President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama arriving in London today for their first major international trip since the inauguration.
** OBAMA CATCHES A SLIGHT BREAK ON ISRAEL. On the eve of the first meetings of his first major international trip as president, Barack Obama caught something of a break when Israel’s Knesset approved the new government formed by returned Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. It was shaping up as an all-right wing government – a huge international problem both for Israel and its principal supporter, America – until Labour, under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, agreed to join the coalition.
Barak will be the defense minister in the new government, as he was in the former government convened by the centrist Kadima. But Netanyahu’s conservative Likud is dependent for its power on the far right Israel Beiteinu party, whose chief, Avigdor Lieberman, is Israel’s new foreign minister. As Lieberman is largely regarded as anti-Arab, that is a serious problem.
Even in Israel, where a brand new poll for the Haaretz newspaper shows 54% disapproving of the new government. While Barak is widely accepted as defense minister – he’s actually arguably Israel’s greatest soldier – Lieberman receives only 25% support as foreign minister. But at least Netanyahu can take Barak, rather than Lieberman, with him when he visits Obama in the White House.
** HIGHEST-TAXED CALIFORNIA? NOT SO MUCH. I’ve noticed that every time I write a column about California, a host of right-wingers descend, all repeating the trope – which I think they heard on that “John & Ken” radio show, or Rush Limbaugh – that California is the most highly-taxed state in America.
** U.S. AND IRAN TALK DIRECTLY AT AFGHANISTAN CONFERENCE. Top US and Iranian officials had a direct, “unplanned” meeting today at the UN conference on Afghanistan in the Netherlands. Special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, former US ambassador to the UN, met with Iran’s deputy foreign minister today at the Hague. Nothing about the discussion has been revealed as yet, but the two agreed to “stay in touch,” according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
** CALIFORNIA SPECIAL ELECTION VIEW. Over at CalBuzz, the very shrewd former Republican consultant Dan Schnur (former communications director for Pete Wilson and John McCain, now director of USC’s Unruh Institute of Politics) lays out why he thinks the Prop 1A initiative on the May 19th special election ballot has a good chance to pass.
Actually, passing Proposition 1A on the May 19 special election ballot is not quite the Mission Improbable suggested above. While Arnold Schwarzenegger’s poll numbers have taken a nasty hit during the recent budget crisis and economic meltdown, voters tend to warm to him considerably when they see him reaching across party lines. Schwarzenegger not only has the support of most of the state’s leading Democrats, but the initiative package was designed specifically to lessen the likelihood of opposition from the California Teachers Association.
And while other unions have come out against the initiatives, the deep-pocketed CTA’s endorsement of 1A almost eliminates the likelihood of significant funding for an opposition campaign. Add the support of the state Chamber of Commerce, and odds are that the initiative committee will have a huge financial advantage during an extremely short and intense campaign. Conservative opponents bring plenty of populist passion to the other side, but without lots of union money to run a “no” campaign, that passion is going to be hard for voters to hear over the advertising onslaught that Schwarzenegger and his allies will be able to buy.
A sizable check from either GOP gubernatorial candidates Steve Poizner or Meg Whitman looks like the last, best hope for the opposition, but neither Poizner nor Whitman has yet indicated a willingness to write one.
** AFGHANISTAN: THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM?America has won two wars in Afghanistan in the past quarter-century. First against the late Soviet Union, then against the radical Islamist Taliban. But each time, eminently distractable America has taken its eye off the ball, and the victories have proved evanescent.
Now, under new President Barack Obama, the U.S. is hoping the third time’s the charm. But does the new strategy miss the reasons why America succeeded — to the extent it did — the first two times around in Afghanistan? Does it meet the announced mission, or lead to something else? And how is it faring so far, in the midst of international conferences and at the beginning of a tour by Obama that takes him to summits in Britain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Turkey? …
Prior to leaving for London and the G-20 summit, President Barack Obama yesterday laid out a hard-edged policy on rescuing the US auto industry.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michell Obama are en route to London on Air Force One. This is the first extensive foreign trip of his presidency, which takes him to Britain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Turkey.
London is the site of the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit, around which Obama will also hold meetings with a number of heads of state and government.
The Obamas land in London at Stansted Airport shortly before noon Pacific time, 7 PM GMT. They meet later with US Embassy staff at The American School in London.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is at the Hague in the Netherlands for the international conference on Afghanistan.
More than seven years after the US takedown of the Taliban in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Afghanistan is in turmoil.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events today.
Schwarzenegger is on vacation this week.
Today is Cesar Chavez’s birthday. The legendary United Farm Workers leader died in 1993 at the age of 66.
** PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.We can’t afford to go back, and things are on course. That’s the meta-message from six days of very high-profile appearances by President Barack Obama, culminating with Tuesday night’s prime time news conference. … From my March 25th column.
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … From my March 23rd column.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently. … From my March 20th column.
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. … From my March 13th column.
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY. … From my March 11th 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 up about $15 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
President Barack Obama said this morning that neither General Motors not Chrysler has proposed sweeping enough changes to justify further large U.S. government bailouts.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM? AFTER WINNING TWO AFGHAN WARS IN A QUARTER-CENTURY, AMERICA TRIES TO MAKE SOMETHING STICK. (This will come after the Moscow conference of the weekend and before the Netherlands conference on Tuesday.)
** GALLUP POLL: A NARROW PLURALITY LIKES TREASURY SECRETARY GEITHNER. He’s been a lightning rod of controversy since even before he was confirmed as US secretary of the treasury, due to his central role in the Wall Street bailout of last fall as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. It only got more controversial after that with a now you see it/now you don’t bank rescue plan in February and the AIG executive bonus scandal of March.
He’s Treasury Secretary Tom Geithner, and in the brand new Gallup Poll, he has a 42% job approval rating. His disapproval rating is 40%.
If the American public has “lost confidence” in Geithner, it might be expected that a majority would now disapprove of the job he is doing as Treasury secretary. That is not the case. At the same time, a majority does not approve of the job he is doing, either. The public remains divided, with no tilt in sentiments in either direction.
It is not a good sign for Geithner, perhaps, that he receives significantly lower approval ratings than does his boss. In the same poll in which Geithner receives 42% approval, Obama receives a 64% approval rating (and a 30% disapproval rating). This is not the first time this differential between Obama and his Treasury secretary has surfaced. A Gallup Poll conducted last week showed that Americans are much more satisfied with the way Obama has handled the crisis concerning bonuses paid to AIG executives than they are with Geithner’s role in that situation.
For whatever reason, Obama’s approval rating has been quite stable throughout his brief presidency, suggesting that events or the news have had little impact on the public’s views of him. Geithner to this point does not appear to get the same benefit of the doubt.
As long as Obama has Geithner’s back, he’s fine. I suspect his numbers were worse two weeks ago.
** A QUIET WEEK IN CALIFORNIA POLITICS GETS QUIETER. A quiet week in California politics – with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on vacation and not much happening in the California governor’s race – is even quieter today with Cesar Chavez Day. It’s hard to think of a holiday which isn’t taken in state politics.
** OBAMA DEMANDS MORE CHANGES FROM DETROIT BEFORE FURTHER FEDERAL BAILOUTS. President Barack Obama this morning demanded more changes from two of America’s Big Three automakers. Ford is in pretty decent shape, relatively speaking. General Motors and Chrysler are not.
The Obama Administration has demanded the resignation of GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, and he is out. GM is getting “adequate working capital” for 60 days to come up with additional changes in order to qualify for more federal support. Chrysler has been given 30 days to work out a merger with Fiat, also bridge financing during that period.
Needless to say, two questions suggest themselves. Is the Obama Administration using a double standard here, shelling out far larger sums to Wall Street with fewer strings attached? Or is the administration about to apply Detroit’s new and much more stringent strings to Wall Street?
Excerpts from Obama’s statement on Detroit: One of the challenges we have confronted from the beginning of this administration is what to do about the state of our struggling auto industry. In recent months, my Auto Task Force has been reviewing requests by General Motors and Chrysler for additional government assistance as well as plans developed by each of these companies to restructure, modernize, and make themselves more competitive. Our evaluation is now complete. But before I lay out what needs to be done going forward, I want to say a few words about where we are, and what led us to this point. …
We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish. This industry is, like no other, an emblem of the American spirit; a once and future symbol of America’s success. It is what helped build the middle class and sustained it throughout the 20th century. It is a source of deep pride for the generations of American workers whose hard work and imagination led to some of the finest cars the world has ever known. It is a pillar of our economy that has held up the dreams of millions of our people. But we also cannot continue to excuse poor decisions. And we cannot make the survival of our auto industry dependent on an unending flow of tax dollars. These companies – and this industry – must ultimately stand on their own, not as wards of the state.
That is why the federal government provided General Motors and Chrysler with emergency loans to prevent their sudden collapse at the end of last year – only on the condition that they would develop plans to restructure. In keeping with that agreement, each company has submitted a plan to restructure. But after careful analysis, we have determined that neither goes far enough to warrant the substantial new investments that these companies are requesting. And so today, I am announcing that my administration will offer GM and Chrysler a limited period of time to work with creditors, unions, and other stakeholders to fundamentally restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional tax dollars; a period during which they must produce plans that would give the American people confidence in their long-term prospects for success.
What we are asking is difficult. It will require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who have already made painful concessions to make even more. It will require creditors to recognize that they cannot hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts. Only then can we ask American taxpayers who have already put up so much of their hard-earned money to once more invest in a revitalized auto industry. But I am confident that if we are each willing to do our part, then this restructuring, as painful as it will be in the short-term, will mark not an end, but a new beginning for a great American industry; an auto industry that is once more out-competing the world; a 21st century auto industry that is creating new jobs, unleashing new prosperity, and manufacturing the fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy independent future. I am absolutely committed to working with Congress and the auto companies to meet one goal: the United States of America will lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars. …
But our auto industry is not moving in the right direction fast enough to succeed. So let me discuss what measures need to be taken by each of the auto companies requesting taxpayer assistance, starting with General Motors. While GM has made a good faith effort to restructure over the past several months, the plan they have put forward is, in its current form, not strong enough. However, after broad consultations with a range of industry experts and financial advisors, I’m confident that GM can rise again, provided that it undergoes a fundamental restructuring. As an initial step, GM is announcing today that Rick Wagoner is stepping aside as Chairman and CEO. This is not meant as a condemnation of Mr. Wagoner, who has devoted his life to this company; rather, it’s a recognition that it will take a new vision and new direction to create the GM of the future.
In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan. They must ask themselves: have they consolidated enough unprofitable brands? Have they cleaned up their balance sheets or are they still saddled with so much debt that they can’t make future investments? And above all, have they created a credible model for how to not only survive, but succeed in this competitive global market? Let me be clear: the United States government has no interest or intention of running GM. What we are interested in is giving GM an opportunity to finally make those much-needed changes that will let them emerge from this crisis a stronger and more competitive company.
The situation at Chrysler is more challenging. It is with deep reluctance but also a clear-eyed recognition of the facts that we have determined, after a careful review, that Chrysler needs a partner to remain viable. Recently, Chrysler reached out and found what could be a potential partner – the international car company Fiat, where the current management team has executed an impressive turnaround. Fiat is prepared to transfer its cutting-edge technology to Chrysler and, after working closely with my team, has committed to building new fuel-efficient cars and engines here in America. We have also secured an agreement that will ensure that Chrysler repays taxpayers for any new investments that are made before Fiat is allowed to take a majority ownership stake in Chrysler.
Still, such a deal would require an additional investment of tax dollars, and there are a number of hurdles that must be overcome to make it work. I am committed to doing all I can to see if a deal can be struck in a way that upholds the interests of American taxpayers. That is why we will give Chrysler and Fiat 30 days to overcome these hurdles and reach a final agreement – and we will provide Chrysler with adequate capital to continue operating during that time. If they are able to come to a sound agreement that protects American taxpayers, we will consider lending up to $6 billion to help their plan succeed. But if they and their stakeholders are unable to reach such an agreement, and in the absence of any other viable partnership, we will not be able to justify investing additional tax dollar to keep Chrysler in business. …
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
A very big week in presidential politics. Not so big in California politics.
Obama is preparing a new plan to revive the US auto industry. The CEO of General Motors is out and Chrysler is to merge with Fiat in order to receive future government support.
He is also prepping for his big European trip this week and next week. The president will be at the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit in London, the European Union leaders meeting in Prague, and the 60th anniversary summit of NATO in Strasbourg.
And, having announced the new US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last Friday, Obama is monitoring international reaction, which in the form of statements is good. The big international conference on Afghanistan starts tomorrow at the Hague in the Netherlands. Another conference on Afghanistan, that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ended over the weekend in Moscow. The US and Iran are participating in each conference.
The G-20 summit in London will focus on how to revive the more advanced economies of the global economy and stave off collapse in the less developed countries. While in London, Obama will engage in separate mini-summits with various figures such as the Russian president and the Queen of England.
The NATO summit, for its 60th anniversary, will focus on the future of the alliance. The European Union summit will focus on the economic crisis and nuclear proliferation.
At each of the confabs, Obama will press the US agenda of greater collective assistance for the new policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reviving the global economy.
In California politics, a much quieter week. The coalition backing the six state budget compromise-related inititiatives on the May 19th special election ballot continues to form. Some opposition is emerging, but it’s still unclear how much of it just amounts to talk.
The gubernatorial race is underway, but continues to underwhelm. I’ll have a couple of California 2010 reports during the week.
The Obama Administration has told General Motors and Chrysler that their current restructuring plans are not good enough to receive more US government bailout money.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington. Tomorrow he leaves on the first extensive foreign trip of his presidency which takes him to Britain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Turkey.
Obama receives his daily intelligence and economic briefings and meets with senior advisors. He announces the new plan for the reeling US auto industry, meets for lunch with Defense Secretary Bob Gates in the Oval Office, signs the Public Lands Management Act and discusses conservation, then meets privately with the House Democratic Caucus this evening on Capitol Hill to discuss his budget.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leaves today for the Hague in the Netherlands for the international conference on Afghanistan.
The White House announced late on Friday that First Lady Michelle Obama will address the first graduating class of the new University of California at Merced in May.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, a former Oakland mayor, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joined more than 20,000 last Friday in mourning four Oakland police officers killed by a parolee.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events today
Schwarzenegger is on vacation this week.
Today is Cesar Chavez Day. The legendary United Farm Workers leader, whose birthday is actually tomorrow, died in 1993 at the age of 66.
** PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.We can’t afford to go back, and things are on course. That’s the meta-message from six days of very high-profile appearances by President Barack Obama, culminating with Tuesday night’s prime time news conference. … From my latest column.
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … From my March 23rd column.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently. … From my March 20th column.
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy. … From my March 13th column.
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY. … From my March 11th column.
** WHITHER WATCHMEN? IS THIS BIG, DARK, GEEKY, LEFTY MOVIE THE NEXT COMIC BOOK BLOCKBUSTER? … From my March 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 up about $16 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
Lights dimmed around the world yesterday for the second annual Earth Hour. Some 4,000 cities in 88 countries participated at 8:30 PM in their respective time zones in a bid to highlight the threat of climate change.
** GENERAL MOTORS C.E.O. OUT ON EVE OF OBAMA RESCUE PLAN. On Sunday night in Washington comes word that General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner has been told to resign in advance of President Barack Obama’s Monday announcement of a federal rescue plan for the beleaguered U.S. auto industry. GM has been run absolutely into the ground in recent years, sticking vociferously to the old ways of doing business that haven’t worked in the present, much less in the future, and running up incredible losses.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM? AFTER WINNING TWO AFGHAN WARS IN A QUARTER-CENTURY, AMERICA TRIES TO MAKE SOMETHING STICK. (This will come after the Moscow conference this weekend and before the Netherlands conference on Tuesday.)
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama returns from Camp David to the White House this afternoon. He has no scheduled public events.
Obama appeared on the CBS News program Face The Nation today, airing at different times in different markets. He said that US automakers, for whom he will announce a new rescue program tomorrow, need to make major concessions and changes in their operations.
He also said that the Iraq pull-out will continue on the announced schedule, despite signs of new improvements there, and that the US will not send troops into Pakistan to pursue Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre without consulting with the Pakistani government.
Obama announces the new plan for the Detroit-based auto industry on Monday.
Later in the week, he begins a lengthy round of international meetings that will take him to London for the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies summit), Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany for the 60th annual NATO summit, Prague in the Czech Republic for a European Union summit (Obama will deliver a major address on nuclear proliferation there) and Ankara, Turkey to meet with Turkish leaders (Turkey will be a key ally in the Obama Administration) and a roundtable discussion with Turkish student.
Having just announced the new strategy for the Afghan War and on the verge of a momentous European trip, President Barack Obama’s weekend video/radio address is about the disastrous flooding in the Midwest.
** WATCHMEN MAKES IT PAST $100 MILLION. Though it’s certainly not the next comic book movie blockbuster many had anticipated, Watchmen passed the $100 million mark in domestic box office on Thursday, its 21st day of release. Which certainly makes it a hit. But at the rate it’s going, it will be doing well to end up around $110 million in domestic box office, just double its big opening weekend. A far cry from The Dark Knight’s $533.3 million, or Iron Man’s $318.4 million. The film was too long, dark, and obscure for the super-mass audience.
** F1 RETURNS. The world’s greatest motorsport, Formula 1 racing, returns tonight with the Australian Grand Prix. The race in Melbourne – which you can watch at 10:30 PM Pacific live on the Speed channel – is the first of 17 races over seven months in the globe-spanning circuit, concluding November 1st with the first-ever Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. F1, along with soccer (known as football pretty much everywhere outside the US), which I’m not a particular fan of, is one of the two most popular sports in the world.
The last two season’s F1 world driving championships have come down to the final race, and this year may be the same.
What’s not the same is that this very expensive sport has had some cutbacks due to global recession. One big team, Japan’s Honda, dropped out, corporate sponsorships have been cut back, less money will be spent on prepping the engines and cars, and a couple of races – including the U.S. and French Grand Prixs – have dropped from the schedule.
** OBAMA’S BRACKETOLOGY. President Barack Obama went on ESPN last week to unveil his picks in the NCAA basketball tournament. He was very downbeat about California schools, and the Pacific 10 Conference in general, picking all four California teams and five of six Pac-10 teams to lose in the first round.
He was wrong about a lot of that, as two of the four California schools, USC and UCLA, won, as did five of the six Pac-10 teams.
After that Obama’s picks proved more accurate, with 14 of the 16 teams he picked to make the Sweet Sixteen round actually making it. This weekend, we’re down to the four regional finals around the country, the so-called Elite Eight. The last Pac-10 team, Arizona, went down by nearly 40 points at the hand of Louisville. UCLA was blown out in the previous round, while surprise Pac-10 champ USC lost it at the end.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in the Maryland mountains this weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.
On Sunday, he appears on the CBS News program Face The Nation.
Obama is preparing the announcement of a new plan to revive the US auto industry, which will come on Monday.
He is also prepping for his big European trip next week. The president will be at the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit in London, the European Union leaders meeting in Prague, and the 60th anniversary summit of NATO in Strasbourg.
And, having announced the new US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan yesterday, Obama is monitoring international reaction, which in the form of statements is good. The big international conference on Afghanistan is next week at the Hague in the Netherlands. Another conference on Afghanistan, that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, is happening now in Moscow. The US and Iran are participating in each conference.
Vice President Joe Biden is signaling a fresh US interest in Latin America. He’s in Chile and Costa Rica through the weekend.
Sydney, Australia was the first major city on the planet to participate in the second annual Earth Hour, a dramatization of the fight against global climate change by turning off lights at 8:30 PM on March 28th.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events this weekend.
Schwarzenegger is on vacation next week.
** PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.We can’t afford to go back, and things are on course. That’s the meta-message from six days of very high-profile appearances by President Barack Obama, culminating with Tuesday night’s prime time news conference.
“We can’t afford to go back,” as in, “We can’t afford not to transform this economy as we revive it.”
Stanch the hemorrhaging of our personal and governmental financial base on health care by reforming it. Transform our resource base by shifting from non-renewable energy sources dominated by countries we can’t count on to new, greener technologies that curtail the greenhouse effect, create jobs, and position America for leadership in new industries. Recreate our knowledge base by improving a slumping education system. Revive our physical base by investing in infrastructure.
As for the “things being on course” part of the message, what struck me most about Obama’s prime time news conference, the second of his young presidency — George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did only four apiece during the 16 years they served — was how routine it felt.
While the nation’s media culture seems only slightly less hysterical, Tuesday night’s White House event had little of the crisis-ridden atmospherics of Obama’s first prime time presser. …
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … Is this another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector? … Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently won’t be released until next week, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes in the Netherlands at The Hague. …
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed on Friday at $52.38 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $18 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
President Barack Obama, flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, this morning laid out a new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM? AFTER WINNING TWO AFGHAN WARS IN A QUARTER-CENTURY, AMERICA TRIES TO MAKE SOMETHING STICK. (This will come after the Moscow conference this weekend and before the Netherlands conference on Tuesday.)
** BANKERS TELL OBAMA THEY’RE ON BOARD. BUT ARE THEY?Thirteen CEOs of the nation’s biggest banks met today in the White House with President Barack Obama. The meeting was designed to soften intense public anger against financial institutions for the economic crisis, and to get the executives’ support for Obama’s plans to create public/private partnerships to deal with the banks’ toxic assets problem and to alter the industry’s unpopular prevailing money culture and controversial executive compensation practicies.
Mr. Obama spoke extensively about how there had been a “cultural shift” regarding executive bonuses and Wall Street pay. He said Americans have the right to be angry. “The anger is real,” the president said, according to people who attended the meeting. “The industry needs to show that they get it on the compensation issue.”
“Excess is out of fashion,” Mr. Obama added, noting that compensation must be linked to performance. The bankers nodded but made no firm commitments. …
Solidarity was also elusive on the administration’s plan to mend the financial system by purging banks of toxic assets. After the meeting, Mr. Pandit and other chief executives said they were upbeat about the direction of the White House plan for a private-public investments in the banks, but they made no commitment to using it.
** MASSIVE MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR SLAIN OAKLAND POLICE OFFICERS. A crowd of 19,000, many of them police officers from around the state and the country, filled Oakland’s Oracle Arena today with thousands more in a spill-over crowd to honor the four Oakland police officers murdered over the weekend by a wanted parolee. The worst disaster in the history of the police department of the toughest city in California led to the largest police memorial I can remember in California’s history.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, a former two-term Oakland mayor, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger were among the featured speakers, along with Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan.
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who served decades in the Congress, was disinvited from speaking at the request of some family members of the victims.
In contrast, Brown, the mayor before Dellums, was hailed by the crowd. The former governor has been at the Oakland Police Officers Association every day since the shooting.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET: AS PREDICTED HERE, FEDERAL RELIEF NOT ENOUGH TO AVOID FURTHER CUTS AND REVENUES. As I predicted below (see From The Arnold File), California’s state government is not getting the $10 billion in relief from the federal government that it would need to avoid certain budget cuts and taxes. It’s getting about $8 billion.
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer and state Finance Director Mike Genest made the announcement at mid-morning today.
That will mean 0.25% in income tax and cuts in some health and welfare programs that many had hoped to avoid in the current budget compromise.
** GALLUP POLL: ECONOMIC OUTLOOK IMPROVING. The new Gallup Poll shows that Americans’ economic outlook is significantly improved over what it was in mid-February.
Then only 14% thought the economy was getting better. Today 30% think the economy is improving.
Of course, 64% still think it’s getting worse.
** OBAMA ANNOUNCES NEW STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN. President Barack Obama, having completed his lengthy Afghanistan strategy review, this morning announced the new US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in an address in the Eisenhower Executive Office Bldg. (That’s the renamed Old Executive Office Bldg. for White House aficionados.) On hand for the announcement were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, Central Command chief General David Petraeus, special envoy for South Asia Richard Holbrooke, and National Security Advisor General Jim Jones.
The new Obama strategy is a middle course between the full-bore nation-building touted by the late Bush/Cheney Administration and the high-end troop request pushed by Petraeus and some other generals and a more minimalist approach of maintaining a presence in the region to launch disruptive raids against Al Qaeda and Taliban cells and other formations.
In addition to the 17,000 American troops already ordered to Afghanistan, Obama is sending another 4200 as trainers for the Afghan army and police. He wants the army built into a force of 134,000, with 82,000 police, numbers smaller than the 400,000 combined pushed by the Bush/Cheney Administration. The current effective Afghan force is a fraction of Obama’s smaller target.
Obama is also dispatching hundreds of diplomats and experts in building the infrastructure of a functioning civil society. These people will fan out around the countryside, where the central government in Kabul has little current effect. They will also become Taliban targets, of course.
Obama is also tripling aid to Pakistan, to $1.5 billion a year. This is economic aid, not military aid, though I believe current levels of military aid will continue. But unlike past aid, it does not come as a blank check. Obama is requiring the Pakistani government to meet performance benchmarks, which he did not lay out in his speech, both in building the society and in resisting Islamic jihadism. No Pakistani government has ever done this.
US aerial drone attacks on Taliban and Al Qaeda cadre using Pakistan as a safe haven will increase under Obama, especially if the Pakistani forces do not ramp up their anti-jihadist efforts.
Obama clearly sees Afghanistan and Pakistan as constituting the center of the jihadist threat to global security. Iraq he sees as having been a very costly and time-consuming distraction.
Afghanistan was the base for Al Qaeda, which attacked the US on 9/11 and has launched notable attacks in Britain, Spain, and Indonesia. The Taliban regime both provided basing for Al Qaeda and shared in its jihadist goals. Now both are flourishing in and threatening Pakistan, whose intelligence service helped the Taliban into power in Afghanistan in the first place.
You’ll note that Obama’s announced mission is to defeat Al Qaeda in the region. But the means include a great deal of nation-building techniques.
Here is the full text of Obama’s speech.
Good morning. Today, I am announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review that I ordered as soon as I took office. My Administration has heard from our military commanders and diplomats. We have consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments; with our partners and NATO allies; and with other donors and international organizations. And we have also worked closely with members of Congress here at home. Now, I’d like to speak clearly and candidly to the American people.
The situation is increasingly perilous. It has been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. Most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.
Many people in the United States – and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much – have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan? After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? They deserve a straightforward answer.
So let me be clear: al Qaeda and its allies – the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks – are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.
The future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan. In the nearly eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier. This almost certainly includes al Qaeda’s leadership: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They have used this mountainous terrain as a safe-haven to hide, train terrorists, communicate with followers, plot attacks, and send fighters to support the insurgency in Afghanistan. For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world.
But this is not simply an American problem – far from it. It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it – too – is likely to have ties to al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan. The safety of people around the world is at stake.
For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people – especially women and girls. The return in force of al Qaeda terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.
As President, my greatest responsibility is to protect the American people. We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists.
So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: we will defeat you.
To achieve our goals, we need a stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy. To focus on the greatest threat to our people, America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq. To enhance the military, governance, and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have to marshal international support. And to defeat an enemy that heeds no borders or laws of war, we must recognize the fundamental connection between the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan – which is why I’ve appointed Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to serve as Special Representative for both countries, and to work closely with General David Petraeus to integrate our civilian and military efforts.
Let me start by addressing the way forward in Pakistan. The United States has great respect for the Pakistani people. They have a rich history, and have struggled against long odds to sustain their democracy. The people of Pakistan want the same things that we want: an end to terror, access to basic services, the opportunity to live their dreams, and the security that can only come with the rule of law. The single greatest threat to that future comes from al Qaeda and their extremist allies, and that is why we must stand together.
The terrorists within Pakistan’s borders are not simply enemies of America or Afghanistan – they are a grave and urgent danger to the people of Pakistan. Al Qaeda and other violent extremists have killed several thousand Pakistanis since 9/11. They have killed many Pakistani soldiers and police. They assassinated Benazir Bhutto. They have blown up buildings, derailed foreign investment, and threatened the stability of the state. Make no mistake: al Qaeda and its extremist allies are a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within.
It is important for the American people to understand that Pakistan needs our help in going after al Qaeda. This is no simple task. The tribal regions are vast, rugged, and often ungoverned. That is why we must focus our military assistance on the tools, training and support that Pakistan needs to root out the terrorists. And after years of mixed results, we will not provide a blank check. Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders. And we will insist that action be taken – one way or another – when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets.
The government’s ability to destroy these safe-havens is tied to its own strength and security. To help Pakistan weather the economic crisis, we must continue to work with the IMF, the World Bank and other international partners. To lessen tensions between two nuclear-armed nations that too often teeter on the edge of escalation and confrontation, we must pursue constructive diplomacy with both India and Pakistan. To avoid the mistakes of the past, we must make clear that our relationship with Pakistan is grounded in support for Pakistan’s democratic institutions and the Pakistani people. And to demonstrate through deeds as well as words a commitment that is enduring, we must stand for lasting opportunity.
A campaign against extremism will not succeed with bullets or bombs alone. Al Qaeda offers the people of Pakistan nothing but destruction. We stand for something different. So today, I am calling upon Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by John Kerry and Richard Lugar that authorizes $1.5 billion in direct support to the Pakistani people every year over the next five years – resources that will build schools, roads, and hospitals, and strengthen Pakistan’s democracy. I’m also calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Maria Cantwell, Chris Van Hollen and Peter Hoekstra that creates opportunity zones in the border region to develop the economy and bring hope to places plagued by violence. And we will ask our friends and allies to do their part – including at the donors conference in Tokyo next month.
I do not ask for this support lightly. These are challenging times, and resources are stretched. But the American people must understand that this is a down payment on our own future – because the security of our two countries is shared. Pakistan’s government must be a stronger partner in destroying these safe-havens, and we must isolate al Qaeda from the Pakistani people.
These steps in Pakistan are also indispensable to our effort in Afghanistan, which will see no end to violence if insurgents move freely back and forth across the border.
Security demands a new sense of shared responsibility. That is why we will launch a standing, trilateral dialogue among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our nations will meet regularly, with Secretary Clinton and Secretary Gates leading our effort. Together, we must enhance intelligence sharing and military cooperation along the border, while addressing issues of common concern like trade, energy, and economic development.
This is just one part of a comprehensive strategy to prevent Afghanistan from becoming the al Qaeda safe-haven that it was before 9/11. To succeed, we and our friends and allies must reverse the Taliban’s gains, and promote a more capable and accountable Afghan government.
Our troops have fought bravely against a ruthless enemy. Our civilians have made great sacrifices. Our allies have borne a heavy burden. Afghans have suffered and sacrificed for their future. But for six years, Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq. Now, we must make a commitment that can accomplish our goals.
I have already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops that had been requested by General McKiernan for many months. These soldiers and Marines will take the fight to the Taliban in the south and east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan Security Forces and to go after insurgents along the border. This push will also help provide security in advance of the important presidential election in August.
At the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan Security Forces, so that they can eventually take the lead in securing their country. That is how we will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security, and how we will ultimately be able to bring our troops home.
For three years, our commanders have been clear about the resources they need for training. Those resources have been denied because of the war in Iraq. Now, that will change. The additional troops that we deployed have already increased our training capacity. Later this spring we will deploy approximately 4,000 U.S. troops to train Afghan Security Forces. For the first time, this will fully resource our effort to train and support the Afghan Army and Police. Every American unit in Afghanistan will be partnered with an Afghan unit, and we will seek additional trainers from our NATO allies to ensure that every Afghan unit has a coalition partner. We will accelerate our efforts to build an Afghan Army of 134,000 and a police force of 82,000 so that we can meet these goals by 2011 – and increases in Afghan forces may very well be needed as our plans to turn over security responsibility to the Afghans go forward.
This push must be joined by a dramatic increase in our civilian effort. Afghanistan has an elected government, but it is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency. The people of Afghanistan seek the promise of a better future. Yet once again, have seen the hope of a new day darkened by violence and uncertainty.
To advance security, opportunity, and justice – not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in the provinces – we need agricultural specialists and educators; engineers and lawyers. That is how we can help the Afghan government serve its people, and develop an economy that isn’t dominated by illicit drugs. That is why I am ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground. And that is why we must seek civilian support from our partners and allies, from the United Nations and international aid organizations – an effort that Secretary Clinton will carry forward next week in the Hague.
At a time of economic crisis, it is tempting to believe that we can short-change this civilian effort. But make no mistake: our efforts will fail in Afghanistan and Pakistan if we don’t invest in their future. That is why my budget includes indispensable investments in our State Department and foreign assistance programs. These investments relieve the burden on our troops. They contribute directly to security. They make the American people safer. And they save us an enormous amount of money in the long run – because it is far cheaper to train a policeman to secure their village or to help a farmer seed a crop, than it is to send our troops to fight tour after tour of duty with no transition to Afghan responsibility.
As we provide these resources, the days of unaccountable spending, no-bid contracts, and wasteful reconstruction must end. So my budget will increase funding for a strong Inspector General at both the State Department and USAID, and include robust funding for the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction.
And I want to be clear: we cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders. Instead, we will seek a new compact with the Afghan government that cracks down on corrupt behavior, and sets clear benchmarks for international assistance so that it is used to provide for the needs of the Afghan people.
In a country with extreme poverty that has been at war for decades, there will also be no peace without reconciliation among former enemies. I have no illusions that this will be easy. In Iraq, we had success in reaching out to former adversaries to isolate and target al Qaeda. We must pursue a similar process in Afghanistan, while understanding that it is a very different country.
There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated. But there are also those who have taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price. These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course. That is why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government, and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province. As their ranks dwindle, an enemy that has nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and repression must be further isolated. And we will continue to support the basic human rights of all Afghans – including women and girls.
Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable. We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan Security Forces, and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy, and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.
None of the steps that I have outlined will be easy, and none should be taken by America alone. The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked. We have a shared responsibility to act – not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends upon it. And what’s at stake now is not just our own security – it is the very idea that free nations can come together on behalf of our common security. That was the founding cause of NATO six decades ago. That must be our common purpose today.
My Administration is committed to strengthening international organizations and collective action, and that will be my message next week in Europe. As America does more, we will ask others to join us in doing their part. From our partners and NATO allies, we seek not simply troops, but rather clearly defined capabilities: supporting the Afghan elections, training Afghan Security Forces, and a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people. For the United Nations, we seek greater progress for its mandate to coordinate international action and assistance, and to strengthen Afghan institutions.
And finally, together with the United Nations, we will forge a new Contact Group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region – our NATO allies and other partners, but also the Central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran; Russia, India and China. None of these nations benefit from a base for al Qaeda terrorists, and a region that descends into chaos. All have a stake in the promise of lasting peace and security and development.
That is true, above all, for the coalition that has fought together in Afghanistan, side by side with Afghans. The sacrifices have been enormous. Nearly 700 Americans have lost their lives. Troops from over twenty other countries have also paid the ultimate price. All Americans honor the service and cherish the friendship of those who have fought, and worked, and bled by our side. And all Americans are awed by the service of our own men and women in uniform, who have borne a burden as great as any other generation’s. They and their families embody the example of selfless sacrifice.
The United States of America did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan. Nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on September 11, 2001, for doing nothing more than going about their daily lives. Al Qaeda and its allies have since killed thousands of people in many countries. Most of the blood on their hands is the blood of Muslims, who al Qaeda has killed and maimed in far greater numbers than any other people. That is the future that al Qaeda is offering to the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan – a future without opportunity or hope; a future without justice or peace.
The road ahead will be long. There will be difficult days. But we will seek lasting partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan that serve the promise of a new day for their people. And we will use all elements of our national power to defeat al Qaeda, and to defend America, our allies, and all who seek a better future. Because the United States of America stands for peace and security, justice and opportunity. That is who we are, and that is what history calls on us to do once more.
Thank you, God Bless You, and God Bless the United States of America.
American troops are training a new Afghan security force chosen by village elders.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama this morning announced the new US strategy for the linked crises of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After receiving his daily intelligence and economic briefings and presiding over the swearing in of Attorney General Eric Holder, he holds a noontime meeting with the CEOs of leading financial institutions in the White House, including the chiefs of Citigroup, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs.
His aim is to get them to participate in the public/private partnerships in Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to deal with the banks’ severe toxic assets problem.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden is signaling a fresh US interest in Latin America. He’s in Chile and Costa Rica through the weekend.
And, despite the big White House meeting with financial CEOs, Obama’s mind is geared mainly to geopolitics.
The big international conference on Afghanistan is next week at the Hague in the Netherlands. Another conference on Afghanistan, that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is convening now in Moscow. The US and Iran are participating in each conference.
And Obama is prepping for his big European trip next week. The president will be at the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit in London, the European Union leaders meeting in Prague, and the 60th anniversary summit of NATO in Strasbourg.
Obama will be in Normandy, France to commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day on June 6th.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Oakland today meeting with the families and colleagues of four Oakland police officers murdered over the weekend by a parolee.
He will address a gathering of thousands of police officers from around the state and the nation at the Oracle Arena.
Other principal speakers include former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, a former Oakland mayor, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.
I expect that an announcement will come today that state Finance Director Mike Genest and state Treasurer Bill Lockyer have concluded that there is not enough federal economic recovery funding directed to state budget relief to prevent the need for added program cuts and tax revenues.
** PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.We can’t afford to go back, and things are on course. That’s the meta-message from six days of very high-profile appearances by President Barack Obama, culminating with Tuesday night’s prime time news conference.
“We can’t afford to go back,” as in, “We can’t afford not to transform this economy as we revive it.”
Stanch the hemorrhaging of our personal and governmental financial base on health care by reforming it. Transform our resource base by shifting from non-renewable energy sources dominated by countries we can’t count on to new, greener technologies that curtail the greenhouse effect, create jobs, and position America for leadership in new industries. Recreate our knowledge base by improving a slumping education system. Revive our physical base by investing in infrastructure.
As for the “things being on course” part of the message, what struck me most about Obama’s prime time news conference, the second of his young presidency — George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did only four apiece during the 16 years they served — was how routine it felt.
While the nation’s media culture seems only slightly less hysterical, Tuesday night’s White House event had little of the crisis-ridden atmospherics of Obama’s first prime time presser. …
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … Is this another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector? … Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently won’t be released until next week, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes in the Netherlands at The Hague. …
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 up about $19 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
President Barack Obama is readying tomorrow’s announcement of the new US strategy for Afghanistan.
** NEW U.S. STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN COMING TOMORROW. President Barack Obama will announce on Friday morning the long-awaited Afghanistan strategy review. He briefed members of Congress at the White House this afternoon, but Senate Republican leaders skipped the meeting. The plan nonetheless is winning initial favor from Obama’s defeated Republican rival, Senator John McCain. The new plan includes 4,200 more US troops to serve as trainers to the Afghan Army. This is in addition to the 13,000 additional troops already announced by Obama. Also in the mix are several hundred civilian advisors to help establish greater civil society infrastructure in the countryside, and a tripling of foreign aid to Pakistan, where Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre currently have safe havens. The additional aid to Pakistan will be tied to the Pakistani government’s performance in aiding against Islamic jihadists.
I will have a column on this on Monday. That will be after the Moscow meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, and the former Central Asian Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) this weekend on Afghanistan and before the Netherlands meeting next week of many nations on Afghanistan. Both meetings include the US and Iran, neither of which is a member of the SCO.
** NATIONAL REPUBLICAN DISARRAY ON OBAMA’S BUDGET. House Republicans promised an alternative US budget as part of their opposition to President Barack Obama’s plans. They didn’t produce one.
What they did produce was a 19-page document containing various attacks on Obama’s plans and statements of conservative principle. The document contained no actual budget numbers.
The only specific proposal was a tax cut for high-income Americans. Which does not reduce current sky-high budget deficits from the Bush/Cheney years. Republican leaders now say they’ll have some more specifics besides more tax cuts next week.
The plans engendered opposition from Republicans and from many who would be freshly regulated.
The administration’s proposals, which require congressional approval, include:
* Imposing tougher standards on financial institutions that are judged to be so big that their failure would threaten the entire system.
* Extending federal regulation for the first time to all trading in financial derivatives – exotic instruments such as credit default swaps that are blamed for much of the economic carnage.
* Requiring larger hedge funds and other private pools of capital, including private equity and venture capital funds, to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
* Creating a regulator to monitor the biggest institutions. Geithner did not say which agency should wield such authority, but the administration is expected to favor the Federal Reserve.
* Empowering the government to take over major non-bank financial firms such as insurers and hedge funds if deemed necessary.
President Barack Obama kicked off the first ever online presidential town hall meeting this morning from the White House.
** GALLUP POLL: AMERICANS MORE CONFIDENT ABOUT MILITARY READINESS.The new Gallup Poll shows that most Americans are more confident about US military readiness now than they were a year ago. More confounding data for Rush Limbaugh, I’m afraid.
The shift upward is due to a big increase in Democratic satisfaction, from 37% to 64%, and a smaller but large 10-point increase amongst independents, up to 50%.
Tellingly, there has been no change in the assessment of Republicans, despite the change from the Bush/Cheney Administration to the Obama Administration..
After four years of declining public confidence in the nation’s military preparedness, Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey documents a sharp reversal. Currently, 54% of Americans say the country’s national defense is about right, up from 41% a year ago.
As a corollary to the recent increase in public contentment with the nation’s defense, the percentage of Americans saying national defense is not strong enough has dropped from 47% to 37%.
An additional 6% of Americans now say the nation’s defense is stronger than it needs to be. Thus, combined with the 54% saying national defense is about right, 6 in 10 Americans believe the nation’s defense is at least adequate, if not too great.
** SCHWARZENEGGER NAMES STATE STIMULUS CHIEFS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has named California’s Federal Economic Stimulus Task Force. The two officials who represented the state at the White House Economic Recovery Act Implementation Conference earlier this month will serve as coordinator and deputy coordinator.
Cynthia Bryant, director of the Office of Planning & Research and deputy chief of staff to the governor, is the coordinator and will liaise directly with the Obama Administration on the economic recovery program. Ana Matosantos, chief deputy director of the state Department of Finance, is deputy coordinator. The task force itself includes a host of officials from many parts of the state government. Schwarzenegger chief deputy communications director Jeff Barker is the task force’s communications director.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Mexico City yesterday for a two-day visit in support of efforts to contain the growing power of Mexico’s drug cartels, which threaten to destabilize the country.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has another lower profile day in the wake of his six-day all-media offensive.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden receive the daily intelligence and economic briefings and meet with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Obama holds a first ever online presidential town hall meeting from the East Room of the White House, focused on the economy. The questions were submitted in advance via online means and selected by vote at whitehouse.gov. Obama also delivers a taped video message tonight during the very popular Premio Lo Nuestro music awards show on Univision, airing live from Miami.
This afternoon, Biden leaves for a visit to Latin America.
Obama is working on putting the finishing touches on his new Afghanistan strategy, which is now expected to be unveiled on Friday.
He will preside over a private briefing for a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the plan this afternoon in the White House.
The big international conference on Afghanistan is next week at the Hague in the Netherlands. Another conference, that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is about to convene in Moscow. The US and Iran are participating in each conference.
Obama is also prepping for his big European trip next week. The president will be at the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit in London, the European Union leaders meeting in Prague, and the 60th anniversary summit of NATO in Strasbourg.
The White House has just announced that Obama will be in Normandy, France to commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day on June 6th.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Mexico for a second day of talks on the increasingly destabilizing power of Mexico’s big drug cartels. After meeting yesterday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon – who will summit with Obama next month in Mexico City – Clinton is in Monterrey with Mexican police officials.
The US is going to provide Mexican security forces more advanced surveillance technology, weaponry and transport in the form of Blackhawk helicopters. The drug cartel forces generally out-gun the regular Mexican police and increasingly are a a challenge to the army.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is on Capitol Hill today pushing the Obama Administration’s plan for greatly expanded powers to regulate the non-bank financial sector. The repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act at the end of the Clinton Administration – pushed by former Texas Senator-turned Swiss banker Phil Gramm, a financial deregulationist who served as a national co-chairman of the John McCain for President campaign – removed old boundaries between banks, insurance companies, brokerages, and various investment funds. But new regulation to reflect the new realities did not follow.
Geithner is advocating broad new regulatory power over non-bank financial institutions such as insurance companies, hedge funds, and the purveyors of derivatives. The administration plan would also enable the government to seize these firms, just as it can now seize banks during emergencies. As it is, the government is left having to wait to intervene with expensive bailouts, or to let the firm fail and suffer the consequences.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger matches his end of 2005 low job approval rating, at 33%. The Legislature has a record low approval rating of 18%.
Intriguingly, the results in the recent Field Poll, taken a couple of weeks before the PPIC poll, were markedly more favorable to all the initiatives, though not to Schwarzenegger or other politicians. Unless you count some blog postings, newspaper articles, and radio rants, there has been no campaign against the initiatives.
As is the practice with the remaining public polls in California, it was taken earlier this month over a lengthy period of time, March 10-17, which was prior to the Obama trip to the Golden State.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the former NBA All-Star, announced yesterday that they will move homeless inhabitants of a tent city that has drawn international media attention to new facilities at the California state fairgrounds.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds a number of private discussions, primarily around the state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th California special election ballot.
He and the four legislative leaders who negotiated the compromise budget – state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, and former Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill – are meeting with editorial boards this week urging the passage of the special election initiatives.
Schwarzenegger also appears this morning with Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and other local officials to promote the Sheriff’s Department’s “Gifts for Guns” program which provides Californians with a financial incentive to surrender firearms that could potentially be stolen and used in a crime or to injure someone.
In 2007, Schwarzenegger began the California Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention (CalGRIP) initiative to deal with the dramatic increase in gangs across the state.
He will use the event this morning to announce this year’s grants to local governments and community organizations for anti-gang violence work.
** PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.We can’t afford to go back, and things are on course. That’s the meta-message from six days of very high-profile appearances by President Barack Obama, culminating with Tuesday night’s prime time news conference.
“We can’t afford to go back,” as in, “We can’t afford not to transform this economy as we revive it.”
Stanch the hemorrhaging of our personal and governmental financial base on health care by reforming it. Transform our resource base by shifting from non-renewable energy sources dominated by countries we can’t count on to new, greener technologies that curtail the greenhouse effect, create jobs, and position America for leadership in new industries. Recreate our knowledge base by improving a slumping education system. Revive our physical base by investing in infrastructure.
As for the “things being on course” part of the message, what struck me most about Obama’s prime time news conference, the second of his young presidency — George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did only four apiece during the 16 years they served — was how routine it felt.
While the nation’s media culture seems only slightly less hysterical, Tuesday night’s White House event had little of the crisis-ridden atmospherics of Obama’s first prime time presser. …
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … Is this another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector? … Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently won’t be released until next week, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes in the Netherlands at The Hague. …
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 up about $19 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
President Barack Obama met today in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary General Jan de Hoop Scheffer. The principal topics were Afghanistan – the new US strategy will be released soon – and improved relations with Russia. Obama takes part in the 60th anniversary NATO summit next week.
** PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.We can’t afford to go back, and things are on course. That’s the meta-message from six days of very high-profile appearances by President Barack Obama, culminating with Tuesday night’s prime time news conference.
“We can’t afford to go back,” as in, “We can’t afford not to transform this economy as we revive it.”
Stanch the hemorrhaging of our personal and governmental financial base on health care by reforming it. Transform our resource base by shifting from non-renewable energy sources dominated by countries we can’t count on to new, greener technologies that curtail the greenhouse effect, create jobs, and position America for leadership in new industries. Recreate our knowledge base by improving a slumping education system. Revive our physical base by investing in infrastructure.
As for the “things being on course” part of the message, what struck me most about Obama’s prime time news conference, the second of his young presidency — George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did only four apiece during the 16 years they served — was how routine it felt.
While the nation’s media culture seems only slightly less hysterical, Tuesday night’s White House event had little of the crisis-ridden atmospherics of Obama’s first prime time presser. …
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS HE’S NOT RUNNING FOR ANYTHING, JOINS WITH EX-NBA STAR JOHNSON TO END SACRAMENTO’S TENT CITY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared at the state fairgrounds at mid-day today with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the ex-NBA All-Star, to announce that homeless people living in a tent city will now be housed at Cal Expo.
Both men described it as a temporary and situation-specific solution on homelessness, targeting a tent city that has drawn international media attention on Al Jazeera, the BBC, and other major outlets.
Schwarzenegger also said that he is not running for office, making it easier for him to “do the right thing” in an emergency to raise taxes. Specifically, he’s not running for Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat, he’s not running for Congress, he’s not running for re-election as governor since the state’s term limits law applies to him, and he can’t run for president due to the arcane Constitutional stricture that naturalized citizens are not eligible. (This was placed in the Constitution for fear that agents of a foreign power, namely the British, would regain leadership of the then young nation.)
The San Francisco Chronicle had a curious story over the weekend which seemed to say that Schwarzenegger is running for the Senate. It was largely based on Democratic consultant Garry South’s insistence that Schwarzenegger will run.
South, currently strategist for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s exploratory bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, was chief strategist for former Governor Gray Davis.
South, who predicted that Hillary Clinton would beat Barack Obama, insisted in 2003 that Schwarzenegger would never run for governor. He was wrong about that, too.
The Mexican government is increasingly battling with heavily-armed drug cartel members. The cartels, which sometimes fight one another, have also infiltrated the government and its forces. Some 6300 people were killed in drug cartel violence last year, with more than 1000 killed in the first two months of this year. The violence is increasingly prevalent along the border.
The principal mission for Clinton, a former first lady and runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination, is to meet with officials in Mexico City and Monterrey to offer assistance and coordination in the anti-drug cartel fight.
Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, announced that the US will spend $700 million on a new program to use technology and security forces to better secure the border.
** AFSCME OPPOSES THE CALIFORNIA SPECIAL ELECTION INITIATIVES. The state council of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees has come out against the six state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot. Though a major AFSCME local is for all six initiatives.
The AFSCME state council dislikes the state spending limits in the budget comprise. And its solution to California’s chronic budget crisis? Removal of the constitutional requirement, one which only two small states share with California in the US, for passage of a budget and raising of taxes.
The California Teachers Association and the state’s building and construction trades unions support all six initiatives.
** IS OBAMA HAPPY ABOUT CARD CHECK BEING OFF THE TABLE IN THIS SESSION? As I noted yesterday, Senator Arlen Specter’s announcement that he will not vote against a Republican filibuster on card check, the labor bid to make union organizing easier, essentially kills the proposal in this session of Congress. MSNBC’s First Read suggests that President Barack Obama is probably quietly pleased about this.
Not that he’s not for it, but because his agenda is so expansive and immediate it might have been pushing things too far in picking a big fight with business.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.
President Barack Obama held his second prime time news conference last night in the East Room of the White House.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a somewhat less high-profile day today in the wake of last night’s prime time news conference, the second of his young presidency, which again is earning mostly good reviews.
Obama receives his daily intelligence and economic briefings and meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He meets this morning in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. Obama participates in the 60th anniversary NATO summit next week in Brussels, following the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit in London.
Obama has lunch with the Senate Democratic Caucus in the Mansfield Room of the Capitol. Some moderate Democrats are trying to alter his budget, including cutting spending on new energy sources and health care and stripping out the middle class tax cut.
Obama will also be pushing his administration’s plan for greatly expanded powers to regulate the non-bank financial sector. The repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act at the end of the Clinton Administration – pushed by former Texas Senator-turned Swiss banker Phil Gramm, a financial deregulationist who served as a national co-chairman of the John McCain for President campaign – removed old boundaries between banks, insurance companies, brokerages, and various investment funds. But new regulation to reflect the new realities did not follow.
In the late afternoon, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden commemorate Greek Independence Day in the East Room of the White House.
Tonight Obama speaks at two fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee, the first two he has attended as president.
Obama is putting the finishing touches on his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He’s also monitoring closely the governance situation in Israel, as well as the increasingly unstable situation in Mexico.
Expected last week, the new Afghanistan strategy seems now set to be released at the end of this week. That will be only a few days in advance of the international conference on Afghanistan and Pakistan set for next week in the Netherlands, and just as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference on Afghanistan begins in Moscow.
In Israel, a serious problem with a likely hard right coalition government – which would further isolate the country internationally – may be ameliorated with the more liberal Labour Party agreeing to enter the governing coalition. Labour, which finished fourth in last month’s vote behind the conservative Likud, the centrist Kadima, and the far right Israel Beiteinu, agreed in a split vote at a party conference to follow the lead of Defense Minister and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is a friend of Obama’s.
With regard to Mexico, Obama dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to visit Mexico City and Monterrey. Mexico is suffering from increasing violence caused by the nation’s powerful drug cartels.
Yesterday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, announced a new program to combat the Mexican drug cartels along the Southwestern border. The cartels are receiving major armaments from sources inside the US, and are increasingly terrorizing citizens in Mexican border towns.
Obama will hold a summit meeting next month in Mexico City with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified yesterday in Congress that the federal government needs broad new powers to regulate non-bank financial firms.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private discussions in and around the Capitol, primarily around the state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th California special election ballot.
He and the four legislative leaders who negotiated the compromise budget – state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, and former Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill – are meeting with editorial boards this week urging the passage of the special election initiatives.
Schwarzenegger joins Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star, this morning for a press conference to address the state capital’s tent city of homeless people.
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … Is this another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector? … Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently won’t be released until next week, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes in the Netherlands at The Hague. …
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 up about $19 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former Arizona governor, today announced a new program to fight powerful Mexican drug cartels along the border.
** NEW COLUMN COMING … PRIME TIME O: HOW THE OMNIPRESENT PRESIDENT IS DOING.
** QUICK HITS. Excerpts from President Barack Obama’s opening remarks at tonight’s prime time news conference from the White House reveal, not surprisingly, that he is promoting his economic recovery program and his budget proposal as not only key to revival of the economy but also key to it needed transformation. … The government of the Czech Republic, unpopular for the economic crisis and for agreeing to host part of the proposed US anti-missile shield disliked by Moscow, fell today in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, noting that California is getting $85 billion from the Obama economic recovery program ($50 billion in stimulus spending and $35 billion in tax cuts), today launched a web site for Californians to track the spending at recovery.ca.gov. Schwarzenegger will name the state officials overseeing the economic recovery spending later this week. … The memorial service for the four Oakland police officers murdered over the weekend by a parolee with a pistol and an assault rifle will be held sometime Friday morning.
** CALIFORNIA 2010. With major labor unions mostly positive or neutral on the six state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot, attention turns to the right-wing. In particular, to GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner.
After trying unsuccessfully last week to engage Democratic frontrunner Jerry Brown, super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner this week reiterated his opposition to the main initiatives and began a set of appearances criticizing them with a talk to a Republican group in Orange County.
Whitman, the former eBay CEO who was a top official in John McCain’s and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, wrote last week in a Sacramento Bee op-ed of her opposition to all the initiatives. Hardly a surprise, since she, like Poizner, denounced the state budget compromise at last month’s state Republican convention, as I discussed at length in a column.
The question is, what will Whitman do about it?
I doubt she will attempt to intervene in the special election with major spending against the initiatives. To do so would bring her views front and center. And Whitman persists in presenting the illusion that she can balance the budget by cuts alone.
Of course, not intervening makes her stance look simply rhetorical. Which it is, given the lack of substance to her position.
As for Poizner, he might intervene with some spending against the initiatives. But he has the same problem Whitman has. He has offered no realistic plan to actually balance the budget, in his case only repeatedly noting that he’s cut his office’s spending by 10%.
Back to the Democrats tomorrow.
Incidentally, Schwarzenegger suffered a setback this morning on a separate but related front when a federal judge turned down his legal move to end California’s prison receivership. The receiver has ordered $8 billion in new spending to upgrade health care in the prison system. Which the state clearly does not have. Schwarzeneger, joined by Attorney General Jerry Brown, the former governor and current Democratic frontrunner should he run, went to court to end the receivership.
Brown says he will appeal this morning’s ruling. The receiver, perhaps mindful of how unrealistic his demands look, has already seemingly scaled back his proposal, suggesting that $8 billion was the high end as one of three scenarios, the low end of which is $2 billion.
President Barack Obama, meeting this morning in the Oval Office with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (who unseated President Bush’s closest ally, John Howard) said the US will remain on the offensive against Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan. Rudd withdrew Australian troops from Iraq, but is an American partner in Afghanistan.
** GALLUP POLL: ONLY OBAMA LOOKS OKAY IN THE A.I.G. EXECUTIVE BONUS SCANDAL. Those widely condemned big bonuses for executives of the publicly bailed out insurance giant American International Group leave virtually all players with egg on their faces. Except for President Barack Obama.
According to the new Gallup Poll, 54% rate Obama positively in the affair, with only 29% looking at him negatively. AIG management comes out 80% negative and only 12% positive. Congress does better, but not much, with 65% negative and 26% positive, while Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is 54% negative and 28% positive.
Unsurprisingly, a whopping 69% believe that all the bonus money should be returned, with 13% saying half of it should be and only 12% (and this is the Rush Limbaugh position) saying that none of it should be.
There’s no consensus on how to get the money back. Only 25% back what House Democrats passed last week, a 90% tax on the bonuses. (Notably, only 29% of Democrats back this.) 27% want the money returned voluntarily, while 26% want the funds recovered via legal action or as a precondition for future government bailout support.
** DID UNION CARD CHECK JUST END? Organized labor’s campaign to make union organizing easier may have just hit a fatal hurdle for this session. Republican Senator Arlen Specter, who has voted in the past to shut down potential filibuster against card check, announced today that he will not do so this year. Specter provided one of the needed Republican votes to shut off a potential filibuster against President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program, and voted for the massive program on final passage. He faces a likely challenge from the right in a Republican primary if he runs for re-election next year.
Even with the likely seating of comedian Al Franken at the end of the disputed recount fight in Minnesota, Democrats would still be one vote shy of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster. And that’s if all Democrats held, which I rather doubt.
Our Choice will be published by Rodale in the US and other publishers around the world on November 3, 2009. Gore sees the opportunity to push forward on curbing greenhouse gases.
Said Gore in a statement: “An Inconvenient Truth reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved. Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis. Our Choice will answer that call.”
Skepticism about climate change has actually increased, even as most scientists around the world – including in California – insist that the greenhouse effect will be greater than had been anticipated.
It’s the NPQ Global Viewpoint service, run by my old colleague Nathan Gardels, distributed by Tribune Media. The service has evolved from the original NPQ, New Perspectives Quarterly, founded by former Governor Jerry Brown. It’s based in Los Angeles.
President Barack Obama made it clear yesterday that new investments in clean energy and green tech constitute a cornerstone of his budget.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a very high profile day today.
After his daily intelligence and economic briefings, Obama phoned the astronauts on the International Space Station and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office. He then meets with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Obama will ask Rudd for more Australian troops to serve in Afghanistan.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitan announced this morning that the US will work closely with the Mexican government to secure the border against the powerful drug cartels which threaten to destabilize Mexico’s government. The cartels are obtaining major armaments inside the US.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama holds the second prime time news conference of his young presidency. He is expected to focus principally on the economy, dealing again with the AIG executive bonus scandal, and with the just announced plan to handle banks’ toxic assets. Despite criticism from right and left, that plan has met with approval from markets around the world. The Obama Administration will now seek authority to seize control of non-banking financial firms such as AIG which have blurred the old lines between banks, insurance companies, stock traders, investors, and so on.
He will also discuss his first trip as president to Europe next week for the G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) summit in London. Obama is seeking to enlist nations around the world in a joint stimulus program to revive the global economy and to further regulate financial institutions. His op-ed to that effect appeared today in major newspapers in more than 30 countries, utilizing a syndicate run by an old colleague of mine. (See the item above.)
Obama has his hands full with his administration’s new plan to deal with the banks’ toxic assets problem, developing new regulations on the behavior of financial institutions, including executive compensation, and US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The new Afghanistan strategy seems now set to be released at the end of this week. That will be only a few days in advance of the international conference on Afghanistan and Pakistan set for next week in the Netherlands, and just as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference on Afghanistan begins in Moscow.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private meetings in and around the Capitol today. He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger is having significant success both in building the coalition to back the six state budget compromise-related initiatives on California’s May 19th special election ballot, and in blocking opposition. As you see from past items, he has developed major labor support for the package, despite its state spending limits.
In a California 2010 feature later, I’ll discuss the state of conservative opposition to the measures, in particular the roles of GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner.
The International Space Station had to make a change in its orbit to evade debris from a 10-year old Chinese rocket, an increasing problem for the station and for satellites.
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … Is this another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector? … Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently won’t be released until next week, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes in the Netherlands at The Hague. …
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 up about $19 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
** E.P.A. DECLARES GREENHOUSE GASES A PUBLIC DANGER. The US Environmental Protection Agency has found greenhouse gases to be a public hazard. The declaration has been sent in the bureaucratic chain to the Office of Management and Budget. When returned to the EPA, which should take little more than a week, the formal declaration will be made and many things, including approval of California’s climate change program, will flow from that.
** CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION JOINS WITH SCHWARZENEGGER ON SPECIAL ELECTION. The California Teachers Association (CTA), the state’s most powerful public employee union, decided over the weekend to back all six of the state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot.
CTA played the leading role in wrecking Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election initiative agenda in 2005. But this time around, with the state’s economic and fiscal situation in significantly different straits, CTA is allied with Schwarzenegger, despite a state spending limit that passed the Legislature.
This move comes on the heels of last week’s decision by the state’s building and construction trades unions to back all six initiatives, as well, which I suspected would make it less likely for other major unions to campaign against the initiatives.
Two smaller unions came out today against the initiatives, the California Federation of Teachers and the California Nurses Association.
CTA had previously endorsed Prop 1B, which has some protections for education spending, but held off for weeks on the rest of the initiatives.
** OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK. President Barack Obama faces a rugged week with multiple challenges on the economy and in geopolitics. … Is this another bailout to Wall Street? Or is it needed pragmatism to work with a deeply troubled, farcically entitled though still necessary private financial sector? … Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently won’t be released until next week, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes in the Netherlands at The Hague. …
** GALLUP POLL: OBAMA NUMBERS HEADING UP. In another sign that it’s good for President Barack Obama to get outside Washington on a regular basis, the new Gallup Poll shows his job approval moving up again.
65% approve of Obama’s job as president, while 26% disapprove.
Obama made a high profile trip to California last week, where he did town halls in Orange County and Los Angeles and appeared on The Tonight Show. The latter appearance was criticized by some for being an inappropriately casual venue, and Obama caught some flak after joking that his bowling abilities were Special Olympics in quality.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
Another big week in presidential politics, though not so big in California politics.
President Barack Obama faces multiple challenges this week.
His embattled treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, under fire for helping enable massive bonuses to executives of the bailed-out insurance giant American International Group, is rolling out his plan to deal with the banks’ toxic assets. The credit gears are still largely stuck, along with the economy.
Obama’s budget proposal is running into fierce resistance from Republicans, who insist that the budget will be busted in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office estimate that deficits would be higher than the White House thinks, and some Democrats who are antsy about the scale of new spending Obama proposes to jump-start and transform the US economy.
New CIA Director Leon Panetta visited Islamabad, Pakistan over the weekend to discuss the deteriorating situation there and the US fight against Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre making the troubled nation their safe haven.
Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy review, expected to be completed last week, now apparently wont be released until the end of the month, when an international conference on the troubled nation convenes at The Hague.
Obama has big decisions to make about Afghanistan’s current government, which most regard as corrupt and dysfunctional, as well as the best military and civil strategies to achieve what appear to be America’s more limited goals there. While desiring to stabilize the country, the administration appears to be reverting to the original US goal in Afghanistan: Denying it as a base of operations for transnational Islamic jihadist terrorist organizations.
Iran will participate at the Hague conference next week. Obama’s video message to Iranians at the end of last week appeared to be rebuffed, though not extravagantly. How to play Iran is a part of the Afghan surge and Iraq endgame.
As he completes the Afghanistan review, Obama is grappling with the situation in neighboring Pakistan, which is quite unstable. A major front burner issue? Increase aerial drone attacks on Al Qaeda and Taliban cadre using the country as a safe haven. They appear to be increasingly successful militarily, but are highly controversial inside Pakistan, in part because of civilian “collateral” casualties.
Former Secretary of State and Reagan White House chief of staff James Baker is the latest unofficial emissary of the Obama Administration to visit Moscow. He tells Russia Today that both countries were responsible for the downturn in US/Russia relations.
America’s relations with a resurgent Russia also require some decisions. Obama has had several unofficial high-level emissaries visit Moscow in recent weeks, including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James Baker and former and presidential candidate Senator Gary Hart. Russia is already being helpful to the US by providing new supply lines to Afghanistan, and can do more. But will Obama pay the cost?
In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after a high-profile few days around Obama in LA and Washington as his “surprise” ally (surprising to those not paying attention here), will be mostly out of the public spotlight this week.
He’s working behind the scenes on the campaign to pass six state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot. That includes fundraising, continuing to build the coalition backing the initiatives, and blocking a potent opposition from forming.
Schwarzenegger received a big boost late last week when the California building trades and construction unions came out for all six initiatives. These unions are a big part of the state’s labor federation, having co-sponsored the annual labor state legislative conference at the beginning of last week with the California Labor Federation.
Their presence in the coalition behind the initiatives makes it less likely that a public employee union will campaign heavily against the initiatives, which both raise taxes and provide spending limits.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama and his family return from the the presidential retreat of Camp David this morning, where they spent his daughters’ spring break. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden receive the daily intelligence and economic briefings.
At noontime, which is 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks about investments in clean energy and new technology in his proposed budget at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Obama then meets with senior advisors. Later in the afternoon, Biden meets with French Prime Minister Francois Fillon.
Early this morning, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner gave a briefing to journalists on the administration’s plan to deal with the banks’ so-called “toxic assets” problem.
Geithner’s plan is to combine $75 billion to $100 billion in public bailout money, leveraged with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve, with private funds to buy $500 billion in toxic assets. The plan is controversial, as you’ve not doubt heard, and I’ll have more on that later.
Obama has his hands full with his administration’s new plan to deal with the banks’ toxic assets problem, developing new regulations on the behavior of financial institutions, including executive compensation, and US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Back from his very high-profile trip to Washington (see earlier reports), Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions today in Los Angeles.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …From my March 16th column.
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 up about $18 a barrel, since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will unveil the Obama Administration’s plan to deal with the banks’ “toxic assets” problem on Monday, focusing on a set of public/private partnerships.Expect controversy.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S RUGGED WEEK.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is at the presidential retreat of Camp David today. He returns to the White House on Monday morning.
Obama appears tonight on the CBS News program 60 Minutes, in an already taped interview.
Obama skipped last night’s Gridiron dinner, a staple of the Beltway’s old media culture. He was the first president in decades to miss the event, choosing instead to spend the weekend with his daughters, who are on spring break from their school.
Vice President Joe Biden, who had to share the spotlight with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, appeared in his stead, reportedly bringing down the house at the formally off-the-record event by joking that the president was off contemplating Easter, a holiday which he thinks is about him.
Obama is actually contemplating his administration’s new plan to deal with the banks’ toxic assets problem, new regulations on the behavior of financial institutions, including executive compensation, and US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was a hit at last night’s Gridiron dinner, formally off-the-record, with jokes about President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, bipartisanship, Rush Limbaugh, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, and, naturally, himself.
The former action superstar appears today on Meet The Press, which was recorded on Friday. He and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell all promoted infrastructure investment and backed the Obama economic recovery program.
Schwarzenegger said he would be open to a gas tax increase, if passed by the voters, to pay for more transportation and other infrastructure spending.
UPDATE: Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver returned to California at mid-day.
In his weekly video/radio address, President Barack Obama discusses his town hall meetings in California and his budget priorities.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is at Camp David, the presidential retreat, this weekend. He and First Lady Michelle Obama are there with daughters Sasha and Malia, who are in the midst of their school’s spring break.
In a break with tradition, Obama is not addressing tonight’s Gridiron Dinner. This is a longtime media institution in Washington, a formally light-hearted affair which is nonetheless off the record. Which doesn’t stop reports from seeping out, and I will have some for you.
Vice President Joe Biden is going in Obama’s stead, though he would have been there anyway.
Continuing his practice of frequently going over the heads of the Washington press corps, Obama appears Sunday night on the CBS news program 60 Minutes.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is far from the real power in the country – largely dismissed yesterday’s Obama video message to the Iranian people for the traditional Persian new year. Not enough change, says Khamenei, who was falsely reported to be dead two years ago in the far right media.
Nevertheless, Iran is participating with the US in two international conferences between now and the end of the month on Afghanistan. Outstanding issues between the US and Iran include the question of how many Taliban would participate in Afghanistan’s governance (Iran is very anti-Taliban), Iran’s power in the region, and Iran’s nuclear program.
Obama will be going over the upcoming Afghanistan strategy review this weekend at Camp David. The new US strategy for Afghanistan was to have been unveiled this week. Now it looks like next week.
President George W. Bush in his last appearance at the Gridiron dinner. This is pirated video, as the event is off the record.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Washington today.
Schwarzenegger is holding private meetings during the day.
Tonight he is a marquee speaker at the Gridiron Dinner, an annual institution of Washington’s old guard media.
President Obama, in a break with tradition, is skipping the affair. Vice President Joe Biden is the other major speaker of the evening. Former President Bush’s appearance at last year’s affair, minus the song, can be seen above.
The event is off the record, notwithstanding the fact that it is put on by an organization of journalists, but reports always manage to seep out and I’ll have something for you.
Yesterday, Schwarzenegger, joined by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, met with Obama for the second time in two days, this time in the White House.
Schwarzenegger, Rendell, and Bloomberg then held a press conference outside the White House to discuss their support and ideas for the Obama economic recovery plan and their Building America’s Future infrastructure investment group.
On Sunday, Schwarzenegger appears on Meet The Press with Bloomberg and Rendell.
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too, is California for Obama. …
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.
This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 $52.07 per barrel on Friday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $18 a barrel, since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
President Barack Obama appeared last night on The Tonight Show.
** QUICK HITS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (weightlifting coach for Special Olympics), appearing outside the White House with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to back President Obama’s economic recovery program, defended Obama’s minor Tonight Show gaffe about his bowling and the Special Olympics, noting that he’s said more than a few things he thought better of later … California’s unemployment rate edged upwards to 10.5%, with Oregon and Washington also breaking the 10% barrier … Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown sued eight medical labs for allegedly ripping off hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funds … Alaska Governor Sarah Palin blasted Obama today for the Special Olympics crack, calling it gross insensitivity. She also turned down 31% of her state’s economic recovery funds, the great bulk of it for education, including special needs students …
** OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA: THE ARNOLD ALLIANCE AND MORE. President Barack Obama is back in the East after a whirlwind visit to California which pointed up his strengths and suggested some things he can do differently.
Polling shows that Obama, who crushed John McCain here last November, 61% to 37%, is the only really popular politician in California now. The state is wracked by the recession, which took hold here earlier than most other places, and hampered by a largely dysfunctional state Capitol.
As important as Obama is for California, so, too is California for Obama. …
** GALLUP POLL: NUCLEAR POWER SUPPORT HITS HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE THE POST-WORLD WAR II ERA. The new Gallup Poll shows that a big majority now supports the increased use of nuclear power as part of the portfolio of energy sources to generate electricity. 59% now favor it, highest since Gallup began tracking the issue in 1994.
I think nuclear had upwards of 70% support during its 1950s and 1960s heyday.
While Democrats barely favor it, Republicans heavily favor nuclear power development as part of the energy portfolio. Men are much in favor of it than women. Upper-income Americans are twice as likely as lower-income Americans to favor nuclear.
I think it has majority support in California, as well, according to private polls I’ve heard of. But nuclear has had poor champions here, almost all from the ideological far right.
The ratings equaled those for the January 2005 tribute to the late Johnny Carson, the show’s long-time host before Leno.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA AND CALIFORNIA.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is back in the White House following a whirlwind trip to California. You know how things went during the day from yesterday’s edition. His stint on The Tonight Show was also very successful, though he may engender some criticism with a crack about his bowling game being “like Special Olympics.”
After his daily intelligence and economic briefings and meetings with senior advisors, Obama joins Vice President Joe Biden to deliver remarks to representatives of the National Conference of State Legislatures in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at 9:35 AM Pacific. The appearance will be carried on the cable news nets.
Biden then meets with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Obama meets in the Oval Office with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama then attend the National Newspaper Publishers Association reception in the State Dining Room at 11:45 AM Pacific.
Obama will be monitoring the firestorm of controversy around the AIG executive bonuses. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner acknowledged yesterday that language allowing the bonuses to move forward, and more importantly, block an amendment to stop the bonuses, was inserted in the economic recovery bill by Senator Chris Dodd at his request.
Obama defended Geithner last night on general grounds, even as he said he was shocked to learn of the bonuses.
The House of Representatives yesterday voted to levy a 90% tax on the AIG bonuses. After Republican leaders denounced the plan as confiscatory, half the House Republican Caucus voted for it. The bill is probably illegal.
This is a critical moment for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who in a matter of a day or two last September, while president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, devised the AIG bailout plan. He says he didn’t know about the bonuses until last week. The overall Federal Reserve – the New York Fed is the lynchpin of the system, but one of 12 regional banks – has known for months.
Clearly, anyone who was aware of the bonus situation and did not immediately recognize it as a deep red flag has very poor political judgment.
President Barack Obama speaks to the Iranian people on the occasion of Nowruz, or “New Year.”
CIA Director Leon Panetta is in South Asia and the Middle East, also gathering information regarding next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The new US strategy for Afghanistan was expected to be unveiled this week. That has apparently been pushed back to next week.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Washington today.
He and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are meeting about their infrastructure investment group, Building America’s Future.
Schwarzenegger, who just met with President Obama yesterday in Los Angeles, meets with him again today, this time in the Oval Office, accompanied by Bloomberg and Rendell.
Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg, and Rendell then hold a press conference outside the the lobby of the West Wing.
Schwarzenegger addresses the annual Gridiron Dinner of media insiders and various others on Saturday night in Washington.
In a break with tradition, Obama is not attending the Gridiron. It’s his daughters’ spring break, and the family will spend it at Camp David. Which, since it is a 20-minute helicopter ride away, some consider a snub of the old-time media culture represented by the Gridiron.
On Sunday, Schwarzenegger appears on Meet The Press with Bloomberg and Rendell.
** CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES. CNBC can see Russia from its house. It’s just one example of a fin de siecle folly, albeit one of the the most recent and dramatic.
This is clearly end-of-an-era time, but some of the old era standbys haven’t gotten the memo. Or been able to read it. …
** OUR MAN IN KABUL: BACKBITING ON THE EVE OF THE NEW OBAMA STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN. With the Obama Administration’s strategic review of the Afghanistan crisis nearly complete — the report should be out sometime next week — the Afghan government seems pretty unhappy.
And not just about the situation in the country, which is not good, with successful Taliban attacks taking place even in the capital city of Kabul.
The current government, under the Bush/Cheney Administration’s choice for president, Hamid Karzai, seems disgruntled about a likely change in direction under President Barack Obama.
Publicly, Karzai supports Obama. But some of his top officials this week undermined likely key elements in the new strategy. …
** OBAMA’S DARING TOUR D’HORIZON: THE NEW PRESIDENT ENGAGES MULTIPLE CRISES AND PROBES FOR OPPORTUNITY.In the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, President Barack Obama is making major moves elsewhere. That doesn’t mean he’s not focused on the domestic economy; quite the contrary. To follow the conventional media, he’s doing little else. What it does mean is he pursuing a big agenda in geopolitics.
If the economic crisis were not so grave and the conventional media so insular, any one of these moves would be big news. …
** 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 up about $17 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on increased implementation of already agreed upon OPEC production cutbacks to support the price.
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