Barack Obama says “Hasta la vista, baby” to the not so good Rev. Wright.
** SCHWARZENEGGER DISCUSSES CALIFORNIA’S FUTURE WITH MICHAEL MILKEN IN LIVE WEBCAST THIS AFTERNOON. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s discusses California’s infrastructure and future with financier Michael Milken in this live webcast at 1 PM. This is part of the Milken Institute’s annual conference on California in LA. Milken, of course, is the famed ’80s junk bond pioneer and corporate raider. Convicted of various irregularities, after being pursued by, among others, then-prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, Milken — who I profiled on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1996 — has reinvented himself as a philanthropist and futurist. And lest you think he lost his “ill-gotten gains” from the ’80s. He still ended up, best as I could tell over a decade ago, with over a billion dollars.
** POLLS. OBAMA LEADS NATIONALLY, LEADS BIG IN NORTH CAROLINA. In the new Rasmussen tracking polls, Barack Obama holds the lead over Hillary Clinton nationally, 47% to 43%. He has a significant lead in North Carolina, 51% to 37%.
NEW WEST NOTES is still being sorted, as the saying goes, following the tech transition to a new software platform (ironically, the original software platform when NWN was hosted on the LA Weekly server in 2006) late in the day on Monday. So things will be slower here until the site is sorted.
Incidentally, I have been on the road, developing a new video show to be webcast on PJ Media. It features insiders in the presidential campaigns, those of John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
** ISNT IT INTERESTING? How the biggest problems for Barack Obama are proving not to be on the right, which has huge problems with regard to public disdain for them, but the left?Consider. Without Bittergate, prompted by an activist blogger financial supporter of Obama writing on the pro-Obama Huffington Post, Obama was moving up in Pennsylvania. Consider. Without his pastor, who supposedly has devoted his life to promoting black people, Obama is moving up in Indiana and North Carolina, enough to squeeze the remaining life out of the Hillary Clinton candidacy. For fans of irony, this campaign has it all.What Wright, who was clearly something of a crank, even at his best — and it ain’t like I don’t know a lot of folks like that, on both ends of the spectrum — is trying to do is quite obvious. Extend his 15 minutes of fame and make himself the new Al Sharpton. And he has a new book to sell. Color me shocked.
** WHERE THEY ARE TODAY. Barack Obama is in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Indiana. Hillary Clinton is in South Bend, Portage, Lafayette, and Kokomo, Indiana. Bill Clinton is in Apex, Sanford, Lillington, Dunn, Hope Mills, Lumberton, and Whiteville, North Carolina. John McCain is in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.
While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND U.S. ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Crude oil is trading between $116 and $117 per barrel.
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yes, I just watched and listened to the interview. He is a great Guv.
1. The Guv’s staff should read the GB study, Milken spoke of
2. Just as the word “infrastructure” has little meaning to most people (and Guv Arnold is correct therefore, you must personalize it…) it is the same for “public private partnership” Most of the public have little understanding of the term ..if he is ever to win this argument of moving forward with PPP, he will have to educate the public on what it exactly means too, and why it is not threatening and how and why it works…and then get the public demanding from their legislatures to move forward now in PPP, with these very needed projects…
3. I would also direct a very creative aggressive and fun outreach campaign (funded by public private patnership) on “building California’s infrastructure for the 21 century” to California kids…with “building contests” “Architecture contests” for individuals and schools…poster, public service annoucements, etc…winners awarded funds toward education…get kids talking about building California at home in school at play afterall, this is all for them to stay live, work and play in California…take a look at how all ages but especially kids love McCullough’s books on building the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal …infrastructure is about science, math, and art and big ideas…its a perfect thing to rev up kids imaginations and hearts.
Thank you, Lisa. You make some excellent points. Without the fundamental infrastructure of a society — which is what government must provide, both physical and intellectual — life is far poorer than it would otherwise be.
Milken is such a fascinating character. He fueled the takeover artists of the 1980s, but I believe has a strong sense of the dynamics of entrepreneurial capitalism and the undergirdings of a civil society.
True.
>Capitol Boy:
New West Notes is STILL fucked up. What’s up?
Apr 30, 2008 – 5:02 pm
JP-5. What’s that? Boring nitwit ensigns? Or other inflammables?
>Wilbur:
Well, a gigantic floating bus full of JP-5, explosives and youngsters. Other than for those engaged in flight ops, pretty boring… until it catches fire. Fires were always a great diversion from the boredom. Come to think of it though, most seemed to start in the engine room. Guess the nukes don’t catch fire as often?
Apr 30, 2008 – 4:42 pm
“Haven’t seen any gambling, drinking, doping or houseofillreputing yet. Perhaps that’s in a later episode.”
I think you missed Episode 2 – Guam and Hong Kong port-of-calls. They had all the offenders in the hanger deck afterwords and it looked pretty damn full.
Neither one of my family served on a nuclear carrier, but one served on a small ship and one on a big one. It seems pretty good based on the sailors I know, and they served 30+ years ago.
I still hold out a faint hope of Game Day Guam from on site …
…watch out for snakes…
Well, maybe so. I was there once, maybe twice, in the Navy. Very briefly. It is very picturesque.
And, you know, not to lose the suspense of a riveting future Game Day, but Obama wins it.
ISNT IT INTERESTING? How the biggest problems for Barack Obama are proving not to be on the right, which has huge problems with regard to public disdain for them, but the left?
Pat says: I would say Bittergate was “prompted” by the candidate himself. He was already under scrutiny in this area for his wife’s too candid remarks regarding pride, etc.
It’s the campaign’s fault, for not sticking to the script and not identifying a potentially lethal association…
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What this appears to ME to be about is that Obama and the folks with whom he has socialized and politicked over the years, and that does include Wright, Michelle Obama, Ayers and Dohrn, among others, ALL seriously know that if they are “too candid” and make their world view known to voters, then John McCain is our next president. I think they know that their somewhat jaded view of America and Americans is not palatable to most ordinary voters, who happen also to be quite content, and not at all embittered about their lot, or about their country.
It appears that it is turning out to be a watershed year for the democrats, the question being whether or not they will be able to divorce themselves from the left wing retreads from the boomer generation, and their younger adherents over at dKos and so forth. I believe that Obama can actually help the nation get beyond all this Vietnam-Watergate-race relations “malaise” (maybe he should himself get a divorce
.
But I don’t support Obama because I agree so strongly with his political or policy views – it is more a belief that he has the capacity to lead the national conscience away from the domination of political discourse by the old guard of the left AND the right, and that this is the correct time in America for this clean break with the past. Personally, I shudder to think what would happen if his ultra-government domestic policies and relatively naive foreign policies were to actually become national policy. But I continue to think only Obama can lead us ultimately to a more frank and open political and policy debate, without the recriminations of the past (and present), and I think it is time to leave the boomers behind, and the wingers of both parties, and then there will be hope and we shall be free. yes we can…
Thanks for the email Bill.
BTW, one of the aviators in Carrier is surprised in Hong Kong by his wife who tells him they’re pregnant. She loses the baby while he’s in the Gulf. Indescribably moving.
It is key that we have a strong military that is used wisely. I’m afraid we don’t meet either of those requirements now. We could do so much if we didn’t squander our potential on stupid shit like Iraq.
I’d love to see a modern version of the Roman Legion – Marines trained in combat and cross trained in civilian police, engineering and humanitarian roles (a training program similar to that of the Navy Seals, where each member can perform 2 or more jobs and speak 2 or more languages).
I’d like to put 2,000 pairs of boots anywhere in the world in 24-48 hours for military or humanitarian aid. Every water filter, blanket, box of food, bridge and shelter left behind would have an American flag.
And when it was time to draw steel, we could do that too. The added advantage would be that hopefully the world stage would mourn the loss of the marine who saved a little Thai girl in a flood or built a shelter for a refugee in Africa.
Peace thru strength and strength thru peace.
And the Dem in me says that Mike Milken can afford to pay for it…
“… continue to think only Obama can lead us ultimately to a more frank and open political and policy debate, without the recriminations of the past (and present), and I think it is time to leave the boomers behind, and the wingers of both parties, and then there will be hope and we shall be free. yes we can…”
Hap, that’s largely why I’m supporting Obama too. We need to close a chapter and open a new one – Obama can do that. Honestly, Hillary and McCain both make me feel tired. Tired of all the old crap and all the new crap I can look forward to for another eight years.
I hope Obama can get elected. I hope he can make that difference. If not, there will be plenty of work for political haks doing the same old tired crap if McCain or Clinton wins, so at least I’ll still have a job…
If not, there will be plenty of work for political haks doing the same old tired crap if McCain or Clinton wins, so at least I’ll still have a job — HAH! Why am I not in the least bit surprised that your business is the business of politics.
…all business is politics, but yes, I dabble in the Black Arts…
Wow. Your web site is really screwed up. I thought you went with Pajamas because the L.A. Weekly was incompetent.
It looks to me like they are both incompetent and both extremists.
Jack – Just like the doctor said to the priest with kidney stones, “this too shall pass.”
“JP-5. What’s that?”
One of my kin worked on a project that used JP-7…
Laughing Out Loud.
Today’s comments are filled with testosterone…bombs, Navy ships and a guy named Skipper. Cool.
carole w – what about chain saws and firemen?
Chain saws and Firemen rule!
Ah, those Turnout coats and nice big axes:)NWN’s is making my day!
I watched the O’Reilly/Clinton interview tonight. I liked it!
JP-5 is jet fuel. nasty stuff.
What video today?
Northwestern Univ. just announced it has withdrawn its invitation of Wright as commencement speaker in June. I fear this will just fuel Wright’s “hurt” and sense of victimhood and make a hit-back just that much more likely.
I don’t think so. Wright is under enormous pressure in the black community to cool it so Obama can be President.
Incidentally, NWN passed 61,000 comments sometime in the past week.
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