President Barack Obama’s video message at half-time of yesterday’s NBA All-Star Game, discussing the life lessons of basketball and the need for national service.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
Happy Presidents Day! Notwithstanding today’s holiday, a big week ahead in presidential politics and California politics.
First to the California stuff. No deal yet on the chronic California budget crisis. All those reports last week in the San Francisco Chronicle and Sacramento Bee were quite wrong. But the state is close. Both to a deal that nobody much likes. And to total disaster.
All one has to do is the math to see how preposterous the situation is. The far right ideologues who presently dominate the California Republican Party are reduced to nothing more than a no tax/slash government mantra. But the reality is, and I know a number of these folks, and they’re just not very bright, that cuts alone will destroy governance in California. But won’t achieve anything else. Yet that is all they have offered, in the vaguest of rhetorics, for more than a year.
One is tempted to say: You know what, let’s go with your “plan.” Because the Republican Party would be forever destroyed in California. And if its current activist leaders have nothing more to offer than this errant guff …
But of course there will be a real world budget. Incidentally, Republican gubernatorial hopefuls in this state carried by Barack Obama by a whopping 24 points converge this coming weekend on the California Republican Party convention in Sacramento. Self-described moderates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman, both hewing to the far right line on the budget with no alternatives on offer, will be amongst the cast of characters.
Moving on to more sophisticated matters, this is another big week for the new Obama Administration. Barack Obama signs the big economic recovery bill tomorrow in Denver. Then on Wednesday, striking in the heart of the erratic John McCain’s base in Phoenix, he will unveil a plan for the housing crisis.
This is the next phase in what we might call New Deal II.
It’s also a big week for Obama on the geopolitical front.
For one, and this is not the most important issue, though it will get the most attention from the conventional media, Israel is still strugging to resolve what happened in its national elections last Tuesday. Centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livnis’ Kadima Party came from behind to beat former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s conservative Likud in the parliamentary elections. But adding up the little right-wing parties winning seats in the Israeli parliament yields more potential votes for a Netanyahu prime ministership. So Livni finds her electoral victory a bit empty at the moment.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, a former Labor prime minister, has not yet picked amongst Livni or Netanyahu as the candidate to try to form a coalition government.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her portfolio diminished by Obama’s practice of appointing special envoys and czars, is on her first international tour, this of Asia. She began in Japan, but will end in China, America’s greatest creditor (and America is its greatest market).
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Bush/Cheney favorite who is decidedly not Obama’s favorite, announced yesterday that his government will dispatch an envoy to Washington to participate in Obama’s strategic review of the Afghan policy. It may be too late for Karzai, who is widely criticized for hanging in Kabul – though it’s hard for me to criticize him, given the assassination attempts that nonetheless take place even there – but it may not be too late for Afghanistan. Though the Bush/Cheney crew have done a bang-up job of screwing things up amidst their Iraq obsessions.
Obama is apparently not in a rush to decide how many troops to send to Afghanistan to deal with the deterioraing situation there.
Meanwhile, new US special envoy to South Asia Richard Holbrooke – after visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan – is in India today on the last leg of his tour. The Mumbai crisis is still not resolved.
Pakistan has admitted the terrorist siege last Thanksgiving of India’s commercial capital was conceived in Pakistan, but has cooperated only in a limited way with both the investigation and the takedown of the jihadist network behind it.
And the deeply troubled new Pakistani government is granting sharia law to some parts of the country.
In other action, of much more interest to folks way over on the left and the right, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez succeeded in repealing his country’s term limits. This is not exactly a surprise, as his party mostly swept recent provincial elections in the country.
The historians’ Top 10 of American presidents? Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Dwight Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson, and Ronald Reagan.
The presidency is a very tough gig. Lincoln was assassinated, FDR died in office after winning an unprecedented four terms before the term limits era, Teddy Roosevelt ended up as a third party candidate, Truman was hounded from office, Kennedy was assassinated, Wilson had a series of strokes and saw his vision of a League of Nations shattered.
No Obama. Naturally. Despite his high approval ratings, he’s only been president now for less than 27 days.
Former Los Angeles Lakers teammates Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal won co-Most Valuable Player honors last night as the West crushed the East in the NBA All-Star game, 146-119.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia are about to head back from Chicago to Washingon. Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden are in New York and Wilmington, Delaware for the weekend.
There are no scheduled public events.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis.
He is trying, along with legislative leaders, to lock down a budget deal.
I suspect that a budget will pass today. The Legislature is scheduled to meet again at 11 AM Pacific.
** AFGHANISTAN: RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE. In a very positive sign for the US effort in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that transit of US and NATO non-military supplies through Russia to troops in Afghanistan will begin within days.
Ironically, this comes on the 20th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Kabul. And the man who commanded those Soviet forces, retired Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, warned the US today that a military surge in Afghanistan will not solve its problems there.
With our putative ally Pakistan increasingly unstable and jihadists carrying out many successful attacks on supply lines and convoys there — they seem to blow up the route over the legendary Khyber Pass every other week — alternative means of supply are increasingly necessary to sustain the US and NATO effort in Afghanistan.
That means, one way or another, Moscow, which can provide transit through its own territory and guarantee transit through Central Asian nations formerly part of the Soviet Union. There’s been a major dance underway for weeks on this, unreported by the conventional media, naturally. …
** “POST-PARTISANSHIP”: HOW IT WORKS, HOW IT DOESN’T.Back in 2007, when he was still an underdog candidate for president jousting with John Edwards (remember him?), Barack Obama said that he liked the “post-partisan” posturings of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the idea that people should set aside their partisan differences to solve big issues. Now, as president, he’s adopted much the same tack, to the dismay of hyper-partisans of all stripes.
They ought to be dismayed, because it works. To a point.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
The drop of $111 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East surrounding a supposed attack on Iran.
With America in an even darker mood than when The Dark Knight became the movie of the decade, we’ll see if Watchmen is the next big, dark comic book movie. Set in an alternate 1985 America where Richard Nixon is still president, Watchmen is a complex mystery about a group of retired or discredited superheroes. It opens March 6th.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE – 9:15 PM. Near as I can tell, the regular Capitol press corps that covers this issue full time conked out several hours ago. At least insofar as they provided reports every few hours or so.
Meanwhile, the Legislature does not yet have a deal – shocking, positively shocking – but will reconvene on Monday morning. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has had many meetings with various players on this over the weekend, and state Senate Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg is probably regretting saying that the deal was in place several days ago.
There are at least two versions of the deal there to be made that I can see. It will be interesting to see which one gets made.
** SUNDAY EVENING: YET ANOTHER CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE. Nope, that breathlessly reported deal of a week or so ago still ain’t real. Here’s what is real. I think the budgeteers can get Sacramento-area state Senator Dave Cox. If they give a lot on the controversial First Five programs, that initiative designed to propel Hollywood director Rob Reiner to the governorship by taxing tobacco for some rather indistinct programs for kids. But some Democratic interest groups may not want to go that far. Reiner had to resign his chairmanship of the state commission overseeing the tobacco tax for kids program created by the initiative he sponsored after it became evident that he was using major state funding to promote his electoral agenda through TV advertising and PR firm spending. After Reiner was forced to resign, a good friend of his admitted to me that that had been the plan all along.
In other action, some right-winger has created a recall Abel Maldonado domain name. Wow, really. Maldonado, still irritated with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for not pushing him to victory in the 2006 Republican primary for state controller after he carried the governor’s water on the minimum wage increase, is a very possible decisive vote for a realistic budget compromise. Which is why the far right Flash Report is raising the alarums, threatening a recall of Maldonado from his Central Coast state Senate seat.
Ah, they just don’t have the guns for that. Period. In fact, for a supposed movement fulcrum, there are precious few guns in what we call a political campaign sense. The far right, actually, already threatened to recall Maldonado. Which I pointed out, correctly, at the time, was errant nonsense. While the far right faction has captured a narrow majority of the California Republican Party board of directors, the party has little fundraising capability under its current leadership. And the California Chamber of Commerce backs Schwarzenegger’s play on the state budget, preferring to see a big tax increase rather than have state government slide over Niagara Falls.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE – STILL NO DEAL. Well, it’s safe to say that those breathless press reports of last Sunday and last week that there was a budget deal to take care of California’s chronic crisis were quite wrong. In fact, there’s still no deal.
But it’s closer. California’s Legislature, after postponing plans to meet Saturday morning to late Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night, failed to adopt the much-discussed “framework” containing the obvious elements of budget cuts, tax increases, and various reforms and “sweeteners.” It seems now to come down to one missing vote – occasioned by the Democrats being down one safe seat member after Mark Ridley Thomas was elected to the LA County Board of Supervisors last November – and that is Sacramento area Republican Senator Dave Cox. (Since the moderate Abel Maldonado, perhaps because he still wants to run in a statewide GOP primary, has disappeared on this.)
I recall Cox quite well from 2006, when I was going after Hollywood director Rob Reiner for his misuse of the First Five Commission he headed up. A Democratic gubernatorial hopeful, Reiner was forced to resign after it became apparent he was using public funds to promote his electoral agenda, including big payments for TV advertising and an outside PR firm. I still have another big internal memo on this that I’ve never written about, in the trunk of my car.
Cox may want more First Five funds – derived from a tobacco tax increase and presently funding a seeming hodge-podge of programs for children and families – to go to other purposes than Democrats have yet agreed to.
Before things ground to a halt early Sunday morning, Assembly Minority Whip Chuck DeVore resigned in protest over Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines’ role in negotiating the framework and the evident intent of just enough Assembly Republicans to vote for passage of the budget compromise. DeVore, a far right member from Orange County, is the Republicans’ likely sacrificial lamb against US Senator Barbara Boxer.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Chicago with his family for the Presidents Day weekend. He’ll have a message about national service at half-time of today’s NBA All-Star Game. Top lieutenants David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs fan out today on the Sunday TV chat shows, with senior advisor Axelrod on NBC’s Meet The Press and Fox News Sunday and press secretary Gibbs on CBS’s Face The Nation and CNN’s State of the Union.
Fresh off his big victory with the big economic recovery bill, Obama travels to Denver on Tuesday to sign it into law. Then on Wednesday, he will unveil his plan to deal with the housing crisis in Phoenix, John McCain’s old stomping grounds. McCain, incidentally, is attacking Obama for being insufficiently “bipartisan,” perhaps forgetting that 35% of the big economic recovery bill consists of tax cuts.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is at the meeting of finance ministers of most advance industrial nations in Rome this weekend. The ministers are acknowledging that the global recession will continue for most of this year.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton departs today for her first international tour since gaining the office. She’s going to Asia, where she will visit top officials in China, Japan, South Korean, and Indonesia.
Meanwhile, the situation in Israel remains unsettled five days after the national elections there. Favored conservative Bibi Netanyahu lost his lead in the polls to centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi LIvni. But Livni’s Kadima Party, while finishing ahead of the Likud, is going to have trouble putting together a coalition, as an assortment of small fringe parties on the right gained more seats than Kadima’s Labor allies and other more centrist parties.
But does Netanyahu want to try to form a ruling coalition which would have to include as Likud’s principal partner an overtly anti-Arab party, the one led by far right politician Avigdor Lieberman? That would further marginalize Israel around the world and make it difficult for the US to provide the sort of staunch backing it has in the past.
President Barack Obama celebrates the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the largest US economic program since the New Deal, in his weekend video/radio address.
** OBAMA WILL HEAD WEST TO SIGN HIS ECONOMIC RECOVERY BILL. President Barack Obama will sign the $787 billion economic recovery bill on Tuesday in Denver. The Colorado state capital was the site of last year’s Democratic National Convention which nominated Obama for president, as well as one of his best known speeches – his nomination acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium.
Carrying swing state Colorado over John McCain was a big part of Obama’s breakthrough in the New West.
** OBAMA ON THE ECONOMIC CRISIS, THE PASSAGE OF HIS $787 BILLION PROGRAM LAST NIGHT, AND NEXT STEPS. Here’s the text of President Obama’s address, which you can watch above: This week, I spent some time with Americans across the country who are hurting because of our economic crisis — people closing the businesses they scrimped and saved to start; families losing the homes that were their stake in the American Dream; folks who’ve given up trying to get ahead, and given in to the stark reality of just trying to get by.
They’ve been looking to those they sent to Washington for some hope at a time when they need it most. This morning, I’m pleased to say that after a lively debate full of healthy differences of opinion, we’ve delivered real and tangible progress for the American people.
Congress has passed my economic recovery plan –- an ambitious plan at a time we badly need it. It will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, ignite spending by business and consumers alike, and lay a new foundation for our lasting economic growth and prosperity.
This is a major milestone on our road to recovery, and I want to thank the members of Congress who came together in common purpose to make it happen. Because they did, I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we’ll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done: The work of modernizing our health care system, saving billions of dollars and countless lives; and upgrading classrooms, libraries, and labs in our children’s schools across America. The work of building wind turbines and solar panels and the smart grid necessary to transport the clean energy they create; and laying broadband Internet lines to connect rural homes, schools, and businesses to the information superhighway. The work of repairing our crumbling roads and bridges, and our dangerously deficient dams and levees.
And we’ll help folks who’ve lost their jobs through no fault of their own by providing the unemployment benefits they need and protecting the health care they count on.
Now, some fear we won’t be able to effectively implement a plan of this size and scope, and I understand their skepticism. Washington hasn’t set a very good example in recent years. And with so much on the line, it’s time to begin doing things differently.
That’s why our goal must be to spend these precious dollars with unprecedented accountability, responsibility, and transparency. I’ve tasked my Cabinet and staff to set up the kind of management, oversight, and disclosure that will help ensure that, and I will challenge state and local governments to do the same.
Once the plan is put into action, a new website -– recovery.gov -– will allow any American to watch where the money goes and weigh in with comments and questions –- and I encourage every American to do so. Ultimately, this is your money, and you deserve to know where it’s going and how it’s spent.
This historic step won’t be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning. The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task.
For our plan to succeed, we must stabilize, repair, and reform our banking system, and get credit flowing again to families and businesses. We must write and enforce new rules of the road, to stop unscrupulous speculators from undermining our economy ever again. We must stem the spread of foreclosures and do everything we can to help responsible homeowners stay in their homes.
And in the weeks ahead, I will submit a proposal for the federal budget that will begin to restore the discipline these challenging times demand. Our debt has doubled over the past eight years, and we’ve inherited a trillion dollar deficit –- which we must add to in the short term in order to jumpstart our sick economy. But our long-term economic growth demands that we tame our burgeoning federal deficit; that we invest in the things we need, and dispense with the things we don’t. This is a challenging agenda, but one we can and will achieve.
This morning, I’m reminded of words President Kennedy spoke in another time of uncertainty: “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.”
America, we will prove equal to this task. It will take time, and it will take effort, but working together, we will turn this crisis into opportunity and emerge from our painful present into a brighter future. After a week spent with the fundamentally decent men and women of this nation, I have never been more certain of that. Thank you.
** BLACKWATER CHANGES ITS NAME. The highly controversial international security and mercenary outfit Blackwater International has changed its name. It is now Xe. Which is pronounced “Z.”
No, I’m not kidding.
After a series of incidents involving civilian shootings and confrontations with US military personnel, Blackwater was fired by the State Department, for which it provided highly lucrative executive protection services, and barred from Iraq. Now it’s supposedly going to concentrate on training centers around the world.
On Friday night, the US Senate passed the largest economic bill since the Great Depression.The vote was 60 to 38.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and daughters Sasha and Malia are in Chicago for the Presidents Day weekend. Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden are in New York and Wilmington, Delaware for the weekend.
There are no scheduled public events.
The holiday weekend comes on the heels of Friday’s passage of Obama’s economic recovery program. Or, I should say, the first phase of his economic recovery program. After the House passed it yesterday afternoon, the Senate passed it last night on a vote of 60 to 38. Three Republican senators voted for Obama’s program. The ailing Senator Ted Kennedy, who returned to the Capitol early in the week to ensure that a potential conservative Republican filibuster was short-circuited and to vote for the bill on first passage, was not on hand. Nor was the likely new senator from Minnesota, Democrat Al Franken, who has not yet been seated due to a court challenge by the former Republican incumbent to the recently concluded recount of their election.
The bill as passed by Congress, incidentally, makes new limits on pay and bonuses for financial executives of firms bailed out by the government retroactive. In Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s version, the limits were only for firms that have not yet been bailed out.
Meanwhile, US special envoy for South Asia Richard Holbrooke, having concluded his visit to Pakistan, is in Afghanistan today. He’s already met with President Hamid Karzai, who says that he hasn’t spoken to Obama since he was inaugurated. I think that our man in Kabul during the Bush/Cheney era will not be our man in Kabul during the Obama era.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis.
He is trying, along with legislative leaders, to lock down a budget deal.
I suspect that a budget will pass today. However, the Legislature, whose leaders had talked earlier of meeting this morning to vote, now will not meet until tonight.
There’s no question that this is a crappy budget, for a variety of factors involving all the players. But it’s not clear that anything better can pass.
I’ll have a column about this next week.
** AFGHANISTAN: RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE. In a very positive sign for the US effort in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that transit of US and NATO non-military supplies through Russia to troops in Afghanistan will begin within days.
Ironically, this comes on the 20th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Kabul. And the man who commanded those Soviet forces, retired Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, warned the US today that a military surge in Afghanistan will not solve its problems there.
With our putative ally Pakistan increasingly unstable and jihadists carrying out many successful attacks on supply lines and convoys there — they seem to blow up the route over the legendary Khyber Pass every other week — alternative means of supply are increasingly necessary to sustain the US and NATO effort in Afghanistan.
That means, one way or another, Moscow, which can provide transit through its own territory and guarantee transit through Central Asian nations formerly part of the Soviet Union. There’s been a major dance underway for weeks on this, unreported by the conventional media, naturally. …
** “POST-PARTISANSHIP”: HOW IT WORKS, HOW IT DOESN’T.Back in 2007, when he was still an underdog candidate for president jousting with John Edwards (remember him?), Barack Obama said that he liked the “post-partisan” posturings of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the idea that people should set aside their partisan differences to solve big issues. Now, as president, he’s adopted much the same tack, to the dismay of hyper-partisans of all stripes.
They ought to be dismayed, because it works. To a point.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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 on Friday at $37.51 per barrel, up a few dollars from the day before. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
The drop of $110 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says that President Obama will continue to reach out to Republicans.
** SUCCESS AT LAST? I have a feeling that the votes are there for a new California state budget tomorrow.
** FEINSTEIN’S FAUX PAS ON PAKISTAN. The new chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, California’s own Dianne Feinstein, committed a signficant faux pas yesterday at a committee hearing when she confirmed that US Predator drone attacks against Al Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan are undertaken by such vehicles taking off from a base inside Pakistan.
As readers know, Pakistan is roiled by a widespread jihadist insurgency. The Predator missile attacks have infuriated that constituency, and Pakistan’s shaky new government has repeatedly condemned the attacks. Many have assumed that the Predators take off from a base inside Afghanistan and are remotely piloted from a facility in the Southwestern United States.
As the LA Times recounts: The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.
“As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base,” she said.
The basing of the pilotless aircraft in Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism matters than has been publicly acknowledged. Such an arrangement would be at odds with protests lodged by officials in Islamabad, the capital, and could inflame anti-American sentiment in the country.
The CIA declined to comment, but former U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, confirmed that Feinstein’s account was accurate.
Philip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for Feinstein, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.
“We strongly object to Sen. Feinstein’s remarks being characterized as anything other than a reference” to an article that appeared last March in the Washington Post, LaVelle said. Feinstein did not refer to newspaper accounts during the hearing.
There’s been a lot of California press coverage about Feinstein as candidate for governor of California. Readers know that I have never bought that. I’ve been down that road before, in 1998 and 2003. In both elections, she postured as a potential candidate and I correctly predicted she would not run. Further, and this hasn’t been much reported, Feinstein has been planning for years to become the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which gives her access to and a great deal of control over the crown jewels of American national security and makes her a very big player on the global stage. You simply don’t take that chairmanship on a short-term basis. It would be nice if she can avoid screwing it up.
** CALIFORNIA 2010. Republican gubernatorial hopefuls Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman are both doing the genuflect to the far right over California’s chronic budget crisis. In a couple of softball interviews, Whitman, who gave a disastrous interview the other day to the LA Times, denounced the “framework” slowly emerging from private negotiations between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders. Her alternative? Not so much.
For his part, Poizner, who may actually be the frontrunner for the GOP nod, published a piece in the far right Flash Report today denouncing the proposed budget solution. He then sent it around.
With car sales plummeting, dealerships closing, and unemployment rising, it is foolhardy in the extreme to think that adding $450 in new sales taxes to the price of a car, in additional to reinstating the onerous car tax, is going to be a net economic benefit to our California economy. It won’t. Instead, it will make a bad situation worse and prolong the economic pain for California families.
With the retail sector among the hardest hit, it is equally absurd to suggest that raising sales taxes will help restore consumer confidence and help people keep their jobs. It won’t. Instead, it will accelerate lay-offs and store closures, making our economy worse, not better.
With the mortgage crisis, a stagnant service economy and ailing manufacturing sector, it is foolish to think raising taxes on personal incomes or on employers will do anything other than deepen the recession and prolong the recovery. It won’t.
And his solution to a situation lacking good options?
As California Insurance Commissioner, I have successfully and permanently reduced our department’s operating budget 10% while cutting millions in fees for small businesses and individuals in Californians. We have done that without gimmicks, and as a responsible alternative to furloughing employees or reducing public services. It’s worked for our employees, for taxpayers and for the consumers we are here to serve.
Californians are looking for real reform and real economic recovery, not more of the irresponsible tax-and-spend policies that haven’t worked and cannot work.
Poizner has also infuriated the far right by asserting that his employees aren’t affected by Schwarzeneger’s furlough order. And what does that real reform and real economic recovery look like, and how might one otherwise get there? Well, no space left in the column, I guess.
I have to think that Whitman and Poizner, both of whom are super-rich and bright enough but neither of whom is a skilled or powerful communicator, have to be worried that some ultra-conservative jumps into a crowded primary – which includes moderate former Silicon Valley Congressman Tom Campbell, too, and he’s a smart guy – and walks away with the Republican nomination. Somebody also really rich like, say, San Diego Congressman Darrell Issa, totally marginalized as part of the Republican minority in the House, who really wanted to run in the 2003 recall but was persuaded otherwise by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or 2002 Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, whose father of the same name provided the seed-corn for a network of right-wing think tanks and served as US treasury secretary. So they are hugging the rail way over on the right.
I doubt the Democrats are unhappy about that.
** BIG ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAM BILL PASSES BIG IN HOUSE, WITH NO REPUBLICAN VOTES. The economic recovery program backed by President Barack Obama won final passage just now in the House of Representatives, 246-183. Seven Democrats voted no, two did not vote. As was the case the first time around, no Republican voted for the bill. I’d heard that 15 to 20 Republicans would vote for it on final passage: that was down to eight yesterday afternoon.
The bill now goes to the Senate for final passage later today.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE. At late morning here in California, they still don’t have a deal nailed down.
** AFGHANISTAN: RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE. In a very positive sign for the US effort in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that transit of US and NATO non-military supplies through Russia to troops in Afghanistan will begin within days.
Ironically, this comes on the 20th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Kabul. And the man who commanded those Soviet forces, retired Lieutenant General Boris Gromov, warned the US today that a military surge in Afghanistan will not solve its problems there.
With our putative ally Pakistan increasingly unstable and jihadists carrying out many successful attacks on supply lines and convoys there — they seem to blow up the route over the legendary Khyber Pass every other week — alternative means of supply are increasingly necessary to sustain the US and NATO effort in Afghanistan.
That means, one way or another, Moscow, which can provide transit through its own territory and guarantee transit through Central Asian nations formerly part of the Soviet Union. There’s been a major dance underway for weeks on this, unreported by the conventional media, naturally. …
** AMERICANS FAVOR DIRECT TALKS WITH IRAN. The new Gallup Poll shows that a wide majority of Americans favor direct, high-level diplomacy with the radical Islamist state of Iran. By a margin of 56% to 38%, they favor “face to face” dialogue as called for by President Barack Obama in the campaign.
Gallup Polls conducted this year and in the past reveal that Americans’ opinions about Iran tend to fall in line with the new president’s approach. Last year, 73% said they prefer that the United States employ economic and diplomatic strategies to compel Iran to end its nuclear weapons program, and 67% said they support the U.S. president meeting with leaders of foreign countries considered enemies of the United States. Americans last year also named Iran as the country that poses the single greatest threat to stability in the world.
A new Gallup Poll completed this week finds that currently, 80% of Americans say they hold an unfavorable opinion of Iran — more than say the same about any other country.
Certain subgroups of the U.S. population are more ready than others to support forging ahead with direct diplomacy with Iran. At 74%, those with post-graduate educations are the most likely to favor this approach. Moderates, Democrats, liberals, college graduates, and middle-aged Americans also express solid support at or just below two-thirds.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AFGHANISTAN: RUSSIA TO THE RESCUE.
President Barack Obama honored his hero, Abraham Lincoln, on the 200th anniversary of his birth last night in Springfield, Illinois.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama, who is poised on the edge of a swift victory on his economic recovery program, has a full day in the White House before leaving with First Lady Michelle Obama and their kids for Chicago for the Presidents Day weekend.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received their daily national security/intel briefing and Obama is now meeting with the Business Council in the White House East Room. Obama and Biden then have their weekly luncheon.
Californian Leon Panetta was unanimously confirmed late yesterday as Obama’s CIA director on a voice vote of the Senate.
Meanwhile, Senate and House conferees have reached agreement on the massive economic recovery program, now around $790 billion, though there’s been some last minute wrangling on education funding, and final votes in both houses are expected soon to meet the president’s deadline of a February 16th Presidents Day signing.
Obama is left looking for a commerce secretary, again, with the sudden withdrawal of Republican Senator Judd Gregg. (See item from yesterday below.) Californian John Thompson, former CEO of Silicon Valley’s Symantec, had been a frontrunner for the post before Gregg signaled that he wanted it.
Why Gregg’s cold feet? Probably a combination of belatedly realizing that the lifelong moderate conservative was signing on to promote a social democratic agenda in a time of economic turmoil, along with tremendous pressure from the far right. Gregg says he will be an Obama ally in the Senate, to which he will not seek re-election next year.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, calling for a meeting with President Barack Obama, says Moscow is receiving positive signals from the new administration. Russia is about to begin aiding the US effort in Afghanistan.
In a very positive sign for the US effort in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that transit of US and NATO non-military supplies through Russia to troops in Afghanistan will begin within days.
With our putative ally Pakistan increasingly unstable and jihadists carrying out many successful attacks on supply lines and convoys there, alternative means of supply are increasingly necessary to sustain the effort in Afghanistan.
That means, one way or another, Moscow. The former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan had decided to kick the US out of its remaining base in Central Asia, which is key to the Afghan war effort. But now the Kyrgyz parliament has delayed a final vote on the move. Other Central Asian countries, all former Soviet republics, seem amenable to providing supply lines into Afghanistan.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis.
He is trying, along with legislative leaders, to at last lock down a budget deal. It is not set yet.
Legislative leaders hope to vote on the budget tomorrow. But unless a deal is set, that could be an exercise.
Incidentally, last I checked, which was yesterday afternoon, no one was sure how much money from the Obama economic recovery program could be applied as a partial bail-out for the California budget, which is a key ingredient of the framework.
** “POST-PARTISANSHIP”: HOW IT WORKS, HOW IT DOESN’T.Back in 2007, when he was still an underdog candidate for president jousting with John Edwards (remember him?), Barack Obama said that he liked the “post-partisan” posturings of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the idea that people should set aside their partisan differences to solve big issues. Now, as president, he’s adopted much the same tack, to the dismay of hyper-partisans of all stripes.
They ought to be dismayed, because it works. To a point.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
This is a three-week low in the price and comes with word that inventories are increasing and demand decreasing.
The drop of $112 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
On the eve of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, President Barack Obama attended the reopening of the newly renovated Ford’s Theater in Washington, site of Lincoln’s assassination.
** GREGG WITHDRAWS: OBAMA NEEDS A NEW COMMERCE SECRETARY. AGAIN. US Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who accepted President Barack Obama’s appointment as commerce secretary after Obama’s first choice, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, withdrew due to a slow-moving grand jury investigation of state business and contributions to his political committees, this afternoon withdrew his name.
What’s going on?
This statement from the White House might explain it: “Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda. Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart.”
Obama’s economic policy, forced by the enormity of the crisis at hand, is essentially social democratic. Getting out there and pushing that approach as a key member of the Obama economic leadership team was apparently too much for Gregg.
Perhaps Obama will go back to someone who seemed the frontrunner before the Gregg pick, Californian John Thompson, former CEO of Silicon Valley’s Symantec.
Gregg, incidentally, will not run for re-election to the Senate in 2010.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE: THE TALKS CONTINUE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state’s Democratic and Republican legislative leaders went back into another “Big 5″ session behind closed doors in the Governor’s Office at 2 PM this afternoon.
Is there a budget deal? Not yet.
There’s a “framework,” but the support is not yet there to support that framework.
The state Assembly has tentatively scheduled a floor session for a possible budget vote on Saturday morning. The Senate has not made any such schedule.
** “POST-PARTISANSHIP”: HOW IT WORKS, HOW IT DOESN’T.Back in 2007, when he was still an underdog candidate for president jousting with John Edwards (remember him?), Barack Obama said that he liked the “post-partisan” posturings of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the idea that people should set aside their partisan differences to solve big issues. Now, as president, he’s adopted much the same tack, to the dismay of hyper-partisans of all stripes.
They ought to be dismayed, because it works. To a point.
But not in a linear sense.
Let’s take a look at how it went in California, and how it may go in Washington. … From my new column.
** SUPPORT FOR OBAMA RECOVERY PROGRAM SHOOTS UP. The new Gallup Poll shows support for the economic recovery program up to 59%, up from 52% last week. Opposition has dropped from 38% to 33%.
Most of the newfound support comes from rank-and-file Democrats, suggesting President Barack Obama’s efforts to sell the plan over the past week — including in his first televised news conference on Monday — have shored up support within his own party. Last week, Gallup found 70% of Democrats in favor of Congress passing the economic stimulus package, but today that figure is 82%.
Over the same period, support for the stimulus package held steady among independents, with a slight majority in favor of it. The percentage of Republicans favoring the package rose slightly from 24% to 28%, but remains below the 34% support received in early January, before Congress began its formal consideration of the package.
** NOT MUCH SUPPORT FOR CRIMINAL PROBES OF BUSH ADMINISTRATION, BUT BIG SUPPORT FOR SOME SORT OF INVESTIGATION OF WHAT HAPPENED. The new Gallup Poll shows that only 38% to 41% favor criminal probes of Bush era practices around torture, warrantless wiretaps, and politicization of the Just Department. But big majorities, failing the former, favor an independent fact-finding panel.
While no more than 41% of Americans favor a criminal investigation into any of the matters, at least 6 in 10 say there should be either a criminal investigation or an independent probe into all three. This includes 62% who favor some type of investigation into the possible use of torture when interrogating terrorism suspects, 63% who do so with respect to the possible use of telephone wiretaps without obtaining a warrant, and 71% who support investigating possible attempts to use the Justice Department for political purposes.
So far, President Obama has been reluctant to pursue such investigations, but Leahy and Conyers in particular are calling for an accounting of what happened on Bush’s watch.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, a majority of Democratic identifiers favor a criminal probe into all three matters — including 54% who do so with respect to warrantless wiretaps, 51% for the possible use of torture, and 52% for the firing of U.S. attorneys.
In contrast, Republicans are most likely to oppose any type of investigation, including a majority who say so in regard to the possible use of torture (54%) and warrantless wiretaps (56%). Republicans are more receptive to an investigation into possible efforts to politicize the Justice Department, with 24% favoring a criminal probe and 28% in favor of an independent panel report. Still, the greatest number (43%) of Republicans think there should be no investigation into the Justice Department matter.
Independents’ views on all three matters fall in between those of Republicans and Democrats, with a majority favoring some type of investigation but (unlike Democrats) not a criminal probe.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama, who is winning a swift victory on his economic recovery program, hits the road again today.
But first he receives his daily intelligence briefing, meets with senior advisors, confers with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office, and delivers remarks on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s Birthday in the Lincoln Rotunda.
Then he travels to Illinois.
Obama goes first to hard-hit East Peoria, where he visits a Caterpillar factory. Then he goes to the state capital of Springfield, where he delivers remarks at the Lincoln Association banquet.
Meanwhile, Senate and House conferees have reached agreement on the massive economic recovery program, now around $790 billion, and final votes in both houses are expected today and tomorrow.
Russia has offered its own military aircraft to assist the US in supplying forces in Afghanistan.
In another positive development, a State Department emissary dispatched to Moscow at the beginning of the week is finding the talks fruitful. Russia is agreeing to allow supplies to US and NATO forces in deeply troubled Afghanistan to transit not only its former Soviet republics in Central Asia, but also Russia itself. Moscow has even offered the use of Russian military aircraft in the US supply effort into Afghanistan.
The agreement comes at a good time, as the usual supply lines through increasingly unstable Pakistan are becoming increasingly untenable. Islamic jihadists have repeatedly bombed the Khyber Pass route and others, along with supply depots and convoys themselves.
Of course, there will be a political price. Russia wants the US to back off from its longstanding encirclement strategy, which has included the extension of NATO membership to former Soviet allies near Russia itself and a proposed anti-missile shield project in the Czech Republic and Poland. But NATO is in no position to do much to help some of those countries, as prospective NATO member Georgia found out the hard way last summer after it foolishly launched an offensive in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. And the Czechs don’t really want the missile shield project.
Obama’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke is in Afghanistan today, meeting with President Hamid Karzai and other top officials. His meetings come just a day after a series of Taliban suicide attacks in the capital city of Kabul.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis.
Despite much breathless reportage, as was discussed yesterday, there is no budget deal yet.
It’s still Groundhog Day.
Nevertheless, Schwarzenegger is finally coming out of the cone of silence he’s been in for a while now and doing a public event.
He will go to the California Museum near the Capitol on this 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln to announce that the Museum has been chosen to house the Library of Congress’ With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition, which will arrive in June.
The California Museum is the first of only five institutions, and the only one in the West, selected to house the exhibition after it leaves the Library of Congress in Washington.
** OH, ABOUT THAT “END” OF THE OBAMA HONEYMOON … Is that wacky Alec Baldwin ad for Hulu about too much TV softening your brain like a ripe banana really true?
It’s funny how not paying attention to the latest cable chatter gives you a very different perspective on politics. After a couple of years of paying non-stop attention to all aspects of our hyerpactive news flow while covering the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, I decided to check out of cable news for the last week or two. I just read polls, selected news stories and reports, and talked to experts about what was going on. With glitches here and there, it seemed Barack Obama was doing well. Most voters certainly thought highly of him.
Not that I didn’t know what was going on with the cable nets. I can’t stop doing a little channel surfing, and it was clear that the cable chatters were talking themselves into a tizzy. Obama, they said, was flopping, his presidential honeymoon long since a thing of the past.
Obama has been president now for 20 days. He’s actually gotten some stuff done already, and is close to passing what looks like the beginnings of a new New Deal. And as for his honeymoon being over, maybe so inside the yaposphere, but outside it, eh, not so much. … From my February 9th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
This is a three-week low in the price and comes with word that inventories are increasing and demand decreasing.
The drop of $113 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
President Barack Obama talked about the financial and economic crises at a town hall meeting yesterday in Florida.
** CALIFORNIANS PANETTA AND SOLIS BOTH OVERWHELMINGLY APPROVED BY SENATE COMMITTEES. CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta and Labor Secretary-designate Hilda Solis both won easy confirmation victories this afternoon from the US Senate Intelligence and Labor Committees, respectively.
** BROWN ENTERTAINS CALIFORNIA’S NEWSPAPER EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS. This afternoon, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown addressed the California Newspaper Publishers Association conference in Sacramento, then took part in a conversational Q and A session run by LA Times editorial page editor Jim Newton. Brown had the crowd chuckling often as he ran through his tour d’horizon of California and national issues, then fielded a wide range of questions from Newton and members of the audience.
“I don’t do ethereal anymore,” he quipped, after describing one view of the financial crisis in that way. “I do potholes, chasing gangsters, building housing, the stuff that gets you at 70% approval in the polls, which I was at when I was mayor of Oakland. Well, the stuff that has you at 70% until it all comes down with this crisis,” he said.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET: STEINBERG SAYS “FRAMEWORK,” NOT DEAL. At his address to the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club, speaking to what remains of the Capitol press corps and various other interested PR types and other folks, state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg acknowledged that there is no deal on a budget solution for California’s chronic crisis. Noting that “a Capitol Alert went out” (referring to something in the Sacramento Bee) that there is a deal, Steinberg said: “There is a framework” for a possible agreement, but not yet a deal. Many details remain.
Schwarzenegger press secretary Aaron McLear, who was in attendance, told me: “There is no budget deal.” There is a “framework,” with many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, as the saying goes.
Steinberg told the crowd that he’d assumed that the state budget would be done well before he spoke when he accepted the speaking engagment, but decided not to cancel as it became apparent that it would not. Last week, Steinberg assured the press that a deal was imminent and would be voted on early this week.
Despite the lengthy hassle that the closed door negotiations have become, Steinberg – who seemed to be channeling some of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s not infrequently unwarranted confidence – said he is optimistic that various other complex issues, such as water policy, can soon be worked out between all the parties. I asked him why he was so optimistic about that, since “state government is sliding over Niagara Falls” and still there is no budget deal in place. He replied that he is a positive person with a record of getting things done.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET UPDATE. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass’s office says that, contrary to reports in the Sacramento Bee and elsewhere, there is not yet a budget deal.
As readers know, I am a skeptic about all these breathless reports. As I reported, I have not yet heard from Governor Schwarzenegger that there is a budget deal, and I suspect that he and his people will know.
** CALIFORNIA’S VAGUE BUDGET DEAL. It may be that there is a California budget deal, perhaps set for a vote at the end of the week. It involves, oddly enough, program cuts and tax hikes. Perhaps state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, who has been saying for awhile now that this is just about to happen, will have more details during his appearance at the today’s luncheon of the Sacrament Press Club. Or perhaps not. The governor’s people are staying mum for now.
** WHITMAN’S SAMPLER. Top California political insiders are buzzing this morning about this interview with GOP gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman. The former eBay CEO did her first interview out of the box with LA Times reporter Mike Finnegan, a nice guy who is not exactly the most formidable or tricky interviewer imaginable. Hence the interview, granted by Whitman’s seeming multitude of high-priced handlers.
In it, Finnegan nonetheless manages to coax Whitman into a number of gems for any general election in 2010 against a serious Democrat, should she manage to advance that far.
Pete Wilson, as you will see, is California’s greatest governor. He is also her campaign chairman. I know Pete Wilson better than she does. He wants validation, which, despite providing most of the top staff for what turned out to be the less than successful first phase of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s governorship, he has not gotten.
Nevertheless, she opposes Wilson’s actual approach to solving a major budget crisis; namely, program cuts with tax increases. She is against gay marriage, but for gay adoption. She is for the environment, but against Schwarzenegger’s programs on climate change and renewable energy. She is against Wilson’s signature Prop 187 crackdown on illegal immigration, but thinks that schools should report illegal immigrant children to federal authorities. She … well, you get the gist.
I scouted Meg Whitman – who has frequently failed to vote and whose only experience in public affairs is as a top official in conservative Republican presidential campaigns – over a year ago. Let’s see if they let me interview her.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … “POST-PARTISANSHIP” AND OBAMA.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama visits a construction site in Springfield, Virginia to talk up his economic recovery program with Virginia Governor and Democratic National Chairman Tim Kaine. At this point, though some negotiations remain between Senate and House, Obama is simply cementing his leadership role on the economy. Yesterday, Obama was joined by Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a key Republican backer of John McCain in the presidential race who nonetheless backs Obama in his economic recovery strategies, at a memorable town hall meeting in Fort Myers, Florida.
Late this afternoon, Obama meets in the Oval Office with Defense Secretary and former CIA Director Bob Gates to go over options for a surge in Afghanistan. With the past administration’s unique focus on Iraq, the walkover which was not, Afghanistan has fallen into disarray. Obama and Gates will discuss how to turn that around in ways that are consistent with ultimate US geostrategic goals. That probably doesn’t mean nation-building, the thing that Messieurs Bush and Cheney said they were against, but ended up totally entangled with.
Obama will also consult with his special Mideast envoy George Mitchell, National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the muddy result in yesterday’s Israeli parliamentary elections.
The hard right candidate, former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, head of the Likud Party, was expected to finish first. He did not. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livnik of the more moderate Kadima Party bested Netanyahu and the favored Likud. But because of the strength of a plethora of more fringe right-wing parties, including that controlled by anti-Arab ultra-hawk Avigdor Lieberman, Livni will not have an easy time forming a new government.
I’ll have a column on all this stuff late this week.
Yesterday, the Senate passed the economic recovery program, 61 to 36. Senator Ted Kennedy, ailing from brain cancer, returned to the capital from Florida to add his support to Obama, whose campaign he so dramatically endorsed last year.
And Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner began his shaky roll-out of his plan for the second $350 billion tranche of last fall’s Wall Street bailout, this time with transparency and safeguards missing from the Bush version. He also discussed plans to inject more credit into financial markets. Inflation is not the problem in this economy. But there were precious few details, such that after listening to what he’d said, I wondered if my attention had wandered such that I’d missed. I hadn’t. Neither had the equity and oil markets, which went down sharply in the aftermath of his presentation.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis. Some of the press is reporting as new what has already been reported weeks ago – there may be a budget deal with tax increases in it, focusing on sales tax, vehicle license fee, and income tax.
Despite much breathless talk and reporting – including a Sunday exclusive in the San Francisco Chronicle – on the imminent emergence of a budget solution, it hasn’t happened yet. (The Chronicle claims today that it was going to happen, but Schwarzenegger went to Sun Valley for a Special Olympics fundraiser, so, you know, the deal didn’t happen that was supposed to be already set. Okay then.) State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg is now acknowledging that there is no package and no deal yet, and the vote he promised for early this week is not happening. Maybe late in the week, he is saying now.
Steinberg’s speech today to the remnants of the Capitol press corps at the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club should be interesting.
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” Eagles lead singer Don Henley just gave a large donation to former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown. The Eagles, house band of Brown’s presidential runs, perform Hotel California, written by Henley and Glenn Frey, at a 2004 concert in Melbourne, Australia.
** CALIFORNIA 2010. This is the start of a recurring feature on NWN about the 2010 gubernatorial race in California.
I picked the winners in the gubernatorial races of 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2006. That would be Democrat Gray Davis in ’98 (when virtually no one gave him a chance) and ’02 and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger (who I publicly predicted in 2002 would be the next governor) in ’03 and ’06. My read is that the 2010 elections will not be among the most dramatic.
So what’s happening now?
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown – who has not formed a gubernatorial “exploratory” committee that can take the biggest contributions but nonetheless leads the fundraising race by a wide margin – addresses the California Newspaper Publishers Association conference today in Sacramento. LA Times editorial page editor Jim Newton will pitch some questions at the governor general.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has formed one of those committees that can take the biggest bucks, had a town hall meeting yesterday in San Jose. He has another one coming tomorrow in Stockton, along with a half-dozen others over the next few weeks.
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, who has declared his candidacy, went to Monterey yesterday to push for a statewide ban on takeout styrofoam packaging.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who previously said he’d tend to his city’s business if elected to a second term as LA’s mayor as he is running in the current election, is saying that he might run for governor after all.
Other potential Democratic candidates state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and former state Controller Steve Westly, one of President Obama’s earliest and biggest backers – every other potential Democratic hopeful other than Brown backed Hillary Clinton over Obama – are keeping their powder dry.
On the Republican side, one presumes that former eBay CEO Meg Whitman might do some upgrading of her web site and advocates of state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner push their claim that Whitman needed to have reported the hundreds of thousands of dollars she’s already spent on her exploratory gubernatorial campaign.
** OH, ABOUT THAT “END” OF THE OBAMA HONEYMOON … Is that wacky Alec Baldwin ad for Hulu about too much TV softening your brain like a ripe banana really true?
It’s funny how not paying attention to the latest cable chatter gives you a very different perspective on politics. After a couple of years of paying non-stop attention to all aspects of our hyerpactive news flow while covering the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, I decided to check out of cable news for the last week or two. I just read polls, selected news stories and reports, and talked to experts about what was going on. With glitches here and there, it seemed Barack Obama was doing well. Most voters certainly thought highly of him.
Not that I didn’t know what was going on with the cable nets. I can’t stop doing a little channel surfing, and it was clear that the cable chatters were talking themselves into a tizzy. Obama, they said, was flopping, his presidential honeymoon long since a thing of the past.
Obama has been president now for 20 days. He’s actually gotten some stuff done already, and is close to passing what looks like the beginnings of a new New Deal. And as for his honeymoon being over, maybe so inside the yaposphere, but outside it, eh, not so much. … From my new column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
The drop of over $110 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
President Barack Obama gave his first prime time press conference last night in the White House.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … “POST-PARTISANSHIP” AND OBAMA.
** REPUBLICANS WON’T TRY TO DERAIL SOLIS. It looks like the Republicans won’t try to derail LA Congresswoman Hilda Solis from becoming the US secretary of labor. A hold was placed on her nomination because of her role with a labor advocacy group, which she she had not reported. Then her Senate confirmation hearing last week was postponed after her husband paid some old tax liens he was contesting on his auto repair business. Republicans say they will grill her about her labor advocacy, but I don’t think that will stop her from being confirmed.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET MANEUVERS. With the budget deal ballyhooed in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday having failed to materialize, and with the vote promised by state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg not having taken place, various further posturings and maneuverings are ensuing around California’s chronic budget deficit.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office released a list of efficiencies it says the governor has undertaken in administration internal operations. This followed the Legislature talking up its own new efficiencies – though it found a way to give special bonuses to some employees – with the Assembly giving $2 million of its money to the state’s struggling unemployment insurance operation. Schwarznegger also announced that he will send layoff warnings to 20,000 on Friday if there is no deal before then.
** EXIT POLLS: MORE MODERATE PARTY WINNING IN ISRAEL.At 10 PM in Israel, noon Pacific time, TV exit polls are showing that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s Kadima Party has come from behind to take the lead over former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s Likud Party. The more hawkish Netanyahu’s Likud had been favored to finish first in the parliamentary elections, but now looks like it will finish second behind Livni’s Kadima, with 28 seats to Kadima’s 30. Labor, headed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, has been caught for the third place finish by the ultra-rightist party of Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman, which 14 seat to Labor’s 13. Which could complicate Livni’s ability to form a coalition government with Labor, as in the previous administration.
** MARKET GOES DOWN ON GEITHNER’S VAGUENESS. While the big economic stimulus bill just won in the Senate, 61 to 37, continuing the banking bailout is proving less convincing from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s presentation this morning. He gave relatively few details, which makes one wonder why he went out there this morning. The stock market went down sharply on that news.
Geithner, former head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, is to me one of the big question marks in the Obama Cabinet, which I otherwise find mostly quite impressive.
** FLASH – SENATE PASSES OBAMA ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAM. The US Senate just passed an $837 billion version of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program. The vote was 61 to 37. Three Republicans voted for the plan, with New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg – appointed by Obama to be US secretary of commerce – recusing himself from the vote. Likely Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota has not yet been seated due to a recount-related court case by the former Republican incumbent.
Now the Senate version has to be reconciled with the $819 billion passed overwhelmingly in the House late last month.
California does better in the House version, not surprising with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco there.
** OBAMA TODAY. After a notably successful prime time press conference last night, President Barack Obama does a town hall meeting on his economic recovery program in Fort Myers, Florida, one of the hardest hit communities in the Southeast. He’ll be joined by Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a key Republican backer of John McCain in the presidential race who nonetheless backs Obama in his economic recovery strategies. The event will be roadblocked on all cable news nets around 9 AM Pacific.
Obama will return to the White House this afternoon, where he will meet with members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of more conservative Democrats in the Congress.
Israel elects new national leadership today.
Tonight Obama appears on ABC’s Nightline, where he will discuss the economic and financial crises, as well as the emerging geopolitical picture in the wake of this past weekend’s Munich security conference and today’s Israeli election.
More right-wing elements are expected to emerge victorious in the Israeli elections, which could be another complicating factor for the Obama Administration.
Polls show Likud leader Bibi Netanyahu, a former prime minister who is perhaps incongruously touting a relationship with Obama (and whose consultants have borrowed some Obama iconography) is likely to be the next prime minister. His party is running ahead of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s Kadima and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labor parties. Running in a rising position is an ultra-nationalist religious party headed by Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is known for his virulent anti-Arab views.
Senator Ted Kennedy returned in the midst of his battle with brain cancer to support President Obama’s economic recovery program.
Meanwhile, the Senate is poised to vote on the actual economic recovery program, having defeated a conservative effort to filibuster against it last night, 61 to 36. Senator Ted Kennedy, ailing from brain cancer, returned to the capital from Florida to add his support to Obama, whose campaign he so dramatically endorsed last year.
And Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner began the roll-out of his plan for the second $350 billion tranche of last fall’s Wall Street bailout, this time with transparency and safeguards missing from the Bush version. He also discusses plans to inject more credit into financial markets. Inflation is not the problem in this economy.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. With the Legislature done with yesterday’s Lincoln Day holiday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis.
Despite much breathless talk and reporting – including a Sunday exclusive in the San Francisco Chronicle – on the imminent emergence of a budget solution, it’s not happening yet. State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg is now acknowledging that there is no package and no deal yet, and the vote he promised for early this week is not happening. Maybe late in the week, he is saying now.
Steinberg’s speech tomorrow to the remnants of the Capitol press corps at the monthly luncheon of the Sacramento Press Club should be interesting.
** OH, ABOUT THAT “END” OF THE OBAMA HONEYMOON … Is that wacky Alec Baldwin ad for Hulu about too much TV softening your brain like a ripe banana really true?
It’s funny how not paying attention to the latest cable chatter gives you a very different perspective on politics. After a couple of years of paying non-stop attention to all aspects of our hyerpactive news flow while covering the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, I decided to check out of cable news for the last week or two. I just read polls, selected news stories and reports, and talked to experts about what was going on. With glitches here and there, it seemed Barack Obama was doing well. Most voters certainly thought highly of him.
Not that I didn’t know what was going on with the cable nets. I can’t stop doing a little channel surfing, and it was clear that the cable chatters were talking themselves into a tizzy. Obama, they said, was flopping, his presidential honeymoon long since a thing of the past.
Obama has been president now for 20 days. He’s actually gotten some stuff done already, and is close to passing what looks like the beginnings of a new New Deal. And as for his honeymoon being over, maybe so inside the yaposphere, but outside it, eh, not so much. … From my new column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
The drop of over $105 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
President Barack Obama discussed the economic crisis in his town hall meeting this morning in Elkhart, Indiana.
** QUICK HITS. As we wait for President Barack Obama’s first prime time press conference in the White House, a few quick items … Ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman did launch her gubernatorial “exploratory” committee today, as first reported on NWN yesterday. Former Governor and Senator Pete Wilson is her campaign chairman.She also unveiled a campaign team, which you can view by looking at her web site, www.megwhitman.com. Whitman took no questions from the press today, though Wilson had some things to say. She’ll make two speeches around the state in the next two weeks, as well as luncheon keynote at the California Republican Party convention. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sued state Controller John Chiang this afternoon for refusing to implement his executive order furloughing the employeess of state constitutional officers along with the rest of the state workforce. Chiang claimed, as did much of the media, that a judge had ruled against Schwarzenegger on that point after he upheld the governor’s authority to furlough the rest of the workforce. That was incorrect; the judge did not respond to that point. … A panel of three federal judges said they may order the release of tens of thousands of California prisoners due to overcrowding. Hard to believe that would happen.
** FLASH – OBAMA WINS IN THE SENATE. President Barack Obama won a big victory when the US Senate voted 61 to 36 to cut off conservative Republican efforts to block the economic revival program with a possible filibuster. 60 votes were needed to to slice away the obstructionist tactic.
The program, reportedly pared back to $780 billion after passing at $819 billion in the House and ballooning to nearly $900 billion, is now at $827 billion.
The $827 billion bill is expected to pass Tuesday in the Senate. The next step would be negotiations with the House on a final compromise. Democratic leaders want to get the bill to the president’s desk by Friday.
“There is no reason we can’t do this by the end of the week,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, according to the Associated Press. He said he was prepared to hold the Senate in session into the Presidents Day weekend if necessary, and cautioned Republicans not to try and delay final progress.
** OH, ABOUT THAT “END” OF THE OBAMA HONEYMOON … Is that wacky Alec Baldwin ad for Hulu about too much TV softening your brain like a ripe banana really true?
It’s funny how not paying attention to the latest cable chatter gives you a very different perspective on politics. After a couple of years of paying non-stop attention to all aspects of our hyerpactive news flow while covering the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, I decided to check out of cable news for the last week or two. I just read polls, selected news stories and reports, and talked to experts about what was going on. With glitches here and there, it seemed Barack Obama was doing well. Most voters certainly thought highly of him.
Not that I didn’t know what was going on with the cable nets. I can’t stop doing a little channel surfing, and it was clear that the cable chatters were talking themselves into a tizzy. Obama, they said, was flopping, his presidential honeymoon long since a thing of the past.
Obama has been president now for 20 days. He’s actually gotten some stuff done already, and is close to passing what looks like the beginnings of a new New Deal. And as for his honeymoon being over, maybe so inside the yaposphere, but outside it, eh, not so much. … From my new column.
** DANCING WITH THE WOZ. Yes, it’s true. Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak joins the cast of ABC’s hit show, Dancing With The Stars. While I can picture the inventor of the first commercially successful personal computer bombing his Prius down I-5 to show how fast it can go – 110, as it happens, when he was pulled over a few years back by the California Highway Patrol – it’s a bit harder to see him making his moves on the televised dance floor. But, you never know.
Amongst Woz’s fellow co-stars are former Go-Gos lead singer Belinda Carlisle and former Bond Girl Denise Richards, who starred in the action scifi classic Starship Troopers and was, as you may have heard, famously married to a fellow named Charlie Sheen.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … ABOUT THAT “END” OF THE OBAMA HONEYMOON.
Crist and several other major Republican governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed a letter last week backing Obama on his economic revival program.
Later, a small group of Republican governors mainly from the Deep South came out against the program. They actually got more media coverage. Go figure.
** OBAMA JOB APPROVAL HIGH AND ROCK SOLID. The brand-new Gallup Poll shows Barack Obama with a 66% job approval rating. Only 21% disapprove.
Obama is also rated much higher than his Republican opponents on the economic issue. Despite a lot of pounding in recent days, his economic recovery program has a wide margin of popular support.
While conservatives have poked a few holes in the package – thanks in no small measure to some congressional Democrats pinning a kick me sign to it with a number of add-ons that are easy to make fun of – Obama has 67% approval rating on the economic stimulus while congressional Republicans have only a 31% approval on the issue.
President Barack Obama focuses on the economic and financial crises this week.
The Morning Column: MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
It’s a big week this week in presidential politics, and in California politics. Mostly hopefully, on the latter.
President Barack Obama, singed a bit by a predictable counter-attack against the economic stimulus package by Republicans who continue to push the same policies as before (besides the big deficit spending part), is putting the pedal to the metal on the economic and financial crises he inherited. He does town halls today and tomorrow in hard-hit communities in Indiana and Florida, and his first prime time press conference tonight in the White House. He goes back to the Midwest, to Springfield in Illinois and perhaps somewhere else, late in the week.
It looks like the Senate will adopt a version of Obama’s economic recovery program early this week, which then must be reconciled with the version that sailed through the House of Representatives late last month. Obama wants that reconciliation done swiftly.
In future, although in reality this is all happening very quickly, Obama and company might want to avoid letting entrenched congressmembers write too much of their legislation. That provided some easy, though relatively minor, targets for their opposition and the ADD media culture to chew on throughout the day. But in the end, the chatter won’t matter.
Obama’s team will also unveil the second tranche of last fall’s Wall Street bailout, this time with actual transparency and accountability, both of which were totally lacking when the Bush/Cheney White House doled out the first tranche of $350 billion to the nation’s biggest financial institutions. They will also likely unveil new regulations for the financial industry, though that might slip with the focus on reconciling the Senate and House versions of the economic recovery program.
The Obama Administration will also review what it learned from this past weekend’s Munich international security conference, where it was represented by Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jim Jones, former commandant of the Marine Corps. Is the US finding a better way in Afghanistan? And what will that cost in relations with other nations such as Russia?
And Israel votes tomorrow, in a national election which may well see that embattled country’s politics turn further to the right.
Back in California, state government shuts down some more projects as the chronic budget crisis drags on. There supposedly is a plan to be voted upon between now and Wednesday.
And a couple of gubernatorial hopefuls for 2010 make additional moves. On the Republican side, as I reported yesterday with word of this unusual pre-announcement on a web site few in politics have heard of, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman intends to make her candidacy official today. Former Governor Pete Wilson may be her campaign chairman. The super-rich Whitman, a former top official in conservative Republican presidential campaigns, can self-fund a campaign. But can she run in a crowded Republican field where an even more conservative figure could walk away with the nomination?
On the Democratic side, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, touting a Facebook network, launches a series of town hall appearances around the state with events in San Jose and Stockton. Although in exploratory mode, Newsom has already established a gubernatorial campaign committee which can take in big chunks of money. Newsom is a promising if quite controversial figure who trails former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who has not established such a committee, by a big margin in fundraising and has already spent most of his campaign treasury, much of it on consultants.
Support is waning for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, both in Afghanistan and America.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama does a town hall meeting on his economic recovery program in Elkhart, Indiana, one of the hardest hit communities in the Midwest. Tonight he holds his first prime time press conference in the White House, at 5 PM Pacific. The event will be roadblocked on all TV news nets.
Vice President Joe Biden, back from the international security conference in Munich, meets with AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney.
The Senate is scheduled to vote to prevent filibuster on the economic recovery program late this afternoon. A vote on the actual package is set for Tuesday.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. In the midst of an historic budget crisis, California’s Legislature is taking the day off in early celebration of LIncoln’s Birthday. It will celebrate Washington’s Birthday next Monday. So Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is out of the state. He will keep holding some private talks, mostly focused on California’s chronic budget crisis. No public appearances are scheduled.
Word is there will be a budget deal next week. But you’ve noticed I’m not into breathless reportage on this. The Capitol scene is replete with reports of imminent action on any number of things, little of which actually occurs.
The surreal taking of a holiday today is one reason.
** SMOOTH SAILING FOR PANETTA.While the Obama Administration is running into some turbulence on other fronts, the president’s controversial pick to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, is now on cruise control. The former White House chief of staff, federal budget director, and California congressman was opposed at first by new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Californian who was not consulted by Obama on Panetta’s appointment. But his confirmation hearing yesterday and today went pretty smoothly.
Feinstein long ago backed down from her opinion that only “an intelligence professional” should be CIA director, a view which ignores the history of the post. But the criticism didn’t only come from a miffed Senate committee chair. The far right weighed in heavily against Panetta.
Panetta came out firing against former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims this week that Obama’s new direction — with torture opponent Panetta in the forefront — would make America less safe. Cheney was and is a super-hawk, a prime mover behind the unreliable torture policy on interrogation of suspected terrorists, as well as the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, global black eyes for America, the secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, the policy of unlimited detention without charge or disposition, the policy of violating the Geneva Convention, the policy of “rendition” of prisoners to countries where even more extreme forms of torture than waterboarding are employed. He says the new administration is more concerned with reading the rights of Al Qaeda members than protecting America. …
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
The drop of over $105 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
The International, perhaps inspired by the true story of the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) – which was chaired by a former US secretary of defense and powerhouse Washington lawyer (who said he didn’t know what was going on) – opens nationwide next Friday.
** WHITMAN REPORTEDLY TO ANNOUNCE FOR CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR ON MONDAY. According to the web site Bettyconfidential.com, which has an exclusive interview with her, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman will announce her candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor of California on Monday via her web site. Whitman served as national co-chair of the John McCain for President campaign and national finance co-chair of the Mitt Romney for President campaign. More to follow.
A Yalie who fought as a Marine in the South Pacific in World War II, Whitmore excelled in theater, movies, and television, winning major awards in all three. He was also James Dean’s acting coach. A Tony Award-winner on Broadway, Whitmore was well-known for his one-man shows of Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, and Will Rogers. A Golden Globe-winner and Oscar nominee in the movies for Battleground and Give ‘Em Hell, Harry, Whitmore was a vivid and steadying presence in many films. On television, he starred in several early series, then won an Emmy Award in the late ’90s on the legal drama The Practice before scoring his final honor in the NBC political drama Mister Sterling early this decade.
Whitmore was a colleague of mine on the late Mister Sterling, for which he earned his final Emmy nomination for his portrayal of a very popular old-time former governor of California, Bill Sterling, Sr. He played the father to the show’s central character, Bill Sterling, Jr., played by Josh Brolin, star of last year’s Oscar-winning best picture No Country For Old Men who was just nominated for an Academy Award for his take on assassin Dan White in Milk.
Whitmore came late to the show, replacing a miscast central actor who was all wrong for a California governor, but quickly came up to speed. Much of his characterization was based on the late Governor Pat Brown, who I knew rather well.
Whitmore was a great gentleman, a smart professional who brought both great warmth and wryness and great intensity to his work.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is at Camp David this weekend with his family. They return to the White House tonight.
Obama is getting ready to do town halls on Monday in Indiana and on Tuesday in Florida. He’ll do a prime time press conference on Monday back in Washington. He’ll also travel to Illinois at the end of the week.
The Senate is poised to pass a version of Obama’s economic recovery program. It looks like a a potential filibuster will be voted down on Monday with the actual package itself slated for passage on Tuesday.
It then needs to be reconciled with the House version, which passed late last month.
Meanwhile, Obama and his economic team are putting the final touches on the second $350 billion tranche of the Wall Street bailout enacted last fall to stop the collapse of major financial institutions and open up US credit markets again. This time, with much more transparency and greater safeguards, as the first $350 billion disappeared into the maw of Wall Street with virtually no accountability. And no credit market relief.
Vice President Joe Biden is representing the US at the annual security conference in Munich. See his schedule for the weekend earlier in this NWN Weekend Edition. I’ll have a related column this week.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE - SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will hold private talks today in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic budget crisis.
There is renewed breathless talk that a budget solution will be voted on in the next few days, with the usual seemingly detailed but typically sketchy accounts.
But this time, we have two actual facts here, Schwarzenegger’s whereabouts today and another, the fact that state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg – who promised a budget resolution a few days ago – is addressing the Capitol press corps and assorted others at the monthly Sacramento Press Club luncheon on Wednesday.
From these actual facts, we may deduce that there will be a vote on a budget proposal sometime in the Monday to Wednesday period. Whether that proposal is something that will pass is another matter.
President Barack Obama discusses the latest bad economic news and the fresh progress in the Senate for the economic recovery program in his weekend video/radio address.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama works today on the economic revival program as it moves forward in the Senate following an easy win in the House, as well as plans for increased regulation of the nation’s financial sector, epicenter of the new global economic crisis, and the plan for better spending of the second half of Bush-authorized Wall Street bailout.
He and his family go to the presidential retreat at Camp David for the first time this afternoon.
Vice President Joe Biden is off to Munich this weekend for the annual global security conference there. This conference has not been discussed here before, I don’t believe, but it is perhaps the key such gathering in the world, for it draws decision-makers from every corner of the globe.
It’s interesting that Biden is representing the Obama Administration, not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Defense Secretary Bob Gates. Accompanying Biden will be his favorite general, new National Security Advisor Jim Jones, the former commandant of the US Marine Corps and commander of NATO.
Vice President Joe Biden, speaking this morning at the international security conference in Munich, Germany, says that America will work more with other nations but will also ask more.
Biden gave a major speech there this morning, saying that the US is now much more interested in partnership with the rest of the world and calling for a new relationship with Russia to aid the US and NATO effort there against the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Biden has an extensive schedule in Munich. Today he engages in bilateral meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel; Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk; Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko; French President Nicholas Sarkozy; British Foreign Secretary David Miliband; NATO Secretary General Jakob Gijsbert de Hoop Scheffer; and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
In the evening, he hosts a reception for the U.S. Congressional Delegation and German Bundestag members, and attends a dinner hosted by the Minister President of Bavaria Horst Seehofer.
On Sunday, Biden will engage in bilateral meetings with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, as well as the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov. He will then travel back to the US.
I’ll have a column about this stuff next week.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks, mostly focused on California’s chronic budget crisis. No public appearances are scheduled.
Yesterday was “Furlough Friday,” the first of two unpaid furlough days per month for state workers ordered by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite some handwringing, mostly by state workers and their advocates, it went off rather smoothly, as Californians expect some cutbacks in state services with the economic and budget crises. What’s happened so far hasn’t impacted most Californians.
Word is there will be a budget deal next week. But you’ve noticed I’m not into breathless reportage on this. The Capitol scene is replete with reports of imminent action on any number of things, little of which actually occurs.
** SMOOTH SAILING FOR PANETTA.While the Obama Administration is running into some turbulence on other fronts, the president’s controversial pick to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, is now on cruise control. The former White House chief of staff, federal budget director, and California congressman was opposed at first by new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Californian who was not consulted by Obama on Panetta’s appointment. But his confirmation hearing yesterday and today went pretty smoothly.
Feinstein long ago backed down from her opinion that only “an intelligence professional” should be CIA director, a view which ignores the history of the post. But the criticism didn’t only come from a miffed Senate committee chair. The far right weighed in heavily against Panetta.
Panetta came out firing against former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims this week that Obama’s new direction — with torture opponent Panetta in the forefront — would make America less safe. Cheney was and is a super-hawk, a prime mover behind the unreliable torture policy on interrogation of suspected terrorists, as well as the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, global black eyes for America, the secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, the policy of unlimited detention without charge or disposition, the policy of violating the Geneva Convention, the policy of “rendition” of prisoners to countries where even more extreme forms of torture than waterboarding are employed. He says the new administration is more concerned with reading the rights of Al Qaeda members than protecting America. …
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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 at $40.17 per barrel on Friday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
The drop of $107 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US and global economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
President Barack Obama, addressing congressional Democrats last night in Williamsburg, Virginia tells Republicans not to come to the table with the same old ideas that led to the crisis.
** OBAMA CLOSE TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAM PASSAGE. The US Senate is reportedly ready to vote for a big economic recovery program promoted by President Barack Obama. Details are still sketchy, but the package of new spending on infrastructure and other stimulus measures plus tax cuts is around $780 billion dollars, somewhat less than the $819 billion package that passed the House earlier.
** CALIFONIA PRISON RECEIVER BACKS DOWN. Faced by legal opposition from former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are seeking to block his authority to order massive new state spending on prison health care and have him removed from his post, federal prison receiver Clark Kelso dramatically downsized the amount he seeks to impose on the state, from $8 billion to $2.5 billion.
California already has a $42 billion budget deficit over 18 months, with no resolution yet, and Republican legislators blocking Schwarzenegger’s more modest bond plan for pirson health care.
** SMOOTH SAILING FOR PANETTA.While the Obama Administration is running into some turbulence on other fronts, the president’s controversial pick to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, is now on cruise control. The former White House chief of staff, federal budget director, and California congressman was opposed at first by new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Californian who was not consulted by Obama on Panetta’s appointment. But his confirmation hearing yesterday and today went pretty smoothly.
Feinstein long ago backed down from her opinion that only “an intelligence professional” should be CIA director, a view which ignores the history of the post. But the criticism didn’t only come from a miffed Senate committee chair. The far right weighed in heavily against Panetta.
Panetta came out firing against former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claims this week that Obama’s new direction — with torture opponent Panetta in the forefront — would make America less safe. Cheney was and is a super-hawk, a prime mover behind the unreliable torture policy on interrogation of suspected terrorists, as well as the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, global black eyes for America, the secret CIA prisons in foreign countries, the policy of unlimited detention without charge or disposition, the policy of violating the Geneva Convention, the policy of “rendition” of prisoners to countries where even more extreme forms of torture than waterboarding are employed. He says the new administration is more concerned with reading the rights of Al Qaeda members than protecting America. …
** BERMAN DENOUNCES PAKISTAN’S RELEASE OF NOTORIOUS NUCLEAR PROLIFERATOR. LA Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today denounced Pakistan’s release of A.Q. Khan, father of the troubled Islamic state’s nuclear program.
“It is very alarming that A.Q. Khan, the worst proliferator of nuclear weapons technology in history, has been freed,” Berman said. “It is unclear whether the illicit smuggling network he created was fully dismantled even after he was placed under nominal ‘house’ arrest. I am deeply concerned that, by releasing him, the Pakistani government may in effect be giving him license to resume, perhaps directly, his past actions to aid, abet and profit from the spread of nuclear weapons.”
Pakistan placed Khan, who is credited with transforming his country into a nuclear power, under indefinite house arrest in 2004 after he confessed to running an illicit international nuclear network. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan and refused to let U.S. investigators interview him about the extent of his network’s activities, which are believed to have included trade with North Korea and Iran. A court established by Musharraf lifted the restrictions today on Khan’s movement.
“U.S. officials have been prevented from interviewing Khan to try to determine the extent of the damage he has done to world stability,” Berman noted. “Congress will take this into account as we review and create legislation on U.S.-Pakistan relations and the circumstances under which U.S. assistance is provided to Islamabad.”
India, still working to get resolution of Pakistani involvement in the terrorist siege of Mumbai this past Thanksgiving, also denounced the move. Pakistani intelligence is providing Khan with personal security. The release of Khan is a sop to powerful jihadist sentiment in Pakistan.
** CALIFORNIANS ON OBAMA’S ECONOMIC TEAM. President Barack Obama appeared this morning with former Federal Reserve Bank chief Paul Volcker to make another push for his economic recovery program. He also announced the other members of the new President’s Econonomic Recovery Advisory Board, which is chaired by Volcker, who played a major role in getting the US out of an earlier economic crisis.
Three of the members are Californins: Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, La Opinion publisher Monica Lozano, and UC Berkeley Berkeley business school dean Laura Tyson.
** GREEN DOINGS. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who first raised the issue of the greenhouse effect in the 1970s and has been battling it out in court to get California’s climate change program clear of interference from the late Bush/Cheney Administration and industry opponents, this morning praised the US Environmental Protection Agency for promptly starting a new review of the state’s tailpipe emissions law.
And late yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed two leading environmentalists to the California Energy Commission, which guides much of the state’s energy policy. 34-year old Karen Douglas, formerly a top official with Environmental Defense, is the new chair of the Energy Commission. And Julia Levin, late of the National Audubon Society, is a new state energy commissioner.
** RONALD REAGAN’S BIRTHDAY. Today is President Ronald Reagan’s birthday. Here’s what Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said as he proclaimed it Ronald Reagan Day in California (something that he didn’t a few years ago until NWN pointed out the birthday): During our own times of adversity, I hope each of us can find in ourselves some of Ronald Reagan’s optimism and commitment to service. His was a spirit that crushed the Cold War, renewed our nation and faced an unknown future of Alzheimer’s disease with bravery. Letting that same spirit make a difference in our own lives and actions, is a fantastic and fitting tribute to this true American hero.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … PANETTA ON CRUISE CONTROL AS C.I.A. DIRECTOR-DESIGNATE.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama works today on the economic revival program as it moves in the Senate following an easy win in the House, as well as plans for increased regulation of the nation’s financial sector, epicenter of the new global economic crisis.
Obama joins with former Federal Reserve Bank chief Paul Volcker to announce the members of a new economic recovery advisory board and more negative economic numbers come rolling out.
The Senate might vote today on the economic stimulus bill. If not today, on the weekend. After John McCain’s Republican plan to strip out the spending and replace it with tax cuts failed by a wide margin, talks are underway to pare down some of the spending and make it more focused on job-producing infrastructure development.
Obama also meets in the White House with victims of Islamic jihadism from the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington and the bombing of the USS Cole.
Vice President Joe Biden is off to Munich for the annual global security conference there. This conference has not been discussed here before, I don’t believe, but it is perhaps the key such gathering in the world, for it draws decision-makers from every corner of the globe.
It’s interesting that Biden is representing the Obama Administration, not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or Defense Secretary Bob Gates. Accompanying Biden will be his favorite general, new National Security Advisor Jim Jones, the former commandant of the US Marine Corps and commander of NATO.
The Obama Administration faces big challenges in the Middle East.
Biden warned congressional Democrats last night at their retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia, that the Middle East and South Asia will continue to be perilous passages for US policy. The transition away from the effort in Iraq to the Afghanistan will be complex, he noted, and trouble between Israel and Palestinians may actually increase after the forthcoming Israeli elections.
Meanwhile, Leon Panetta continues his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing today as CIA Director-designate. Fellow Californian Dianne Feinstein presides.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol, mostly focused on California’s chronic budget crisis. No public appearances are scheduled.
Today is “Furlough Friday,” the first of two unpaid furlough days per month for state workers ordered by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
No surprise, really, as the budget has to be cut somewhere and this forestalls actuall lay-offs, which are within Schwarzenegger’s power to order under present circumstances.
There’s an ongoing dispute over whether Schwarzenegger can furlough state workers laboring under the state’s constitutional elected officials. Several news media reports inaccurately stated the other day that a superior court judge had limited Schwarzenegger’s power in this regard. He did no such thing. But state Controller John Chiang, prompted again by public employee unions, is challenging the governor’s authority in that regard, so a court may actually rule on that aspect of the matter.
Word is there will be a budget deal next week. But you’ve noticed I’m not into breathless reportage on this. The Capitol scene is replete with reports of imminent action on any number of things, little of which actually occurs.
Some Republican legislators, who essentially blockaded the budget for many months by publicly refusing to consider any tax hikes, seem to be getting closer to going for a budget that includes tax hikes as well as program cuts and a spending cap.
Naturally, much of California’s far right – which is doing a remarkable job of driving the state’s Republican Party deeper into permanent minority status – is going bonkers over this.
Far right blogger Jon Fleischman, a state Republican vice chairman and prominent backer of Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, is pushing a state party convention resolution to campaign against any Republican legislator who votes for any tax increase to ease the state’s $42 billion budget deficit.
And some liberal interest groups are striking out against potential elements of a compromise. All of which may mean that a deal is close. Not that there is any rush, mind you, since the state has merely had to shut down infrastructure projects weeks ago and is now stopping basic payments.
** OBAMA IN THE TANK. President Barack Obama went in the tank yesterday. For about two hours.
While most eyes were on the then impending vote in the House on Obama’s economic revival program, the new president ventured out to the Pentagon for his first meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commanders of each of America’s armed services. Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jim Jones came along.
They met in “the Tank,” a fabled secret meeting place better than any treehouse, for it’s supposedly impervious to all manner of surveillance. Jones had been there before, of course, as a former member of the Joint Chiefs when he was commandant of the Marine Corps.
But it was the first time for Obama. Let’s pause for a moment of silence for all those mad hatter “Manchurian Candidate” conspiracy theory promoters from the campaign as we think of Barack Hussein Obama in this holy of holies inner sanctum of America’s military establishment. Conducting the meeting at the pinnacle of the pyramid of US military command.
While more than a few gaskets may have popped out there in the far right precincts of the blogosphere and talk radio at the very thought, there might be a few on the left popping as well. … From my January 29th column.
** OBAMA AND THE CALIFORNIA WAY ON CLIMATE. President Barack Obama is choosing the California way of dealing with climate change. What this means is that major action to curtail greenhouse gases can happen faster, and without dealing with a traditional lobby-dominated Congress, with California and other states leading the way and doing the work.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
The drop of $108 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 previous 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 Barack Obama, while at the Department of Energy today to push for tougher efficiency standards, made a pitch for his economic revival program now under adjustment in the Senate.
** PANETTA CRUISES, SOLIS DOESN’T. CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta seemed to cruise through his confirmation hearing this afternoon held by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The former White House chif of staff, federal budget director, and California congressman declared waterboarding to be torture, but did not say that he would end all renditions of terrorism suspects to foreign countries and or release or otherwise change the legal status of a small group of prisoners.
I’ll have a column tomorrow on Panetta.
LA Congresswoman Hilda Solis is in more of a state of a limbo, her Senate confirmation to be secretary of labor hearing postponed on news that her husband just paid some old tax liens against his auto repair business. Her hearing had been held up through a Republican hold on her nomination, invoked because she has been very involved with a pro-labor advocacy group.
** JOBLESS CLAIMS HIT 26-YEAR HIGH. US jobless claims have surged to the highest level since October 1982, in a fresh sign of economic weakness. More bad retail news is coming out, as well.
Essentially, only Walmart and Amazon.com are doing well in this retail environment.
** CALIFORNIA’S CHRONIC BUDGET CRISIS: VOTE NEXT WEEK? Word is coming out from state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg that progress is being made in secret “Big 5″ negotiations between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders and that the state’s budget will likely be voted on next week.
Not a moment too soon …
** NEW GALLUP POLL: OBAMA JOB APPROVAL HOLDING AT SKY-HIGH 65%. Today’s Gallup Poll shows President Barack Obama holding steady with a 65% job approval rating. Only 20% disapprove. In contrast, only 16% are satisfied with the current state of the nation, with 81% dissatisfied.
Consumer confidence is at 3%, within the margin of error of the poll, with 78% saying they lack confidence.
Fox News pundit Glenn Beck says that President Barack Obama is implementing a “Communist” regime. His, ah, evidence? Obama signing the SCHIP children’s health insurance bill, vetoed last year by President George W. Bush, and capping executive compensation at newly bailed out Wall Street firms at $500,000 per year.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama works today on the economic revival program as it moves to the Senate following an easy win in the House, as well as plans for increased regulation of the nation’s financial sector, epicenter of the new global economic crisis.
He announced a new White House office for faith-base initiatives early this morning. At noon, he heads to the Department of Energy to call for tougher efficiency standards.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet this afternoon in the Oval Office with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
This evening, Obama speaks at the House Democratic Issues Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia. The short flight will be his first trip on Air Force One as president.
President Barack Obama announces a renewed White House office for faith-based initiatives. The Bush White House version closed amidst ideological infighting.
Obama is putting more pressure on for passage of the economic revival program. This morning he authored an op-piece in the Washington Post on the matter.
Next Monday, he will hold a prime time press conference.
Meanwhile, Leon Panetta has his Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing today as CIA Director-designate. Fellow Californian Dianne Feinstein presides.
Also today, LA Congresswoman Hilda Solis gets her Senate confirmation hearing as Obama’s secretary of labor. The very pro-labor Solis, an early Obama backer, was held up by a secret Republican congressional hold on her appointment.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private talks in and around the Capitol, mostly focused on California’s chronic budget crisis. No public appearances are scheduled.
I’m hearing there may be a budget deal on Friday, which would cover both the shortfall in the current budget occasioned by the global economic crisis, and the next fiscal year as well.
Some Republican legislators, who essentially blockaded the budget for many months by publicly refusing to consider any tax hikes, seem to be getting closer to going for a budget that includes tax hikes as well as program cuts and a spending cap.
Naturally, much of California’s far right – which is doing a remarkable job of driving the state’s Republican Party deeper into permanent minority status – is going bonkers over this.
Far right blogger Jon Fleischman, a state Republican vice chairman and prominent backer of Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, is pushing a state party convention resolution to campaign against any Republican legislator who votes for any tax increase to ease the state’s $42 billion budget deficit.
And some liberal interest groups are striking out against potential elements of a compromise. All of which may mean that a deal is close. Not that there is any rush, mind you, since the state has merely had to shut down infrastructure projects weeks ago and is now stopping basic payments.
Schwarzenegger said last Wednesday that he expects a budget deal in the next 10 days.
Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger won a victory Thursday when a superior court judge ruled against public employee unions seeking to overturn Schwarzenegger’s two day a month furlough for state workers. Schwarzenegger’s move saves $1.4 billion per year. He later announced that the furlough plan applies to state elected officials and their employees as well.
** OBAMA IN THE TANK. President Barack Obama went in the tank yesterday. For about two hours.
While most eyes were on the then impending vote in the House on Obama’s economic revival program, the new president ventured out to the Pentagon for his first meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the commanders of each of America’s armed services. Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jim Jones came along.
They met in “the Tank,” a fabled secret meeting place better than any treehouse, for it’s supposedly impervious to all manner of surveillance. Jones had been there before, of course, as a former member of the Joint Chiefs when he was commandant of the Marine Corps.
But it was the first time for Obama. Let’s pause for a moment of silence for all those mad hatter “Manchurian Candidate” conspiracy theory promoters from the campaign as we think of Barack Hussein Obama in this holy of holies inner sanctum of America’s military establishment. Conducting the meeting at the pinnacle of the pyramid of US military command.
While more than a few gaskets may have popped out there in the far right precincts of the blogosphere and talk radio at the very thought, there might be a few on the left popping as well. … From my January 29th column.
** OBAMA AND THE CALIFORNIA WAY ON CLIMATE. President Barack Obama is choosing the California way of dealing with climate change. What this means is that major action to curtail greenhouse gases can happen faster, and without dealing with a traditional lobby-dominated Congress, with California and other states leading the way and doing the work.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th 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.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial.
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.
The drop of $106 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 previous 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.
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