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Biden’s OMB Nominee: Firestorm of Criticism 

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Joe Biden has just nominated Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, as his director of the Office of Management and Budget. This has produced a range of criticism online. See Twitter thread by Kevin Gosztola about issues such as her opposition to Medicare for All. Walker Bragman just wrote the piece “Biden Picks Budget Director Who Pushed Social Security Cuts.”

Early this year, Alex Burns of the New York Times wrote: “In 2015, Center for American Progress researchers wrote a report on U.S. Islamophobia, [with a] 4300-word chapter on the Bloomberg-era NYPD. When the report was published, the chapter was gone. By then, Bloomberg had given CAP ~$1.5mm. That number has grown.”

YASMINE TAEB, ytaeb@internationalpolicy.org@YasmineTaeb
Taeb is now senior fellow on Congress and foreign policy at the Center for International Policy. She was one of the researchers of the censored report while working at CAP. See her appearance on “Democracy Now!” earlier this year: “How Bloomberg-Funded Center for American Progress Censored a Report on NYPD Surveillance of Muslims.” Also see CommonDreams report: “‘Grotesque Corruption’: Emily’s List, Center for American Progress Sold Out to Michael Bloomberg.”

ZAID JILANI, areo64@gmail.com
Jilani also worked for CAP and wrote about some of his experiences there in the piece “Bernie Sanders v the Democratic establishment: what the battle is really about” for The Guardian.

As news of Tanden’s nomination spread, Joe Biden tweeted “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, and listen to each other again.” The New York Times in “The Rematch: Bernie Sanders vs. a Clinton Loyalist” describes how Tanden punched (according to a witness) or shoved (according to her) a staffer for asking Hillary Clinton about the Iraq invasion.

Glenn Greenwald just wrote the piece “Biden Appointee Neera Tanden Spread the Conspiracy That Russian Hackers Changed Hillary’s 2016 Votes to Trump.” In 2015, Greenwald wrote about CAP: “Leaked Emails From Pro-Clinton Group Reveal Censorship of Staff on Israel, AIPAC Pandering, Warped Militarism,” which revealed that  following the Libya intervention Tanden argued that “having oil rich countries partly pay us back doesn’t seem crazy to me.” That is, as Greenwald wrote: “Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions of their oil revenues to repay the U.S. for the costs incurred in bombing Libya, on the grounds that Americans will support future wars only if they see that the countries attacked by the U.S. pay for the invasions.”