The new Bond, Quantum of Solace, is well on its way to record box office for an espionage film. Here’s a scene from early in the picture.
** MORE THAN A QUANTUM OF SOLACE FOR NEW BOND FILM. As the Thanksgiving weekend ends, the new Bond flick, Quantum of Solace — an immediate sequel to 2006′s smash reboot of the Bond franchise, Casino Royale — is moving well into the top 100 all-time global box office list. Already a big international hit before it opened in the US on November 14th, the picture is a rapid-fire actionfest which lacks the elegance and breath (if not breadth, as it’s perhaps the most globe-trotting of Bond films) of its immediate predecessor.
It’s clearly geared for the global box office, with a British star (Daniel Craig), a Ukrainian/Russian supermodel leading lady playing a Bolivian/Russian spy (Olga Kurylenko), a Euro villain (French actor Mathieu Amalric channeling what he says is a funhouse version of Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair), a female spymaster (the great British actress Judy Dench as “M”), an African-American Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright as the ultimately good guy CIA official), and a German/Swiss director (Marc Forster). Not to mention the heavy action emphasis, which rivals that of the non-stop actioners in the Bourne series.
Quantum of Solace may fall a bit short of The Bourne Supremacy for the spy film domestic box office crown, but it has already surpassed it at the global box office, and there is much more to come. The film hasn’t even opened yet in Japan.
In addition to the rapid-fire action, the rebooted Bond franchise has other things in common with the Bourne franchise. A very skeptical view of the CIA, and, not coincidental, a sardonic view of a corrupted world.
In the new Bond film, the CIA is in bed with a string-pulling global organization called Quantum, which hides behind a greenwashed facade in a bid to begin cornering the market on what may become a scarce resource. The CIA doesn’t care, so long as it secures the rights to feed America’s oil addiction. Which is beside the point of the real play.
Some on the far right, having gotten it all wrong in the real world of geopolitics, not to mention the presidential race, complain that the rebooted Bond is not true to his roots, that he is insufficiently patriotic.
Of course, it doesn’t really matter what they say about fiction, having been so wrong about fact, but it’s worth mentioning that the new Bond is actually truer to the original Bond than some of the films in the series, and certainly more than their misbegotten musings.
Ian Fleming, who wrote approvingly of Castro before he assumed power and turned out not to be a social democrat but a Communist, frequently decried what he saw as the philistinism of American culture.
And in Daniel Craig, who is of course a huge Obama booster, we have the Bond portrayal which is closest to Fleming’s conception of all the Bonds. No, he’s not the rather jaded sophisticate of most Bond tales, as the producers have taken the character back to the beginnings in Casino Royale.
In Quantum, he’s not fighting the Soviet Union — which Bond frequently did not fight in the original stories, as it happens — or Islamic jihadists (Bond might be a tad obvious trying to infiltrate Al Qaeda) but a global organization that funds and promotes terrorism of all stripes for its own ends. (Not that Al Qaeda is on par with the Soviet Union as a threat.) Rather like Spectre, the group which the earlier Bond frequently fought, notwithstanding the much greater threat of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But without the cackling campy supervillains with penchants for fluffy white cats.
I don’t like Quantum of Solace as much as Casino Royale, which might be the best Bond film of them all — and certainly ranks, for me at least, with Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, and GoldenEye — but it is quite good in the new movie style. It actually played better the second time I saw it, with my middle-aged eyes adjusted to its quick-cut, Bourne-esque action stylings.
Daniel Craig, the best actor to play Bond, is again very strong in the role, with his Sean Connery-meets-Steve McQueen approach.
Oh, and regarding the title … It’s from a Fleming short story, which has nothing to do with the plot of the movie. It’s actually a tale told to Bond one night by the governor general of Jamaica about a failed love relationship. With a twist, naturally. I’d recommend the Fleming short stories about Bond. They hold up well, in some ways better than the novels. All of which I’ve read, as Fleming is one of my favorite “conservative” novelists, along with Robert Heinlein.
** OBAMA TODAY — SUNDAY. President-elect Barack Obama again has no public events as he finishes his “holiday” in Chicago. I say holiday advisedly, as he has been actively monitoring what may be a serious India/Pakistan crisis and will announce key members of his new national security team Monday morning at a 7:30 AM Pacific Chicago press conference.
Among those to be announced tomorrow: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama’s vanquished primary rival, once tipped by many (but not here) as the obvious next president of the United States. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, former CIA director, Iraq Study Group member, and current defense secretary under President Bush. National Security Advisor General James Jones, former commandant of the US Marine Corps and former NATO commander. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona and a key early Obama backer. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, former assistant secretary of state and longtime Obama advisor. Attorney General Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general under Bill Clinton and co-director — with Caroline Kennedy — of Obama’s VP search committee, who will be America’s first black chief law enforcement officer.
I’ll have a column early in the week on this. One obvious comment now. The very top hands — Clinton, Gates, and Jones — are hardly the sort that Obama’s right-wing haters imagined. But then, they had no idea what they were talking about.
Did the Mumbai terrorists use Chechen tactics? Russia’s top counter-terrorism advisor thinks so. Because of the nature of the footage, you must sign in to YouTube and affirm that you’re an adult.
** MUMBAI MOP-UP. The last of the terrorist crew that assaulted multiple targets in Mumbai, India — formerly known as Bombay — were captured or killed late Friday. Now the assessments begin.
At least 195 people were killed in the attacks, which were highly coordinated, using AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and other explosives. Six Americans are known to be dead, and others are missing.
All indications are that the attackers, some of whom are talking under interrogation, were Islamic jihadists. All were male, between the ages of 18 and 28, mostly dressed in t-shirts and cargo pants.
Precisely who is behind the operation, and why, is not entirely clear. There are evident links to Pakistan, India’s long-time and much-despised rival.
While Pakistan’s new prime minister had promised that the new chief of the country’s intelligence service, the dread ISI, would come to India to help with the investigation, the intelligence chieftain has decided against that move. Instead, one of his subordinates will make the trip. The ISI, or at least elements within it, has frequently supported Islamic jihadists, in India as well as Afghanistan, where it largely created the Taliban.
A sidebar issue, which I’ll get into as part of a column early next week, is a series of attempts by Pakistan’s new civilian government to bring the country’s army and intel operations more fully under its control. Several moves have been undertaken recently. With decidedly mixed results.
** OBAMA TODAY — SATURDAY. President-elect Barack Obama has no public events today. He’s vacationing with his family in Chicago and preparing to roll out key members of his national security team at a Monday presss conference in Chicago.
His office announced that Obama called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday night to express his condolences for the great loss of life and his support for India. While Obama stressed that America “has only one president at a time,” he told the embattled Indian leader that he is monitoring the situation closely.
The terrorist siege of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, has left India’s financial sector reeling.
** HAPPY THANKSGIVING, MR. PRESIDENT-ELECT!While Barack Obama promised “a new and brighter day yet to come” in his Thanksgiving address, an old and darker day yet to leave reminds that events — and perhaps political fate itself — can turn on a dime in presidential politics.
As Obama focuses this week on our grave financial and economic crises, one simmering geopolitical crisis — that between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, both with shaky governments — is on the edge of flaring into chaos. And another, the question of how to deal with resurgent Russia, has taken on an added dimension with Russian moves this week into Latin America.
For a political operation that prefers to focus on its preferences, it’s a sharp reminder to Team Obama that the presidency can be every bit as reactive as it is proactive. … From my new Huffington Post column.
** MUMBAI MALAISE (BOMBAY BLUES). Most of the fighting with terrorists who struck a series of targets in Mumbai, known as Bombay from the British colonial days, appears to be over. But not entirely, as the battle continues into a third day. India Today reports that more commandos have been brought into the city to try to root out the remaining assailants, who had attacked ten sites around the city in a highly-coordinated operation.
The assaults have shocked Indian and global elites. Mumbai, the world’s fifth largest metropolitan area, is the financial, commercial, and entertainment capital of India, one of the world’s biggest emerging economies. The Taj Mahal Hotel, site of some of the bloodiest fighting, is a central symbol of Mumbai’s, and India’s, ascendance, the place to go for global elites when visiting India. India’s stock exchange, located in Mumbai, was shut down the past two days, but reopened today. Trading volumes are thin, and activity is volatile. Mumbai is a very popular tourist destination, but cruise lines are avoiding it, at least for now.
Virtually all signs are pointing to a major Pakistani connection in the attacks. The new head of Pakistan’s dread ISI intelligence service will meet with Indian officials in a show of cooperation designed to fend off a major geopolitical crisis between India and Pakistan.
FBI counterterroism and forensic experts are en route to Mumbai now. They can’t operate there without the request of the Indian government.
** OBAMA TODAY — FRIDAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues his Thanksgiving holiday with his family in Chicago. Vice President-elect Joe Biden continues his holiday with family in Natucket, Massachusetts.
He also said that the government should demand changes and accountability from corporations in exchange for assistance, criticizing the federal bailout of Citigroup for not including more such reforms. As for the auto industry, Podesta said: “We need a vital auto industry that’s producing the cars that are necessary for the future — particularly ones that are cleaner, greener and deal with our energy crisis.”
** NUNEZ JOINS MERCURY PUBLIC AFFAIRS. Former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a termed-out Democrat who was a national co-chairman of the Hillary Clinton for President campaign and, before winning election to the Legislature, political director for the LA County Federal of Labor, has joined Mercury Public Affairs. He will be a partner in the firm, whose California operations are headed up by two very prominent Republicans, Steve Schmidt and Adam Mendelsohn. Schmidt ran Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s landslide re-election campaign in 2006 and was chief strategist for John McCain. Mendelsohn was Schwarzenegger’s deputy chief of staff and gubernatorial communications director, and was his chief political advisor in the 2008 elections, engineering the victory of Proposition 11, the first successful redistricting reform initiative.
President-elect Barack Obama’s Thanksgiving video address. The holiday was created by Obama’s idol, Abraham Lincoln.
** MUMBAI MASSACRE (BOMBAY BLOODBATH). While Barack Obama promises “a new and brighter day yet to come” in his Thanksgiving address above, an old and darker day yet to leave reminds that events — and perhaps political fate itself — can turn on a dime in presidential politics.
Several teams of terrorists, perhaps fewer than 30 in number, stormed luxury hotels, a Chabad house, a famous restaurant, and one of the biggest train stations in the world, shooting tourists, business executives, and locals and taking Israeli, American, and British hostages in an operation that is still underway.
The action took place in the center of Mumbai, the center of Indian commerce, finance, and entertainment (home to Bollywood). The city was previously known, from the British colonial days, as Bombay. Now it rings more than a bell …
More than 125 have been killed, with more than 300 wounded in the attacks, which were carried out simultaneously at as many as 10 sites.
Who’s behind it? The emerging scenario is that it is an Islamic jihadist group tied to Pakistan. The ship which brought the attackers has been sourced to Karachi, Pakistan. The e-mail which initially claimed credit for an unknown group has been sourced to Russia, where servers are frequently used for all manner of nefarious activity.
Several of the terrorists have been captured, and at least one is reported to be providing information. Of course, this scenario was almost foreordained, no matter the facts. India’s government is shaky. If it is simply a homegrown operation, the government would almost certainly fall. Placing responsibility on its longtime rival Pakistan rallies the country to the government’s side.
India and Pakistan have been at very sharp odds since the two were partitioned by the British in the decolonization period following World War II. The disputed region of Kashmir has been a constant flashpoint. The two countries had a near nuclear confrontation in 2001 after Islamic terrorists attacked Indian parliamentarians in Mumbai.
This means that we are on the verge of another major geopolitical crisis.
** OBAMA TODAY — THURSDAY. President-elect Barack Obama is spending the Thanksgiving holidays in Chicago with wife Michelle and their daughters Malia and Sasha. Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden are spending the Thanksgiving holidays with their extended family in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Obama also delivered a Thanksgiving radio and video address, which you can watch above, excerpted below:
Nearly 150 years ago, in one of the darkest years of our nation’s history, President Abraham Lincoln set aside the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving. America was split by Civil War. But Lincoln said in his first Thanksgiving decree that difficult times made it even more appropriate for our blessings to be – and I quote – “gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.
This week, the American people came together with families and friends to carry on this distinctly American tradition. We gave thanks for loved ones and for our lasting pride in our communities and our country. We took comfort in good memories while looking forward to the promise of change. But this Thanksgiving also takes place at a time of great trial for our people. …
But this Thanksgiving, we are reminded that the renewal of our economy won’t come from policies and plans alone – it will take the hard work, innovation, service, and strength of the American people. …
That’s the spirit we must summon as we make a new beginning for our nation. Times are tough. There are difficult months ahead. But we can renew our nation the same way that we have in the many years since Lincoln’s first Thanksgiving: by coming together to overcome adversity; by reaching for – and working for – new horizons of opportunity for all Americans.
So this weekend – with one heart, and one voice, the American people can give thanks that a new and brighter day is yet to come.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has left California with his family for the Thanksgiving holidays.
** SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my November 19th column.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my November 14th column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
Indian commandos stormed luxury hotels in Mumbai, formerly Bombay, to root out teams of terrorist gunmen.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading around $54 per barrel. That is up about $7 in the last week, with the Indian terror crisis adding a new geopolitical risk factor.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $93 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
President-elect Barack Obama yesterday introduced the people who will be running his Office of Management and Budget and discussed the record budget deficit he is inheriting from President Bush along with the epic financial crisis.
Over 80 people have been killed, more than 200 wounded in a series of attacks at luxury hotels, a restaurant that is an historic landmark, and a big train station. Hostage situations are underway at two luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi.
No one has taken credit for the attacks, which are ongoing. Previous terrorist attacks in Mumbai have been carried out by Islamic jihadists. This would be a dramatic change in tactics, as the earlier attacks were undertaken with IEDs, improvised explosive devices, not with teams of gunmen. India, which has economic problems like the rest of the world, is looking to tourism as a bulwark.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama holds a press conference for the third morning in a row to discuss the nation’s deep financial crisis. Obama is appointing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head the new President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Obama advisor Austan Goolsbee, the University of Chicago economist who became famous during the campaign after he supposedly told a Canadian consular official not to worry about Obama’s rhetoric on NAFTA, will be the board’s executive director, as well as a member of the Council of Economic Advisors.
This new body is being called the economic emergency board. It’s designed to find crosscut solutions to the multidimensional financial and economic crisis that grips not only Amercia, but the world. Volcker, 81, famed for wringing inflation out of the US economy in the 1980s, has been quietly advising Obama most of this year. The former American central bank chief has unique experience and remarkable connections around the world.
Obama’s Chicago press conference announcing this is at 7:45 AM Pacific. It will be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no planned public events today.
To no one’s surprise, the lame-duck Legislature failed to pass a new budget adjustment bill once it finally got around to trying a vote late yesterday. Democrats proposed a mix of tax increases and budget cuts.
Schwarzenegger will declare a fiscal emergency on Monday and begin trying to work with the new Legislature.
With legislators traveling around the world during the special post-election budget session — and with Schwarzenegger seemingly unable to win over conservative Republicans and Democrats clearly unwilling or unable to play legislative hardball — it was hard to take seriously the prospect that anything might happen. And so it did not.
I’ll write another time about the political mess which is holding back progress on California’s chronic budget crisis, now deepening in the midst of an epic national and global financial crisis.
California’s new Legislature will have three more Democrats — in a Northern California district, Alyson Huber has pulled ahead in the near-final count — in the Assembly, but no more in the Senate. This will give the Dems a 51-29 advantage in the Assembly and a 25-15 advantage in the Senate. Three more votes are needed in the former and two more in the latter to get to the two-thirds vote requirement for budget passage. California is one of only three states with that requirement.
A Russian naval squadron has arrived in the Caribbean for maneuvers as President Dmitri Medvedev arrives for a Wednesday summit in Caracas with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
** SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my Wednesday column.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my November 14th column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $96 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
President-elect Barack Obama yesterday introduced much of his economic management team and discussed his emerging plan to revive the American economy.
** COMING UP … My new column on Obama, Arnold’s global climate summit, and the future of the climate issue in California and the U.S.
** CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE’S LATE START ON ITS ELEVENTH HOUR BUDGET CRISIS BID. So, surprise, they’re off to a late afternoon start on their last ditch bid during the special session to solve the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis. I’m checking in regularly on this, but not holding my breath. Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and new Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg will work with the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) — publishers of one of the top California polls, to which NWN subscribes — to develop an economic stimulus package for the new legislative session.
** GATES TO RUN PENTAGON, AS REPORTED ON NWN, AND OTHER NATIONAL SECURITY/GEOPOLITICAL SLOTS. As I reported immediately after the election, Defense Secretary Bob Gates will be reappointed next week by President-elect Barack Obama. Gates, a former CIA director and lifelong intelligence/national security professional, is a registered independent who has mostly served in Republican administrations. He was a member of the Iraq Study Group, whose advice, though excoriated by the neoconservative warhawks, is being largely followed in disengaging America from its Iraqi quagmire. Gates has also chilled out the warhawks in the Bush/Cheney Administration with regard to their Iran fantasies.
Others expected to be announced next week, along with Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, are retired Marine Corps General and NATO Commander James Jones as Obama’s national security advisor, retired Navy Admiral and Pacific Fleet Commander Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, and former Assistant Secretary of State and longtime Obama advisor Susan Rice as US ambassador to the UN.
You know, I have to laugh, thinking about the frankly irrational maunderings of the far right about Obama, “the most radical presidential candidate in history” …
** ANOTHER GEORGIA POLL SHOWS A CLOSE RUN-OFF RACE FOR THE SENATE. The new Insider Advantage poll shows a tight race for the US Senate in Georgia. Republican incument Saxby Chambliss holds a narrow 50% to 47% edge over Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Yesterday’s Public Policy Polling survey gave Chambliss a 6-point edge in the race, which is on December 2nd.
It all hinges on turnout. PPP thinks the turnout of younger voters will be less than that in the presidential race, when President-elect Barack Obama lost the longtime red state to John McCain by only 5 points. Insider Advantage has black turnout at 25%, higher than usual. But less than the 30% that occurred with Obama on the ballot.
Obama has no current plan to campaign personally in the race. I should say, he has no current public plan to campaign in Georgia.
While they can’t provide a tremendous amount of guidance on the crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, et al, they do have insights about the nation’s financial, economic, and fiscal crises. Among other things, states and local governments may need federal bailouts.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama holds another press conference this morning to discuss the nation’s deep financial crisis and the government’s fiscal crisis. Obama is appointing Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Orszag currently serves as director of the Congressional Budget Office.
In addition to an epic global financial crisis, Obama is inheriting a record federal budget deficit from President George W. Bush.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joins Sacramento Mayor-elect Kevin Johnson this morning at an event promoting volunteerism. Johnson is a former NBA All-Star and Cal All-American point guard.
Schwarzenegger met with the various legislative leaders yesterday and is pushing for a vote today by the lameduck Legislature to right the reeling state budget. Not many expect a solution today.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, opining that the global financial crisis can be overcome in two years, bids hasta la vista to President Bush following the weekend’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru. Medvedev is now meeting with Latin American leaders, coincident with the arrival in the Caribbean of a Russian naval squadron.
** SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my Wednesday column.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my November 14th column.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my November 7th Huffington Post column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $97 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
Barack Obama began outlining his economic priorities in his first press conference as president-elect on November 7th.
** BIDEN’S LONGTIME CHIEF OF STAFF TAKES SENATE APPOINTMENT. Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner today named Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s retired Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, to the US Senate seat that Biden won in another landslide on November 4th. Kaufman, who was a senior advisor to Biden’s presidential and vice presidential campaigns, will not run in the 2010 special election to fill out the remainder of the six-year term Biden just won again. This will allow Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, to run for the seat. The younger Biden, who surived the terrible car crash that claimed the life of his mother Neilia and his younger sister Naomi, just days after the 29-year old Joe Biden was elected to the Senate, in 1972, could not be appointed to his father’s seat because his National Guard unit recently deployed to Iraq.
** REPUBLICAN INCUMBENT LEADS IN GEORGIA SENATE RUN-OFF. The new Public Policy Polling survey shows Senator Saxby Chambliss leading his Democratic challenger, Jim Martin, 52% to 46%. Chambliss fell just below the 50% plus one needed under Georgia law to avoid a run-off next month. He has increased his lead over Martin since then. Why? Because fewer young voters are expected to turn out than participated in the regular general election 20 days ago.
Barack Obama benefited from a huge turnout of young voters in finishing only 5 points behind John McCain in the longtime red state. While at the polls, many of them voted for Martin. But without Obama himself on the ballot, it’s harder to get these new and/or occasional voters to the polls. For those who were wondering why Obama insisted on keeping Joe Lieberman in the Senate Democratic caucus.
Democrats have picked up seven US Senate seats in this election. And eighth looks quite possible, with comedian Al Franken having at least an even chance against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman as the recount proceeds in Minnesota.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HAS BIG 5 MEETING THIS AFTERNOON. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the four legislative leaders from the two parties meet this afternoon to try to salvage the special session of California’s lameduck Legislature on the state’s chronic yet deepened budget crisis.
Not much has happened in this session, with key legislators traveling the world and the Capitol’s long entrenched factions seemingly remaining in stasis.
The Morning Column: MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
A short week in presidential and California politics, with Thanksgiving just around the corner. Yet a consequntial week as President-elect Barack Obama unveils much of his top economic team and begins laying out his economic revival program. (See item below.) And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to salvage his special session of the lameduck Legislature, pushing for a vote to solve the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis. (See item below.)
Meanwhile, major moves are afoot on the geopolitical front, with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev touring Latin American capitals as a squadron of the Russian Navy arrives for its first Caribbean maneuvers since the Soviet days nearly 20 years ago. And Iraq’s Parliament takes up the US troop withdrawal plan negotiated by the Bush/Cheney Administration — a plan which vastly accelerates the pullback of US forces beyond the wishes of this White House — with Iraq’s Cabinet. Iraqi officials say that if parliamentary approval is not forthcoming, US forces will have to withdraw immediately.
Russia’s navy began sailing the world’s oceans again a year ago. Today a squadron arrives in the Caribbean for maneuvers.
Medvedev will meet with a variety of presidents in the region, including the heads of Brazil, Venezuela, and Cuba. Oil powers Russia and Venezuela are expected to announce a new energy conglomerate. Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’s party just swept 17 of 20 state elections over the weekend. Russia is making the none too subtle point that it doesn’t like the US meddling in its backyard.
Will the Iraqi Parliament turn down the negotiated withdrawal plan? It’s looked upon favorably by senior figures in Iran, which should tell any neocons seeking to declare victory quite a lot. On the other hand, without a status of forces agreement, US forces would be legally obligated to withdraw immediately, as the UN mandate runs out at the end of the year.
Back to domestic politics. The bailout of Citigroup I reported on Saturday morning is underway now, with the US government investing $20 billion for another equity stake in the troubled financial giant — America’s largest bank — and the government agreeing to guarantee a “bad bank” portion of the firm’s assets, some $300 billion.
President Bush spoke with Obama about this over the weekend, apparently seeking some sort of approval. Bush is increasingly absent from the play on these things, with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson running things. At a press avail just now, Paulson grimaced as Bush referred to Citigroup as “Citicorp,” which it hasn’t been for years.
Will California’s budget crisis be solved tomorrow? What do you think?
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden hold a press conference to announce some of the leaders of his economic management team, and answer questions about his emerging plan to revitalize the US economy. As reported Friday, New York Federal Reserve Bank chief Timothy Geithner is slated to be secretary of the treasury and former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University president Larry Summers will head the National Economic Council inside the White House. UC Berkeley Professor Christina Romer will chair the Council of Economic Advisors. Melody Barnes, a former top aide to Senator Ted Kennedy, will chair the Domestic Policy Council in the White House, which will be involved with such economic-related issues as health care, Social Security, and energy. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a key backer in the primaries, will be announced as secretary of commerce in a separate event.
Obama will take questions about his emerging plan, which he first spoke of in his weekend video address below, to revive the US economy with a big jobs program.
The event is at 9 AM Pacific at the Chicago Hilton and will be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger meets this morning with Korean President Lee Myung-bak at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, then flies to Sacramento for private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol.
Schwarzenegger will push for a state budget vote on Tuesday, probably the last day for such action in the special session of the lameduck Legislature he called to deal with the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis.
Predictably, the dominant far right faction of the California Republican Party’s board of directors voted over the weekend to oppose any tax increases as part of a budget solution.
** SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my Wednesday column.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my November 14th column.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my November 7th Huffington Post column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $51 to $52 per barrel range. That’s up $4 per barrel from Friday’s close.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $98 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
President John F. Kennedy lays out the beginnings of a plan to end the Cold War in his June 1963 commencement address at the American University in Washington, D.C. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
** OBAMA TODAY — SUNDAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. He spoke yesterday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pledged more military and economic aid to quell the resurgent Taliban.
Obama, as reported Friday, will hold a press conference on Monday to announce key members of his economic management team and take questions about his developing two-year plan to revive the American economy, first outlined in the weekend video address below. He will name New York Federal Reserve Bank chief Timothy Geithner as secretary of the treasury and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as secretary of commerce. He will also name former Secretary of the Treasury and Harvard University president Larry Summers as head of the National Economic Council in the White House. Summers thus becomes Obama’s chief economic advisor.
Speaking this morning on ABC’s This Week, Obama chief political strategist David Axelrod — who was then California state Controller (and future Governor) Gray Davis’s media consultant for a time in the 1990s — said that the Obama Administration will bail-out the US auto industry. But only after Detroit automakers come up with a thoroughgoing plan to reform the industry and its product.
Axelrod, as previously reported, will serve as senior advisor in the White House. Another of Obama’s closest advisors, Robert Gibbs, as I’ve already reported, was announced yesterday as the new White House press secretary. Gibbs, who served as communications director and senior strategist during the campaign just past, has been a constant presence at Obama’s side since 2004. EMILY’s List director Ellen Moran will be director of communications and campaign spokesman Dan Pfeiffer will be deputy director of communications.
** 24 RETURNS. The official show of NWN, 24, returns Sunday night for the first time in over a year in a two-hour movie on Fox. After a spectacular season in 2006, winning Emmy and Golden Globe awards as the best series on television, the show slumped badly in 2007. The show’s growing practice of solving all problems by having hero Jack Bauer torture information out of terrorist suspects hit the wall. (Torture is, at best, so to speak, a very inconsistent means of gaining credible information. And within the real-time context of the show, it would be easy to thwart Bauer by simply lying to him.) Co-creator Joel Surnow, whose politics are very conservative, consistently pushed the Jack-magically-gains-intel-through-immediate-torture angle. But he was forced to step away from the show — which actually has many center and left-of-center scenarios — after signaling his hard right politics in the remarkably unfunny comedy he created for Fox News.
The show was to have come back in January of this year, but the writers’ strike interfered, as did network concerns that the producers’ plans were unworkable. So tonight we get a two-hour movie bridge to the new season beginning in January called 24: Redemption. You could say the title has more than one meaning. Jack Bauer is doing humanitarian work in Africa when, not surprisingly, a situation arises.
I believe that a new president is introduced in this TV movie, played by Cherry Jones (Matt Damon’s pseudo-FBI agent/con woman mother in Ocean’s 12). Were the producers betting on Hillary over Obama? Not really. 24 has already had not one but two black presidents, in the form of the Palmer brothers. In fact, the first season of 24 hinged on Bauer’s efforts to protect the first very serious black presidential candidate, Senator David Palmer — played by Dennis Haysbert — from assassination. Later on, out of office, Palmer, my favorite TV president even over West Wing‘s Jed Bartlett, was assassinated.
24 fans have probably noticed that the Democratic presidents in the show are generally quite heroic, whereas the Republican presidents …
I also believe that Jon Voight, the father of an actress by the name of Angelina Jolie, will be introduced tonight as the new season’s big bad. Voight, as a lefty actor in the Vietnam War era, won an Oscar opposite Jane Fonda in Coming Home. More recently, he’s become quite a conservative activist.
President-elect John F. Kennedy declares victory at the Hyannis Armory on November 9, 1960, the day after his closely-fought election over Richard Nixon. President Kennedy was assassinated 45 years ago in Dallas.
** A 45TH ANNIVERSARY. Saturday is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He was 43 when elected — you see him in the footage above declaring victory the day after his narrow election — and only 46 when he died. America again has a vigorous young president-elect, Barack Obama, who is already 47.
I can’t begin to do justice to this anniversary. So much has been said before.
I would, however, draw your attention to the footage of JFK’s victory event. Relatively low-key, far more accessible than any such event today, yet no less magnificent for that. So much has been lost in the wake of assassination and tumult.
** A WEEKEND BAILOUT? A top investment banking source on Friday night told NWN to look for a weekend take-over and/or bail-out of reeling Citigroup. Along the lines of what happened with Merrill Lynch or American Insurance Group. More to follow …
President-elect Barack Obama’s weekly video address for Saturday, in which he says that he has directed his transition team to assemble a 2-year economic recovery plan for America.
** OBAMA TODAY — SATURDAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. He has no public events scheduled.
The appointment of Hillary Clinton as US secretary of state now seems slated for the week after Thanksgiving, presuming that vetting, primarily of former President Bill Clinton, proceeds as anticipated. Other members of the Obama national security leadership are also apt to be named at that time.
On Monday, the president-elect will hold a press conference to announce some of the leaders of his economic management team, and answer questions about his emerging plan to revitalize the US economy, which he discusses in the weekly video address above. As reported yesterday, New York Federal Reserve Bank chief Timothy Geithner is slated to be secretary of the treasure, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is slated to be secretary of commerce, and former Treasury Secretary and Harvard University president Larry Summers is slated for a senior advisory and troubleshooting role.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events scheduled this weekend. As a member of the Kennedy family, it’s customary for him to follow the family practice of relative seclusion on the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Schwarzenegger will push for a state budget vote on Tuesday, probably the last day for such action in the special session of the lameduck Legislature he called to deal with the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis.
** SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my Wednesday column.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my November 14th column.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my November 7th Huffington Post column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed Friday at $49.59 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $98 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
President-elect Barack Obama, in this video message, addressed the Governors Global Climate Summit in LA, hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
** MARKET SURGES ON WORD OF OBAMA’S TREASURY PICK. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged more than 500 points today — placing it back above the 8000 level, which had previously seemed a market floor — on word that President-elect Barack Obama will name New York Federal Reserve chief Timothy Geithner as the next US secretary of the treasury. The 47-year old former risk management analyst at Kissinger & Associates was undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs in the Clinton Administration under both Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. The latter was seen as a top choice for the Treasury post, but had a problem with controversial statements on women, developing nations, and pollution.
Geithner, former policy director at the Internaional Monetary Fund, is an internationalist, like the new president. A Dartmouth grad and New York native, he finished high school in Bangkok and has a master’s degree in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins.
Word also has it that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a finalist for the secretary of state post, is likely to be offered the position of secretary of commerce. As he has previously served as secretary of energy and ambassador to the UN, this would be a lateral move. Or perhaps a holding spot for later appointment.
Incidentally, for all the vicious maunderings on the far right about Obama as secret anti-semite and enemy of Israel, it is worth noting that Geithner is Jewish. Indeed, Obama’s White House chief of staff, Congressman Rahm Emanuel, volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces during the Gulf War. His father was a member of the Irgun, which many considered a terrorist organization, during Israel’s War of Independence. And Emanuel’s middle name is … Israel.
** NATIONAL REPUBLICANS TO WATCH: STEVE POIZNER. The Washington Post’s top political blogger, Chris Cilliza — you MSNBC fans have probably seen him — has just come out with a list of 10 Republicans to watch around the the country. Oddly, it does not include Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee, for reasons I consider to be decidedly non-serious. You all like that term? (I came up with it during the campaign season just past to deal politely with what I consider to be …)
Steve Poizner: Poizner, the Insurance Commissioner of California, has an early head-start on being the Republican nominee for governor in 2010. And, if Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) decides not to run, Poizner’s ability to self-fund a campaign coupled with his relatively short time in elected office and his outsider message could make him viable in the general election. As California goes, so goes the country.
Of course, here is how California just went: Barack Obama 61%, John McCain 37%. As longtime Democratic honcho Bob Mulholland just pointed out, Obama won California by over 3 million votes, more than any other Democratic presidential candidate in history, and just over one-third his national margin of victory in the popular vote.
I’ve scouted Poizner — which means, in addition to my usual light opposition research scan, I’ve filmed him in various circumstances and studied the footage — and have an informed view of the state insurance commissioner, who was an official of the McCain campaign. I have also scouted every other potential candidate for governor of California, in both parties, and have considered the 2010 race.
Here are the other names to watch on the WashPost blog list: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, South Dakota Senator John Thune, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Virginia Congressman and new House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (who joined Arnold Schwarzenegger’s coterie of governors in signing an international climate change accord), and Mississippi Governor and former Republican National Chairman Haley Barbour.
Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who served as national campaign co-chair of the McCain campaign and national finance co-chair of the Romney campaign, is not on the list. She is contemplating a run for governor in 2010. As I mentioned, I have scouted her.
** REPUBLICAN BRAND COLLAPSING POST-ELECTION. The new national Gallup Poll — see, we’re not done with polls after all! — taken November 13-16 indicates a further collapse since the election in the Republican Party brand. 34% of American voters have a favorable view of the Republican Party; a whopping 61% have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party. That’s the worst rating for the Republican Party since Gallup began measuring it in 1992.
In contrast, the Democratic Party is viewed favorably by 55% of American voters; only 39% have an unfavorable view.
Amongst independent voters, the Democrats are viewed favorably by 47%, the Republicans by 32%.
The sharp decline for the Republicans began at the end of 2005, when both parties were viewed about equally favorably.
** OBAMA RAISED OVER $500 MILLION ON THE INTERNET. Here’s a stunning fact, just reported by the Washington Post. Barack Obama raised over a half-billion dollars online. No wonder he doesn’t spend a tremendous amount of time hanging out with big contributors.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, members of the vaunted Triple O, Obama’s online operation, broke down the numbers: 3 million donors made a total of 6.5 million donations online adding up to more than $500 million. Of those 6.5 million donations, 6 million were in increments of $100 or less. The average online donation was $80, and the average Obama donor gave more than once.
“You looked at the money being raised online in the same way that you looked at the crowds who came to the rallies,” Joe Rospars, the 27-year-old director of Obama’s new-media department, told The Post. “You were constantly surprised at the number of people who were coming out to see him,” and, when it came to online donations, “people exceeded our expectations as to what they were willing to do.”
** COMING UP … My new column on Obama, Arnold’s global climate summit, and the future of the climate issue in California and the U.S.
** SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my Wednesday column.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. He has no public events scheduled. Vice President-elect Joe Biden remains in Delaware the day after celebrating his 66th birthday.
The drama over the potential role of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state continues to play out, with former President Bill Clinton’s various international endeavors and fundraising emerging as an obvious area of concern. The former president has largely opened up his financial books to Obama vetters and has agreed to curtail his foundation activities and get clearance for future ventures.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol today. He has no public events scheduled. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders will try to pass a budget revision before Thanksgiving. California’s chronic budget crisis is spiraling further out of control in the midst of the epic global financial crisis.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my November 14th column.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my November 7th Huffington Post column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading this morning way down in the $48 to $49 per barrel range.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $99 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
Barack and Michelle Obama discussed the big change in their lives last night on 60 Minutes.
** COMING ON FRIDAY … My new column on Obama, Arnold’s global climate summit, and the future of the climate issue in California and the U.S.
** THURSDAY MORNING UPDATE. It’s 8 AM on Thursday morning, I’m back from three days out of the office, a successful set of experiences but even more run down than I was Monday morning, and I am as surprised as anyone else to see NWN still on this server. I am awaiting enlightenment from the technical parties to the transfer equation.
Meanwhile, enjoy my new Huffington Post column from yesterday, linked to just below, on the ins and outs behind the prospective appointment of Hillary Clinton as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.
In other action, LA Congressman Henry Waxman has defeated Detroit Congressman John Dingell for the central post of chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This may be the most important committee in Congress. Dingell has chaired it for decades, blocking action on fuel efficiency, greenhouse gases, and so on. Waxman, currently chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was an important supporter of President-elect Obama, defending him from charges that he was anti-Israel, and some years ago, as a backer of Gary Hart, was chairman of the California delegation to the Democratic National Convention, for which I was a vice chair. Waxman’s longtime political ally, LA Congressman Howard Berman, is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
** S.O.S. HILLARY CLINTON: MASTERSTROKE, MOUSETRAP, OR BOTH?Potential Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Masterstroke or mousetrap? Or both? And for whom?
The political world has been all aflutter for the better part of a week at the prospect — initially portrayed as a done deal — that Hillary Clinton will be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. On the Republican side of the aisle, Henry Kissinger calls her “highly qualified” and Arnold Schwarzenegger dubs it “a great move.” The Clintons’ opponents in the Democratic Party have been restrained in their response. The media loves it, running with endless references to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s very fine book on the Lincoln Cabinet, an Obama favorite, “Team of Rivals.” … From my new column.
** WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE.Sorry for the delay in the change-over to a new server. There’s always a new wrinkle. The move is now scheduled to be completed late Wednesday. Incidentally, I had planned to have this completed on November 9th. No notice, just happening. But a few wrinkles emerged …
Meanwhile, I’ve been on the road, and under the weather, and am currently at the Governors’ Global Climate Summit at the Beverly Hilton in LA, hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Last night, he and other leading American governors signed anti-greenhouse gas agreements with top Indonesian and Brazilian officials. (As you may know, President-elect Barack Obama addressed the confab via video yesterday, creating quite a stir, and former Prime Minister Tony Blair does so today.) So I haven’t really had much time or energy for blogging in any event. However, I do have a new column coming Wednesday morning, on the prospective appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, which I will link to here.
NOTE: New West Notes is scheduled to move to a new server tonight. Or Tuesday. NWN is NewWestNotes.com.
Remember that the correct web address for NWN is www.newwestnotes.com.
Paulson and Bush officials have had trouble defining their mission.
** IRAN LIKES THE NEW U.S.-IRAQ STATUS OF FORCES AGREEMENT.AND WHY NOT? Iran, which wields tremendous influence in Iraq since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, has long opposed all status of forces agreements allowing any continued presence of US troops in Iraq. But a very senior associate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who was erroneously reported by elements of the far right to be dead in January 2007 — says Iran likes the new agreement negotiated by the Bush/Cheney Administration and just approved by senior elements of the Iraqi government.
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, head of the Iranian judiciary, says that the Iraqi government did “very well” in working out a new status of forces agreement with the Bush/Cheney Administration. Current authorization for the the US to remain in Iraq, granted by the United Nations, was set to expire at the end of the year.
Under the new agreement, all US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by mid-2009, with a withdrawal from Iraq to be completed by the end of 2011. US troops will be subject to trial in Iraqi courts and no US offensive operations are to be undertaken without the approval of the Iraqi government. Iraqi detainees in US custody are to be handed over to Iraqi authorities, and all arrest warrants must be issued by the Iraqi government.
The agreement has been approved by the Iraqi cabinet and is now in the hands of the Iraqi parliament.
Ayatollah Sharoudi, as it happens, is actually from Iraq. He previously led Iraq’s largest Shiite political party, and the one most closely aligned with Iran — the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (now known as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq — when the party was still based in Tehran in the 1980s. Shahroudi also is a mentor to Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, a notorious opponent of the US in Iraq, in the latter’s quest to reach ayatollah status.
** BROWN MOVES FOR IMMEDIATE SUPREME COURT RULING ON PROPOSITION 8. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown this morning moved for a quick ruling by the California Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative passed by four points earlier this month. Brown wants the state’s high court to take up the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the measure, which would place opposition to same-sex marriage as an amedment in California’s constitution. Frequently, court challenges must work their way through lower courts.
In addition, Brown says that all same-sex marriages conducted from the time the Republican majority California Supreme Court invalidated an earlier anti-gay marriage initiative and declared same-sex marriage legal in California and the passage of Prop 8 are legally valid. Brown has vowed to defend each of these marriages in court even if Prop 8 is upheld.
President-elect Barack Obama appeared last night on 60 Minutes.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
Quite a week on tap. Barack Obama continues his transition to the presidency, meeting today with John McCain, with much speculation centering on the possible appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. (Look for my upcoming column.) Iraq and the US seem to have an agreeement for an American withdrawal from that troubled country. Lots of bad economic news is slated to be released this week. And Arnold Schwarzenegger, first inaugurated as governor five years ago today, oversees the management of the latest Southern California firestorm and hosts a state summit on small business and a global summit on climate change.
Will John McCain revert to the old maverick, rather than the new partisan we saw in the general election? Probably. Will Hillary Clinton be the new secretary of state? Possibly.
This past weekend’s G-20 summit in Washington produced a vague outline of an action plan to stabilize the global economy and fix the underlying financial crisis.
On the economic front, we’re going to get a lot of bad news this week. Because this is the week in which various economic statistics are reported.
Did the G-20 group of 19 industrial nations and the European Union come up with a plan? Not really. More of a notion, perhaps an outline of a plan for global economic stimulus and global regulation of high finance. It all awaits President Obama. And another summit in a few months, probably in London hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was one of the world’s most successful finance ministers working with Tony Blair.
Will there be a federal bailout of the US auto industry? Almost certainly, because Obama wants it. The Bush/Cheney Administration was at first opposed, but now appears more amenable. But that doesn’t mean it will happen in the lameduck Congress.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was first inaugurated as governor of California five years ago today following his landslide win in the 2003 recall election. Here are scenes from his second inaugural in 2007 in this NWN video.
As we mark the fifth anniversary of Schwarzenegger’s first inauguration as governor, we’re not seeing much progress on the deepening and chronic state budget crisis with the lameduck Legislature. Schwarzenegger is off managing the latest Southern California firestorms. This week he hosts a state summit on small business and a global summit on climate change. I’ll have a lot more on the latter.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. He meets with Senator John McCain today to discuss working together on various issues such as the environment, the financial crisis, and health care. He’s already called Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to express support on the Calfornia fire situation. Schwarzenegger said yesterday on ABC’s This Week that’s ready to what he can to help Obama’s presidency be a success, bearing in mind that he has over two more years to serve as California’s governor.
The drama over the potential role of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state is playing out today, with former President Bill Clinton’s various international endeavors and fundraising emerging as an obvious area of concern.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Opti-Solar in North Highlands outside Sacramento to sign an executive order that will streamline California’s renewable energy project approval process.
The order builds on the 2006 Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that mandates more energy from renewable energy sources in order to achieve 33 percent renewable power by 2020 and will advance the development of RPS-eligible renewable energy resources.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my new column.
** OBAMA’S AMERICA: OBSERVING THE OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY. It’s just a week since the election of Barack Obama, and we’ve already seen a telling new approach to one of America’s most venerable holidays, Veterans Day.
President Bush downplayed the cost of war. He appeared frequently with able-bodied heroes he was decorating for bravery, but to my knowledge never attended even one of the thousands of funerals for those Americans killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In stark contrast to this sweep-it-under-the-rug approach favored by the outgoing administration, the president-elect yesterday laid a simple wreath at Chicago’s Soldier Field to honor our nation’s military veterans. He was accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a decorated Iraq War veteran and Army major who lost both her legs when the helicopter she piloted was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Without making a big deal of it, Obama thus acknowledged the cost of war in a way that the current administration — which cut taxes and borrowed endlessly to finance its largely misbegotten strategies — has never dared. …
What is the meaning of Veterans Day in the Age of Obama? More to the point, what is the meaning of Veterans Day in the an age in which America is embroiled in two wars — one a war of retribution, the other a war of faulty strategy — in a world beset by Islamic jihadism and marked by an emerging multi-polarity?
Let’s start with a great irony. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, established to mark the end of World War I. Which, as you know, was “the war to end all wars.” It didn’t work out that way.
Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.
We do live in a world in which military service is a necessity, and in which military force — or at least its highly credible threat, explicit or implicit — is necessary to pursue America’s strategic ends.
Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From Wednesday’s column.
ATTENTION NEW WEST NOTES READERS: Now that the crush of the election season is out of the way, New West Notes is moving to its own server. I had planned to have the move, which these days can happen quite quickly and in a pretty straightforward way, completed over the weekend.
However, because of several underlying tech-related issues with Pajamas Media, there has been a delay. As it has always been, New West Notes will be available through NewWestNotes.com. So if you have bookmarked the Pajamas Media version, remember this instead … New West Notes is www.newwestnotes.com.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my Friday Huffington Post column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.
The drop of $90 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
Quantum of Solace, the immediate sequel to the smash 2006 Bond franchise reboot Casino Royale, has just broken the domestic box office opening weekend record for a spy flick. It was already a big international hit. Here’s a scene from the film.
** NEW BOND FILM PROVES FIRST BLOCKBUSTER OF THE OBAMA ERA.Quantum of Solace is a huge hit, bigger than anticipated. Starring Obama booster Daniel Craig as James Bond, the immediate sequel to the smash 2006 franchise reboot, Casino Royale, set a new record for an opening weekend for a spy film at the domestic box office, taking in over $70 million. Meanwhile, the picture, which opened the weekend before last in Britain and several other nations, has now taken in $251.6 million at the international box office, giving it a stunning $322 million in global box office already.
The previous spy film opening weekend box office record holder, last year’s The Bourne Ultimatum, starred another Obama booster, Matt Damon.
I’ve seen the new film and am not ready yet for a full-on review, but Craig again plays Bond as Sean Connery-meets-Steve McQueen, with bigger acting chops. The film is pared down, not as elegant as Casino Royale, but far more action-packed. Which may make it even more internationally appealing than that big hit.
It also has a big political subtext. Which we’ll be getting to.
** SCHWARZENEGGER ON THIS WEEK. Governor Arnold Schwarznegger appeared Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He said that Hillary Clinton could be “a great move” as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state. He noted that the Republican Party is going in the wrong direction, as great Republican presidents of the past championed issues the far right eschews, with Teddy Roosevelt a champion of universal health care and the environment and Dwight Eisenhower a champion of infrastructure development.
He also said that he agrees with Obama that the US auto industry needs a bailout, but only if it is reformed in the process. And that he expects Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, to be thrown out by the California Supreme Court.
Schwarzenegger is touring fire hot spots today in Southern California.
The outline for the agreement was largely provided by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who will assume the G-20 chairmanship for the next meeting of the group this spring in London.
Agreements made at the G20 global financial summit in Washington provide a “route map” to economic recovery, Gordon Brown has said. The prime minister hailed as “historic” the countries’ vow to act together to reverse the global economic slump. Commitments were made to boost growth and reform global financial markets.
The G-20 also agreed that international finance should come under a new form of international regulation, something the Bush/Cheney Administration staunchly resisted any discussion of until Wall Street’s epic crisis had a domino effect around the world. But the details are left to the advent of President Obama.
President-elect Barack Obama is turning the weekly presidential radio address into a video address as well. Here is the first such in the new weekly series.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. His emissaries to the G-20 summit on the global financial crisis this weekend in Washington, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Congressman Jim Leach, are holding private meetings with various foreign heads of government and finance ministers.
On Saturday, Obama presented his weekly radio address as president-elect, which he is making a weekly video address as well, as you see above. He will continue this practice every weekend through his inauguration as president of the United States on January 20th, and beyond.
In this address, he calls for the prompt adoption of a new package to further stimulate the economy and provide extended benefits to the unemployed. Failing that in the lame duck session, he says it will be his immediate priority following his inauguration.
Obama will meet on Monday with his Republican rival, John McCain, in his presidential transition headquarters in Chicago.
On Sunday, Obama resigns his seat in the U.S. Senate. Here is his statement: “It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate. In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who’ve taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children’s future. It is these Illinois families and their stories that will stay with me as I leave the United States Senate and begin the hard task of fulfilling the simple hopes and common dreams of all Americans as our nation’s next President.”
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is touring fire damage in Santa Barbara. He has declared states of emergency in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties due to the fire situations there. At 10 AM Saturday, he holds a briefing at Santa Barbara’s Earl Warren Showground.
On Sunday, Schwarzenegger appears on ABC’s This Week.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my new column.
** OBAMA’S AMERICA: OBSERVING THE OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY. It’s just a week since the election of Barack Obama, and we’ve already seen a telling new approach to one of America’s most venerable holidays, Veterans Day.
President Bush downplayed the cost of war. He appeared frequently with able-bodied heroes he was decorating for bravery, but to my knowledge never attended even one of the thousands of funerals for those Americans killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In stark contrast to this sweep-it-under-the-rug approach favored by the outgoing administration, the president-elect yesterday laid a simple wreath at Chicago’s Soldier Field to honor our nation’s military veterans. He was accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a decorated Iraq War veteran and Army major who lost both her legs when the helicopter she piloted was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Without making a big deal of it, Obama thus acknowledged the cost of war in a way that the current administration — which cut taxes and borrowed endlessly to finance its largely misbegotten strategies — has never dared. …
What is the meaning of Veterans Day in the Age of Obama? More to the point, what is the meaning of Veterans Day in the an age in which America is embroiled in two wars — one a war of retribution, the other a war of faulty strategy — in a world beset by Islamic jihadism and marked by an emerging multi-polarity?
Let’s start with a great irony. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, established to mark the end of World War I. Which, as you know, was “the war to end all wars.” It didn’t work out that way.
Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.
We do live in a world in which military service is a necessity, and in which military force — or at least its highly credible threat, explicit or implicit — is necessary to pursue America’s strategic ends.
Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From Wednesday’s column.
ATTENTION NEW WEST NOTES READERS: Now that the crush of the election season is out of the way, New West Notes is moving to its own server. I had planned to have the move, which these days can happen quite quickly and in a pretty straightforward way, completed over the weekend.
However, because of several underlying tech-related issues with Pajamas Media, there has been a delay. As it has always been, New West Notes will be available through NewWestNotes.com. So if you have bookmarked the Pajamas Media version, remember this instead … New West Notes is www.newwestnotes.com.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my Friday Huffington Post column.
** DEMOCRATS: THE NEW WESTERN STRATEGY IS PAYING OFF. The election hasn’t happened yet, so it’s too soon to start counting electoral votes from the Democrats’ new Western strategy. But the dramatic re-shaping of the electoral battlefield is already clear enough. While the current party leadership deserves credit for a new path to presidential power, much of the new Western strategy has long been championed by former Senator Gary Hart.
The new strategy came into clear focus, fittingly for a party that knew it had to gamble on a new route to the White House, in Las Vegas, in January 2007 over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. The snow on the famed Las Vegas Strip the day before seemed only a little less unlikely to many in the national media and political establishments than the new moves that were unfolding. … From my October 31st column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil, on word of a new internation energy assessment forecasting declining energy demand with the slumping global economy, closed yesterday at $57.04 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its 2008 and 2009 oil demand forecasts today, citing the global financial crisis’ impact on the lower demand for gasoline, the Financial Times reported.
The drop of over $92 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
President-elect Barack Obama with French President Nicolas Sarkozy this past July in Paris.
** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my new column.
** OBAMA CAMPAIGN BONUSES. With the advantage of record-shattering fundraising, President-elect Barack Obama is offering every campaign staffer a set of unprecedented perks. Everyone gets a bonus equal to a month’s pay. (Some, of course, get more. It’s “Animal House.” The novel, not the movie …)
Plus they get to keep their campaign-issued laptop computers and smart phones.
I am told there are no such perks in the John McCain campaign. Though staffers are welcome to watch the spectacle around which articles of clothing VP nominee Sarah Palin and her family hang on to.
Despite endless fear-mongering amongst the far right in Jewish-American politics, Obama won 78% of the Jewish-American vote.
** MAKING IT OFFICIAL: CALIFORNIAN DAN LUNGREN GOES FOR THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER POST. Former California Attorney General Dan Lungren, now Sacramento area Congressman Dan Lungren, made his campaign for the House minority leadership, which I mentioned a few days ago, official today. He is challenging Ohio Congressman John Boehner. I ran into Boehner on the campaign trail. While he is assailed by right-wingers as insufficiently conservative, I can assure you that by any objective measure, he is quite conservative.
Lungren, even in his currently gerrymandered district, had some trouble getting re-elected, defeating Dr. Bill Durston, a Vietnam War vet, by a 50-44 margin.
Lungren is an amiable fellow, son of Richard Nixon’s personal physician, who ran for governor of California in 1998 and was blown away by Gray Davis. The election was one of the biggest landslides in California history, with Davis crushing Lungren, 58-38.
I knew Lungren had a big problem when I recorded him saying: “Californians are even more conservative than they know.”
** CLINTON IN PLAY FOR SECRETARY OF STATE. Yes, it is true. Hillary Clinton has suddenly become a top contender to be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. The New York senator, former first lady, and tenacious former frontrunner for the presidency, made an unscheduled trip yesterday to Chicago to meet with President-elect Obama regarding a top role in the new Obama Administration. The principal focus of that role is that of US secretary of state.
Team Obama has been somewhat slow – though this is all happening fast in historical terms – to pick between 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and Vietnam War hero Senator John Kerry, who launched Obama’s presidential career by picking him to keynote the 2004 Democratic national convention, and Governor Bill Richardson, who delivered his state of New Mexico to the Obama candidacy and has ample experience as an international troubleshooting House Intelligence Committee member, US ambassador to the UN, and US secretary of energy.
I’m told by both Obama and Clinton sources that the interest in Hillary Clinton as Obama’s secretary of state is deep and genuine.
Obama’s favorite book is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals,” about Abraham Lincoln and his emergency cabinet of former opponents and contentious political rivals.
** SARKOZY AND RUSSIA LOOK TO “REGULATED CAPITALISM.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose election was touted by the American right-wing as a sign of a major shift in global politics to their end of the spectrum, met yesterday with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in advance of this weekend’s summit meeting of G-20 nations in Washington. France and Russia are in agreement on Sarkozy’s plan to promote “regulated capitalism” on a global basis in the wake of the epic financial meltdown on Wall Street.
The reason this meeting is taking place is that the European Union, under Sarkozy’s leadership, proposed to firmly regulate the world’s 30 top banks in order to avert any further manifestations of what we’re going through.
Needless to say, this is not what the far right in America anticipated when it hailed Sarkozy’s election as president of France over Socialist candidate Segolene Royal. Sarkozy took a hard line against Islamic jihadism in his country. Which the right mistook for a fundamental conservatism, ignoring his stance against the greenhouse effect, which they don’t believe in. Oops.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had an embarrassing conversation just before the election with “French President Nicolas Sarkozy,” actually an over-the-top-radio comedian from Montreal.
** PALLING WITH PALIN. Watch for the link to my upcoming column on the state of the Republicans. For those who know the state of the California Republican Party, my view of the state of the national Republican Party will not be unfamiliar.
** OBAMA’S AMERICA: OBSERVING THE OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY. It’s just a week since the election of Barack Obama, and we’ve already seen a telling new approach to one of America’s most venerable holidays, Veterans Day.
President Bush downplayed the cost of war. He appeared frequently with able-bodied heroes he was decorating for bravery, but to my knowledge never attended even one of the thousands of funerals for those Americans killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In stark contrast to this sweep-it-under-the-rug approach favored by the outgoing administration, the president-elect yesterday laid a simple wreath at Chicago’s Soldier Field to honor our nation’s military veterans. He was accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a decorated Iraq War veteran and Army major who lost both her legs when the helicopter she piloted was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Without making a big deal of it, Obama thus acknowledged the cost of war in a way that the current administration — which cut taxes and borrowed endlessly to finance its largely misbegotten strategies — has never dared. …
What is the meaning of Veterans Day in the Age of Obama? More to the point, what is the meaning of Veterans Day in the an age in which America is embroiled in two wars — one a war of retribution, the other a war of faulty strategy — in a world beset by Islamic jihadism and marked by an emerging multi-polarity?
Let’s start with a great irony. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, established to mark the end of World War I. Which, as you know, was “the war to end all wars.” It didn’t work out that way.
Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.
We do live in a world in which military service is a necessity, and in which military force — or at least its highly credible threat, explicit or implicit — is necessary to pursue America’s strategic ends.
Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From Wednesday’s column.
ATTENTION NEW WEST NOTES READERS: Now that the crush of the election season is out of the way, New West Notes is moving to its own server. I had planned to have the move, which these days can happen quite quickly and in a pretty straightforward way, completed over the weekend.
However, because of several underlying tech-related issues with Pajamas Media, there has been a delay. As it has always been, New West Notes will be available through NewWestNotes.com. So if you have bookmarked the Pajamas Media version, remember this instead … New West Notes is www.newwestnotes.com.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. His emissaries to the G-20 summit on the global financial crisis this weekend in Washington, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Congressman Jim Leach, are holding private meetings with various foreign heads of government and finance ministers.
Obama will meet on Monday with his Republican rival, John McCain, in his presidential transition headquarters in Chicago.
According to Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter: “On Monday, President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain will meet in Chicago at transition headquarters. It’s well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality. They will be joined in the meeting by Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressman Rahm Emanuel.”
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today for private meetings and conversations, some of them around the very slow-starting special legislative session on the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis – featuring the lame-duck Legislature — and two public events.
At 11:15 AM, Schwarzenegger will be in San Francisco to participate in a press conference welcoming United Airlines’ groundbreaking green flight from Australia. The first of its kind to touch down in California, the flight is part of the Asia and South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (ASPIRE) partnership to increase flight efficiency by reducing fuel consumption and aviation greenhouse gas emissions.
Schwarzenegger’s global governors’ climate change summit is next week in LA at the Beverly Hilton. NWN will cover this event and provide exclusive material. California and other US states will be signing cap-and-trade agreements on greenhouse gases with Indonesia and Brazil. And Schwarzenegger is of course looking forward to President-elect Obama’s commitment to greenlight the California climate change program.
At 1:30 PM, Schwarzenegger will join U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman in a press conference to highlight an agreement that will lay the groundwork for the largest dam removal project in history. California, Oregon and various federal and private partners are undertaking to improve water quality, water supply and fish populations in the Klamath River region, which is in the farthest reaches of Northern California.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my Friday Huffington Post column.
** DEMOCRATS: THE NEW WESTERN STRATEGY IS PAYING OFF. The election hasn’t happened yet, so it’s too soon to start counting electoral votes from the Democrats’ new Western strategy. But the dramatic re-shaping of the electoral battlefield is already clear enough. While the current party leadership deserves credit for a new path to presidential power, much of the new Western strategy has long been championed by former Senator Gary Hart.
The new strategy came into clear focus, fittingly for a party that knew it had to gamble on a new route to the White House, in Las Vegas, in January 2007 over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. The snow on the famed Las Vegas Strip the day before seemed only a little less unlikely to many in the national media and political establishments than the new moves that were unfolding. … From my October 31st column.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil, on word of a new internation energy assessment forecasting declining energy demand with the slumping global economy, is now trading in the $55 to $56 per barrel range.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its 2008 and 2009 oil demand forecasts today, citing the global financial crisis’ impact on the lower demand for gasoline, the Financial Times reported.
The drop of $92 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
John McCain, in his first post-election appearance, Veterans Day on The Tonight Show.
** PALIN STEALS THE SHOW IN MIAMI, YET BAFFLES. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin stole the show today atthe Republican Governors Association’s woe-is-us-Republicans session in Miami. Everyone was waiting on her every word.
Yet … she essentially recycled her old stump speech. And her ballyhooed press conference? She took only four questions, delivering very vague answers, before getting the hook from Texas Governor Rick Parry.
You know, I think I have a column coming out of this. Something about the national Republican Party becoming the California Republican Party.
** CALIFORNIA STORY: NO SURPRISES, BUT SOME DISINFORMATION DEBUNKING. Incidentally, I saw top California pollsters Mark Baldassare and Mark di Camillo today. Who had no surprises, though they debunked some prominent disinformation out there about Barack Obama and Prop 8. I’ll have an item about their thoughts tomorrow.
** WHAT’S THE COUNT? Well, in those unresolved US Senate races … Anchorage Mayor Nick Begich has taken nearly a thousand vote lead over Republican incumbent Ted Stevens. It looks like Alaska will be a seventh pick-up for the Democrats.
In Minnesota, comedian Al Franken is just 200 votes behind incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. Before the recount begins. This will be a nail-biter for more than a month, but Franken has an even chance of being an eighth Democratic pick-up in the Senate.
Georgia goes to a run-off, with incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss held below 50%. With Barack Obama not on the ballot, this will be a tough seat for the Democrats to pick up.
Which brings us to Joe Lieberman. While a lot of Dems want him tossed from the Democratic caucus, the most important Democrat, President-elect Obama decidedly does not. His vote is needed. Expect to see him around for quite awhile on the Democratic side of the aisle.
In California, the ongoing count has not dented the four-point lead for the Prop 8 anti-same sex marriage initiative. Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative championed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is seeing its margin slowly but surely going up, to about two points. And in that hotly contested congressional race outside Sacramento, longtime right-wing icon Tom McClintock, carpetbagging his way 400 miles north of his longtime Southern California legislative district, has a lead which is slowly but surely going up, to around 1300 votes.
** OBAMA’S AMERICA: OBSERVING THE OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY. It’s just a week since the election of Barack Obama, and we’ve already seen a telling new approach to one of America’s most venerable holidays, Veterans Day.
President Bush downplayed the cost of war. He appeared frequently with able-bodied heroes he was decorating for bravery, but to my knowledge never attended even one of the thousands of funerals for those Americans killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In stark contrast to this sweep-it-under-the-rug approach favored by the outgoing administration, the president-elect yesterday laid a simple wreath at Chicago’s Soldier Field to honor our nation’s military veterans. He was accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a decorated Iraq War veteran and Army major who lost both her legs when the helicopter she piloted was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.
Without making a big deal of it, Obama thus acknowledged the cost of war in a way that the current administration — which cut taxes and borrowed endlessly to finance its largely misbegotten strategies — has never dared. …
What is the meaning of Veterans Day in the Age of Obama? More to the point, what is the meaning of Veterans Day in the an age in which America is embroiled in two wars — one a war of retribution, the other a war of faulty strategy — in a world beset by Islamic jihadism and marked by an emerging multi-polarity?
Let’s start with a great irony. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, established to mark the end of World War I. Which, as you know, was “the war to end all wars.” It didn’t work out that way.
Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.
We do live in a world in which military service is a necessity, and in which military force — or at least its highly credible threat, explicit or implicit — is necessary to pursue America’s strategic ends.
Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From yesterday’s column.
ATTENTION NEW WEST NOTES READERS: Now that the crush of the election season is out of the way, New West Notes is moving to its own server. I had planned to have the move, which these days can happen quite quickly and in a pretty straightforward way, completed over the weekend.
However, because of several underlying tech-related issues with Pajamas Media, there has been a delay. As it has always been, New West Notes will be available through NewWestNotes.com. So if you have bookmarked the Pajamas Media version, remember this instead … New West Notes is www.newwestnotes.com.
** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama holds private meetings and discussion on the presidential transition today in Chicago. Although heads of government and other top officials are beginning to gather in Washington for this weekend’s emergency summit of the G-20 (group of 20 industrial nations) on the global financial crisis, Obama will not be in attendance. President Bush hosts the meeting. Obama has dispatched former US Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeline Albright, a Democrat, and former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican, as his emissaries to the summit. They will be meeting for international leaders on Obama’s behalf.
Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden will today tour their new residence in Washington, the Naval Observatory, and have dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney and Lynn Cheney. Cheney is said by those who know him to be a gifted raconteur and interesting conversationalist, notwithstanding his Darth Vader image.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger participates in the Golden Guardian Exercise today, leading California through its largest emergency response drill to test the state’s readiness and response to a major earthquake. The exercise will simulate a 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault and more than 5,000 participants from more than 100 local, state and federal agencies will participate.
Schwarzenegger operates out of the National Guard base in Los Alamitos, then holds a press conference in Mission Hills.
** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN.It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.
I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my Friday Huffington Post column.
** DEMOCRATS: THE NEW WESTERN STRATEGY IS PAYING OFF. The election hasn’t happened yet, so it’s too soon to start counting electoral votes from the Democrats’ new Western strategy. But the dramatic re-shaping of the electoral battlefield is already clear enough. While the current party leadership deserves credit for a new path to presidential power, much of the new Western strategy has long been championed by former Senator Gary Hart.
The new strategy came into clear focus, fittingly for a party that knew it had to gamble on a new route to the White House, in Las Vegas, in January 2007 over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. The snow on the famed Las Vegas Strip the day before seemed only a little less unlikely to many in the national media and political establishments than the new moves that were unfolding. … From my October 31st column.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in an interview yesterday with Le Figaro, says that compromise is still possible on the current US plan to place an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe.
** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th Huffington Post column.
** 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. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. 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.
Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil, on word of a new internation energy assessment forecasting declining energy demand with the slumping global economy, is now trading in the $55 to $56 per barrel range.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its 2008 and 2009 oil demand forecasts today, citing the global financial crisis’ impact on the lower demand for gasoline, the Financial Times reported.
The drop of $92 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.
| Comments (67) |