MoveOn.org hits back at Rudy Giuliani.
** ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER AND BILL CLINTON LIVE WEBCAST TOMORROW MORNING FROM L.A. Now this going to be interesting. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President Bill Clinton will tomorrow morning announce their partnership as co-leaders of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. The pair will do a live webcast together at 9:15 AM tomorrow morning.
The alliance they’ll head up is designed to inspire young people to lead healthier lifestyles. Clinton and Schwarzenegger will tour a middle school in El Monte — a small city in the San Gabriel Valley directly east of downtown Los Angeles — and hold their joint presss conference afterward.
** SCHWARZENEGGER ANNOUNCES $9 BILLION WATER INFRASTRUCTURE PROPOSAL. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this afternoon announced a $9 billion water infrastructure proposal to be carried in two bills by Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines of Fresno and Republican state Senator Dave Cogdill of Modesto. Most of the financing would come from new bonds, though some would come from existing bonds to swiftly relieve environmental problems in the Sacramento Delta, where the Sacramento River meets San Francisco Bay and which is a key backbone of the water supplies for both domestic consumers and for agriculture. A federal judge, citing endangered species concerns, threatens to block much of that water supply. The proposal does not provide for new conveyance, i.e., aqueducts, but may set the stage for them.
Said Assembly Republican Leader Villines in a statement: “I am confident we can reach bipartisan consensus in the special session to responsibly shape California’s water future, and this plan will be an important part of that effort.”
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has his own $5.4 billion proposal. Here are some of the details in the Schwarzenegger plan, carried by Villines and Cogdill.
>$600 million from Propositions 50, 84 and 1E to immediately relieve pressure on the Delta from environmental concerns
>$5.6 billion in above and below ground water storage
>$5.1 billion in surface storage
>$500 million in groundwater storage
>$1.9 billion for Delta Restoration and water supply reliability
>$1.4 billion for habitat restoration
>$500 million in early actions to address environmental concerns in the Delta
>$500 million in grants for specified watersheds throughout the state, including the San Joaquin River, Klamath River, Los Angeles River and others
** HILLARY CLINTON LIVE WEBCAST AT 5 PM ON HEALTH CARE. Senator Hillary Clinton will hold what is billed as an interactive live webcast at 5 PM today to discuss her health care plan.
** NEW RECORD OIL PRICE. Crude oil hit yet another new record closing price today of $81.51 per barrel. Analysts now believe oil is going to $85 per barrrel this year. Goldman Sachs sees $95 per barrel next year. And the former UK chairman of Royal Dutch Shell — saying we are running out of “cheap oil — told Bloomberg News today that he sees $150 a barrel oil in the future.
** AS PALESTINIAN PEACE PROCESS HEATS UP, ISRAEL TOUTS RENEWABLE ENERGY ROLE AS WAY TO COMBAT GREENHOUSE EFFECT. US Secretary of State Condi Rice is in the Middle East for two days this week in advance of a likely negotiation in America sometime in November between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Mideast envoy Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, has just spent two weeks in the region and will report to the Mideast Quartet powers (US, Russia, EU, and UN) this weekend in New York.
As all this goes on, Israeli President Shimon Peres is touting a leadership role for Israel in the transition away from fossil fuels to combat climate change. Peres says that Israel is working with US, French, and Jordanian interests to create a new electric car industry in the embattled Jewish state. He also says the Israel aims to become a world leader in solar energy, which it no doubt has plenty of.
“Israel in my judgment can and should become a laboratory, or a pilot plant, for most of the solutions which are necessary in our time,” Peres said today in Jerusalem.
“We want to go from oil energy to solar energy. We feel that the sun is more reliable than the Saudis. The sun is more permanent, more democratic and… more objective,” said Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner for an earlier Mideast negotiation.
** GIULIANI IN THE THICK OF IT. Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is in London now to give the inaugural Margaret Thatcher Atlantic Bridge lecture at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Earlier in the day, he fielded questions on international affairs from Winston Churchill’s grand-daughter. Every Republican presidential candidate wants to be like Ronald Reagan these days, but Giuliani’s particular hero is Churchill. He hopes to return to the US, to Washington as it happens, tomorrow, with a bit of the Churchill/Thatcher cachet that Fred Thompson sought in London over the summer, but didn’t really come away with.
Meanwhile, his strategy of gaining further traction in the race for the Republican nomination by attacking Democrats has landed him in a real rhubarb with MoveOn.org, the big lefty lib online outfit who so scandalized the right by attacking President Bush’s handpicked Iraq commander. You saw his ad yesterday attacking Hillary Clinton and demanding that she denounce MoveOn. Today, above, you can see the ad the anti-Iraq War group is putting on the air in Iowa, the first in the nation contest next January. It’s a very tough attack on Giuliani for missing the meetings of the Iraq Study Group, of which he was an original member, then quitting altogether “so he could give speeches, for money.”
Today, Giuliani is hitting the liberal group again, and covering himself in Iowa, with this new radio ad going up in the Hawkeye State: Voiceover: MoveOn.org is the most powerful left wing group in the country. They spent millions electing anti-war liberals. And publicly brag how the Democratic Party is theirs – bought and paid for.
Why is MoveOn attacking Rudy Giuliani? Because he’s their worst nightmare. They know Rudy is a Republican who can beat the Democrats. And they know, no matter what they say, Rudy will never, ever back down.
** PETRAEUS WEEK FALLS SHORT FOR BUSH. Last week’s big Iraq extravaganza starring General David Petraeus, culminating in a presidential address to the nation, looks like it had very little impact on the country. A new CBS poll shows that 68% want US troops pulled out of Iraq faster than the general and president propose to do so. And only 31% think the surge strategy has made a positive impact on Iraq.
** AL QAEDA’S AMERICAN PRISONERS STILL NOT LOCATED. American troops are now in the midst of a 126th 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. Crude oil prices have hit a record again, over $81 per barrel.
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“If students were getting a basic foundation of academic skills they wouldn’t need to spend extra time prepping for a test.”
Well, we’ve setup a perverse system. A school of 1,000 can “fail” NCLB based on one test score (or one kid who had to stay home to take care his younger siblings). AP classes get dropped or merged (those kids are going to pass). PE, music, art and shop can be dropped – it’s not tested. Once enough under-performing kids within a demographic reach your bar, there’s no reason to focus additional resources on them – schools strive to get the lowest common denominator of success.
It’s a formula for failure.
I can’t decide which is the bigger ham. Mr. Schwarzenegger? Or Mr. Clinton?
I can’t decide which is the bigger ham. Mr. Schwarzenegger? Or Mr. Clinton?
Sorry for the double-posting.
Sorry for the double-posting.
Sorry for the double-posting.
I didn’t see the Hillary Clinton webcast. Too late for me.
Brasky – so what was the definition of success prior to NCLB’s passage?
Firefighters in ads:
I love Firefighters in ads as long as they are not (BS)ads for the anti labor candidate.
I also didn’t see it. Too much to do.
>Jonas Blane :
I didn’t see the Hillary Clinton webcast. Too late for me.
Sep 19, 2007 06:24 AM
I thought you hated firefighters …
>carole w :
Firefighters in ads:
I love Firefighters in ads as long as they are not (BS)ads for the anti labor candidate.
Sep 19, 2007 03:21 PM
How can you hate a Firefighter? Ladies and gentlemen…currently in Big Bear Lake we have over 2,000 of them…and they are more than mighty fine:)
…and these Rudy G videos are killing my romantic mood:(
I’m getting this on my blackberry, as you know.
Complaints about coverage should be on the current day’s thread.
And real political analysis is not about inducing a romantic mood.