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.
** OBAMA TO CONVENE MEETING OF NATION’S GOVERNORS NEXT WEEK. President-elect Barack Obama is inviting the governors of American states to meet with him on December 2nd in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall to discuss the multiple crises besetting the nation.
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.
The event will be webcast live at 10:30 AM at www.gov.ca.gov.
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.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.
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 $50 to $51 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 $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.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum.
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| Comments (94) |
Len, I agree.
The Clintonites don’t bother me. I’m guessing that most of them would have been happy to govern in a more progressive manner in the ’90s had their boss (or the nation) been so inclined. And cautious national security Reeps are among those most aghast at the W-Cheney-Rumsfeld escapades in the Middle East.
No, what matters is the course Obama charts– its framing, scope, pacing, sequencing.
January 20th can’t get here soon enough.
Chris M, that sounds great in re military acquisition reform. The Bush folks have totally been AWOL as guardians of the pursestrings when it comes to military spending. I heard a report (on NPR?) that even contractors recognize the excess waste and that it is coming to an end.
By the way–hey, Hap hazard, how is that Bush vindication stuff working out?
I’m sure there is a lot of waste in the Pentagon.
However, let’s not forget that “waste, fraud, and abuse” is one of the classic shibboleths of government reform, as Arnold Schwarzenegger found out.
It’s like a holodeck for ideologues …
># Dana Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 4:37 pm edit
Bill muses “You know, I have to laugh, thinking about the frankly irrational maunderings of the far right about Obama…”
Of course the wingnut right-wingers who have made a fortune from being media gasbags are huffing and puffing. They recall those immortal words of Governor William J. LePetomane: “We’ve gotta protect our phoney-baloney jobs…”
Keeping Gates, at least for a time, is a good idea. He meets the basic requirement of the Obama administration–he’s competent. And he has gotten the Department of Defense right side up after the disasters of the Rumsfeld era. And, he makes it difficult for the right to criticize what Obama does in Iraq.
That’s his charge from the voters.
># Len Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 4:29 pm edit
I don’t care if Obama appoints name liberals or not. What I care is that he changes direction and starts getting the job done.
Of course, I can always report every little in and out that leads nowhere … But that’s a job for the Sacramento Bee.
># Capitol Boy Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 4:26 pm edit
Figures.
** 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.
In a sense, the appointees are not so much Clintonites as they are Democrats …
># Chris M Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 4:43 pm edit
Len, I agree.
The Clintonites don’t bother me. I’m guessing that most of them would have been happy to govern in a more progressive manner in the ’90s had their boss (or the nation) been so inclined. And cautious national security Reeps are among those most aghast at the W-Cheney-Rumsfeld escapades in the Middle East.
No, what matters is the course Obama charts– its framing, scope, pacing, sequencing.
January 20th can’t get here soon enough.
Who was that governor?
># Dana Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 4:37 pm edit
Bill muses “You know, I have to laugh, thinking about the frankly irrational maunderings of the far right about Obama…”
Of course the wingnut right-wingers who have made a fortune from being media gasbags are huffing and puffing. They recall those immortal words of Governor William J. LePetomane: “We’ve gotta protect our phoney-baloney jobs…”
Yeah, where is KK?
The old site is finally redirecting here, I put the permanent address on there for a week running …
># Sacramento Solon Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 2:45 pm edit
Kandy Kid,
Check in…close to Squanto’s Day and this foodie needs to know what’s going to be on your table. Plus, your presence is missed…
Right, the reference was to major candidates …
># Jack Aubrey Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 3:40 pm edit
None of those guys were ever serious Presidential candidates.
Chris M Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Perhaps Eugene Debs or Norman Thomas was more radical than those three, depending upon how one defines radical, of course. They got more votes than Nader ever did.
Teddy Roosevelt would be a “RINO” in today’s GOP.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 2:07 pm edit
William Jennings Bryan, Ralph Nader and Ross Perot would be three easy picks for most radical candidates to run for president (not including the Nazi or Cannabis parties, etc).
Teddy Roosevelt was considered so radical by his fellow Republicans that they offered him the vice presidency to keep out of the Oval Office. I finally accepted it because he didn’t have anywhere else to really go
My experience is that a great many of them actually believe it …
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 2:01 pm edit
“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’ …”
Jesus, do these guys really believe all this crap, or can that just not stop spinning?
Franken has a pretty good chance.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm edit
“Assuming Al Franken wins, too.”
Al is going to win.
Georgia is tough…Obama and the Clintons would have to go down there, plus a lot of other stuff, to get that seat.
Correct.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm edit
“Do these rightwing pundits do anything but pander to the clueless far right base?”
they are caught in a feedback loop…don’t look for anything to change for awhile…
That’s right. With Lieberman …
># marcos leon Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:27 pm edit
If we win Georgia, we’re at 60, right?
Oh, they’re just blithering.
># Dana Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:01 pm edit
Meanwhile the far right are spinning like crazy, and sadly many in the media are paying too much heed to this “center-right” nonsense that Bill has debunked before. Mark Evanier notes how uninteresting it is to hear far left radio folks whining as if their side lost, which is what the Pacifica crowd will always do. But take a gander at the Rush spin Evanier quotes that going rightward, purging moderates, blaming Obama for the economic meltdown is the great consequence for the Republicans of this ballotbox meltdown and the path to winning again. Do these rightwing pundits do anything but pander to the clueless far right base? Rush etc. can continue squeezing millions from the people who want to to hear this sort of nonsense but how far before the Republican brand is totally devalued? Is it a political party whose purpose is electing people or a vehicle for pushing an ideology even if it doesn’t work or is outdated? Does anyone still think Karl Rove is a genius as a strategist? Or that Bill Kristol should be allowed to continue sharing his insights other than via standing on a soapbox in an empty corner of the park?
http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2008_11_22.html#016238
He’s off to a very good start.
># Sacramento Solon Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 10:58 am edit
Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 10:39 am
“OBAMA TO CONVENE MEETING OF NATION’S GOVERNORS NEXT WEEK”
This is smart, on many levels.
—–
Must say I’m quite pleased by what I see so far. Dude appears to have his stuff together.
The webmaster is checking it out.
># Sacramento Solon Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 10:25 am edit
Propsero…
I’m also using IE 7 and getting all #1 as well.
Er, maybe not …
># Ann Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:50 am edit
Maybe we should laugh about everything.
Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am
“Ann Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:47 am
lol”
Laughing all the way to the failed bank?
That’s amazing. I didn’t catch that.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am edit
Yesterday Dana posted this WAPO article on the Office of Thrift Supervision: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/22/AR2008112202213_pf.html
The guy under Bush who oversaw two of the biggest financial failures (Washington Mutual and Countrywide) was the same guy who was responsible for “regulating” Keating’s S&L back in the 80s!
WTF — this guy almost flushes the financial system down the crapper and Bush lets him do it again?! Looks like this guy is responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in bad loans.
That would be pretty happy …
># Capitol Boy Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am edit
The Russians are almost as happy to see Bush gone as me.
Actually, he (and Putin) might. Bush has been a very good foil for them.
># Jonas Blane Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:32 am edit
Medvedev isn’t going to miss Bush …
Solon,
As I think I said earlier, Hidden Moon is very good, up to the standard of the first book. Let us know how Bamboo and Blood is. Interesting that North Korea will now be joined with Pakistan in the plot.
“Who was that governor?”
Mel Brooks — Blazing Saddles!
Harumph!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=blazing+saddles%2C+jobs&emb=0&aq=f#
Good catch, Brasky! Yeah, that WA Post article on OTS is a real eye opener. I hope cleaning it up with be part of the Obama clean sweep…
“I hope cleaning it up with be part of the Obama clean sweep…”
Toss them to the curb.
The leg failed to fix the budget. Again. I’m so surprised.
Shocking
Russian Navy cannot really challenge U.S. Navy in your home waters. It is symbolic of need to stop encircling Russia with NATO and missiles shields.
What new video today?
Obama. And Russians in Latin America.
That appears to be the signal from Moscow.
># sergei Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 3:40 am edit
Russian Navy cannot really challenge U.S. Navy in your home waters. It is symbolic of need to stop encircling Russia with NATO and missiles shields.
… Positively shocking.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:14 pm edit
Shocking
It’s a widespread feeling …
># Capitol Boy Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 7:32 pm edit
The leg failed to fix the budget. Again. I’m so surprised.
Indeed.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 6:13 pm edit
“I hope cleaning it up with be part of the Obama clean sweep…”
Toss them to the curb.
That is amazing stuff.
># Dana Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 6:11 pm edit
Good catch, Brasky! Yeah, that WA Post article on OTS is a real eye opener. I hope cleaning it up with be part of the Obama clean sweep…
Oh, not a real governor.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm edit
“Who was that governor?”
Mel Brooks — Blazing Saddles!
I see your point.
># Brasky Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 5:49 pm edit
Harumph!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=blazing+saddles%2C+jobs&emb=0&aq=f#
“Oh, not a real governor.”
No – better!
THE CASABLANCA OPTION
** There are no easy solutions. If the Indians don’t retaliate militarily against targets inside Pakistan — whether official, rogue official, or private — they risk looking weak. If they don’t demand the hand-over of terrorist suspects, they risk looking weak. But the first option could lead to outright war. The second option could further destabilize Pakistan. Or it could lead to a military confrontation if Pakistan did not comply. . (Source: Bill Bradley; HuffingtonPost.Com)
There is always another option, always another way to skin the cat, and that option turns out to be the Casablanca Option, I am shocked, shocked to find out that there is gambling going on at this establishment, and that saboteurs may have been using it as a meeting place, quickly round up the usual suspects for interrogation.
(SOS) Secretary of State Condi Rice and Bill Bradley taught that Pakistan had a responsibility to take quick action against the (“Non-State-Actor”) group Lashkar-e-Taiba and in response, the usual suspect members of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa umbrella group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. Talat Hussain, the director of news at the local Aaj television network, told Al Jazeera: “Clearly the Pakistan government is responding to the international demand that any group that is using either Pakistan soil or areas under its control and is involved in activities beyond the pail of international law needs to be dealt with sternly.” (Source: AL Jazeera)
The second option could further destabilize Pakistan. Or it could lead to a military confrontation if Pakistan did not comply. The “Non-State-Usual-Suspects” are now in the custody of the State of Pakistan, an India has no reason to retaliate militarily against targets in Pakistan- whether official, rogue official, or private or they risk looking like the (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex, using unilateral retaliation.
An no citizen of any country should be tried in the court of public or international opinion until a very, Very, VERY, extensive investigation is done which could take months if not years, and then there is of course the trial and that could drag out for years, in an internationally sensitive situation. And, as India would not expect one of its citizens to be treated any less under its laws, it can not expect less of Pakistan in the treatment of one of its citizens. No destabilization, No confrontation.
I’m Simply shocked that gambling would be going on here!
TRIATHLON
SOVIET VIETNAM NOW (US/MIC) WATERLOO
** It should not be a surprise that resurgent Russia is playing in this as well. The two countries earlier this year announced that they had created the world’s fastest cruise missile. Now they have just announced that they are collaborating on a new multiple-role fighter aircraft. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev visited India the day after Secretary of State Condi Rice. The Soviet Union was very close to India during the Cold War, and was certainly no friend to Pakistan while that country helped create the Soviet Vietnam. (Source: Bill Bradley, HuffingtonPost.Com.)
One of the functions of any Head of State of any government is to determine what is in the vital interest and the security of that State especially when another State to which it has a boarder is involved. And both Afghanistan and Pakistan are boarder States of the New Soviet Empire, both President Dmitri Medvedev and Soviet Chairman Vladimir Putin, see the threat posed by the (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex and this is were it must be stopped, the alternative in the winning of the Grand Chessboard Strategy, (FSWD) Full Spectrum World Domination, by the (US/MIC). Over Pakistan, the seaport city of Karachi, the (30mi./48.27kl.) Khyber Pass, and the (WMD/A) Weapons of Mass Destruction, Atomic Weapons stand between stopping the (US/MIC) and its objective, or meeting its Waterloo.
What should The New Soviet Union do?
(1) Develop and deploy a Falcon intercept short range unmanned fighter drone, sound hunting like a bat, ground controlled, highly maneuverable able to turn on a dime, small, fast, and deadly to take down the Predator Drones which have a sound problem, and too slow due to fuel cell long distance control.
(2) Help the Pakistani military to place their (WMD’s) onto mobile systems, get them moving and out of harms way they are to easy a target for King David H. Betray Us, the Butcher of Islam.
(3) The Soviet Navy had some really great gun boats in Somalia, that I repaired and now they should have some even better one’s they were great, the (USN) United States Navy never had anything like them, and place the new Shi-ite Persian Iranian torpedo on them. They would be death to USN Greyhound, to fast, to small, and to maneuverable, dancing like a butterfly and stinging like a bee, to be hit with the weapon system on the Greyhounds. Anyone who thinks the Soviet Navy is second rate haven’t faced them on the open seas, Crazy Ivan didn’t get the name for nothing, and doing the Crazy Ivan, they made cable laying misery.
(4) Supply Pakistan with the latest in (SAM’s) Surface to Air Missiles, plus Anti-Air-Craft weapons.
(5) Pakistan should refuse the shipment of any type of offensive weapons across its territory into Afghanistan, and double the cost on all military shipments, docking fees, shipping fees, handing fees, make the entire distance into Afghanistan a New York Thruway System for the (US/MIC) based on wheels, weight, and items being shipped, Gas would cost more, and double the cost annually.
(6) Lend (KGB) assistance to the (ISI) Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate, there is a massive amount of electron intelligence that would prove very helpful to the (ISI).
TRIATHLON
VENEZUELA
La Guaira and Caracas, Venezuela, now Bill Bradley has made references to his uneventful tour as a (NROTC) Navy Reserve Officer Training Corp. (Rot-Sea) Officer, a Knife and Fork School trained, silver spoon kid, and it shows. Now, Bill opened the door so its fair game.
Bill Bradley makes all these comments about Venezuela and the presence of the New Soviet Navy in Venezuela, and just writes it off as nothing. Well it’s not! Bill seems not to ever have been in Venezuela, and knows nothing about the (US/MIC) United States Military Industrial Complex involvement with the (CIA) Central Intelligence Agency, in operations against Venezuela’s (Touk-A-Maro).
We would pull into La Guaira on more than one occasion, for (R&R) Rest and Recoup, taking bus’s with Venezuela armed escorts to Caracas, for protection against the Communist in dress whites, and in the evening the (CIA) along with Venezuela’s military would show up with prisons in handcuffs, be placed on the Captains Gig taken out to a certain area in the bay and the handcuffs would return.
The American oil companies had total and complete control of the Venezuela and we were there to make sure the people knew just who was running things. So, is Venezuela just something that means nothing with the New Soviet Navy welcomed, not hardly. But Bill Bradley can have his opinion, based upon never having seen the truth, as for me, what a great move, and a great military gain, into a region that has every reason in the world to Hate the North American Yankees, after seeing first hand what we did to them, its their chance to get even.
We can go into what was going on in Argentina, that was worse, if Bill really want to get involved in South America name the country and why they hate the Yankee with just cause.
TRIATHLON