** ACTIVITY ON THE LEADING CALIFORNIA OPPOSITION BLOGS. California’s daily newspapers have identified two prominent right-wing blogs as the centers of opposition to the bipartisan Assembly budget backed by Governor Arnold Schwarznegger. They are the Flash Report, owned by Southern California GOP vice chairman Jon Fleischman. And California Republic, owned by state Senator and former candidate for governor, lieutenant governor, and state controller, Tom McClintock.
As of 9:15 PM Pacific time, as the budget battle “rages,” here is the total number of comments on each of these sites for today. Flash Report: 4. California Republic: 1.
** U.K. LEADERS, U.S., U.N., AND CALIFORNIA. New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown meets for the first time as the UK’s premier this weekend at the presidential retreat of Camp David with President George W. Bush. Brown, who has had to cope with Islamic jihadist terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow as well as unprecedented heavy weather and flooding throughout Britain since taking over from Tony Blair on June 27th, will explore and reaffirm the “special relationship” between the US and UK, and will deliver a keynote address to the United Nations in New York.
Meanwhile, new British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff yesterday in Islamabad, signaled that the special relationship does not entail doing whatever the US might want. Miliband indicated that British forces would fight to prevent Al Qaeda’s resurgence along the Afghan-Pakistan border, but would not be part of any potential US strike/reconnaissance in force into the Waziristan sector of Pakistan to hunt down and eradicate Al Qaeda leadership.
Miliband, incidentally, was the environment minister under Blair who approved the naming by the UK of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as one of the great environmental heroes of the planet. Schwarzenegger will meet tomorrow in Silicon Valley with new UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The two leaders will tour a high tech firm making sensors that enable more efficient use of energy.
For his part, Tony Blair — the man at the center of all those relationships — has had a busy week touring the Middle East as the new peace envoy. He appears to be having some success getting the militant Hamas faction of the Palestinians brought into the negotiating mix with regard to the perpetual Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE: NO PUFF OF WHITE SMOKE. Not much happened today. No vote on the state Senate Republicans’ cobbled together cuts. No emergence of two Republican votes in the Senate for the bipartisan Assembly version of the budget. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a number of private meetings, then came forth to call for the passage of the budget and for all to move on, with deeper structural fiscal matters to be dealt with in a more contemplative manner. And that was that.
** SECDEF GATES SAYS IRAQ WITHDRAWAL PLANNING UNDERWAY. Responding to Hillary Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Service Committee who inquired about Pentagon planning for withdrawal from Iraq, Defense Secretary Bob Gates said such planning is well underway. While he did not explicitly apologize for an undersecretary’s characterization last week of her request giving aid and comfort to the enemy, Gates did describe him as a “valued member” of his staff who is “a Vietnam veteran.” In politics, that’s not a good sign for Mr. Eric Edelman.
** RUSSIAN MOVES AROUND IRAN CONTINUE. Now, contradicting what was said only yesterday (see below), Russia’s deputy foreign minister says that the Bushehr nuclear plant in Iran will be completed in early 2008. This would potentially advance Iran’s nuclear program by as much as six to nine months from what was previously calculated.
Russia is very unhappy with various Bush Administration policies, such as the missile shield based in Eastern Europe and the NATO envelopment of the Russian Federation.
** WHAT’S CALIFORNIA’S REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN UP TO? Ron Nehring, whose party is reeling with a roughly million dollar operating deficit since he took over at the state convention in Sacramento this past February, is in Israel now, in the midst of a 10-day tour, as reported in yesterday morning’s column.
What’s he up to? You won’t find that out from California Republicans. You will, however, from Florida Republicans. Here, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party, Jim Greer discusses the centerpiece event of their 10 days in Israel. A forum featuring Greer and Nehring yesterday on, naturally, politics in the US and Israel. In this forum, the Florida party chairman described his experiences as chairman of his state party, along with outreach efforts to various minority groups.
“I look forward to using the experiences from this trip,” says Greer, “to enhance our understanding of the issues that are important to the Jewish community in Florida and across the nation and to further the Republican Party of Florida’s outreach to this community.”
“This is a classic junket,” explains a top Republican strategist. “Ron Nehring is a professional junketeer.”
** MCCAIN LOSES HIS MEDIA TEAM. Senator John McCain’s media consultants, Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, have left his sagging campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. This is the latest in a series of departures that have rocked his once frontrunning candidacy, not only for the nomination, but for the presidency. Stevens was a colleague of mine on the late NBC-TV series, Mister Sterling. He also wrote for Northern Exposure , Commander in Chief (intriguingly about a Hillary-like president) and other shows, in addition to his extensive political work.
** FRED THOMPSON CAMPAIGN IN DISARRAY ALREADY? The slow-starting Fred Thompson for President campaign, having lost its campaign manager early in the week, was just the subject of a Fox News report by correspondent Carl Cameron. He reported what was alluded to here earlier. That Thompson’s wife, Jeri Kuhn Thompson, is running the show. And that that, according to Fox, is proving to be an impediment to the campaign getting going down the runway towards take-off.
** BLAIR LEAVES BEHIND ARNOLD’S iPOD. They’re great allies, but former Prime Minister Tony Blair was less than impressed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gift of an iPod. He left it behind when he left office last month, donating it to the United Kingdom government. Somehow, I don’t quite see Gordon Brown as an iPod kind of guy.
** NEVADA SHOWS DRAMATIC CLIMATE CHANGE. Setting the table for the second-in-the-nation presidential nomination contest next January 19th, a new study shows that Nevada is one of the states that has already felt the greatest amount of climate change. Average temperatures are up dramatically in the Silver State, as are minimum temperatures.
The average temperature in Reno from June through August last year was 75.6 degrees, almost 7 degrees above the 30-year average. The gap was the biggest measured nationally. Las Vegas’ average temperature last summer was 3.6 degrees above the 30-year average from 1971-2000.
RUSSIAN YOUTH POLL: STALIN GOOD, IMMIGRANTS BAD. A new poll of Russians aged 18 to 29 shows that a strong majority greatly admires the late dictator Joseph Stalin. And a strong majority feels that immigrants should really just go away. Is this the Putin generation?
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 74th day of searching for the remaining two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in an ambush south of Baghdad. They have had no luck so far. A video put out by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq claims that all three men were executed after being captured. But, with the exception of the Californian found floating in the Euphrates River, that claim can’t be confirmed. The US high command in Baghdad has revealed that ID cards for the other two American prisoners were found in an Al Qaeda safehouse on June 9th.
** Track global and national energy prices in near real time via Bloomberg. Most crude oil prices have shot up to $77 per barrel.
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| Comments (87) |
I don’t think Thompson’s going anywhere.
I don’t think Thompson’s going anywhere.
Thompson’s wife is running the campaign? There is a study says the person you have sex with most has the most influence over you. lol
Stalin was good? Amazing. Truly amazing.
Remember what Walter Winchell said when he heard the news Stalin had passed…something to the effect of “spit on your grave”…
Sounded to a little lad as being mean-spirited. As I’ve aged and learned history, it’s not so much that way anymore.
Doesn’t bode well for any country whose youth find that chap admirable.
It’s all about a sense of shame following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a sense of power and authority, and a desire to return to an idealized past.
Anybody read the NY Magazine profile on Fred Thompson?
http://nymag.com/news/features/34992
I agree…it is also about young people …in general their lack of knowledge about history and having historical perspective ….look at Prince Harry dressing up in a Nazi costume…I ran into many German young people traveling thru Croatia, Slovenia and in Viennea.. they were mostly University students on summer break when talking to them they also brag about Germany leading Europe again without any mention by them of German war mongering and atrocities during WWI and II…You have to remember to young people pre 1950 seems like the stone age…heck pre 1970 seems like that to them…and ther eis MUCH revisionism going on in history even here in the US
Blair left behind Schwarz’s iPod. I love it.
Barbara, somehow I don’t believe that Prince Harry actually believes the Nazis were good.
This a very specific syndrome going on in Russia, with Russians.
PNA leader Abbas is going to Russia for 3 days to meet Putin this coming Monday…which is interesting…
Abbas wants Putin to move the Quartet into giving Blair explicit peace negotiation authority.
no he just showed a certain ignorance as the results of this poll does…and you would find some surprising even shocking results in many EU countries and GB on the issue of immigrants and the view of the US, and how they perceive WWII especially in the 18-29 age group
“two thirds thought that America was a rival and enemy. Only a fifth viewed Iran as a potential rival or enemy.”
“Forty-six percent disagreed with the statement that Stalin was a cruel tyrant.”
“62 percent said they agreed with the statement that the Russian government should evict most immigrants.”
We are in big trouble. Bush has been asleep at the wheel for seven years and now we face a litany of potential threats for the 21 Century.
When the leader of Russia compares the United States to the Nazis, who killed 25 million Soviet citizens, things have gotten out of hand.
BTW – the 100 largest cities in California only add-up to 21 million.
Abbas wants Putin to move the Quartet into giving Blair explicit peace negotiation authority
If you say so Mr. Bradley
Yes, the Russian youth poll is quite alarming.
>“two thirds thought that America was a rival and enemy. Only a fifth viewed Iran as a potential rival or enemy.”
“Forty-six percent disagreed with the statement that Stalin was a cruel tyrant.”
“62 percent said they agreed with the statement that the Russian government should evict most immigrants.”
Bill/Barbara,
Good points. Fully understood.
Mr. Bradley:Abbas wants Putin to move the Quartet into giving Blair explicit peace negotiation authority
as I said …If you say so Mr. Bradley…well then it must be so…
Mr. Bradley:Abbas wants Putin to move the Quartet into giving Blair explicit peace negotiation authority
as I said …If you say so Mr. Bradley…well then it must be so…
Any reason for repeating what you just said word for word?
“Yes, the Russian youth poll is quite alarming.”
Especially since that group represents the majority of servicemen in their armed forces.
I agree totally …It is frightening …It’s more frightening than the last and newsest Harry Potter novel and that was really scary and had scenes of ethnic cleasing in it…it’s scary alrming frightening …that so many people are uniformed…not like here …than God!
should read:it’s scary alarming frightening …that so many people are uninformed…not like here …thank God!
I am so scared about the youth of Russia that I could hardly type!
Any reason for repeating what you just said word for word?
why do you ask? should there be a reason?…I am just glad to know why he is visiting Russia …I mean it’s good to know the real reason for the visit….
well if we do go into Pakistan …it looks like we will not have the British along our side…PM Brown is coming to Camp David this weekend …that’s another interesting visit…
Mr. Bradley! I bet Brown when he meets Bush is also going to insist that Blair is the only ME “explicit peace negotiation authority”
while in Pakistan “David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, signally distanced himself from recent US calls for direct military action against Pakistan-based Islamists today on a visit to Islamabad.”
The Times (online) 7/26
I hope Hillary Releases a copy of the letter …
“The Pentagon is working on contingency plans for an eventual U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in a letter delivered July 25 to Sen. Hillary Clinton, Reuters reported July 26. Gates reportedly called the planning a “priority”
Russians are quite paradoxical. Filled with spirit and zest for life, and darkness and cynicism. Russians can embrace a new fascism if it is dressed in modernist trappings.
I think Russia is a great country. Russians are fascinating people. I’m alarmed by a number of these developments.
I saw David Milliband on BBC early this morning. Haven’t gotten around to writing about it yet.
>Barbara :
well if we do go into Pakistan …it looks like we will not have the British along our side…PM Brown is coming to Camp David this weekend …that’s another interesting visit…
Mr. Bradley! I bet Brown when he meets Bush is also going to insist that Blair is the only ME “explicit peace negotiation authority”
while in Pakistan “David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, signally distanced himself from recent US calls for direct military action against Pakistan-based Islamists today on a visit to Islamabad.”
The Times (online) 7/26
Jul 26, 2007 11:07 AM
“WHAT’S CALIFORNIA’S REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIRMAN UP TO?”
Thank you for this little tidbit. Now please excuse me while I experience Uber Schadenfreude.
The Israel junket material for the wingnut Republican chair is too funny.
Thanks.
There’s more.
Thanks.
There’s more.
AP WASHINGTON — FBI Director Robert S. Mueller said Thursday the government’s terrorist surveillance program was the topic of a 2004 hospital room dispute between top Bush administration officials, contradicting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ sworn Senate testimony.
Mueller was not in the hospital room at the time of the dramatic March 10, 2004, confrontation between then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and presidential advisers Andy Card and Gonzales, who was then serving as White House counsel. Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee he arrived shortly after they left, and spoke with the ailing Ashcroft.
Mueller is still testifying about this, on CSPAN radio but apparently not TV.
I don’t buy that study, as far as politics is concerned.
I mean…
George W. Bush has done nothing but screw the American people for six and a half years…and he doesn’t listen to anything we have to say.
I would love to be in St peterburg this Sunday …its Navy Day and friends say it is something special and will be sending me photos via internet …for the first time this year a US delegation led by one of our admirals will participate…
there is an incredible interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Der Spiegel that a friend sent me on his view of Russia today and why he supports Putin…and Shimon Peres also has an intriguing interview out in which he asserts Russia’s meddling and mixing it up in Iran is ALL about the US-Russia relationship…
BTW Abbas has a very close relationship with Putin as Hamas has agood one …in part, because Putin and Abbas wanted an internalt conf over 2 years ago and the US nipped that idea in the bud ….also Russia refuses to take a side in the Hamas/PNA conflict…
I loved the last book of Harry Potter…if I someone aske dme what the major theme of the book is I would say …Harry learns nothing is black and white, nothing is JUST good or JUST evil…the world is gray and you have to take the good with the bad …most of the time…
Don’t start me on the Russian Navy …
Nehring…Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2007
It’s not unusual for various groups AIPAC, Amer Jewish Committee, ADL etc to take influential politicals and elected officials on missions…The LA Branch of the Rep Jewish Coalition is very influential as is the SF branch full of movers and shakers… ….this group is a HUGE supporter of Rudy…infact when I heard Rudy at the Reep Convention it was at their very well attended forum…
Now Milibrand says Brits will help help Pakistan fight militants on the Afghan border…
good ….that will no doubt be of some help us
well well well
“Hamas is committed to Palestinian unity under the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas’ political bureau chief Khaled Mashal said in a July 26 phone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Itar-Tass reported. Mashal said there are no obstacles to Hamas-Fatah interaction for establishing an independent Palestinian state.”
It’s to bad Abbas could not rearrange his trip and get to Russia on Sunday instead of Monday so he could participate in the Navy Day festivities and and attend the rock concert in St. Petersburg…
The new Harry Potter is still in my new overnight bag. I have too much reading to do.
YOU will LOVE it…it is VERY political …VERY dark …and I think very REAL story about friendship, misunderstanding of others motives ….
Bill and the Russians, oh boy.
These are really in some ways amazing days…I look at the “Telgraph” story below (which is read by more conservative Brits) and I think back to another time…and I just wish a certain person was alive to see some of these headlines…
“President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the West to trust Arab countries with nuclear technology yesterday as he signed a deal that could see France supplying Libya with a new reactor.
During a meeting with Col Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Mr Sarkozy agreed to help the country with a nuclear-powered project to desalinate seawater.”
Incidentally, NWN passed 35,000 comments sometime last week.
“a sense of power and authority, and a desire to return to an idealized past.”
You know, when Americans romanticize the first half of the twentieth century, I can sorta understand it, even though the truth is there was just as much vice and misery under the Edenic facade of early suburbia as there was under England’s Victorian priggery.
But, sheesh, Russians romanticizing that period? “We were starving and miserable, but at least we could credibly threaten to beat up our neighbors!”
RE: NWN passed 35,000 comments sometime last week.
I think that’s 34,995 more than Flash or Majority Report.
Edelman may get a paycheck at DOD but he reports (probably on Gates!) to Cheney…same type of people at State watching Condi ….
I hear a state budget deal may be at hand.
Alex,
Funny. I just turned on the Cal Channel and they are broadcasting beyond their normal 3:30 time. Perhaps, maybe, perhaps…
Well I think the Bush Admin and Israeli right wing, Rudy’s neo -con advisers and supporters, and all the PJ MEDIA readers need to get ready for the fact that the British and the EU and the majority of the Quartet are clearly re-positioning to work with Hamas….I bet Abbas is agreeable to that after he visits Russia…and I think the Emir of Qattar called his friend Putin to parachute in here …and I think Blair is more than happy about that , may have even suggested that in his visit, …Blair’s job will be much easier without the Hamas/PNA conflict ….
Also today (26th) in an interview with British newspaper The Guardian, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh claims that Hamas has had more and more “secret” contacts with high-ranking British officials since BBC. reporter Alan Johnson’s july 4 release but the United Kingdom prefers to keep this contact secret…The Foreign Ministry asserts that these contacts are humanitarian and not “political”. …and then there is that little matter of the BG Group natural gas field deal off the coast of Gaza…which will need to be re-negotiated …but then Blair has been involved with that from the beginning…
This The Times article in the Friday print now online is what could only be called a pro-Hamas article dated 7/27
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2148334.ece