President Barack Obama held a town hall meeting this afternoon in Los Angeles, saying: “I promise you this, there will be brighter days ahead.”
** THE OBAMA-SCHWARZENEGGER ALLIANCE. The nascent alliance between President Barack Obama and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, discussed on and off for months on NWN and in my columns, was on full display in this afternoon’s presidential town hall meeting in Los Angeles.
After his introduction by LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was not shown on the cable news nets, Schwarzenegger praised the new president as “a fantastic partner” for California who “is our leader in economic recovery.” He described Obama’s economic recovery program as “the greatest package.”
The moderate Republican Schwarzenegger had criticized Obama in his only appearance of the general election campaign with John McCain – the Friday before the election in Columbus, Ohio, site of Schwarzenegger’s annual Arnold Classic sports festival – as “scrawny” and a big taxer.
But as I noted here immediately after, that wasn’t to be taken all that seriously. And the next day, Obama chief strategist David Axelrod, commenting at an appearance in Nevada, was cool with it, saying only this: “We hope to get Governor Schwarzenegger on the basketball court after the election.”
For his part, Obama lauded Schwarzenegger as “a great innovator in state government” and expressed general support for the Schwarzenegger-backed initiatives related to the state budget compromise on the May 19th special election ballot, saying “It’s so important for everybody to get engaged in the various initiatives that are going to be coming up, to make sure – that what you just articulated, to invest in our kids…is reflected in the state budget.”
Obama also praised former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown when he introduced him to the town hall crowd, for “always covering the waterfront on the issues.”
Obama and Schwarzenegger will meet again tomorrow in the Oval Office, when the former action superstar, accompanied by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, goes to Washington to talk up the pro-infrastructure investment group Building America’s Future.
But first, Obama tapes The Tonight Show with Schwarzenegger pal Jay Leno, which airs tonight at 11:35 PM in most time zones.
I’ll have more on all this in my upcoming column on Obama and California.
** A.I.G. AND THE GEITHNER SITUATION.Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner today admitted that his department asked Senator Chris Dodd to insert language in the omnibus economic recovery bill to allow executives of the bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep their “performance” and “retention” bonuses.
Geithner told CNN he was concerned that the administration would be sued if the bonuses – contracted for last year and allowed by the Bush/Cheney Administration when AIG was going down the tubes – were taken away.
Well, better to have a national firestorm of outrage rather than be sued by the very rich executives of the corporate poster child for the failure of the financial system, I suppose.
Geithner and Dodd both showed appalling judgment in this. It will be interesting to see if either survives.
The SCO holds military maneuvers and has been seen at times as a nascent bloc to rival NATO.
The Moscow meeting is a prelude to a U.N.-organized international conference on Afghanistan, co-hosted by the Afghan government and the Netherlands, at the Hague March 31. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend that meeting and there is also expected to be high-level Iranian participation.
President Barack Obama toured an electric car facility this morning in Pomona, California.
** OBAMA’S REMARKS AT THE EDISON ELECTRIC VEHICLE CENTER.
It is good to be back in California. It’s always nice to get out of Washington for a little while and recharge your batteries. You know a little bit about that here. And I want to thank the folks here at the Electric Vehicle Technical Center for the tour we just had.
Yesterday, I was in Costa Mesa talking with folks about this economic downturn we’re in – a downturn that’s hitting this state as much as any. One in ten Californians are out of work and actively looking for jobs. And the foreclosure crisis has had a devastating impact on Southern California in particular. But Californians aren’t just bearing the brunt of this crisis – you’re doing what needs to be done to overcome it.
This workshop is a perfect example of that. Day by day, test by test, trial by painstaking trial; the scientists, engineers, and workers at this site are developing the ideas and innovations that our future depend upon. It is your ingenuity that will help create the new jobs and new industries of tomorrow.
It isn’t easy. There are days, I’m sure, when progress seems fleeting, and days when it feels like you’re making no progress at all. But often, our greatest discoveries are born not in a flash of brilliance, but in the crucible of a deliberate effort over time. And often, they take something more than imagination and dedication alone – often they take an investment from government. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. That’s how we were able to launch a world wide web. And it’s how we’ll build the clean energy economy that’s the key to our competitiveness in the 21st century.
We’ll do this because we know that the nation that leads on energy will be the nation that leads the world in the 21st century. That’s why, around the world, nations are racing to lead in these industries of the future. Germany is leading the world in solar power. Spain generates almost 30 percent of its power by harnessing the wind, while we manage less than one percent. And Japan is producing the batteries that currently power American hybrid cars.
So the problem isn’t a lack of technology. You’re producing the technology right here. The problem is that, for decades, we have avoided doing what must be done as a nation to turn challenge into opportunity. As a consequence, we import more oil today than we did on 9/11. The 1908 Model T earned better gas mileage than a typical SUV sold in 2008. And even as our economy has been transformed by new forms of technology, our electric grid looks largely the same as it did half a century ago.
So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world’s leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that will allow us to become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy. We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stem it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for our lasting prosperity.
That is what my recovery plan does. It will create or save 3.5 million jobs – nearly 400,000 of them right here in California – in part by making investments in areas critical to our long-term growth.
And that is the forward-thinking purpose of the budget I have submitted to Congress. It’s a budget that makes hard choices about where to save and where to spend; that makes overdue investments in education, health care, and yes, energy – investments that will catalyze innovation and industry, creating green jobs and launching clean, renewable energy companies right here in California.
In the next three years, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy. We have also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history – an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in science and technology.
We will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks that are built right here in America.
We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. We will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills, just like you’ve done in California for decades. And we will put one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on America’s roads by 2015.
Because these cars of tomorrow require the batteries of tomorrow, I am announcing that the Department of Energy is launching a $2 billion competitive grant program under the Recovery Act that will spark the manufacturing of the batteries and parts that run these cars, build or upgrade the factories that will produce them, and in the process, create thousands of jobs right here in America.
Show us that your idea or your company is best-suited to meet America’s challenges, and we will give you a chance to prove it. And just because I’m here today doesn’t exempt all of you from that challenge – every company that wants a shot at these tax dollars has to prove their worth.
We are also making a $400 million down-payment on the infrastructure necessary to get these cars on the road; and because these cars won’t leave the showroom unless consumers buy them, the Recovery Act includes a new tax credit of $7,500 to encourage Americans to plug one in at home.
True to form, California has already forged ahead with its own plans rather than wait for Washington. It’s fitting that the state home to the first freeway and the first gas station is already at work devising the next freeway and the next gas station. This “green freeway” you’re planning with Oregon and Washington would link your states with a network of rest stops that allow you to do more than just grab a cup of coffee; but also charge your car, refuel it with hydrogen or biofuels, or swap out a battery in the time it takes to fill a gas tank. Charging stations have begun to pop up around downtown San Francisco, and that city has joined with San Jose and Oakland with the vision of becoming the “electric vehicle capital of the United States.”
Here at Southern California Edison, and all across the country, in factories and laboratories, at the Big Three and at small startups, these innovations are taking place right now. In Michigan, and Ohio, and right here in California, we are seeing exciting developments in this field as hardworking men and women are already laying the groundwork for this new industry. Even as our American automakers are undergoing a painful recalibration, they are retooling and reimagining themselves into an industry that can compete and win, because millions of jobs depend on it.
This is the critical work you’re doing. But it’s just one component of what must be a comprehensive energy plan. That’s why we are making an $11 billion investment in upgrading our power grid, so that it can carry renewable energy from the far-flung places that harness or produce it to the cities that use it. That’s why we will create jobs retrofitting millions of homes and cutting energy use in federal buildings by one quarter, saving the American taxpayer $1.5 billion each year.
These are challenging times, but we know we can do this. It won’t come without cost, nor will it be easy. We’ve got 240 million cars already on the road. We’ve got to upgrade the world’s largest energy grid while it’s already in use. And other countries aren’t standing around and waiting for us; they are forging ahead with their own bold energy plans.
But we have faced tough challenges before. And at our best, we have never relied on hope and chance alone. Time and again, we have tapped those great American resources: industriousness and ingenuity. That, after all, is what California is all about. This is a state that has always drawn people who’ve had their eyes set on the horizon; who’ve always dreamed of a future that others thought beyond reach. That is the spirit that you are reclaiming here at the Electric Vehicle Test Center, and that is the spirit we need to reclaim all across this country. Thank you.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA AND CALIFORNIA.
** LABOR ALLIANCE BACKS CALIFORNIA SPECIAL ELECTIONS INITIATIVES. A big chunk of organized labor in California has just come out for the six state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot. The state Building and Construction Trades Council, joining forces with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Senate Democratic leader Darrell Steinberg, has endorsed all of the measures. The Council co-sponsored, with the California Labor Federation, the annual labor legislative conference at the beginning of the week in Sacramento at which new US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis spoke.
In a statement, Council president Bob Balgenorth said: “California’s budget crisis nearly shut down infrastructure projects across the state last month. That would have been devastating to the men and women who depend on those projects to feed their families. It is time to change the budget system to make sure we never get into a situation like that again. We ask voters to join us in supporting these measures so that important public services and public works projects that keep every day Californians on the job are put on solid ground and not threatened by the annual budget battle in Sacramento.”
** GALLUP POLL: ECONOMIC GROWTH TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION. For the first time in the 25 years of asking the question, the new Gallup Poll shows a majority of Americans ranking economic growth over environmental protection.
Economic growth now outranks environmental protection by a margin of 51% to 42%. This is hardly a surprise. And it’s one reason why you’re hearing even more about green jobs now. Though, to be fair, that was always a key component of the Obama message. In fact, I can remember back to the Brown Administration and the SolarCal “Jobs From the Sun” report.
Gallup first asked Americans about this trade-off in 1984, at which time over 60% chose the environmental option. Support for the environment was particularly high in 1990-1991, and in the late 1990s and 2000, when the dot-com boom perhaps made economic growth more of a foregone conclusion.
The percentage of Americans choosing the environment slipped below 50% in 2003 and 2004, but was still higher than the percentage choosing the economy. Sentiments have moved up and down over the last several years, but this year, the percentage of Americans choosing the environment fell all the way to 42%, while the percentage choosing the economy jumped to 51%.
The reason for this shift in priorities almost certainly has to do with the current economic recession. The findings reflect many recent Gallup results showing how primary the economy is in Americans’ minds, and help document the fact of life that in times of economic stress, the public can be persuaded to put off or ignore environmental concerns if need be in order to rejuvenate the economy.
President Barack Obama held a large town hall meeting late yesterday afternoon in the historically Republican stronghold of Orange County, California.
** MARCH MADNESS: THE OBAMA BRACKETS. President Barack Obama revealed to ESPN his picks in the NCAA basketball tournament. Though he is in California now, he picks USC, UCLA, and Cal all to fall in the first round. Cal State Northridge, too. In fact, he sees little hope for any of the Pacific 10 Conference teams. Surprise conference champ USC is going out in the first round, in the Obama view, and the team that gets the furthest, Washington, falls out in the second round. Who wins it all? North Carolina. Coincidentally, a red state that Obama took away from the Republicans in November …
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in California today.
Obama flew to California yesterday afternoon, holding a town hall with 1500 people (and no screened questioners) at the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, heart of the state’s Republican stronghold and once known as “Reagan Country.” Many thousands more lined up for hours trying to get in.
Obama is receiving uniformly high marks for his performance.
After the town hall, Obama held various private meetings with ranking California political figures and spent the night in Los Angeles at the Century Plaza Hotel.
This morning, he has his daily intelligence briefing and at 10:30 AM Pacific tours the Edison Electric Vehicle Technical Center Garage of the Future in out in Pomona. Which is near where he spent his first two years in college, Occidental College. He transferred from Occidental to Columbia University.
Obama delivers remarks at the electric car facility at about 10:45 AM Pacific, focusing on green jobs as a key driver of a revitalized and transformed US economy.
At 1:10 PM Pacific, Obama holds a town hall at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center in Los Angeles. The center was named for the late LA County Labor Federation chief Miguel Contreras.
Obama will be joined there by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, First Lady Maria Shriver, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, amongst other notables.
Schwarzenegger will speak at the Obama town hall and introduce the president.
At 4:20 PM Pacific, Obama tapes The Tonight Show with Schwarzenegger pal Jay Leno at the Burbank Studio. Schwarzenegger, as you recall, announced his “surprise” candidacy for governor of California on the show.
Obama is the first president to appear on The Tonight Show, and only the second to appear on a late night talk show. The first to do so was John F. Kennedy, who went on with interviewer Jack Paar.
The Tonight Show airs in all markets, regardless of time zone, at 11:35 PM.
Obama will be monitoring the firestorm of controversy around the AIG executive bonuses. Senator Chris Dodd, after first denying it, acknowledged yesterday that he weakened language in the economic recovery bill to deny the bonuses, which had been contractually agreed to last year. But he says that unnamed Treasury Department officials got him to make the move, supposedly to avoid legal problems.
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.
In other action, Vice President Joe Biden holds a Middle Class Task Force town hall meeting in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and First Lady Michelle Obama holds a roundtable discussion at Anacostia High School in Washington, D.C.
Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have tapped Bay Area Congresswoman Tauscher – head of the moderate House New Democrats caucus – to be undersecretary of state for arms control. Assuming Tauscher’s confirmation, this will kick off a scramble for her congressional seat amongst a few Democratic state legislators. It’s a safe Democratic seat.
The Obama Administration is looking at expanding the covert aerial drone war against Taliban and Al Qaeda cadre inside Pakistan.
Britain’s foreign minister and defense minister have in Washington meeting with top officials about the Afghanistan strategy review.
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: SCHWARZENEGGER AND OBAMA AT L.A. TOWN HALL TODAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today with President Barack Obama.
Schwarzenegger will appear with Obama when he introduces the president at his town hall meeting there. First Lady Maria Shriver, who endorsed Obama during the primaries, will also be participating.
It will also be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
Schwarzenegger flies to Washington after the Obama town hall. On Friday, he meets in the Oval Office with Obama. He will be joined in that meeting by the other leaders of Building for America’s Future, a pro-infrastructure investment group, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.
On Saturday night, Schwarzenegger addresses the annual Gridiron Dinner of Washington media insiders and various others. 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.
Schwarzenegger has appointed moderate conservative former Republican Assemblyman Fred Aguiar to his Cabinet as the new state secretary for consumer affairs. Aguiar, who held the office previously, replaces Rosario Marin, forced to resign after it became known that she had taken big speaking fees from corporations her agency regulates.
** 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.
President Barack Obama discussed the AIG executive bonus scandal on the White House lawn before flying to California.
** WHOOPS! DODD ADMITS THAT HE INSERTED THE LOOPHOLE IN THE A.I.G. BAILOUT PACKAGE ALLOWING THE EXECUTIVE BONUS SCANDAL, AFTER DENYING IT YESTERDAY. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, admitted to CNN today that he was responsible for adding the bonus loophole into the stimulus package that permitted AIG and other companies that received bailout funds to pay bonuses.
Dodd denied doing this only yesterday.
Did Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner push for this?
Meanwhile, it turns out that the Federal Reserve knew about these bonuses from the beginning. And even bigger revelations regarding bonuses paid out by Bank of America and Merrill Lynch may be coming down the pike.
** NEW CALIFORNIA VOTER REGISTRATION NUMBERS: DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENTS CONTINUE TO GROW, REPUBLICANS CONTINUE TO DECLINE. With President Barack Obama making his first trip today to the Golden State since his inauguration, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has just released new voter registration figures for the state. They show a growing Democratic edge in the state, a lynchpin of the Democratic electoral base in presidential politics.
Two years ago, Democrats were 42.52% of the California electorate. Now Democrats are 44.52% of the electorate.
Two years ago, Republicans were 34.19% of the electorate. Now they are 31.14%.
Two years ago, decline to state were 18.83%. Now they are 19.99%. And two years ago, American Independents, by far the largest of the minor parties, were 2%. Now they are 2.17%.
I mention the American Independent registration because most people don’t know that they are a right-wing party. Such as Jennifer Siebel, wife of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who registered as an American Independent because she thought it meant “independent.” The new Mrs. Newsom re-registered as decline to state. Though presumably she is now a Democrat, since Newsom is a Democratic gubernatorial hopeful.
Putting these numbers together, we see that Democrats are 44.52%, up 2% in the last two years. Independents are 22.16%, up 1.33% in the last two years. And Republicans are 31.14%, down 3.05% in the last two years.
The basic competitive positioning for a Democrat in California is pretty clearcut. Hold and turn out the Democratic base, appeal to the center, and deny centrist positioning to the Republican.
Admiral James Stavridis, currently head of Southern Command, is getting the nod for the NATO post. Admiral Mike Mullen is getting the nod for retention in another two-year term as JCS chairman.
The choice of Stavridis, who would be the Navy admiral to command NATO, seems on the surface to be a bit of a surprise, given that NATO is being asked to step up its involvement in a land war in Afghanistan. But naval officers generally have experience with combined force operations, working closely with the Marine Corps and their own air wings. And Stavridis has extensive experience working with civil authorities in various countries.
Mullen, a native Californian (from LA), has shown flexibility in supporting the new Iraq withdrawal strategy and in acknowledging the deep problems in Afghanistan. He’s worked well with Gates, the only holdover from the Bush Cabinet.
** NEW GALLUP POLL: AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY WANT A.I.G. EXECUTIVE BONUS MONEY RETURNED.The new Gallup poll shows, not surprisingly, that an overwhelming majority of Americans want the massive bonuses paid out to executives of the publicly bailed-out insurance giant returned.
76% want the bonus money back. AIG is now 80% owned by the US government. Only 17% say that government should not intervene to recover the performance bonuses.
Incidentally, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh is part of that 17%.
** NEW GALLUP POLL: DOUBT GROWS ABOUT AFGHAN WAR. On the eve of completion of the new Afghanistan strategy review, a new Gallup poll finds a record level of doubt about the US intervention in Afghanistan.
Forty-two percent of Americans now say the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Afghanistan, up from 30% earlier this year and establishing a new high. Meanwhile, the 53% who say the Iraq war is a mistake is down slightly from 56% in January, and 60% last summer. …
Now, just 38% of Americans say things are going well for the United States in Afghanistan. That is down from 44% in January and is the lowest Gallup has found since it first asked this question in September 2006. …
It is important to point out that even as American support for the Afghanistan war is declining, and even as Americans perceive greater progress in Iraq than in Afghanistan, public support for the war in Afghanistan is still higher than for the Iraq war.
Americans have been supportive of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan since they were launched in October 2001 in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In contrast, the Iraq war began with limited international backing and with most Democratic members of Congress — including many who authorized military action in Iraq — quickly coming to oppose the war.
** OBAMA MOSCOW SUMMIT IN JULY? BAKER AND KISSINGER HEAD TO MOSCOW ON HEELS OF HART VISIT.President Barack Obama may travel to Moscow in July for a summit with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Henry Kissinger are heading to Moscow for talks with top Russian officials. Kissinger was there in December, unofficially sounding out the Russian leadership on behalf of then President-elect Barack Obama.
These further unofficial diplomatic moves come on the heels of last week’s meeting of former Senator Gary Hart and Medvedev in the Kremlin. Hart had this to say on Monday when a bipartisan commission he co-chairs with former Senator Chuck Hagel presented a report on how to improve US/Russia relations.
“The reception we received in Moscow was very, very positive. This was a much, much different kind of exchange, in my experience anyway over 35 years, from what we used to have in the bad, old days.”
** OBAMA TRIES TO GET OUT FRONT ON A.I.G. BY DECRYING THE MONEY CULTURE. President Barack Obama, just before leaving for California, made some remarks on the White House lawn and took questions from the press, almost all of it about the AIG executive bonus scandal.
He said he wants another agency along the lines of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has authority over banks, to regulate other financial institutions such as the insurance giant AIG.
The new administration has been caught rather flat-footed by the AIG executive bonus scandal. Obama said he doesn’t want to quell popular anger about it, but channel it into making needed changes.
The new president said that the culture which gave rise to the excesses and disastrous decisions at AIG and other Wall Street institutions has to be changed. This includes an end to the excessive compensation that has marked recent eras on Wall Street.
At the same time, he defended Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, again saying he has full confidence in him, saying he is working harder than anyone.
“Only Alexander Hamilton, right after the Revolutionary War, had more challenges as treasury secretary than Tim Geithner has now,” Obama said in answer to a question about Geithner’s continued tenure. Obama shook hands with Geithner just before getting on Marine One for the short flight to Andrews Air Force Base, where Obama boarded Air Force One for the flight to California.
Tonight’s town hall in Orange County will be Obama’s first encounter with voters since the AIG scandal broke. It will be aired live on the cable news nets at 7 PM Pacific.
AIG chief Edward Liddy, appointed after the Bush/Cheney Administration bailed out the insurance giant last year, is on Capitol Hill today trying to explain those massive executive bonuses that have sparked widespread outrage.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a travel day that ends in California.
After he and Vice President Joe Biden get the daily intelligence and economy briefings and meet with senior advisors, Obama meets with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the State Dining Room.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, he delivers remarks on the South Lawn of the White House. He then leaves for Andrews Air Force Base and takes off on Air Force One to California.
At 4 PM Pacific, Obama holds a town hall at the Orange County Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa.
In other action, former Washington Governor Gary Locke has his confirmation hearing to be secretary of commerce.
And Britain’s foreign minister and defense minister are in Washington meeting with top officials about the Afghanistan strategy review, which is expected any day now.
Meanwhile, CIA Director Leon Panetta is in South Asia and the Middle East.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Merced (“gateway to Yosemite”) in the Central Valley today where he joins California Department of Transportation Director Will Kempton and local officials for a press conference to highlight the 57 infrastructure projects first in line to receive Obama economic recovery funding in California.
Totaling $625 million in funding, these projects were voted on and announced last week by the California Transportation Commission, and will go to bid pending final approval by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Schwarzenegger will appear with President Barack Obama tomorrow in Los Angeles when he introduces the president at his town hall meeting there. First Lady Maria Shriver, who endorsed Obama during the primaries, will also be participating.
Schwarzenegger flies to Washington after the Obama town hall. On Friday, he meets in the Oval Office with Obama. He will be joined in that meeting by the other leaders of Building for America’s Future, a pro-infrastructure investment group, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.
On Saturday night, Schwarzenegger addresses the annual Gridiron Dinner of Washington media insiders and various others.
The last issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer hit the streets yesterday. The late newspaper will try to carry on as an Internet publication, with a staff a small fraction of its former size.The P-I is the second major newspaper in as many months to go down.
** 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 $14 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on implementation of production cutbacks to support the price.
On this St. Patrick’s Day, President Barack O’Bama named Dan Rooney, owner of the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, as the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.
** CALIFORNIA 2010. So President Barack Obama arrives tomorrow in Southern California for events on Wednesday and Thursday. The schedule has been, as the saying goes, somewhat in flux, but he has a town hall in Orange County on Wednesday and a town hall in LA on Thursday. Along with a Thursday night appearance on The Tonight Show, hosted by noted Schwarzenegger pal Jay Leno.
Most of the Democrats trying to run or thinking of runnng for governor were prominent supporters of Obama’s bitter rival, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Of the Democrats who are most likely to run, and not all of them will, only former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown – who beat Bill Clinton in a half-dozen presidential primaries in 1992 – did not back Obama’s opponent. Brown was formally neutral in the race, though members of his family backed Obama. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was a national chair of the Hillary Clinton campaign, while San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was a national co-chair of the Hillary campaign. Both campaigned extensively for her in other states, and leveled attacks against the new president. Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi was a state co-chair of the Hillary campaign.
You notice I’m not mentioning Senator Dianne Feinstein. NWN took the position, based on long experience with her in these potential gubernatorial races – most notably 2003 and 1998 – that she will not run. Her long-planned ascension to the chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which I’ve discussed in my columns, makes it even more unlikely that she will run. You do not take on that post, one of the most sensitive and influential in the world, then drift off to run for governor thousands of miles away.
A new blog, CalBuzz.com, run by two old journalistic colleagues of mine, makes the case in detail as to why Feinstein won’t run. Former San Francisco Chronicle managing editor and political editor Jerry Roberts (he made me a regular on the Chron’s op-ed page in the ’90s) and former San Jose Mercury-News political editor Phil Trounstine (he was one of two political writers, the other being me, to pick Gray Davis early as the next governor) have covered Feinstein for decades. Roberts even wrote a biography of Feinstein. They are absolutely convinced she will not run.
Roberts, incidentally, was in line to be the editor of the Chronicle but did not get the post after Hearst Corp. bought the paper and installed the then Mr. Sharon Stone Phil Bronstein, then also editor of the San Francisco Examiner. The Chronicle was on a better trajectory before the Hearst takeover. He became editor of the fine Santa Barbara newspaper, whose super-rich proprietor then proceeded to go nuts. Now he’s with UC Santa Barbara.
Trounstine became Governor Davis’s communications director, then went on to run the poll at San Jose State University while that was in operation.
I’ll have another California 2010 feature tomorrow, discussing – amongst other things – Republican hopeful Meg Whitman’s moves (and Fortune cover story) and Newsom’s spate of town halls this week. He has one tonight in Santa Monica.
It’s not a particularly exciting campaign, but we’ll make do.
AIG’s assertion that it had no choice but to make multi-million dollar bonus payments was undercut this afternoon by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who revealed new details about the now-infamous pay packages. Cuomo reveals that 73 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more, with one recipient getting a bonus of more than $6.4 million.
According to Bloomberg News, AIG has “also budgeted $57 million in “retention” pay for employees who will be dismissed, according to a March 2 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission.”
With Funes’ election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980′s. We will now coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our national security. Those we branded as “international terrorists” now democratically govern much of Central America.
** IRISH EYES ARE SMILING IN PITTSBURGH. President Barack Obama today, on this St. Patrick’s Day, appointed longtime Pittsburgh Steelers owner and franchise chairman Dan Rooney as the US Ambassador to Ireland. The Rooneys have been an institution in Pittsburgh and Western Pennslvania for decades.
Obama became close to the Rooney family during the campaign, when Dan Rooney and the rest went to steel mills and communities up and down Pennsylvania, and star Steelers players appeared frequently with the then Illinois senator as he sought to lock down the Keystone State. Which many had said he could not after the “Bittergate” controversy.
I don’t believe the Super Bowl champion Steelers have visted the White House yet …
In the wake of 9/11, Silver transformed himself from a liberal darling to a libertarian antagonist. Ron’s was a mind that was always seeking, no matter what the cost to his career or social status. …
Our political culture has become so hyperactive that it is almost impossible to joke about the way that speed kills serious thought. Cable-television news is so opinionated and so unreflective that it has proven far more likely to rot your brain than traditional risky behavior like masturbation. The Politico routinely ballyhoos micro-scoops like this one from last Friday: “Dee Dee Myers was at the W.H. meeting with Ellen Moran and David Axelrod. ‘The rest is top secret,’ she told POLITICO 44.” (What a shocker: a Bill Clinton press secretary consulting with the Obama communications team.) …
Now that we have created this 86,400-seconds-a-day expectation of instant political news, it is virtually impossible to return to prior laid-back ways of thinking about Washington. The problem, of course, is that successful governing requires far more than merely winning a particular morning’s news cycle. But our foreshortened attention span gets in the way of long-term perspective. As a result, it is easy to get caught up in the fiction that the fate of Obama’s presidency rides with the short-term direction of the stock market, the cleverness of Robert Gibbs’ putdowns of Dick Cheney, or even the pace of appointments to the sub-Cabinet.
This is not a problem at NWN. I have very good tech and fast information flows. But there is a reason why I wrote a column called “The Trouble With Twitter,” linked to below …
President Barack Obama this morning called for passage of his budget, saying it will “spark the transformation” needed to keep America economically competitive and avoid going back to “a bubble economy.”
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack O’Bama has a bit of an Irish cast to his day on this St. Patrick’s Day. First Lady Michelle Obama ordered the water in the White House fountain dyed green. (It’s a Chicago thing, they dye the river there for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Or at least they did in The Fugitive …)
After making remarks this morning on the economic crisis, Obama attends a shamrock ceremony with the Taoiseach of Ireland in the Roosevelt Room.
He then meets with Northern Ireland officials in the office of the National Security Advisor General Jim Jones. There has been a recent spate of separatist violence in Northern Ireland.
Obama then delivers remarks at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s St. Patrick’s Day Lunch in the Rayburn Room on Capitol Hill.
Late this afternoon, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with Defense Secretary Bob Gates in the Oval Office. Tops on the agenda? The forthcoming Afghanistan strategy review, which of course will be extensively covered on NWN and in my column.
Also on deck, the ongoing crisis in Pakistan, which eased somewhat when the Pakistani government released the nation’s chief justice, arrested two years ago by General Musharaff’s regime. This led to a big protest march across the country on the capital being called off as it was about to culminate. But the deeper problems remain.
This evening, Obama delivers remarks at two St. Patrick’s Day receptions in the White House, the first in the East Room, the second in the State Dining Room.
Obama will be in California on Wednesday and Thursday.
Among other things, he will hold town halls in Orange County and LA and will tour an electric car facility.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings in and around the Capitol today, focused on the state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot and this week’s visit to California by President Barack Obama.
He has no scheduled public events.
Yesterday afternoon, at the event described in the morning at which he, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums toured a solar installer training program at American River College — following a private meeting with Labor Secretary Hilda Solis – he launched the California Green Corps. This will tie in to President Obama’s visit this week.
** 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. …
The long sought reinstatement of Pakistan’s chief justice eases the latest political crisis in America’s putative frontline ally in the Terror War, but may have little long-term positive impact on the worsening and interrelated situations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
** 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 $15 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on implementation of production cutbacks to support the price.
President Barack Obama came out hard today against $165 million in new performance bonuses for executives of the publicly bailed-out insurance giant AIG.
** 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. …
** IS WATCHMEN THE NEXT COMIC BOOK MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER? UM, NO. After a big $55.2 million opening weekend, Watchmen dropped 68% in its second weekend to $17.8 million. That’s still a lot, and the movie will end up a hit with significantly more than $100 million in domestic box office. But it’s nowhere near Iron Man‘s $300 million territory, much less the stratospheric $530-plus million heights of The DarkKnight.
The seeds of its relative disappointment were discussed in last week’s column, linked to below. Too dark, too violent, too obscure, too complicated. But an interesting movie nonetheless. It may end up as this generation’s Blade Runner.
** RON SILVER, R.I.P. One of the more interesting characters to emerge from the intersection of Hollywood and politics is Ron Silver. The veteran character actor always best at playing intelligent characters, a very bright and talented guy perhaps best known for his Emmy-nominated turn as hardball political strategist Bruno Gianelli (something of a stand-in for Dick Morris) on The West Wing, was leader of the Creative Coalition during the 1990s. A liberal who I always thought had the makings of a hawk within, always fun and interesting to talk with, he became a hawk for real as one of the “9/11 Democrats” who embraced President Bush and Vice President Cheney in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America.
Silver went whole hog, embracing neoconservative doctrine and addressing the 2004 Republican National Convention. Only to turn back a bit last year, as a radio host and blogger, with the failures of the Bush/Cheney Administration becoming evident. Silver did not become an Obama hater, as many of his increasingly hysterical compadres did.
Ron Silver died yesterday in New York, some two years after his diagnosis with cancer of the esophagus. He was a gentleman and an always interesting fellow, who carried on bravely in the face of his terminal condition and who deserves more than this item.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CNBC CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM ITS HOUSE, AND OTHER FIN DE SIECLE FOLLIES.
** NEWSPAPERS: ANOTHER BIG ONE GOES DOWN. Last month’s demise of the Rocky Mountain News, which covered Colorado since before it before it became a state, has today been matched by the end of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper.
The Hearst Corp., which threatens to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle if enough costs can’t be slashed, today announced that tomorrow will be the last print edition of a newspaper that chronicled the doings of Seattle since the days when miners partied in the bars along the city’s dirt streets before heading up to seek their fortunes in Alaska’s gold rush.
The publication will attempt to continue as an Internet outlet. But there will be nowhere near enough revenue to sustain anything like the current staff. This move leaves the Seattle Times as the sole remaining daily newspaper in the biggest city in the Pacific Northwest, just as the Rocky’s demise left the Denver Post alone in the capital of the Mountain West.
This is the biggest single fundraiser for the party’s candidates for US Senate and House of Representatives. And a good way for the Democrats to tie Palin’s politics into all recipients of the campaign committee funds.
But it does show how enduring a hold Palin and the party’s right-wing base have on the national Republican apparatus.
In early soundings for the 2012 Republican presidential race, Palin is generally neck and neck with former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
** OBAMA COMES OUT HARD AGAINST A.I.G. BONUSES. At a White House event touting major new support for small businesses, President Barack Obama sought first to get out in front of popular outrage about the massive new performance bonuses that the bailed-out insurance giant American International Group is handing to its executives.
Here are excerpts from his remarks: But before I talk about the new steps we’re taking to get credit flowing to small businesses across our country, I want to comment on the news about executive bonuses at AIG. This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.
Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?
In the last six months, AIG has received substantial sums from the US Treasury. I’ve asked Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole. I know he’s working to resolve this matter with the new CEO, Edward Liddy, who came on board after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to last year.
This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s about our fundamental values. All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses. And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules. That is an ethic we must demand.
What this situation also underscores is the need for overall financial regulatory reform, so we don’t find ourselves in this position again, and for some form of resolution mechanism in dealing with troubled financial institutions, so we have greater authority to protect the American taxpayer and our financial system in cases such as this. We will work with Congress to that end.
Pakistan is in turmoil due to deepening political protests and Islamic jihadist insurgency.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
A busy week on tap in presidential politics and California politics, which become joined this week.
President Barack Obama will be in California on Wednesday and Thursday, as first reported last week on NWN. This will be his first visit to the Golden State since his election and his first visit to a traditionally blue state in presidential politics since his inauguration. All his previous trips outside the White House, aside from going back to home state Illinois, have been to red states that he took away from the Republicans last November.
Obama carried California in November, 61% to 37% over Republican John McCain.
Obama will appear Thursday night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I think this is the first time that a sitting president of the United States has done this.
It’s not all pleasant for Obama this week.
He and his administration must deal with the firestorm of controversy erupting around the government bailout of insurance giant American International Group. AIG has received more than $170 billion in federal bailout funds after it was mismanaged into near oblivion. As a result, AIG is 80% owned by the government. It was revealed over the weekend that AIG is paying out another $165 million in performance bonuses to its executives, which are supposedly contractually obligated despite the terrible performance.
It’s also been revealed that much of the government bailout money went to big banks, many of them foreign. This is going to be highly controversial all week.
The White House, having succeeded in its pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey strategy of identifying right-wing radio host as the most prominent face of the Republican Party, is now ramping up a major effort to mobilize grassroots support for Obama’s programs and to tag the Republicans as the Party of No.
Obama will need to monitor closely this week’s OPEC meeting. The OIl Producing and Exporting Countries are not likely to impose new production cuts to drive up the price. Instead, OPEC will try to enforce existing production cuts.
Obama is also putting the finishing touches on his Afghan strategy review. The new policy for Afghanistan is expected to come out this week. Since this is becoming the principal war of the Obama era, we’ll be continuing to pay a lot of attention to this.
Pakistan, the only Islamic nuclear power and America’s long-time frontline ally in the Terror War, continues to unravel, both in Islamic jihadist insurgency and in factional fighting between the new goverment and reformers. A big protest march, which has been harassed by the security forces, is culminating. In one sign of compromise, the government is at last releasing the nation’s supreme court chief justice, imprisoned back when General Musharaff ran the country.
China is still protesting against the US Navy’s surveillance of its new submarine tests in the South China Sea. The surveillance takes place in international waters. After a confrontation the weekend before last, Obama has ordered Navy destroyers into the area to protect the surveillance operation.
The Obama Administration is monitoring moves being made by potential ally Russia around Afghanistan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in Afghanistan now assessing the situation and meeting with various Afghan leaders. Russia and its Central Asian allies are assisting the US supply effort for the Afghan War, though Russia says it will not send troops to Afghanistan to fight alongside the American and NATO forces.
Israel is becoming more of a problem for the Obama Administration with the apparent failure of efforts by former Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and his conservative Likud party to form a national unity government weeks after the national elections. Netanyahu is having to turn to far right leader Avigdor Lieberman, leader of an anti-Arab party, and other smaller right-wing parties to forge a right-wing coalition government. Lieberman is looking like the next Israeli foreign minister, something already causing consternation in Arab circles.
Back in California, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, despite problematic polls and lagging fundraising, is accelerating his exploratory efforts around the Democratic gubernatorial nomination by holding four town hall meetings around the state this week. (I’ve already attended one of his town halls and filmed it in its entirety.) The San Francisco Chronicle ran a big story Sunday about Newsom’s frequent absence from city business in the midst of a grave budget crisis. Newsom has spent more than nine months outside of California since 2004, and is more of a regular at the annual Davos conference than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, another Democratic hopeful, addresses a large protest rally today outside the Capitol of community college students opposed to state cutbacks.
Republican hopeful Meg Whitman is speaking to party groups around the state. The ex-eBay CEO, a top official in Mitt Romney and John McCain’s presidential campaigns, is on the cover of Fortune magazine in a story which holds mixed tidings for her.
Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, another Republican hopeful, is trying to gain attention by engaging Democratic frontrunner Jerry Brown around the special election initiatives.
As for Brown himself, the former governor-turned-attorney general had some pithy remarks about Whitman in the Fortune piece, but is otherwise laying low and focusing on his job as the state’s chief law enforcement officer while he continues to raise money. Laying low, that is, except for Friday’s extravaganza filing charges in the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
I’ll write more about this in the recurring “California 2010″ feature.
Meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continues laying plans and raising funds for the May 19th special election initiatives tied to the state budget compromise. It’s apparent from last week’s Legislative Analyst Office report, discussed previously on NWN, that defeat of the initiatives will create an incredible problem for the state.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama focuses largely on the economy today.
After he and Vice President Joe Biden receive the daily intelligence and economic briefings, Obama meets with senior advisors.
Then he and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner address small business owners and community lenders in the East Room of the White House. Obama will announce a package of $15 billion dollars in small business support.
In the afternoon, Obama, continuing his tour of Cabinet departments, speaks at the Departmen of Veterans Affairs.
Biden speaks to the firefighters union annual legislative conference.
Obama will also be going over the Afghanistan strategy review, which will be released this week.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is back from Britain where attended the G-20 (group of 20 leading economies) finance ministers meeting. This is preparatory to next month’s G-20 summit in London.
Geithner attempted to persuade European allies to spend more money on economic stimulus, but encountered resistance. He was more successful in getting new funding for the International Monetary Fund, needed to shore up developing nations swamped by the global economic crisis.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings in and around the Capitol today, focused on the state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot and this week’s visit to California by President Barack Obama.
This afternoon, Schwarzenegger meets with new US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, the former Los Angeles congresswoman. Solis is in town to address the annual state labor legislative conference, hosted by the California Labor Federation and the state Building Trades Council.
Following his meeting with Solis, Schwarzenegger joins Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and officials from American River College to tour a class where students are participating in the American River College Solar Installer Certificate Program. This is one example of how California can use Obama’s economic recovery program funds to promote green jobs.
Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference following the tour.
The space shuttle Discovery launched last night after more than a month of delays. After the craft docks at the International Space Station, the astronauts will install the final set of solar wings for the station, which are now on board Discovery.
** 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 $12 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on some production cutbacks to support the price.
An audio tape attributed to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, released to Al Jazeera, says that Arab leaders “colluded with the Crusader/Zionist alliance” and “plotted with Israel” in the recent Gaza conflict.
** HUGE A.I.G. BONUSES LEAD TO WIDESPREAD DENUNCIATIONS. The revelation that the insurance giant American International Group – which has received an amazing $170 billion in US government bailout funds – is paying performance bonuses to executives totaling $165 million led this weekend to denunciations from most of the political spectrum, including even some Republicans.
AIG is not disclosing much about what it has done with the federal bailout money. More about this during the week …
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama meets with top economic advisors today in the Oval Office.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had mixed results this weekend meeting with G-20 (group of 20 advanced economies) finance ministers in the UK.
Other nations are stepping up to provide major new funding for the International Monetary Fund needed to stabilize developing nations, whose systems could come undone with the global recession. But the Obama Administration’s request that European nations provide 2% of their gross domestic product in new economic stimulus activities has not been accepted.
The European position, broadly speaking, is that they don’t want to increase debt. And that their countries already have a much more extensive social welfare system than the US to cushion their populations from the global recession.
The weekend meeting of finance ministers, of course, was only preparatory to the G-20 summit next month in London. Hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has spoken of a global New Deal, it will be attended by Obama and the other heads of government.
Obama is also going over the forthcoming strategy review on Afghanistan, expected to be issued this week.
And he is closely monitoring the deepening crisis in Pakistan, widely believed to be the current safe haven of Osama bin Laden, who apparently issued the tape which you can play above.
The Pakistani government is clashing not only with a big Islamic jihadist insurgency but now also with secular reformers rooted in the law and other professions and a pragmatic Islamist former prime minister. The latter two forces are spearheading a big protest march.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken repeatedly with both government leaders and protest leaders to try to keep a lid on things.
President Barack Obama discusses new moves on federal safety regulation of the food industry in his weekly video/radio address.
The Trojans are the lowest-seeded team ever to win the Pac-10 tournament, coming in ranked only sixth in the conference. But after upsets of Cal and favored UCLA, they came from 15 points down at the half to beat Arizona State. Now 21-12, the Trojans get the Pac-10′s automatic berth in the NCAA “March Madness” tournament, leaving UCLA and others hoping for a nod from the selection committee.
SUNDAY UPDATE: The Times actually has replaced the AP wire story it had up yesterday – at the same link above – with a new Times staff-written story today. You think they’d at least give the new story its own link.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama receives his daily intelligence briefing, then meets with Brazilian President Lula da Silva in the Oval Office.
Vice President Joe Biden is in LIttle Rock, Arkansas for the re-election campaign kick-off event for US Senator Blanche Lincoln.
Obama will also be going over the Afghanistan strategy review, which will probably be released next week.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in London for the G-20 (group of 20 leading economies) finance ministers meeting. This is preparatory to next month’s G-20 summit in London.
Geithner is attempting to persuade European allies to spend more money on economic stimulus, but is encountering resistance.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles this weekend. He has no public events. He is continuing to build support for the state budget compromise-related initiatives appearing on the May 19th special election ballot.
The California Legislative Analyst Office report discussed yesterday on NWN makes clear that defeat of the initiatives will blow an even bigger hole in a budget that is already taking on water from the deep economic downturn.
It’s not all grim news from Afghanistan. Al Jazeera reports on Afghan fashion designers having their work showcased in London.
** 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 on Friday at $46.25 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $12 a barrel since enactment of the Obama economic recovery program on anticipation of increased economic activity down the line, and on some production cutbacks to support the price.
Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown discussed the prescription drug epidemic and the charges and arrests in the Anna Nicole Smith case this morning in Los Angeles.
** 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. …
** BROWN LAYS OUT ANNA NICOLE SMITH CASE. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, using the case to highlight widespread abuse of prescription drugs, laid out the outlines of the case against three individuals in the 2007 death of Anna Nicole Smith, the former Playboy Playmate of the Year, reality TV star, and tabloid staple in press conference today in Los Angeles.
Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer-turned-boyfriend was the principal enabler in a conspiracy with two doctors to provide the “known addict” thousands of prescription pills in the months before she died of an overdose, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Friday. Howard K. Stern and Drs. Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor were charged by Los Angeles County prosecutors after a two-year probe by the attorney general, state medical and insurance officials and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“What we have in this case is a conspiracy among three individuals,” Brown told a news conference. “Howard K Stern is the principal enabler, and Dr. Eroshevich and Dr. Kapoor are prescribing drugs excessively to a known addict and using false and fictitious names, all in violation of the law and all in furtherance of a conspiracy.”
In addition to conspiracy, the charges filed Thursday include unlawfully prescribing a controlled substance and prescribing, administering or dispensing a controlled substance to an addict. Stern faces six felony counts and the doctors face seven each. Each count carries a potential sentence of three years, Brown said.
Smith’s life had become a tabloid fixture by the time she died Feb. 8, 2007, in Florida. Embroiled in a battle to inherit millions of dollars from her late billionaire husband’s estate, her own son had died shortly after she gave birth to a girl.
Asked what may have been the motive for the alleged conspiracy, Brown suggested the potent allure of wealth and glamour.
“There’s a certain psychic gain here, part of the glitz and the celebrity and the power. There’s a lot of money floating around,” he said. “Is it self-indulgence? Is it some power trip? Is it just getting some contact high off of celebrity? That remains to be seen.”
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … AFGHAN GOVERNMENT UNHAPPY ON EVE OF NEW OBAMA STRATEGY.
** CALIFORNIA LEGISLATIVE ANALYST SAYS DETERIORATING ECONOMY WILL LEAD TO NEW STATE BUDGET DEFICIT.From the report: The budget package of $42 billion in solutions adopted by the Legislature and the Governor in February was an impressive step in addressing the state’s monumental budget shortfall. The budget uses both sides of the ledger—revenue increases and spending reductions—to attack the state’s dire fiscal situation. Unfortunately, the state’s economic and revenue outlook continues to deteriorate. Even in the few weeks since the budget was signed, there have been a series of negative developments. Our updated revenue forecast projects that revenues will fall short of the assumptions in the budget package by $8 billion. Moreover, a number of the adopted solutions—revenue increases and spending reductions—are of a short–term duration. Thus, without corrective actions, the state’s huge operating shortfalls will reappear in future years—growing from $12.6 billion in 2010–11 to $26 billion in 2013–14.
If this is accurate, a state spending limit is imperative, as are adjustments to the tax structure. I would note that the out-year estimates appear not to be based on an economic recovery.
Obama, joined by Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Jim Jones, discussed the many mutual interests of the US and China with the Chinese official but reiterated that the US policy will continue.
** BROWN GOING AFTER PRESCRIPTION DRUG PURVEYORS IN ANNA NICOLE SMITH DEATH. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown is in Los Angeles this morning to discuss the charges against and arrest of three individuals — Howard K. Stern, Doctor Khristine Eroshevich, and Doctor Sandeep Kapoor – who have been charged with conspiring to “repeatedly and excessively” furnish controlled substances to Anna Nicole Smith.
Brown’s Justice Department has been investigating the rampant abuse of prescription drugs for the past year, with a particular focus on the Anna Nicole Smith case.
Smith, the former Playboy Playmate of the Year, reality TV star, and tabloid staple, died of combined drug intoxication in 2007.
Said Brown in a statement: “These individuals repeatedly and excessively furnished thousands of prescription pills to Anna Nicole Smith, often for no legitimate medical purpose. There is ample evidence that Dr. Eroshevich and Dr. Kapoor violated their ethical obligations as physicians, while Mr. Stern funneled highly addictive drugs to Ms. Smith.”
Stern was Smith’s lawyer and boyfriend.
CNBC can see Russia from its house. Jon Stewart took down Jim Cramer and his financial news network colleagues last night on The Daily Show.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama continues his economic focus today. After his daily intelligence briefing and meetings with senior advisors, he confers with Economic Recovery Advisory Board Chairman Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chief, in the Roosevelt Room.
Obama will then deliver some remarks on the economic crisis in the Oval Office.
Vice President Joe Biden then announces funding for Amtrak at Union Station as part of the stimulus. Then he and Obama have their weekly luncheon.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is off to London today for the G-20 (group of 20 leading economies) finance ministers meeting. This is preparatory to next month’s G-20 summit in London.
Geithner is attempting to persuade European allies to spend more money on economic stimulus, but is encountering resistance.
Obama will also be going over the Afghanistan strategy review, which may well be released next week.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Aspen, Colorado today.
He is doing some fundraising for the six state budget compromise-related initiatives on California’s May 19th special election ballot.
The International Space Station was evacuated for the first time in history yesterday due to a threat from space debris. Crew members decamped to the docked Russian Soyuz spacecraft until the danger was past.
** 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. …
** WHITHER WATCHMEN? IS THIS BIG, DARK, GEEKY, LEFTY MOVIE THE NEXT COMIC BOOK BLOCKBUSTER?Watchmen is finally here. The legendary cult graphic novel about a group of mostly retired or discredited superheroes in an alternate 1985 America burst onto the screen over the weekend, grossing more than $55 million in domestic box office despite its R-rating and near three hour length. But will it be the next comic book movie blockbuster?
It has a big act to follow in The Dark Knight, the most successful movie of the decade. The latest Batman picture captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Despite an unintentionally amusing effort by a far right writer in the Wall Street Journal to claim that Bruce Wayne/Batman is a stand-in for George W. Bush, it’s actually one of Barack Obama’s favorite movies. He watched it on his Hawaiian vacation in the midst of last year’s campaign.
Watchmen is bigger, darker, and much more brutal and overtly political than Dark Knight. It’s a mostly very faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s legendary ’80s graphic novel. Directed, ironically, by the man who did the neocon fave 300, Zack Snyder, it presents an alternate history America in which costumed vigilantes are real, Richard Nixon is in his fifth term as president, and a very dark and foreboding America is sliding towards a first strike nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Watchmen lays out this alternate America in a stunning opening sequence of flashbacks that presents the mid to late 20th century as a relentless slog of war and murder. Its universe is one of chaos and corruption. If hope is on the menu, it’s in short supply. … From my March 9th column.
** THE TROUBLE WITH TWITTER: WHY “TWEETS” ARE LIKE “BLIPVERTS.” I love technology. I’ve been a BlackBerry person since 2002, a Mac person since the ’80s. Back in the early ’90s, when I was new to the Internet, I once spent 26 hours straight on it. Never did find the end. I’ve blogged walking down the street talking to a candidate. I use a wireless network of laptops, with one or more frequently playing an international news channel.
But early adoption can go down wrong paths. I spent weeks trying to teach a Newton handheld to read my handwriting. The $5,000 I spent for the souped-up version of the PowerBook that saved the planet in Independence Day was not the wisest investment, though mine never caught fire. And there was ISDN, an early high-speed Internet connection. Uh, no, give me back my dial-up!
Which brings us to Twitter. I get news alerts and sitreps, e-mails, memos, and press releases, day and night. I write at any hour. But do I want tiny “tweets,” bitelets of what is arguably information, frequently trivial and not infrequently wrong, demanding my attention at any moment? Do I want to send such stuff out? … From my March 5th 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.
President Barack Obama, christening Abraham Lincoln Hall at the National Defense University today, said that “America’s military dominance will continue.”
** OBAMA, BIDEN, AND JONES MEET WITH CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTER. In the wake of last weekend’s incident in the South China Sea in which five Chinese patrol vessels harassed a US Navy surveillance ship in international waters, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the Oval Office. The minister’s trip to Washington had been scheduled in advance, with a luncheon yesterday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but not the level of White House meetings he received today.
Before meeting with Obama, China’s foreign minister met with National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, former commander of NATO and the US Marine Corps, who focused in on the South China Sea incident.
Obama and Biden raised the naval flap but also focused on other issues of mutual concern.
“The two agreed that China and the U.S. must work closely and urgently, as two of the world’s leading economies, to stabilize the global economy by stimulating demand at home and abroad, and get credit markets flowing,” the White House said in a statement after the meeting.
The US is going to continue its naval surveillance activities in the South China Sea. But both sides have agreed to the diplomatic boilerplate of increased dialogue between the two militaries “in order to avoid future incidents.”
** SCHWARZENEGGER WINS AGAIN ON FURLOUGH POLICY. As expected here, a state Superior Court judge in Sacramento has ruled that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger does have the authority to order furloughs of state workers employed by the various constitutional elected officials.
This follows on the heels of earlier rulings that Schwarzenegger does in fact have the authority to order furloughs of all other state employees, and that he has the authority to order that all state employees be paid minimum wage in time of fiscal emergency.
State Controller John Chiang and public employee unions have unsuccessfully fought in court against all those powers of California’s governorship. Chiang also said that his office was unable to reprogram state computers to reflect the lower rate of pay.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S COMMONWEALTH CLUB APPEARANCE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made a spirited noontime appearance at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to lay out his case for the six state budget compromise-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot.
From his remarks: Back when I was running, I wouldn’t sign a pledge against taxes because I didn’t want to be constrained if there were a disaster, like an earthquake. In a way, the disaster happened. The State of California faced insolvency.
In a way, the combination of California’s revenue collapse, the housing collapse, the credit collapse, the global economic collapse was a disaster. But these are word games.
While there are more spending cuts than tax increases in the budget, there is nothing good to say about either the cuts or the increases. There was no way out.
Let me explain how big $42 billion actually is and what we were facing. If we had tried to solve the deficit by spending cuts alone, we would’ve had to close our entire state university system, cut off all welfare assistance and shut down all mental health services. The magnitude of those kinds of cuts would have caused massive social unrest.
We could’ve fired every single California state employee—over 200,000 of them—and it wouldn’t have come close to balancing the budget. Those who say that we could balance the budget through spending cuts alone are guilty of political cynicism at its worst. These are not serious people.
On the opposite side, if we tried to solve the problem through tax increases alone, we would’ve had the highest sales taxes, the highest personal income taxes and the highest corporate taxes in the nation.
Those who say we could balance the budget through tax increases alone reveal their total economic ignorance and lack of math skills. Their grasp of economics must come from living on a hippie commune. We had to both raise taxes and cut spending. And we also enacted government efficiencies and economic stimulus measures.
And very important as part of the budget deal, we agreed to budget reform, so we can stop the budgetary dysfunction once and for all. Now, this reform is not a panacea.
We will still have deficits and surpluses. But over time, the rainy day fund will smooth out the roller coaster ride in our revenues. For example, ten years ago, during the stock market and dot-com boom, tax revenues were falling out of the sky. The legislature was so happy that it was rolling around naked in all the money. The most fun, of course, was spending it.
But it is not fun when you realize the trauma that is caused by ripping away these revenues when the market goes down. How do you run an educational system when you hire teachers and then midyear the money for them is ripped away? How do you run a prison system when you have to support 170,000 inmates and then midyear the money for them is ripped away?
That is no way to run anything, not a school, not a prison and not a state.
Never again do we want to find ourselves wandering around in another $42 billion Valley of Doom. In fact, if our budget reform was in place over the past decade, our deficit this year would have been a much more manageable $5.4 billion.
The campaign to pass the initiatives picked up the support today of former state Controller Steve Westly, one of Barack Obama’s earliest and biggest backers.
But the League of Women Voters, a helpful Schwarzenegger ally in his successful drive to finally pass a redistricting reform initiative last November, came out against the initiatives. They don’t like the spending limits.
It’s unclear what sort of opposition campaign there may be against the initiatives.
The right-wing Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and the left-wing Health Access, neither of which marshal substantial political funds, sued to change the ballot description of Prop 1A, which has the rainy day fund and state spending limits, on the basis that it does not mention that passage extends the temporary tax hikes. But their bid failed to get that sort of wording into the ballot description.
The California Teachers Association, which spearheaded the successful drive against Schwarzenegger’s initiative package in the 2005 special election, will not do so this time.
Might another, less financially potent public employee union step up? It’s unclear.
Will Meg Whitman or Steve Poizner, two super-rich Republican gubernatorial hopefuls hugging the right-side rail as they duel for the party nomination, pony up the cash to try to shoot down the tortuously wrought state budget compromise package they’ve criticized? They’re noncommittal on that.
Schwarzenegger took questions for 40 to 50 minutes after his speech. Citing the national crisis, he noted that he is very much in favor of what President Barack Obama is doing, declaring: “We have to do all we can to make him the most successful president in history.”
Asked about renewed interest in political reconciliation, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said there was misunderstanding in the West that the Taliban was a single group of fighters with political ambitions. The hardline Taliban were in government from 1996 to 2001, until the 2001 US-led invasion ousted them for sheltering Al-Qaeda after the September 11 attacks on the United States.
“Taliban are not (a single group) but a mixture of an opium mafia, a kidnapping mafia, international terrorists with Al-Qaeda and its factions, Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban and others,” he told reporters.
The Afghan government made it clear that it would only negotiate with and offer amnesty to Afghan fighters who agreed to lay down their weapons and accept the post-Taliban constitution, he said. This excluded fighters who were affiliated to Al-Qaeda and were not Afghan citizens, he said. It was the “historical job of a responsible government” to help those willing to accept the system to return to a peaceful life, Spanta said.
** OBAMA TO CALIFORNIA. As reported first yesterday on NWN, President Barack Obama is coming to California next week. He will be here to promote his economic recovery program and the expansion of green technology and jobs.
Obama will be in California on Wednesday. Details to follow.
I believe this will be his first trip as president to a historically blue state in presidential politics. His previous trips since the inauguration have been to red states that he took away from the Republicans last November.
Obama defeated John McCain in California, 61% to 37%.
After a weekend confrontation in the South China Sea, China is demanding that the U.S. Navy end surveillance missions off its coast.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a busy day. After his daily intelligence and economic briefings and meetings with senior advisors, he makes remarks at a day-long conference of state government officials working on the economic recovery program. Vice President Joe Biden will spend most of his day at this conference.
Obama then delivers remarks at the dedication of Abraham Lincoln Hall at the National Defense University.
In the afternoon, Obama and Biden meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the Oval Office. Following a weekend confrontation in the South China Sea, China is demanding that the US Navy end its surveillance mission off the China coast.
The ship that was harassed by Chinese vessels, USNS Impeccable, is believed to be a submarine tracker. China has recently announced plans to expand its naval capability, which at the moment is relatively low.
In the late afternoon, Obama delivers remarks at the Business Roundtable meeting at the St. Regis Hotel.
Following that, he and Biden meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. Clinton had a working lunch yesterday with the Chinese foreign minister.
The emerging China crisis will be a major topic of discussion. Obama is not likely to end the Navy surveillance mission, which takes place in international waters.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger addresses the Commonwealth Club of California at noon today in San Francisco’s Mark Hopkins Hotel. He lays out his case for the passage of six initiatives that are part of the state budget compromise appearing on the May 19th special election ballot.
Here are some excerpts of what Schwarzenegger will say:
Our state capital is a town that feeds on dysfunction. The special interests, left and right, need the process to be dysfunctional. That is how they control Sacramento. That is how they prevent change. …
But now we have an agreement, passed by two-thirds of the legislature, that puts on the ballot serious budget reform, including a spending limit and a rainy day fund.
And the very interests, the far left and the far right, that prefer dysfunction over change have already launched a campaign to confuse people and defeat the reform. But this time they are not going to succeed. …
So, let me explain how we came to this historic and important point and what comes next. California has not had a rainy day fund since Earl Warren was governor back in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s. For six decades we have been struggling because this state has not had a responsible financial system. And so what happened?
Governor Pat Brown had to raise taxes. Governor Ronald Reagan had to raise taxes. So did George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson and Gray Davis.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger—even though I try to make myself feel better by noting they’re temporary and expire in four years.
But why, over all these years and all these governors, has it had to be this way? It’s the system. It’s because the special interests force the state to spend more and more and more. And without a spending limit, there is no way for revenues to ever catch up. …
Never again do we want to find ourselves wandering around in another $42 billion Valley of Doom. In fact, if our budget reform was in place over the past decade, our deficit this year would have been a much more manageable $5.4 billion. …
For five years—ever since I was first elected—I have been pushing for change. At times, I have been as frustrated as the people by the slow pace of our progress. I am not frustrated today. I feel good about the change this budget reform will bring to our state.
Ladies and gentlemen, Sacramento may be an immovable object, but together we can be an irresistible force. With this reform, we can regain control over our budget.
Let us not fall back into the chaos. Let us pass the reform and move forward. This is the moment. This is the moment to act.
Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol, who gave birth two-and-a-half months ago, has broken up with her fiance.
** 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. …
** WHITHER WATCHMEN? IS THIS BIG, DARK, GEEKY, LEFTY MOVIE THE NEXT COMIC BOOK BLOCKBUSTER?Watchmen is finally here. The legendary cult graphic novel about a group of mostly retired or discredited superheroes in an alternate 1985 America burst onto the screen over the weekend, grossing more than $55 million in domestic box office despite its R-rating and near three hour length. But will it be the next comic book movie blockbuster?
It has a big act to follow in The Dark Knight, the most successful movie of the decade. The latest Batman picture captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Despite an unintentionally amusing effort by a far right writer in the Wall Street Journal to claim that Bruce Wayne/Batman is a stand-in for George W. Bush, it’s actually one of Barack Obama’s favorite movies. He watched it on his Hawaiian vacation in the midst of last year’s campaign.
Watchmen is bigger, darker, and much more brutal and overtly political than Dark Knight. It’s a mostly very faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s legendary ’80s graphic novel. Directed, ironically, by the man who did the neocon fave 300, Zack Snyder, it presents an alternate history America in which costumed vigilantes are real, Richard Nixon is in his fifth term as president, and a very dark and foreboding America is sliding towards a first strike nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Watchmen lays out this alternate America in a stunning opening sequence of flashbacks that presents the mid to late 20th century as a relentless slog of war and murder. Its universe is one of chaos and corruption. If hope is on the menu, it’s in short supply. … From my March 9th column.
** THE TROUBLE WITH TWITTER: WHY “TWEETS” ARE LIKE “BLIPVERTS.” I love technology. I’ve been a BlackBerry person since 2002, a Mac person since the ’80s. Back in the early ’90s, when I was new to the Internet, I once spent 26 hours straight on it. Never did find the end. I’ve blogged walking down the street talking to a candidate. I use a wireless network of laptops, with one or more frequently playing an international news channel.
But early adoption can go down wrong paths. I spent weeks trying to teach a Newton handheld to read my handwriting. The $5,000 I spent for the souped-up version of the PowerBook that saved the planet in Independence Day was not the wisest investment, though mine never caught fire. And there was ISDN, an early high-speed Internet connection. Uh, no, give me back my dial-up!
Which brings us to Twitter. I get news alerts and sitreps, e-mails, memos, and press releases, day and night. I write at any hour. But do I want tiny “tweets,” bitelets of what is arguably information, frequently trivial and not infrequently wrong, demanding my attention at any moment? Do I want to send such stuff out? … From my March 5th 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.
President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said this morning following their Oval Office meeting that the G-20 (group of 20 leading economies) must work in concert to stimulate the global economy and better regulate financial markets.
** 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 COMING TO CALIFORNIA NEXT WEEK. President Barack Obama is coming to California next week to discuss his economic recovery program and his desire to build a greener economy.
This may be his first visit to a traditionally blue state in presidential politics since becoming president. His previous trips around the country since his inauguration have all been to red states that he flipped to blue in his election last November.
** GREENBERG POLL SHOWS LIMBAUGH IS A REPUBLICAN ANCHOR.Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has come up with some unsurprising findings. While the numbers developed by this former Clinton pollster and associate of James Carville and Paul Begala – who devised the focus-on-Rush strategy – are unsurprising considering the source, they are also, simply, unsurprising.
On virtually every question the great majority of the mainstream rejects Limbaugh’s ideas and vision of the Republican Party, which severely constrains Republican elected leaders. It does not help that some of the key voters in the 2006 and 2008 elections, like younger voters, are particularly uncomfortable with Limbaugh’s politics. Conservative Republican voters, however, embrace Limbaugh, giving him a very high favorability rating; they say he shares their values and urge Republican leaders to defend him when he is criticizing President Obama.
Remarkably, voters view Limbaugh negatively by a two-to-one ratio (53 to 26 percent), with nearly half the country, 45 percent, viewing him very, very negatively. Among independents, the ratio rises to three-to-one. More important are the values that Limbaugh espouses. By a nearly two-to-one ratio (57 to 32 percent) a majority of voters – and independents – say Limbaugh does not “share their values,” but Republicans are in a different world where, by two-to-one, they believe he shares them.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S BIG AGENDA (BESIDES REVIVING THE U.S. ECONOMY).
** CAMPBELL BACKS KEY CALIFORNIA BUDGET INITIATIVE. Former Silicon Valley Congressman and state finance director Tom Campbell this morning endorsed Prop 1A on the May 19th special election ballot.
This initiative would limit state spending, create a rainy day fund to smooth revenue cycles, and extend temporary tax increases that are part of last month’s state budget compromise.
“California’s Legislature,” said Campbell, “put formulas in place that require more and more spending, and then seemed surprised when the funding wasn’t there. If we took Governor Gray Davis’ first budget, and increased it for population and the cost-of-living, we’d actually be balanced today, even with the economic collapse.”
Campbell, former dean of the UC Berkeley business school and Stanford law professor, is exploring a race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. He runs neck-and-neck with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman in primary polling. Whitman and the other Republican hopeful, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, oppose the state budget compromise because of its tax hikes.
Senator Barbara Boxer, while controversial, appears to have no particularly threatening Republican challengers on the horizon. Boxer chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. A former San Francisco Bay Area congresswoman, Marin County supervisor, and journalist with the Pacific Sun, she was first elected to the Senate in 1992.
It’s one of six state seen as changing party hands in the next election. California, Hawaii, and Rhode Island are expected to go Democratic. Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are expected to go Republican.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, saying that credit markets will be clogged until toxic assets are dealt with, says the toxic assets plan is almost complete.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama meets with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about the global financial crisis, then signs the omnibus spending bill, which passed Congress last night, today.
He will also make an announcement about earmark reform, appoint the new drug czar, both at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Back at the White House, he will deliver remarks upon creating a new White House Council on Women and Girls.
Late this afternoon, Obama meets first with Democratic members of the Senate Budget Committee, then with Democratic members of the House Budget Committee, both in the White House.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi for a working lunch. One prominent item on the agenda: The harassment by Chinese naval vessels of a US Navy surveillance ship in the South China Sea. US Navy ships are maintaining their presence in the area.
Clinton and First Lady Michelle Obama also celebrate International Women’s Day – which was actually on Sunday – by presenting awards for International Women of Courage at the State Department.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made a surprise visit to the annual Geneva Motor Show last week. He keynotes the annual convention of the international Society of Automotive Engineers next month in Detroit.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in private discussions today in Los Angeles. He has no scheduled public events.
As I mentioned in the Monday Morning Quarterback, Schwarzenegger is using this week to ready the campaign for six initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot related to the state budget compromise and is largely staying out of the public spotlight.
However, he will make a major address tomorrow in San Francisco.
** WHITHER WATCHMEN? IS THIS BIG, DARK, GEEKY, LEFTY MOVIE THE NEXT COMIC BOOK BLOCKBUSTER?Watchmen is finally here. The legendary cult graphic novel about a group of mostly retired or discredited superheroes in an alternate 1985 America burst onto the screen over the weekend, grossing more than $55 million in domestic box office despite its R-rating and near three hour length. But will it be the next comic book movie blockbuster?
It has a big act to follow in The Dark Knight, the most successful movie of the decade. The latest Batman picture captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Despite an unintentionally amusing effort by a far right writer in the Wall Street Journal to claim that Bruce Wayne/Batman is a stand-in for George W. Bush, it’s actually one of Barack Obama’s favorite movies. He watched it on his Hawaiian vacation in the midst of last year’s campaign.
Watchmen is bigger, darker, and much more brutal and overtly political than Dark Knight. It’s a mostly very faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s legendary ’80s graphic novel. Directed, ironically, by the man who did the neocon fave 300, Zack Snyder, it presents an alternate history America in which costumed vigilantes are real, Richard Nixon is in his fifth term as president, and a very dark and foreboding America is sliding towards a first strike nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Watchmen lays out this alternate America in a stunning opening sequence of flashbacks that presents the mid to late 20th century as a relentless slog of war and murder. Its universe is one of chaos and corruption. If hope is on the menu, it’s in short supply. …
** THE TROUBLE WITH TWITTER: WHY “TWEETS” ARE LIKE “BLIPVERTS.” I love technology. I’ve been a BlackBerry person since 2002, a Mac person since the ’80s. Back in the early ’90s, when I was new to the Internet, I once spent 26 hours straight on it. Never did find the end. I’ve blogged walking down the street talking to a candidate. I use a wireless network of laptops, with one or more frequently playing an international news channel.
But early adoption can go down wrong paths. I spent weeks trying to teach a Newton handheld to read my handwriting. The $5,000 I spent for the souped-up version of the PowerBook that saved the planet in Independence Day was not the wisest investment, though mine never caught fire. And there was ISDN, an early high-speed Internet connection. Uh, no, give me back my dial-up!
Which brings us to Twitter. I get news alerts and sitreps, e-mails, memos, and press releases, day and night. I write at any hour. But do I want tiny “tweets,” bitelets of what is arguably information, frequently trivial and not infrequently wrong, demanding my attention at any moment? Do I want to send such stuff out? … From my March 5th 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.
President Barack Obama made some familiar arguments today for education reform at a speech to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, calling for early investment in childhood development, strong standards, and merit pay for teachers.
** SCHWARZENEGGER TO DETROIT NEXT MONTH. This report in the Detroit Free Press, that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is going to keynote the Society of Automotive Engineers 2009 World Congress, is confirmed by the Governor’s Office.
The annual conference is the second largest held in the Motor City and last year drew 35,000 automotive engineers from more than 40 countries.
Schwarzenegger, a frequent critic of the auto industry on emission standards, is scheduled to speak April 20 about the future of hybrid and alternative vehicles, as well as the short-term and long-term challenges facing the automotive industry.
The green-leaning state of California has been battling the automotive industry for several years over its request for permission from the federal government to allow it and at least 13 other states to set their own emission standards.
“I am sure that Gov. Schwarzenegger will offer a unique … and well informed position on these topics,” David Schutt, SAE International vice president and chief operating officer, said during a press conference Tuesday.
Schutt said SAE World Congress asked Schwarzenegger to talk about what he sees as important issues facing the automotive industry. “We were looking for someone not from the inside, but from the outside,” Schutt said. “Someone who could challenge us.”
In the last election cycle, a Republican congressman in Michigan put up billboards saying “Arnold To Detroit: Drop Dead!” because of Schwarzenegger’s support for greenhouse gas regulation.
** L.A. CONGRESSIONAL SPECIAL ELECTION SET. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just set the date for the special election to replace US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis on Congress. The primary is on May 19th, with the general election on July 14th. With this heavily Democratic district, winning the Democratic nomination is tantamount to election.
The two top contenders are state Senator Gil Cedillo, former head of SEIU Local 660, and state Board of Equalization member Judy Chu, a former state assemblywoman and mayor of Monterey Park. LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is not backing his old ally Cedillo, he is backing Chu. It will be interesting to see how she does in the wake of his underwhelming performance in last week’s election.
** GALLUP POLL ON OVERALL WELL-BEING: CALIFORNIA RANKS IN TOP 10. The Gallup Poll has an interesting new compilation based upon data collected in 2008. Gallup ranks the states and congressional districts on various indices of well-being. California ends up tied for eighth place with Massachusetts. Utah ranks first, followed closely by Hawaii.
The Well-Being Index score for the nation and for each state is an average of six sub-indexes, which individually examine life evaluation, healthy behaviors, work environment, physical health, emotional health, and access to basic necessities. The questions in each sub-index are asked nightly of 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older.
The Well-Being Index national average for 2008 is 65.5, with each point (1.0) representing approximately 2.2 million people nationally. In terms of the total population in the United States, this means that approximately 144 million people aged 18 and older have favorable well-being. Across all the states, well-being varies by a range of eight points, thus even in the lowest-ranked states, there are a majority of citizens who have favorable well-being.
Mapping well-being scores across the country, a clear pattern emerges with higher well-being states located primarily in the West and lower well-being states clustered in the Midwest and the South. Standing out among its high-ranking western counterparts is Nevada, with a slightly below average well-being score and a rank of 38th. Also defying the overarching geographic pattern of well-being are Maryland and Massachusetts, the only two states in the Northeast to rank in the top 10.
Among Democrats, it’s favored 63-32. Among independents, it’s favored 55-42. Among Republicans, it’s opposed 70-24.
The issue breaks down along predictable age group, ideological, religious, gender, and geographic lines. Unfortunately, the poll does not show how the issue breaks down on ethnic lines.
30 years ago, same sex marriage was opposed, 59-28.
While the trendline is clearcut, that same sex marriage will ultimately prevail, it’s not at all clear what would happen if it were on the ballot next year. Prop 8 last November was properly framed for backers of same sex marriage as an attempt to take away a constitutional right granted by the state Supreme Court. In a high turnout election with many younger voters, who overwhelmingly back same sex marriage, participating.
Vice President Joe Biden, meeting today with European allies in Brussels, Belgium, warned that Afghanistan and Pakistan constitute a major threat to collective security.
** BIDEN SAYS MOST TALIBAN FIGHTERS ARE MERCENARIES, NOT RADICAL ISLAMISTS. Vice President Joe Biden, on a diplomatic offensive with NATO and European allies in Brussels, said today that most of the Taliban presently confounding US plans in Afghanistan could be engaged because they are not committed Islamist radicals.
Biden said the same tactics used in Anbar province in Iraq, where radical Sunni Muslims were co-opted by American financial support, could work in Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for winning the war raging since 2001.
“Five percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated,” Biden told a press conference at North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels today. “Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, of the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. Roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money.”
Biden warned that terror groups are using Afghanistan and Pakistan as staging areas to plot new attacks against allied interests around the world. “It is from this same area that al-Qaeda and its extremist allies are regenerating and conceiving new atrocities to visit upon us,” Biden said.
Biden’s talks were part of a U.S. review of Afghanistan policy that Obama plans to complete in time for an April 3-4 summit of NATO leaders, to be co-hosted by France and Germany.
** WHITHER WATCHMEN? IS THIS BIG, DARK, GEEKY, LEFTY MOVIE THE NEXT COMIC BOOK BLOCKBUSTER?Watchmen is finally here. The legendary cult graphic novel about a group of mostly retired or discredited superheroes in an alternate 1985 America burst onto the screen over the weekend, grossing more than $55 million in domestic box office despite its R-rating and near three hour length. But will it be the next comic book movie blockbuster?
It has a big act to follow in The Dark Knight, the most successful movie of the decade. The latest Batman picture captured the zeitgeist perfectly. Despite an unintentionally amusing effort by a far right writer in the Wall Street Journal to claim that Bruce Wayne/Batman is a stand-in for George W. Bush, it’s actually one of Barack Obama’s favorite movies. He watched it on his Hawaiian vacation in the midst of last year’s campaign.
Watchmen is bigger, darker, and much more brutal and overtly political than Dark Knight. It’s a mostly very faithful adaptation of Alan Moore’s legendary ’80s graphic novel. Directed, ironically, by the man who did the neocon fave 300, Zack Snyder, it presents an alternate history America in which costumed vigilantes are real, Richard Nixon is in his fifth term as president, and a very dark and foreboding America is sliding towards a first strike nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Watchmen lays out this alternate America in a stunning opening sequence of flashbacks that presents the mid to late 20th century as a relentless slog of war and murder. Its universe is one of chaos and corruption. If hope is on the menu, it’s in short supply. …
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama spoke early this morning at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s 19th Annual Legislative Conference at the Washington Marriott. There he called for a fresh push on education and again endorsed merit pay for teachers, breaking with union and liberal allies.
Obama meets this afternoon with members of the New Democrat Coalition – moderate Democratic members of Congress – in the White House State Dining Room.
In the late afternoon, he meets with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in the Oval Office.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Brussels, Belgium consulting with European allies about the crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He held a press conference this morning with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. He meets with European Union leaders and with Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy and, later, meets with the non-NATO International Security Assistance Force partners aiding the effort in Afghanistan.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, meeting with former Senator Gary Hart and others today in Moscow, says he thinks that ties between the US and Moscow can improve significantly.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in private discussions in and around the Capitol. He has no scheduled public events.
** THE TROUBLE WITH TWITTER: WHY “TWEETS” ARE LIKE “BLIPVERTS.” I love technology. I’ve been a BlackBerry person since 2002, a Mac person since the ’80s. Back in the early ’90s, when I was new to the Internet, I once spent 26 hours straight on it. Never did find the end. I’ve blogged walking down the street talking to a candidate. I use a wireless network of laptops, with one or more frequently playing an international news channel.
But early adoption can go down wrong paths. I spent weeks trying to teach a Newton handheld to read my handwriting. The $5,000 I spent for the souped-up version of the PowerBook that saved the planet in Independence Day was not the wisest investment, though mine never caught fire. And there was ISDN, an early high-speed Internet connection. Uh, no, give me back my dial-up!
Which brings us to Twitter. I get news alerts and sitreps, e-mails, memos, and press releases, day and night. I write at any hour. But do I want tiny “tweets,” bitelets of what is arguably information, frequently trivial and not infrequently wrong, demanding my attention at any moment? Do I want to send such stuff out? … From my March 5th 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.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading between $47 and $48 per barrel. This is up a third since the Obama economic recovery program was enacted.
President Barack Obama, in a sharp reversal of Bush/Cheney Administration policy, this morning ended the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
** THE CURIOUS CASE OF HOWARD DEAN. Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, the medical doctor and six-term Vermont governor who was the 2004 Democratic presidential frontrunner before crashing and burning in Iowa, is joining a Washington lobbying firm. He’s now part of McKenna, Long & Aldridge, where one of his partners is former Georgia Governor Zell Miller. Who, you may recall, is the Democrat who delivered the anti-Democrat keynote address at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Dean wanted to be in the Obama Cabinet as secretary of health and human services, but has twice been passed over. First by the misfiring appointment of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a close Obama advisor. Then by the appointment of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius.
Dean was a controversial but largely effective party chairman. So why isn’t he getting a big appointment from Obama? (His name was floated for surgeon general, but he made it clear he didn’t want the post.)
There is speculation it’s payback from White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who clashed with Dean over party targeting when Emanuel was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But it may be that he’s too partisan a figure for Obama’s liking at this point. Or just that he and Obama never hit it off.
** WILLIE BROWN’S ABEL MALDONADO STORY. Former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown had this intriguing anecdote in his Sunday San Francisco Chronicle column. It’s about moderate Republican state Senator Abel Maldonado, who supplied the final needed vote for the California budget compromise after extracting an open primary proposal from the process.
He proceeded to tell me that when he was running for state controller in 2006, he commissioned a poll to gauge the feelings of Republican voters in Orange County. The poll came back showing him losing to the Democrat by almost 2-1.
“This is impossible,” Maldonado said. “Orange County is loaded with Republicans.” They did the poll again and the results were the same – the Democrat won.
So Maldonado ran a little test. He had the pollster go back and give voters the same information as before – his age, that he’s a rancher and the like – but this time, he said, tell them the candidate’s name is Smith. The result: Smith came out ahead.
So he ran another poll, a Republican named Garcia vs. a Democrat named Smith. Smith won again, even among Republicans.
At that point, Maldonado said, “We’re not spending another nickel – there ain’t no way that anyone with a Spanish name is going to win anything in a Republican primary in this state.”
He was right, in his case at least – he lost the primary to Tony Strickland. And that is why Maldonado insisted on an open primary in return for voting for the budget.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … WHITHER WATCHMEN? IS THIS BIG, DARK, GEEKY, LEFTY MOVIE THE NEXT COMIC BOOK BLOCKBUSTER?
** WIDE SUPPORT FOR OBAMA’S STEM CELL DECISION. A new Gallup Poll shows that 52% of Americans favor President Barack Obama’s decision to end the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. 41% do not.
This spread of opinion has been pretty consistent since 2004.
Because stem cells harvested from embryos can morph into other types of cells in the body, scientists want to use them for research that might help them better treat, and possibly cure, serious conditions from diabetes to paralysis. Opponents of embryonic stem cell research say any medical advances are not worth what they see as the destruction of human life.
Americans’ views on government funding for stem cell research have remained fairly stable since 2004, with the majority consistently supporting fewer restrictions on funding, rather than maintaining or strengthening the current restrictions.
Nevertheless, I expect all potential Republican presidential candidates to oppose the decision. They are all playing to the conservative base of their party.
** SCHWARZENEGGER HAILS OBAMA’S STEM CELL DECISION. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed President Barack Obama’s executive order ending the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. He said this in a statement this morning: “President Obama’s executive order is a huge win for the millions of people who suffer from spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and many other illnesses. Californians were the first in the nation to support and fund embryonic stem cell research and we are big believers in the power of this revolutionary science to not only improve but to save lives. Because of the federal ban, Californians world-renown research facilities have had to have separate areas for the federally-funded and the non-federally funded programs, causing duplicative efforts. I applaud President Obama for removing this barrier which allows California to maximize critical research funding so we can continue to lead the world in stem cell research.”
In 2004, Schwarzenegger promoted Proposition 71, which created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) and authorized $3 billion in bond funding for the world’s largest stem cell research program. After the program was held up by court proceedings against it by anti-abortion forces – which ultimately failed – Schwarzenegger jump started the program in 2006 with a $150 million loan from the state’s general fund.
CIRM has awarded $635 million in research and facility construction grants so far, leveraging another billion dollars in private funds, making it the largest stem cell research program in the world.
Joe Lieberman, who campaigned hard for John McCain last year, says President Barack Obama is “off to a very good start.”
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
This looks like a week in presidential politics and in California politics for making plans and gathering forces.
President Barack Obama has dispatched emissaries to further assess the situations with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the global financial crisis, and the reeling US auto industry. Important decisions have to be made with regard to each.
But events could overtake Obama, especially with regard to the auto industry. Every car company on the planet has seen its sales plummet, but Detroit, which already had seen public appetite for its products on the wane, is at the epicenter. The big automakers are tied into a web of suppliers and distributors that stretches across the country.
Obama emissaries are making preparations for next week’s meeting of the G-20 (group of 20 leading economies) finance ministers. Which in turn is preparatory for next month’s G-20 summit in London.
Leaders of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are signaling that they do not have the resources needed to keep some of the poorer nations afloat this year, and that the US and other leading economic powers will have to help out more to avert increased global chaos. Eastern Europe is in increasing crisis, along with developing nations in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
The G-20 finance ministers will discuss this, as well as moves needed to stabilize their own financial systems.
The news is actually somewhat better with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US is looking for compromise, as in Iraq, to attain more limited goals in Afghanistan. And Pakistan, while in crisis with the state being overtaken in a number of areas of the country by Islamist insurgency, has negotiated at least a momentary truce with the Taliban.
Here in California, we will learn more this week about the shape of the opposition, if there is serious opposition, to the six state budget-related initiatives on the May 19th special election ballot.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Democratic and Republican allies are making plans for the campaign ahead. We’ll see what sort of opposition they have.
The US withdrawal from Iraq begins in September. The British withdrawal from Iraq will be complete then.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama signs an executive order reversing the Bush/Cheney Administration ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Later, he meets with finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search in the Oval Office.
While Obama is in the White House, he is dispatching emissaries to deal with various trouble spots.
Vice President Joe Biden is off to Europe to meet with the North Atlantic Council, the political decision-making body of NATO.
On the agenda? A new US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, members of Obama’s auto industry task force are in Detroit today meeting with the reeling Big Three automakers. The Obama Administration has had decisions to make about the future of the US auto industry, which is in freefall.
As a backdrop to it all, the World Bank today predicted that both the global economy and global trade will shrink this year for the first time since World War II. And that developing nations will be swamped by the crisis if the US and other advanced industrial nations do not set up a “vulnerability fund” to aid them.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, appointed by President Bush, says that the World Bank and International Monetary Fund do not have the resources to adequately assist the poorer nations this year.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in private discussions in Los Angeles.
Watchmen opened big over the weekend with one of the biggest launches ever of an R-rated movie.
** THE TROUBLE WITH TWITTER: WHY “TWEETS” ARE LIKE “BLIPVERTS.” I love technology. I’ve been a BlackBerry person since 2002, a Mac person since the ’80s. Back in the early ’90s, when I was new to the Internet, I once spent 26 hours straight on it. Never did find the end. I’ve blogged walking down the street talking to a candidate. I use a wireless network of laptops, with one or more frequently playing an international news channel.
But early adoption can go down wrong paths. I spent weeks trying to teach a Newton handheld to read my handwriting. The $5,000 I spent for the souped-up version of the PowerBook that saved the planet in Independence Day was not the wisest investment, though mine never caught fire. And there was ISDN, an early high-speed Internet connection. Uh, no, give me back my dial-up!
Which brings us to Twitter. I get news alerts and sitreps, e-mails, memos, and press releases, day and night. I write at any hour. But do I want tiny “tweets,” bitelets of what is arguably information, frequently trivial and not infrequently wrong, demanding my attention at any moment? Do I want to send such stuff out? …
** YET ANOTHER CALIFORNIA CAMPAIGN: ELECTIONS ABOUND IN THE ARNOLD ERA. And they’re off. Again.
The only year since 2001 that California has not had a statewide election was 2007. And that was when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was busy with his rather Rube Goldberg-esque coalition of some business, labor, and health groups trying to pass a version of universal health care. Every other year, including this, has seen the tarnished Golden State holding at least one statewide election.
This May 19th it’s another special statewide election, the fourth of the Arnold Era.
What’s this one about? The recently, arduously concluded state budget compromise to close a $42 billion gap over 18 months caused by a combination of tax cuts, program expansions, and the economic crisis. …
** WHITMAN’S SAMPLER: THE EX-EBAY CEO’S MOVES MIRROR THE REPUBLICAN CRISIS. Like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman’s moves at this past weekend’s California Republican Party convention point up the crisis afflicting the Republican Party. …
** 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 is trading between $47 and $48 per barrel. This is up a third since the Obama economic recovery program was enacted.
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