** SCHWARZENEGGER ADDRESS TO BRITISH CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE. Originally slated to be the Tory conference keynoter, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had to cancel due to California’s legislative business being dragged out by the state budget stall of the summer. His friend, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, filled in in his stead. Bloomberg was a moderate Republican, but after he and the former action movie superstar appeared on the cover of Time magazine as the poster boys for post-partisanship, Bloomberg became an independent. Which makes their selection by the Tories quite intriguing. Schwarzenegger addressed the conference in Blackpool via satellite Sunday morning (late afternoon in the UK):
Hello everyone. It is a tremendous honor to address the 124th annual Conservative Party Conference. I am sorry I could not join you in person.
But we are in the middle of a special session of the Legislature that I called, to address two of the biggest issues facing California. One is comprehensive health care reform and the other is a long-term water plan to make sure California has all the water it needs to remain prosperous for generations to come.
So I had to cancel all travel except a long-term promise to attend the Special Olympics World Summer Games in China in a few days.
But I am happy to talk with you via satellite because as someone from Europe who now lives in America, I have a profound appreciation of the bond between our two nations.
No matter the challenge, no matter the issue, Americans know you have always been our trusted and valued friend.
And I suspect you feel the same way about us. It’s fantastic you found such a great new keynote speaker, my good friend and soul mate, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Now I have to say… Because just like your dynamic leader David Cameron, the mayor always puts the people first.
He knows, like David Cameron and I know, that we are public servants, not party servants. And that our job is to recognize the issues that matter to the people the most and to solve them. Issues we are all working on very hard in California, New York City and in Great Britain.
Issues like health care, balanced budgets, economic development, education reform, public safety, infrastructure and of course global warming and protecting the environment. These are not conservative or liberal issues. They are issues everyone cares about.
People want quality health care, no matter what party they belong to. They want safe communities, no matter what party they belong to. They want a healthy environment, no matter what party they belong to.
Think about global warming, which your party has done such great work on. We are changing the dynamic. Last year, after I signed our landmark climate change bill, everyone was inspired by California’s leadership on this vital issue.
Mayor Bloomberg did the same thing in April by proposing his green plan for New York City, the most ambitious environmental blueprint for a city in history. And by being a strong and forceful voice on climate change, David Cameron has revived your Conservative Party’s green heritage and helped strengthen Britain’s resolve to set an example on this issue.
That is the kind of leadership people are hungry for. They want action and results, not ideology and stalemate. They prefer progress with messy compromise, over defeat with pristine principles.
“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity,” Winston Churchill once said. “The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
I agree 100 percent. I know David Cameron and Michael Bloomberg do, too. Thank you very much. And now let me introduce to you one of the great mayors ever, my friend, Michael Bloomberg.
Obama leads Hillary Clinton, 28% to 24%, with John Edwards close behind with 22% and Bill Richardson fourth at 10%.
On the Republican side, Romney leads with 24%. Fred Thompson is second at 16%, followed by Rudy Giuliani at 13%, Mike Huckabee at 12%, and John McCain at 9%.
** UNIVERSITY SEMINAR STARTING SUNDAY. I’m doing a university seminar most of next week, beginning tomorrow morning, so NWN publishing will not be as frequent as usual.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO ADDRESS BRITISH CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE IN LIVE SUNDAY WEBCAST. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had been slated to keynote the British Conservative Party conference in Blackpool only to cancel on account of his special legislative session, will nonetheless address the Tory gathering at 7:15 AM Sunday morning via satellite. The event will be webcast live on the UK Conservative Party web site.
His topic will be climate change and modern center-right politics.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO ATTEND FIREFIGHTERS MEMORIAL CEREMONY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in 2005 was viewed as an enemy of the firefighters union for his special election initiative agenda — which at one point targeted their pensions — will participate in a memorial ceremony at 11 AM in Capitol Park. Also on the program is U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, whose seat Schwarzenegger may take on in 2010. Schwarzenegger just signed a bill granting health benefits to firefighters’ surviving family members.
It turns out that the only major contributor to the collapsed Republican electoral college initiative is not only Northeastern finance chairman for Rudy Giuliani, but as a leading “vulture fund” operator is also a controversial figure.
Singer, research reveals, is very private, does not want his picture taken, and prefers to converse with the press — if at all — via e-mail.
“I contributed to the Take Initiative America because I believe in proportional voting in the Electoral College,” Singer, the founder of Elliott Associates, said in a statement e-mailed to the Daily News. “I made the contribution without any restrictions, including whether or how it would need to be disclosed. I left disclosure completely up to TIA.”
TIA, or Take Initiative America, is an unknown group based in a small Missouri town. Its purported proprietor, a young local Missouri lawyer, and its California consultant, Republican Jonathan Wilcox, had both cited the lack of a legal requirement for it to disclose the source of the $175,000 it contributed to the California initiative campaign. That is the money that enabled the campaign to hire consultant Mike Arno to start up a signature gathering drive, which has now ended.
The far right Flash Report web site — which heavily promoted the scheme — rather amusingly reported this: “The initiative was unable to garner the financial support it deserved, and, in addition, one of the donors had some apparent organizational difficulties.”
“One of the donors” being, of course, Singer. Who, with his secret $175,000, was the only major donor to speak of.
In the ’90s, his company paid $11 million for deeply discounted Peruvian debt and then demanded, and got, $58 million. According to the BBC, Singer’s company is now suing Congo Brazzaville for $400 million for a debt it bought for $10 million.
With regard to the vulture fund phenomenon, in 2002, while Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister), now Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:”We particularly condemn the perversity where vulture funds purchase debt at a reduced price and make a profit from suing the debtor country to recover the full amount owed — a morally outrageous outcome.”
“Nothing about this passed the smell test,” a Republican strategist says of the collapsed Electoral College scheme.
Singer has very close ties to Rudy Giuliani.
He is Northeastern finance chairman for the Giuliani campaign and a friend and policy advisor to the candidate. Giuliani frequently uses a jet owned by Singer’s company.
Singer is also a trustee of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy foundation that has been a source of many Giuliani policy proposals.
The Giuliani campaign denies any knowledge of Singer’s previously secret backing of the collapsed California initiative campaign.
The military junta ruling Burma/Myanmar has cut off Internet
access as it attempts to quell pro-democracy protests.
** GIULIANI’S TOP FUNDRAISER, A PROMINENT “VULTURE FUND” OPERATOR, WAS MYSTERY MONEY MAN BEHIND THE COLLAPSED SCHEME TO CHANGE CALIFORNIA’S ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE. The collapsed attempt by some Republican operatives to change the rules surrounding the allocation of California’s votes in the presidential Electoral College — see this morning’s column — received most of its previously secret funding from a New York hedge fund impresario who is Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani’s top fundraiser. He is also, it turns out, and you won’t see this in the New York Daily News report below, said to be one of the most prominent “vulture fund” investors in the world. Here’s the scoop from the politics blog of the New York Daily News. The vulture fund stuff follows after that. It would seem that Mr. Singer is a very controversial figure.
Rudy Giuliani’s top fundraiser, hedge fund giant Paul Singer, revealed himself today as the sole financial backer of a stalled ballot drive to turn California into a motherlode of Republican votes in 2008.
Singer’s disclosure, made in a statement to The Daily News, came a day after Republican operatives in the Golden State announced they were halting their ballot effort, in part because they were unsure of their own funders’ identity.
The group, Californians for Equal Representation, had received exactly one donation for $175,000, from a mysterious, Missouri-based corporation identified only as Take Initiative America.
The lack of specifics left organizers in California open to allegations they had something to hide, and several — among them lead lawyer Tom Hiltachk and spokesman Kevin Eckery — resigned Thursday rather than defend the arrangement.
“I have demanded that Take Initiative America fully disclose the source of its funds and have been assured that it will do so,” Hiltachk said in resigning. “Nonetheless, I am deeply troubled by their failure to disclose.”
But Singer, apparently eager to put the disclosure issue to rest, stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself.
“I contributed to the Take Initiative America because I believe in proportional voting in the Electoral College,” Singer said in a statement e-mailed to The News. “I made the contribution without any restrictions, including whether or how it would need to be disclosed. I left disclosure completely up to TIA.”
Sources added later that all $175,000 came from Singer, a founding partner of Elliot Associates, a $7 billion hedge fund with a long history of funding GOP causes.
In the ’90s, his company paid $11 million for deeply discounted Peruvian debt and then demanded, and got, $58 million. According to the BBC, Singer’s company is now suing Congo Brazzaville for $400 million for a debt it bought for $10 million.
The Clinton Global Initiative — you can check it out here — has met for the past two years at the same time as the UN General Assembly in New York. But next year, says Clinton, it will meet in Hong Kong. Whatever one thinks of Bill Clinton, there is no question that as a former president he has become a huge force in the US and around the world. I’m quite certain that if he were able to run again for president, he would win. It’s actually quite a story, which I under-report because his wife is running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Otherwise there would be way too much Clinton here.
** OAKLAND IS THE PLACE SUNDAY FOR THE CLINTON AND OBAMA CAMPAIGNS. Hillary Clinton attends a big block party with thousands of her friends from 4:30 PM on in downtown Oakland. That’s where Barack Obama drew 12,000 people for a rally outside Oakland City Hall several months ago. Expect a host of politicians to be on hand as well as the hoped for families tha the New York senator is looking forward to.
For its part, the Obama campaign will be opening its Northern California headquarters nearby, a few hours earlier, at 1 PM. They won’t have Obama himself, of course, but former state Controller and eBay honcho Steve Westly, now a leading greentech venture capitalist, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, state campaign director Mitch Schwartz, and other notables should be on hand. And they’re having a block party, too.
However, he did not say what the goal should be, nor did he accept that a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions is needed.
He did endorse the UN process that the special session of heads of state addressed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday in New York is part of. The UN process includes its own high-level summit this December in Bali.
It’s unlikely that Bush’s proposal will amount to much.
Meanwhile, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown is preparing to sue the Bush Administration next month for blocking California’s 2002 law to curtail tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in new vehicles.
** MYANMAR DICTATORSHIP CRACKS DOWN ON “INTERNET REVOLUTION.” It’s been heralded as an “Internet revolution,” the move by pro-democracy protesters in Burma, the military dictatorship prefers Myanmar, to use networked computers and cell phones to organize and to transmit information to the world. So the regime has just retaliated by cutting Internet access. This may presage a bloodier crackdown than has happened thusfar. A Japanese journalist was shot dead covering the protests and the overall death toll — which the regime puts at 10 — is in dispute, with others saying it is substantially higher.
** HUGE OBAMA RALLY LAST NIGHT IN NEW YORK CITY. Moving into Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s backyard, Barack Obama held a huge rally last night in New York City. MSNBC this morning estimated the crowd at 25,000. Obama himself, apparently recovering from the cold that reportedly hampered his performance the night before in a debate at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, delivered a rousing address to the crowd which spilled out of Washington Square in the Big Apple’s Greenwich Village.
Although Clinton, New York’s senator, will undoubtedly win the New York primary on February 5th, there are plenty of delegates to be had there and Obama clearly aims to win a big share of them.
“The people who have given me money, I don’t think I should disclose it unless there is some conflict of which I am aware,” said former President Clinton. Presidential libraries are currently not required to disclose their contributors. However, they are the province of politicians retired from electoral politics. The US has never had a situation in which vast sums of of money can be contributed to promote a political partnership in which one member is a former president and the other a possible president.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 135th 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.
That was quick. An initiative effort by Republican operatives to change California’s electoral college vote in the presidential election is in a state of collapse. It had begun inauspiciously, with under 50% support in the Field Poll, the scorn of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and poor fundraising results.
The initiative drive, if one can call it that, which was first revealed in the Los Angeles Times in July, would have changed the electoral college vote of California — and nowhere else — from the customary winner-take-all to apportioning by winner of congressional district. This would likely give 20 or so additional electoral college votes to the Republican nominee, and probably the White House. Democrats call it an obvious power grab, and Schwarzenegger, as first revealed on NWN, doesn’t like the proposed measure one bit, likening it to a “loser’s mentality.”
Despite having Schwarzenegger’s former political lawyer, Tom Hiltachk, and his fundraising consultant, Marty Wilson, the effort had only raised about $200,000, most of it from a shadowy group seemingly based in Missouri that won’t say where the money came from. Hiltachk quit yesterday and Wilson had already scaled back his involvement.
Democrats reacted with alacrity when the effort emerged in July, bringing on PR consultant Chris Lehane, mobilizing the state and national party apparatuses behind chairmen Art Torres and Howard Dean, and rolling out U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to denounce it as a cynical attempt to steal the White House by changing the rules here and nowhere else.
Schwarzenegger, albeit more diplomatically as a Republican, said much the same thing, telling ABC correspondent Nanette Miranda in a TV interview early this month: “To me, what we have in place right now works. I feel like if you all of a sudden in the middle of the game start changing the rules it’s kind of odd, it almost feels like a loser’s mentality, saying I cannot win with those rules, so let me change the rules. I have not made up my mind yet in one way or the other, because I haven’t seen the details on it but basically I would say there is something off with this whole idea.”
A few days later, the governor went to the state Republican Party convention outside Palm Springs where he further challenged the party to find ways to appeal to the broad middle of the electorate.
To me, it has always seemed like an idea too clever by half. One that might force Democrats to spend money to defeat it, to be sure. But also one that would force Republicans to pony up the cash to make it viable. And Republican fundraising, as we’ve seen all year, is down. Their resources are better spent elsewhere.
In a nifty bit of editing by her campaign, Hillary Clinton sounds
very independent of her husband in this snippet from last night’s
debate. (When she was surprised to learn that, unlike her, he had
supported torture in a terrorism hypoethetical.) Actually, she wouldn’t
say if contributors to the Clinton Presidential Library should be
disclosed, an obvious question, saying she’ll have to talk with him.
** MORRIS QUESTIONS FOR HILLARY. Dick Morris, the Clintons’ chief political strategist in the former president’s 1996 re-election campaign, was once one of Senator Hillary Clinton’s greatest political friends. Now the two quite obviously detest one another. That said, here are some questions that Morris has for the former first lady/New York senator/Democratic presidential frontrunner: Bill Clinton refused to accept political action committee (PAC) contributions in his campaigns of 1992 and 1996. Obama and Edwards are following his example. Why aren’t you?
After all the bad experiences you had with Johnnie Chung and Charlie Trie and their campaign donations in the 1996 election cycle, why were you not more careful in vetting the donations generated by Norman Hsu? Didn’t you learn your lesson in 1996?
(As a follow-up to No. 2) After you found that you had to return almost a million dollars to the donors bundled by Hsu, you said you would be more vigilant in examining the backgrounds of donors. Why didn’t you come to that conclusion before the Hsu scandal, based on your 1996 experiences?
Norman Hsu was no ordinary donor. He was the biggest bundler in your campaign; he gave funds to the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton School of Government in Arkansas and took Patti Solis Doyle, your campaign manager, and other aides on an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas. He also donated to Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, whose campaign debt you agreed to help repay. In view of his high profile in your campaign, why didn’t you check him out more thoroughly, and what does this say about your ability to make quality appointments?
** EDWARDS REVERSES COURSE, TAKES PUBLIC MATCHING FUNDS. With his fundraising lagging far behind that of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, former Senator and 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee John Edwards will take federal matching funds for his presidential campaign. It’s a good way to inject funds into a campaign. But it does impose spending limits in each state. Which he may be close to in Iowa, the first-in-the-nation contest which he must win. Yet, having done Iowa in the past, I know there are ways around this. You can buy TV time on stations which are just out of state but have many Iowa viewers. You can rent cars in bordering states. And so on.
** A NEW RADIO SHOW. Incidentally, you might want to check out a national radio show I’m doing. It’s on XM Satellite Radio, on the POTUS08 (POTUS = President Of The United States) channel, which is Channel 130, and it’s called “PJM Political.”
In addition to being an on-air political analyst about presidential politics, which was the original idea, it turns out that I’m also the show’s co-host. It’s a weekly, hour-long show that airs this afternoon at 3 PM Pacific time, 6 PM Eastern time, with several subsequent airings during the following week.
** MOVEON.ORG, THE CLINTONS, AND A SENSE OF HISTORY. OR NOT. One of the intriguing facets of the dust-up over MoveOn.org and its condemned-by-Congress New York Times ad attacking General David Petraeus is the concerted Republican effort to use the controversy to go after Hillary Clinton. They are clearly trying to energize a base, that has many reasons to be dispirited, by stirring it up around their long-time bete noires the Clintons.
But I’ve been amused by what they haven’t said as they labor to create the Clinton-MoveOn linkage. Namely, that the linkage is an historic one. While the focus has changed over the years, MoveOn.org was literally founded as a support group for the Clintons.
In fact, the very title “Move On” comes from the insistence that critics of the Clintons should “move on” from their fixation with the scandals of the Clintons in the 1990s. Most notably, the impeachment controversy around the then president’s dalliance with intern Monica Lewinsky.
I’m surprised that the Giuliani campaign and other critics haven’t mentioned that. I haven’t seen it reported elsewhere.
** HILLARY CONTRADICTED HERSELF, AS WELL AS BILL, ON THE “TICKING TIME BOMB” SCENARIO. In the clip above, edited from debate footage by the Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton distinguishes her position on torturing a terrorist with detailed knowledge of an imminent attack from that of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. The former president, a big fan of the hit TV thriller, 24, in which agent Jack Bauer has frequently tortured a terrorist to foil an attack, allowed last year as how he would be open to doing that. Last night, Hillary Clinton said she was not. But the New York Daily News reveals that she, too, expressed the same view as her husband last year. And that her campaign would not comment on the contradiction.
** HILLARY PUMMELED IN DEMOCRATIC DEBATE. With a polished performance, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton emerged unbowed from last night’s debate in New Hampshire. Nevertheless, her opponents, most notably John Edwards, who won the debate, scored against her. And the New York senator and former first lady demonstrated a penchant for avoiding answering questions. If she’s not careful, she will develop a problem with the press — which in my view has been largely for her candidacy — that could signicantly affect the dynamic of the race.
Edwards drew clear distinctions with Clinton on Iraq and Iran. On Iraq, he said that her continuation of combat missions there would be a continuation of the war. (She says the combat missions would be limited to dealing with terrorists such as Al Qaeda.) On Iran, he said that her backing for a Senate resolution designating the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization is helping President George W. Bush build the case for war with Iran.
While Edwards sparkled in this Democratic primary debate, while perhaps causing problems for a potential general election campaign, Barack Obama, who wasn’t bad, did not. After a spirited beginning, it was a relatively quiet night for him. He suffered from a bad cold. Also having their moments were Joe Biden, whose proposal to partition Iraq won overwhelming support yesterday in a non-binding Senate measure, and Bill Richardson, who promises to get US troops out of Iraq faster than any other serious candidate.
** SCHWARZENEGGER IN MEXICO. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Mexico today and tomorrow, for the annual Border Governors Conference, which he will chair next year in California. Schwarzenegger joins the governors of and top officials from Arizona, Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, New Mexico, Sonora, Tamaulipas and Texas. Over the next two days, they’ll address a variety of issues including agriculture, security, economic development, education, energy, environment, health and tourism.
“There are pressing issues, like global warming, improving trade and enhancing border security and goods movement that demand our continued cooperation and innovative approaches, as we search for solutions that go beyond our borders. I look forward to hosting next year’s conference in California and continuing the spirited debate on these important issues,” said Schwarzenegger in a statement last night before leaving for Mexico.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 134th 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.
This was an add-on move to a defense appropriations bill made by Southern California Republican Jerry Lewis. Who is embroiled in a corruption scandal. But MoveOn provided the opening for him to change the subject.
Petraeus is a fine officer, but he’s a political officer, and hardly above criticism. As NWN has pointed out, he has a history of making false claims about how well things are going in Iraq. But yaposphere invective is not the way to prosecute an argument against a four-star general, not in big-time politics. The public is tired of that stuff. But the Republicans have pushed this disingenuous strategy of theirs about as far as they can. They have their own irritating yaposphere ethos. And Petraeus is part of the Bush team, making him part of the political process.
** GARAMENDI ENDORSES WATER CONVEYANCE IN THE SACRAMENTO RIVER DELTA. In his address today to the Capitol press corps, Lieutenant Govenor John Garamendi made a couple of things. He fully intends to run for governor of California in 2010. And he supports a Peripheral Canal or some other means of conveying water through the Delta where the Sacramento River meets San Francisco Bay, both to maintain a needed flow of water and protect the riverine territory from the rising tides of the future wrought by climate change.
I’m traveling today and have just emerged from a few hours of tech upgrade hell, so this report is skeletal. For now.
** THE TERMINATOR RETURNS … SORT OF. There’s another burst of talk around a renewal of the Terminator movie franchise. Supposedly the fourth film in the series — which will not, obviously, star Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — is going into pre-production next month. For release in 2009. This comes after a flurry of stories, just denied, that Oscar-winning actress Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener and The Mummy, the Oscar wasn’t for the second title) was vying for a role in the film.
The rights were purchased by new producers from the battling old producers. But there was a hang-up, in that in the years-ago break-up of the late, lamented Orion Pictures, certain future rights seemed to belong to it. And then to the studio which bought the remains of the company. But this is supposedly worked out now. We’ll see. There’ve been tales that Terminator 4 was about to go into production on and off for the past two years. And in Hollywood, pre-production, the state the project is supposed to enter next month, is a term that can mean a number of things. (My favorite term is “flashing green light,” but that’s another story.)
Meanwhile, the Terminator project that is a shining green light is the TV series on Fox, which I’ve reported on before. Entitled The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it also does not star Arnold Schwarzenegger. It does star Lena Headey, who played the very formidable Queen of Sparta in this spring’s action movie smash 300, as Sarah Connor, the intrepid mother of the human revolution against the machines of the future. That starts showing weekly on Fox in January.
There’s a lot of turbulence in presidential politics, as you may have noticed. This is why the Clintons reportedly used hardball tactics to kill a story in GQ about campaign infighting.
The timing of this move is ironic, not to mention problematic, in that Dunsmore’s old boss, Governor Wilson, is set to endorse Giuliani tomorrow. This guarantees that it will be a topic of the press conference with the two men at the Miramar in Santa Monica.
** ANOTHER NEW HAMPSHIRE DEBATE TONIGHT. At 6 PM tonight, on MSNBC, the Democrats have their latest presidential debate, again from New Hampshire.
But keep your salt shaker handy, because the sample is only 300 voters. And 55% of them say they haven’t made a final choice on their candidate.
Meanwhile, the spinning is spun up again on presidential fundraising in the third quarter, coming to a close in less than a week. The numbers have dropped off for the leading campaigns, since many contributors are tapped out for the primaries. I’d guess Obama continues his edge over Clinton — who, after all, is having to return nearly a million dollars raised for her by disgraced financier Norman Hsu — but probably not by as large a margin as before. But I hear reports, or, I should say, “reports,” every which way.
** WILSON FOR GIULIANI. Former Governor Pete Wilson, who served as U.S. senator from California before that and as mayor of San Diego before that, will endorse Rudy Giuliani for president tomorrow at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.
Wilson, a moderately conservative Republican, is the only Republican other than Arnold Schwarzenegger — for whom he served as a campaign co-chair during the 2003 recall election — to win one of the top statewide races in California for many years. Wilson is now in the merchant banking business and the public affairs consulting field, and serves on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Defense Policy Board. He’s the only Republican to defeat Jerry Brown or Dianne Feinstein.
** GARAMENDI TO ADDRESS CAPITOL PRESS CORPS. Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, a Democratic gubernatorial hopeful for 2010, addresses the Capitol press corps today at the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club. Garamendi is a former two-term California insurance commissioner, deputy secretary of the interior in the Clinton Administration, and a former state Senate majority leader who has run a couple of times for governor, losing Democratic primaries to Kathleen Brown and Tom Bradley.
** SCHWARZENEGGER LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING ON CORRECTIONS. This morning in Stockton, at 10 AM, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a bill by state Senator Mike Machado which creates the first secure community re-entry facility in California for prison inmates. It converts the slated Northern California Women’s Facility, a medium security prison, for the purpose. The event will be webcast live.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 133rd 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 are in the $79 to $81 per barrel range, with prices continuing to decline somewhat on word of unexpectedly high US inventories. How inventories of this utterly central commodity can be unexpectedly high is a good question.
Former Senator and Law & Order star Fred Thompson discusses Iran and his belief that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shouldn’t be in the US. Ahmadinejad addresses the UN at noon today.
Meanwhile, two new more conservative European leaders, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — who yesterday again broke with the Bush Administration on the greenhouse effect and climate change, with Sarkozy calling foot-dragging “criminal” — made it clear that they want an end to any nuclear weapons program in Tehran. They are very suspicious about the Iranian nuclear program, and seem likely to pursue further sanctions.
Coalition chair Anna Burger made it clear that no endorsement is yet in the offing. The massive Service Employees International Union (SEIU), for which Burger is secretary-treasurer, decided at yesterday’s board meeting to hold off on making an endorsement. John Edwards, the most left-leaning of the top Democratic hopefuls, has been counting on SEIU’s support to help jump-start his campaign.
** ANGELIDES NOW A CLINTON CO-CHAIR FOR CALIFORNA. Former California Treasurer Phil Angelides, the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nominee against Arnold Schwarzenegger, was today appointed a state co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Angelides, a former developer who has returned to the developer business, came out for Clinton months ago, as reported here on NWN.
What the campaign calls an independent effort was blasted by the International Association of Firefighters union as another Giuliani bid to “exploit” 9/11. The union is emerging as a fierce and energetic critic of the former New York mayor. They are going to watch everything Giuliani does with an eye to attack. The effort was also ripped by several Democratic presidential candidates.
According to Gallup’s annual Governance survey, conducted Sept. 14th to 16th among just over a thousand adults, the Democratic Party enjoys a 15-point lead over the Republicans in overall favorability, 53% vs. 38%.
The Democrats are viewed unfavorably by 43%; the Republicans are viewed unfavorably by 59%.
Since 2001, the Democrat Party has either tied or led the Republicans on the question of which party is best to keep the country prosperous. However, that lead expanded significantly between September 2005 and September 2006, from 5 points to 17 points, and is currently 20 points. 54% now say the Democrats would do the better job, compared with only 34% choosing the Republicans.
One enduring strength for the Republican Party has been the perception that it is the better party for handling international terrorism and national defense. One year after the 9/11 attacks, the Republicans had a 19-point lead over the Democrats in this area. That lead gradually sank to only two points in 2006.
Now more say the Democratic Party will do a better job than the Republican Party of protecting the country from security threats, 47% vs. 42%.
Bill Clinton (in a missive entitled “You, Me, A TV, And A Bowl of Chips”): There are two things in this world that I love more than anything else — my family and politics. So you can imagine just how fired up I get when Hillary is on the stage debating the issues that matter to our country.
So here’s an idea: why don’t you and I share that excitement together during an upcoming debate. Hillary’s campaign will pick three people — each invited with a guest to watch one of the upcoming presidential debates with me. We’ll sit down in front of a big TV with a big bowl of chips, watch the debate, and talk about the race. If you enter before the Sunday midnight deadline, you and a guest could be the ones to sit down with me to watch a presidential debate.
Join me for a debate. Make a contribution today:
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/watchwithbill
When I tell you I like watching Hillary debate, I mean it. You’re talking to the man who stayed up until four in the morning on a trip through Africa just to catch one of her debates live. So if you want to watch a debate with me — or if you just want to help Hillary win — enter today, and you and your guest might join me for a debate soon.
** AHMADINEJAD DELIVERS, BUSH FORGETS CLIMATE CHANGE. President George W. Bush addressed the UN General Assembly earlier this morning. His speech wasn’t about Iraq, barely touched upon Iran, and instead focused on problems in the developing world in such countries as the Sudan and Burma, also known as Myanmar. It was a look at the softer side, if you will, of the Bush agenda. But he notably didn’t mention climate change, which dominated the UN yesterday with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other notables addressing a high-level summit of more than 80 heads of state. Bush doesn’t want to participate within the international framework on climate change, and will convene his own meeting of greenhouse gas emitters later this week.
Bush also didn’t engage the issue of Iran, though Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sitting in front of him the audience. Ahmadinejad turned his controversial appearance at Columbia University yesterday into an unintentional joke, making several bizarre pronouncements, including his assertions that there are no gay or lesbian people in Iran, and that women have many rights there. From reports, he seems to have been knocked off stride from the beginning by the scathing introduction of university president Lee Bollinger.
Ahmadinejad addresses the UN today at noon Pacific time. That should be interesting.
Whatever Ahmadinejad and his hardline allies in Iran may believe they are getting out of this trip, it’s certainly been a bonanza for US presidential candidates, especially on the Republican side, who as predicted are making great hay out of the controversy.
** DEMOCRATS TO ADDRESS CHANGE TO WIN CONFERENCE. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards address the Change To Win labor coalition conference today in Chicago. This is the more liberal breakaway group from the AFL-CIO, some of whose key member unions got behind Howard Dean four years ago.
His UN address can also be viewed by clicking on the link above.
With many legislators gallivanting around the world on various junkets and vacations, the special legislative sessions are not off to a flying start, the financing of which would go on the November ballot next year. But they have plenty of time to work out a health care reform package. Time is much shorter with regard to water policy, though I’m told that they have until early October to get a bond measure onto the February primary ballot.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 132nd 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.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, seen in this NWN video
signing California’s landmark climate change legislation last fall
in San Francisco, addresses a special session of the UN today in New York.
** MARIA SHRIVER: COAST TO COAST. This morning, as you see from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech to the UN on climate change, First Lady Maria Shriver was in New York. Now she is on the other side of the country, in San Francisco, about to arrive at a school in the hard-scrabble Tenderloin District. Just a mile or two from the super-glitzy Union Square shopping and celebration district is the Tenderloin, land of drug addicts, street hookers of multiple genders, hardcore homeless and things that most tourists don’t want to see. There are also families there. Here’s what John F. Kennedy’s niece is doing there, in the words of her staff (which are worked over by the first lady herself):
As Honorary Chair of California’s Family Day, First Lady Maria Shriver will join students and their families at Tenderloin Community School and participate in activities that encourage families to spend time together – from eating healthy meals, to participating in fun physical activities, volunteering as a family and creating family disaster plans, these activities encourage families to Eat, Play, Serve and Prepare together.
The event will celebrate Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children, a national movement that reminds parents about the importance of parental engagement in their children’s lives and encourages parents to have frequent family dinners with their kids as an effective way to prevent substance abuse.
I’m sure that readers have gathered I admire the Clintons, with whom I’ve been distantly acquainted, and think they are highly professional, not to mention intriguing characters. Without being terribly motivated to drive more than the distance to the grocery store to see the current candidate herself, though I may well vote for her.
She says a few things that are simply, and shockingly, wrong — can anyone say “nuclear deterrence?” — and gets away with it because the press is increasingly intellectually depleted and/or reflexively for her. But that’s the way it goes.
The truth is that none of these candidates are exactly paragons. There are one or two who might be. And about them, we will see. Because, as the saying goes, the night is young.
** HILLARY ON BEING A HYPERPARTISAN.Appearing yesterday on Fox New Sunday with Chris Wallace: Clinton, appearing on “FOX News Sunday,” the same show where exactly one year earlier her husband accused host Chris Wallace of a “conservative hit job” on him, an amused Clinton elicited a hearty laugh when asked to respond to charges that she is “hyper-partisan.”
“Well, Chris, if you had walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years, I’m sure you’d understand. But you know, the real goal for our country right now is to get beyond partisanship, and I’m sure trying to do my part, because we’ve got a lot of serious problems that we’re trying to deal with.”
** ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER’S UNITED NATIONS ADDRESS ON CLIMATE CHANGE.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. President, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come to feel great affection for the peoples of the world, because they’ve always been so welcoming to me, if it is as the bodybuilding champion, or as a movie star, private citizen, or as the governor of the great State of California. And you, their delegates, have also made me feel very welcome here this morning. So I want to thank you for this great honor, for having me here. I also want to thank my wife and my partner, the First Lady of California, Maria Shriver, who is here today with me. Give her a big hand, right over there she is.
I have been asked to talk to you today about what is happening in California, what are we doing about climate change. Ladies and gentlemen, something remarkable is beginning to stir, something revolutionary, something historic and transformative. Let me give you some background. California already leads the nation in information technology. We lead the nation in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and in medical technology. We generate one of every four US patents and attract almost half of all US venture capital. According to The Economist magazine, California is also home to three of the top six universities in the world, and in addition to all of this, California is the seventh largest economy in the world. Now I don’t mention these things simply to boast or brag. I mention it because California is a very powerful state, and very powerful place, and when we do something it has consequences. And here is what we’re doing.
California is mobilizing technologically, financially and politically to fight global warming change. And we’re not doing this alone. While California is leading in the US we are building on the work of the European countries who have led the way up until now and have done extraordinary work. England has already met its Kyoto goals. Germany has pioneered solar. The EU has led with its trading systems, and the list goes on and on.
But California, because of its unique position, is on the cutting edge of what is to come. And what is coming will benefit the countries and peoples represented in this chamber. Last year in California we enacted Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards that are beyond anyone else’s dreams. We enacted the world’s first Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
But do I believe that the California standards will solve global warming? Of course not. What we are doing is changing the dynamic, preparing the way, and encouraging the future. The aerospace industry built the modern economy of Southern California. The computer industry and the internet built the economy of the Silicon Valley, and now clean, green technology, along with biotech, will take California to the next level. Right now in California the brightest scientists from around the world, and the smartest venture capitalists are racing to find new energy technologies and the solution to global warming. It is a race that is fueled by billions and billions of dollars. Last year alone California received more than 1.1 billion dollars in clean tech investment, and this amount is expected to grow by 20 to 30 percent annually for the next 10 years. More venture capital is being invested in clean tech than in telecommunications. Now, I have been to those labs and research parks, I have talked to the scientists and to the venture capitalists, I have seen their ambition. And let me tell you, I would not bet against it.
So what does all of this mean for the nations in this chamber? Well, the cell phone, which started as a tool for the rich, is now widespread in the developing world. The price has dropped dramatically, and therefore it can be afforded by almost everyone. And the same thing will happen with the environmental technologies. And it is the developed world’s best interest to help the poor nations finance these advancements. When it comes to the environment, the technologies are changing, the economics are changing, and the urgency is changing.
So the question today is this: Are the nations of the world ready to change? I believe that California will do great things, amazing things, but we need the world to do great things too. The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto Protocol. The time has come to stop looking back in blame or suspicion. The consequences of global climate change are so pressing that it doesn’t matter who was responsible of the past. What matters is who is answerable for the future, and that means all of us.
The rich nations and the poor nations have different responsibilities. But one responsibility we all have, and that is action — action, action, action. The current stalemate between the developed and the developing worlds must be broken. It is time to come together in a new international agreement that can be embraced by rich and poor nations alike. California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action. So I urge this body to push its members to action also.
Ladies and gentlemen, in closing let me just say this. Do not lose hope. I do not believe that doom and gloom and disaster are the only outcomes. Humanity is smart, and nature is amazingly regenerative. I believe that we can renew the climate of this planet. I believe this 100 percent. So I pledge to you, the members of the United Nations, that we in California will work with all our heart to this end for which we all long.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
** HILLARY’S OAKLAND BLOCK PARTY IS NEXT SUNDAY. incidentally, I was confused when I reported that Hillary Clinton’s big public event in Oakland would be yesterday. It’s actually next Sunday. I get a blizzard of stuff crossing my screens from around the world. For some reason, the Clinton campaign and its allies sent multiple announcements of this event, even though it was the following weekend. I honed in on “Sunday” absent-mindedly not noting that it’s actually the following Sunday.
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS HE WILL SIGN IRAN DIVESTMENT LEGISLATION. Says Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: “California has a long history of leadership and doing what’s right with our investment portfolio. Last year, I was proud to sign legislation to divest from the Sudan to take a powerful stand against genocide. I look forward to signing legislation to divest from Iran to take an equally powerful stand against terrorism.”
AB 221 by Assemblymember Joel Anderson (R- La Mesa) creates the California Public Divestment from Iran Act. This will prevent the state’s two massive public employee retirement funds from investing in a company with business operations in Iran. CalPERS, the state’s employee retirement fund, is the largest pension fund in the nation and CalSTRS, the state’s public education retirement fund, is the second largest pension fund in the nation.
“The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto Protocol,” Schwarzenegger will say. “The consequences of global climate change are so pressing it doesn’t matter who was responsible for the past. What matters is who is answerable for the future. And that means all of us. … California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action.”
This kicks off a big week for the issue, with the UN meeting early in the week, to help set the table for a global summit later this year in Bali. And a meeting hosted later in the week by President George W. Bush, of selected emitters of greenhouse gases.
Also on tap is the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, hosted in New York by the former president, coinciding with the UN General Assembly. Climate change will figure prominently there, as well.
Pressured by a host of factors, including Schwarzenegger, Bush’s administration at last acknowledges that the greenhouse effect is real and that it is causing climate change. They just want to take a voluntary approach toward dealing with it. Don’t expect that to stand up too well this week.
According to Amnesty International, there are approximately 4.2 million displaced Iraqis, 2.2 million of whom are within Iraq. The vast majority of the rest are in Syria and Jordan. This is reported to be the biggest population movement in the Middle East since 1948, when the creation of Israel led to the displacement of Palestinians.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 131st 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.
With a new public poll from the Public Policy Institute of California showing him tied for second with Fred Thompson and John McCain, just six points behind the still frontrunning Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney is spending five days campaigning this week in the Golden State. It’s the first long campaign swing in California, a pivotal primary next February 5th, for the former Massachusetts Governor, who leads in Iowa and New Hampshire but continues to lag in national polls.
Among other things, including the obvious goldmining, er, fundraising every day, Romney is doing three “Ask Mitt Anything” town hall meetings in California as he campaigns around the state, the first of which was Sunday in Orange County. There he was asked by the mother of a Marine how much longer he has to spend in Iraq, two which he replied that he wants to grow the Army by 100,000 to stop long deployments of existing forces. Romney ends up in the state capital Sacramento on Thursday.
While Romney is making a concerted strategic move on Giuliani’s turf in California, the week ahead in presidential politics belongs largely to the meta-issues of Iran and climate change. And the latest presidential forums in both parties. The Democrats, who will make a pilgrimage to the other big national labor federation besides the AFL-CIO, the Change To Win coalition, comprised mostly of the most liberal unions in the land. And the Republicans, who will mostly be absent from a black-oriented forum hosted by liberal talk show host Tavis Smiley at Morgan State Universty.
Everyone’s favorite Iranian fanatic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is in the US this week to address the UN General Assembly and a gathering at Columbia University, where the university president helpfully added that he would invite Hitler to speak. Which is one way of putting things in perspective, though many suspect that Iranian politics is more complex than that.
Ahmadinejad’s already provided ample kindling for a political firestorm by requesting an escort to Ground Zero, the site of the late World Trade Center in New York. As he must have expected, Republican candidates tripped over one another to denounce the proposed move, with former New York Mayor Giuliani of course in the forefront. Yet he still plans to go there himself. Clearly he knows what he is provoking in American domestic politics.
Although Fred Thompson has moved closer to him in national polls — and Romney is taking a shot at his lead in California — Giuliani had a mostly very good week last week. He won the London sweepstakes with a high profile trip to the UK in which he delivered the inaugural Margaret Thatcher Atlantic Bridge lecture — he declared that Iran must not be allowed to go nuclear — and received the Margaret Thatcher medal of freedom from the former prime minister herself. He also had a high-profile meeting with Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, met privately with former Prime Minister Tony Blair to confer on the Middle East with the new Middle East envoy, and fielded questions from Winston Churchill’s grand-daughter.
A decidedly bigger haul than Fred Thompson garnered when he ventured to London in July. Yet Thompson, and John McCain, did notably much better than Giuliani at the end of the week when the top Republicans all appeared before the National Rifle Association.
Giuliani, like Romney, as it happens, was an advocate of gun control. Both men promoted new views. But they reportedly did not go over all that well. Especially so for Giuliani, who promoted lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
Needless to say, Giuliani is happy to get the focus back on national security matters, courtesy of the obliging President Ahmadinejad.
As it happens, the top Democrats have also denounced the notion of Iran developing nuclear weapons — even left-leaning John Edwards, who ran as something of a centrist in 2004 — so they’ll be chiming in this week as well.
But amidst all the drumbeats on Iran, at least one of the nation’s most senior military leaders wants to cool it a bit.
Admiral William Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command — General David Petraeus’s boss and former commander of the Pacific Fleet — told Al Jazeera on Sunday that he does not believe the US will go to war with Iran, and that the “constant drumbeat” of war is counter-productive.
The other meta-issue of the week is climate change.
The War, a documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, begins tonight on PBS. The film chronicles the experiences of World War II veterans from four “quintessentially American” towns: Luverne, Minnesota; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; and California state capital Sacramento.
** EVENING UPDATE: SCHWARZENEGGER UNITED NATIONS ADDRESS MONDAY MORNING AT 6 AM PACIFIC TIME IN LIVE WEBCAST. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers his address to the United Nations special session on climate change — first revealed on NWN early this summer and discussed in an item earlier today — in a live webcast from New York early tomorrow morning here in the Pacific time zone.
I’m told that it may begin at 6 AM Pacific time, which is 9 AM Eastern time, but may also be closer to 6:30 AM.
There’s been a fair amount on World War II over the past decade, notably the landmarks Saving Private Ryan as a feature film and Band of Brothers as an HBO miniseries. But there is so much that is little-known in this less than historically minded society. And with veterans dying off now at the rate of roughly a thousand per day, it’s now or never for this sort of filmmaking, which focuses on the experiences of veterans from what are described as four “quintessentially American” cities: Luverne, Minnesota. Waterbury, Connecticut. Mobile, Alabama. And Sacramento, California. The reviewers who’ve seen it say it’s quite special.
It continues through Wednesday, then picks up again next Sunday through its conclusion the following Tuesday. Of course, I haven’t seen it. But one limitation that suggests itself through its focus on the ground-level experience of war is that it may miss much of the overall. There is always an overall strategic conception, and decisions taken when adversity emerges. In some cases, the conception, and the adjustments to adversity, result in success. In others, as we have seen, they do not.
** A TYPICALLY SLOW WEEKEND, OR AT LEAST, A TYPICALLY FAMILIAR WEEKEND, IN POLITICS. Despite their current stances, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney had problems with their past support for gun control in the aftermath of their appearances before the National Rifle Association. Shocking.
There’s a story that a health care reform deal is very close in California. Except for the differences on whether all Californians need to get health insurance, that is. Oh, and how to pay for it. Which have the differences between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders right along.
And there’s a column by a career-long critic of former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who writes for the Sacramento Bee after starting with the long defunct right-wing Sacramento Union, saying he’s a cynical opportunist for focusing on the climate change issue. Ah, actually, Brown has been on the issue for many, many years. Before any other politician in California, as it happens, as anyone who knows the state’s history should know.
And so on.
Meanwhile, the two California college football teams of high national ranking both won big yesterday. USC, the number one team in the country, beat Washington State in Los Angeles, 47-14, and Cal beat Arizona in Berkeley, 45-27. USC, of course, being LA’s own University of Southern California, and Cal being the University of California at Berkeley.
As expected. Except for the rain during the USC game. It’s the first time ever that it rained for a USC home game in September.
** SCHWARZENEGGER AT THE U.N. As first reported on NWN early this summer, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will address a special meeting of the United Nations tomorrow in New York. The topic? Climate change, of course. It kicks off a big week for the issue, with the UN meeting early in the week, to help set the table for a global summit later this year in Bali. And a meeting hosted later in the week by President George W. Bush, of selected emitters of greenhouse gases.
Also on tap is the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, hosted in New York by the former president, coinciding with the UN General Assembly. Climate change will figure prominently there, as well.
Pressured by a host of factors, including Schwarzenegger, Bush’s administration at last acknowledges that the greenhouse effect is real and that it is causing climate change. They just want to take a voluntary approach toward dealing with it. Don’t expect that to stand up too well this week.
| Comments (0) | 