations on questions of tactics and strategy from inside their parties —but they returned to important Senate roles, positions of respect in Washington and in their parties, and Kerry may join the next Cabinet.

Other losers can draw, similarly, on deep wells of loyalty at high levels of the party structure. Bob Dole and Walter Mondale got crushed by the last two-term incumbents to serve two terms. They faded fast from the American public imagination, too. But they also retook their seats on the party dais. Mondale, a former Vice President with deep ties to a key constituency, organized labor, became his party's Senate nominee after Paul Wellstone died in 2002. Dole, a beloved war hero and longtime party soldier, received the Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton in 1997, and was appointed by George W. Bush to chair a commission a decade later.

Romney was a party outsider who bought his way in. The campaigns he came up working for — his father's — operated in the essentially defunct moderate Republican tradition he abandoned, though a few of its stragglers staffed his headquarters in ... Boston. Much of his inner circle consisted of people whose loyalty was to Romney, not to his party or even his platform; that was also true of his most enthusiastic volunteers.

Now Republicans don't even seem to want to pile on Romney. Karl Rove and the SuperPAC infrastructure have absorbed as much disgust from donors and activists as Romney's campaign, which found a message in the fall after a dismal summer. Recriminations, such as they are, have focused on the collapse of a glorified digital list called Orca. Republicans just want to forget Romney.

That's because many of the Republican Party's leaders are, in fact, eager to change. Parties and politicians pivot faster than their friends or enemies ever imagine, and the Republican Party of Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio is pivoting very fast. And for all the reasons that Romney is easy for Republicans to forget, he offers them thy ideal sacrifice. Conservatives were always too fond of Barry Goldwater to write him off as the "extremist" Democrats successfully cast him as; they never liked Mitt Romney anyway, and will gladly remember him for his most odious comments.

There is an irony that Romney, the moderate, will be forced to carry off Todd Akin's baggage on reproductive rights; Joe Arpaio's on immigration; and James Dobson on gay rights. But when he cast popular policies as "gifts" to Obama voters (ignoring both his and Obama's expensive promises to older voters), his decision to, as Bobby Jindal put it, "insult" the demographic groups who are a larger part of each successive electorate offered the Republicans the pivot they had been looking for toward presenting a younger, more diverse, and more inclusive party.

Now Romney's own party will gladly let him, and his reputation, carry off the values for which he is only now, for the first time, really the spokesman.

Blames intelligence community for failures in initial assessment of attack.

Image by Win McNamee / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House Saturday denied it edited out references to terrorism in talking points used by UN Ambassador Susan Rice the wake of the attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya.

"The only edit that was made by the White House and also by the State Department was to change the word ‘consulate’ to the word ‘diplomatic facility,’ since the facility in Benghazi was not formally a consulate," said Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes. "Other than that we were guided by the points that were provided by the intelligence community. So I can’t speak to any other edits that may have been made.”

According to Republican lawmakers in a classified intelligence hearing yesterday featuring former CIA Director David Petraeus, the original talking points on the attack included a mention of al-Qaeda affiliated groups. The final version given to Rice, before she discussed the attack on five Sunday morning shows in which she stated that the attack was a response to an anti-Islamic video, stated: "There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations." The talking points were first obtained by CBS News.

The initial talking points “specifically mentioned al-Qieda, and that al-Qaida was involved in the attack,” said Rep. Peter King, who was in the briefing, on Fox News. “Somewhere along that line, that was taken out… someone in the administration had to have taken it out."

Questioned specifically about whether the White House or State Department had edited the talking points further, Rhodes put the blame on the intelligence community.

“I’m saying we were provided with points by the intelligence community that represented their assessment; the only edit made by the White House was the factual edit about how to refer to the facility,” he said.

“The focus of this has often been on public statements that were made by Susan Rice and other administration officials in that first week after the attack, those were informed by unclassified talking points that were provided to the Congress and the other agencies in the rest of the administration by the intelligence community," Rhodes expanded. "So that’s what informed our public statements. Now if there were adjustments to them made by the intelligence community, that’s common and that’s something they would have done themselves."

The campaign may be over, but the Facebook ads haven't stopped.

Source: revolutionmessaging.com

Via: revolutionmessaging.com

Blames a staffer for “erroneously” sending the Tweet.

Image by

The Israeli Ambassador to the United States deleted a tweet Saturday evening in which he said Israel would be willing to sit down with Hamas if they stopped firing at Israel.

"Just appeared on the set of #CNN: #Israel willing to sit down with #Hamas -- if they just stop shooting at us," Ambassador Michael Oren said in a now-deleted tweet.

Oren followed up on his deletion, blaming the mistake on a staffer.

"Correction: the earlier tweet about my CNN interview was sent erroneously by a staffer," he said.

The deleted tweet Oren attributed to a staffer appeared to be a paraphrase of a comment he made during his CNN interview where he said, while not mentioning Hamas directly, that Israel would be willing to sit down and negotiate.

"The people, and the government, and the State of Israel want peace with their neighbors. We are willing to sit down and negotiate with them, if they are willing to sit down and negotiate with us. Everything's on the table. We sign on to the two-state solution we're committed. Just stop shooting at us," Oren told CNN's Don Lemon.

Update A spokesman for the Israeli Ambassador emails "Ambassador Oren signaled in his interview our willingness to sit with our Palestinian neighbours - not with Hamas."

A longer clip of Oren's interview.

Source: youtube.com

“Yes we're working on this budget, we're going to need a lot of prayer for that.”

Image by Jason Reed / Reuters

On the first stop of his Asia trip, President Barack Obama visited the Wat Pho monastery, and asked a monk for prayers for he and other U.S. leaders to reach a deal on the fiscal cliff.

According to the White House pool report, Obama arrived at the "colorful and ornate Buddhist temple in the Phra Nakhon district" of Bangkok, Thailand, where he was given a tour by Head Monk Chaokun Suthee Thammanuwat.

"Yes we're working on this budget, we're going to need a lot of prayer for that," Obama quipped to him.

Obama and congressional leaders held what was thought to be a positive meeting at the White House on Friday as talks began in earnest to deal with trillions in spending and tax decisions due by the end of the year.

At a press conference later Sunday evening, Obama explained his joke to reporters.

"I'm confident that we can get our fiscal situation dealt with," he said. "I believe in prayer."

The full White House pool report:

Motorcade departed airport and made the trek along wide open highways into the center of Bangkok, then past the Government House which was decked out in bunting and a large sign reading "Welcome to the Honorable Barack Obama."

We arrived outside the Wat Pho monastery, a colorful and ornate Buddhist temple in the Phra Nakhon district. Pool was led to the open archway of a room with a golden Buddha and dark marble floors. This was the Eastern Viharn Phra. A faux tree towered behind the statue and the ceiling was painted red with gold medallions.

A few minutes later Head Monk Chaokun Suthee Thammanuwat, wearing a bright orange robe over one shoulder, led Potus, dressed in dark gray suit, and Sec of State Clinton, in royal blue pantsuit and gold necklace, into the room. Pool could not hear what they were saying as they circled the Buddha. The monk appeared to be explaining things for a few minutes before they left.

Pool was then taken to another large hallway dominated by a huge reclining gold Buddha, which streched the length of the building.This was the Viharn of the Reclining Buddha, and we were instructed to remove our shoes before entering. Again the monk led Potus and Clinton for a stroll past the giant figure, which dwarfed them all. Our third stop was in the courtyard where the trio strolled past a number of colorful spire-like columns. This was the Phra Maha Chedi Group.

The place was empty of tourists for the president's private tour. Pool overheard Clinton say: "What a peaceful place," and Potus responded: "If you have 80,000 people here it's not so peaceful. This is kind of a treat."

TV picked up Potus making a joke about the budget, saying to the monk "yes we're working on this budget, we're going to need a lot of prayer for that." And they laughed. Motorcade left about ten minutes later, headed for the hospital to visit the king.

“We are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself,” the President says in Thailand.

U.S. President Barack Obama, center, and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra acknowledge each other at a joint news conference at the Government House in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012.

Image by Carolyn Kaster / AP

President Barack Obama fully supported the Israeli Government's operations in Gaza, speaking at the joint press conference in Thailand, where he is on a state visit.

"There's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders," he said. "We are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself."

Obama said the rocket attacks were the "precipitating event" for the Israeli operation, which to date has been mostly limited to an aerial bombardment of Hamas government and military sites, but is threatening to become a ground operation.

"We are actively working with all the parties in the region to see if we can end those missiles being fired without further escalation of violence in the region," Obama said.

But Obama echoed Israeli leaders, saying any "serious" attempt to reach peace in the region begins "with no more missiles being fired into Israel's territory."

The Governor — and his fleece — visit Weekend Update.

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Source: hulu.com