The Pakistani Army captured a key city from the Taliban over the weekend as the Obama-urged offensive continued.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama, following his Saturday date night in Manhattan with First Lady Michelle Obama, has no public events today.
Obama will likely discuss on Monday the imminent bankruptcy reorganization of General Motors
Obama is prepping for the second major international tour of his presidency coming up.
On June 3rd, Obama goes to Saudi Arabia for private meetings with King Abdullah and others.
On June 4th, Obama is in Egypt, where gives his long-anticipated major address to the Islamic world at the University of Cairo and meets with President Hosni Mubarak.
On June 5th, Obama is in Germany, where he tours the late Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, visits wounded American troops at Landstuhl, and meets with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On June 6th, Obama is in France for the 65th anniversary of D-Day. Obama meets with President Nicolas Sarkozy and – joined by Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper – speaks in Normandy.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events today.
Schwarzenegger is prepping a major address to the California Legislature on the state’s chronic budget crisis, turned chaotic by the global economic slump and voter rejection of special election initiatives.
It’s unclear how hard and fast Schwarzenegger is in his commitment to massive budget cuts he has recently outlined. But whether it’s these or others – with more tax hikes evidently off the table and a demonstrated need for speed due to a looming cash crunch – the general scale of the cut appears likely if not simply logical.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TERMINATING THE DARKNESS?
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama discusses his ground-breaking appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama has no public events today.
He is attending the soccer game of one of his daughters – the White House won’t say whether it’s Sasha or Malia — in Washington’s Palisades Park.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama depart the White House on Marine One, en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
From there, they travel on Air Force One to New York City, where they will spend the evening.
Obama is prepping for his big international tour next week, which will take him to Egypt (where he will deliver a major address to the Islamic world at the University of Cairo, co-hosted by Al-Azhar University, the world’s oldest Islamic university), Saudi Arabia, Germany, and France (where he will commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day).
Obama is also monitoring a few geopolitical crises.
Reviewing the North Korean situation, further exacerbated yesterday when North Korea launched yet another short-range missile. … North Korea set off what appears to have been an underwhelming nuclear device on Monday, prompting international condemnation. Obama put out a statement in the middle of the night on the move. And the UN Security Council, meeting in emergency session, thoroughly denounced it.
The Hermit State has launched several short-range missiles since then, further inflaming the situation. The missiles reportedly had a range of about 80 miles. North Korea has placed its forces along the border with South Korea on full alert, and threatens that any attempt to interdict any of its vessels to check for weapons of mass destruction will be considered an act of war.
Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is now in Singapore for a meeting with Asian defense ministers. He says he sees no reason as yet for additional US troops in the region. The US has 28,000 troops in South Korea. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg was dispatched by Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to accompany Gates to the already scheduled Singapore meeting of Asian defense ministers — which is called, in festive fashion, the Shangri-La Dialogue — to further discussion of the North Korean crisis. From Singapore, Steinberg will go to Beijing, Seoul, and Moscow to discuss next steps.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, urged by Obama, is continuing, with more signs that Taliban forces are being disrupted and driven back in various places. There is house-to-house fighting underway in several cities.
And Pakistani forces, earlier today, have re-taken the largest city in Swat Valley, which had been essentially ceded to the Taliban in an earlier agreement with the government.
But Pakistan now has a sizable refugee crisis, with some 2.5 million people displaced from their homes. Many are staying with friends or relatives, but the country’s support system is strained nonetheless.
And jihadist terrorist attacks have multiplied this week.
The new Star Trek, the biggest movie in America so far this year, opens in Japan this weekend. Here is the TV ad, which manages to mention director J.J. Abrams, creator of Lost, twice. I met Abrams through his father, which is how you know you’re getting old.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no planned public events this weekend.
Schwarzenegger is prepping for his major address on the state’s chronic budget crisis, now turned chaotic thanks to the global economic slump and last week’s defeat of the special election initiatives, to the California Legislature on Tuesday.
** THE AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY OF CALIFORNIA’S PROP 8. The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, last November’s successful initiative against same-sex marriage is all the more tragic in that the initiative never should have passed in the first place. …
The right to same-sex marriage will, in the end, win out. It’s the getting there that is messy. And it need not have been as messy as the passage of Prop 8, and its expected upholding by the California Supreme Court, has made it. …
Gay marriage opponents got a huge gift immediately from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s comments. Newsom had enraged top national Democrats, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by unilaterally declaring same-sex marriage lawful in San Francisco in the midst of the 2004 presidential race. Though it was a move that was predictably easily overturned, national Republican strategists credited the furor it caused with playing a propulsive role in turning out huge numbers of fundamentalist voters in Ohio, the lynchpin of George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election. … From my new column.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. … From my May 20th column.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. … From my May 18th column.
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country. … From my May 8th 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed on Friday at $66.31 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $32 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan and North Korea.
President Barack Obama today announced that his administration will establish better security for America’s vulnerable cyberspace infrastructure.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TERMINATING THE DARKNESS?
** QUICK HITS.A few prominent conservatives, such as columnists Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer, tried today to walk back the assault on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor by far right thought leaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich, who describe her as a racist intellectual mediocrity. (Speaking of intellectual mediocrity, at least one of those guys would find that a big step up. …) It’s bound to fail, and further position the reeling national Republican Party as, well, a reeling political party. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger received a significant boost in his budget-cutting mission — which I know personally that he is very unhappy about — from Senator Dianne Feinstein. Following Schwarzenegger at today’s dedication of the world’s most advanced fusion energy project, Feinstein said: “I think these cuts are unavoidable. … I have been around in 15 elections. I have never seen a time when the voters did what they did, in view of what they were told about cuts, in the enormous defeat of these propositions. I can’t give you the reason for it, but I can tell you, to me it was astonishing. And what they said is, in so many words, take the cuts, because that’s the alternative. And nobody wants them, but people have to understand.” … In my view, and I’ve followed this for decades, the situation is terrible but not all that surprising. The fierce unreality and intractability of the state’s anti-government and ultra-government factions — about which I’ve written many times and will again, following Obama’s big international tour — have led California to this pass, which in the end will clobber both of them.
** CONTROLLER TO CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE: ACT NOW. State Controller John Chiang, a first-term Democrat who has been the most persistent roadblock to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the state budget, unsuccessfully challenging his authority, has just sent a letter to the Legislature urging immediate action on the chronic budget crisis given unprecedented dimension by the global economic downturn and the defeat of last week’s special election initiatives.
Chiang warns that without prompt legislative action, “the State will be more than $1 billion in the red on July 29. And, further, “We will have a cash shortage of $22 billion in April 2010.”
“The Legislature,” says Chiang, “must act no later than June 15 to give the Controller time to sell RAWs (revenue anticipation warrants) and get cash into the Treasury so we can continue to make payments this summer.”
With legislative hearings over, Schwarzenegger addresses a joint session of the Legislature on the crisis on Tuesday, June 2nd, just 13 days before Chiang’s deadline.
** SCHWARZENEGGER PROPOSES MORE BUDGET CUTS. While Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was at the Livermore National Labs presiding over the opening of the most advanced nuclear fusion project in the world, his top budget officials held a press conference call on which they unveiled still more proposed budget cuts. The impacting explosions may have been greater on the phone call.
These cuts come in response to word from the Legislative Analyst Office that the state’s current budget deficit is not $21.3 billion, as Schwarzenegger warned it would be if voters turned down his special election initiatives, but $24.3 billion. The precipitous budget collapse is due to the collapse in state revenues caused by the global economic crisis. California simply has tens of billions less in revenue than it had. Which means the state’s tax burden has actually gone down. Not that people want to pay more in tax during a recession.
In any event, Schwarzenegger’s budget mavens laid out nearly $700 million in further cuts to education funding, cutting in-home health care services to the bone and more, the additional 5% pay cut for state employees I talked about yesterday (bringing the overall pay cut to nearly 15%), and various other procedures. Schwarzenegger addresses a joint session of the Legislature on Tuesday.
** BROWN CRACKS DOWN ON FRAUDULENT CHARITIES. Finishing a week-long drive on various major fraudulent activities, which included the arrest of a ring charged with absconding hundreds of millions in an investment Ponzi scheme, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown today sued 12 charities, 17 telemarketers, and 53 individuals for alleged charity scams.
“These individuals,” says Brown, “shamelessly exploited the goodwill of decent citizens trying to help police, firefighters and veterans. In point of fact, a shockingly small portion of donations went to those in need, while millions went to pay for aggressive telemarketing and bloated overhead – and in one case – to purchase a 30-foot sailboat.”
** SOTOMAYOR FAVORED BY BIG MARGIN. The new Quinnipiac poll of American voters gives a big edge in support for President Barack Obama’s new nominee to the US Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The survey was conducted from May 26th through May 28th.
54% support Sotomayor, with 24% opposed, and 22% undecided. Sotomayor is backed by Democrats (81-3) and Independents (50-26). Republicans oppose the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, 46-26. 30% say she’s more liberal than they prefer, 5% not liberal enough, and 42% say her politics are “just right.”
The late President John F. Kennedy, in this speech in Houston, Texas in the fall of 1962, discusses the heightened pace, significance, and challenges of technological change and declares: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Kennedy’s birthday is today.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with Vice President Joe Biden and senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 7:55 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on securing our nation’s cyber infrastructure in the East Room of the White House. He will name a “cyber czar” to deal with threats to America’s computer infrastructure.
At 8:40 AM Pacific, he meets with National Economic Council staff in the Oval Office.
At 11:30 AM, Obama attends a hurricane preparedness meeting at FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) headquarters.
Obama is prepping for his big international tour next week, which will take him to Egypt (where he will deliver a major address to the Islamic world at Cairo’s Al Azhar University, the world’s oldest Islamic university), Saudi Arabia, Germany, and France (where he will commemorate the 65th anniversary of D-Day).
Obama is also monitoring a few geopolitical crises.
Reviewing the North Korean situation, further exacerbated earlier today when North Korea launched yet another short-range missile. … North Korea set off what appears to have been an underwhelming nuclear device on Monday, prompting international condemnation. Obama put out a statement in the middle of the night on the move. And the UN Security Council, meeting in emergency session, thoroughly denounced it.
The Hermit State has launched several short-range missiles since then, further inflaming the situation. The missiles reportedly had a range of about 80 miles. North Korea has placed its forces along the border with South Korea on full alert, and threatens that any attempt to interdict any of its vessels to check for weapons of mass destruction will be considered an act of war.
Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is now in Singapore for a meeting with Asian defense ministers. He says he sees no reason as yet for additional US troops in the region. The US has 28,000 troops in South Korea. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg was dispatched by Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to accompany Gates to the already scheduled Singapore meeting of Asian defense ministers — which is called, in festive fashion, the Shangri-La Dialogue — to further discussion of the North Korean crisis. From Singapore, Steinberg will go to Beijing, Seoul, and Moscow to discuss next steps.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, urged by Obama, is continuing, with more signs that Taliban forces are being disrupted and driven back in various places. There is house-to-house fighting underway in at least one city.
But Pakistan now has a sizable refugee crisis, with some 2.4 million people displaced from their homes. Many are staying with friends or relatives, but the country’s support system is strained nonetheless.
And jihadist terrorist attacks have multiplied this week.
The famed Terminator series starring Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the only show centering on a malign, all-powerful artificial intelligence, as we see in this Star Trek episode from 1968, The Ultimate Computer. The new Star Trek film is, amazingly, the most popular film in America so far this year.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will attend the dedication ceremony for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) at 10:30 AM in Livermore. He was to have toured the facility earlier this morning with Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi and other dignitaries, but is working on the state’s chronic budget crisis.
Schwarzenegger did receive a preliminary tour of the NIF in November. NIF has been in development for 12 years and is about to be the premier such facility in the world. What will it do? NIF will use lasers to create nuclear fusion by compressing and heating hydrogen. It will recreate conditions otherwise found only in the cores of stars and exploding nuclear weapons.
Following the ceremony, Schwarzenegger will hold a press availability with other participants.
This afternoon, Schwarzenegger is in Salinas joining law enforcement officials to highlight California’s Gang Reduction, Intervention and Prevention (CalGRIP) funding and to announce the rural area’s first “Gifts for Guns” program, modeled after the program created by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Late yesterday afternoon, Schwarzenegger was in Capitol Park with officials of Raser Technologies to show off an electric hybrid Hummer H3. I asked him to compare the fuel efficiency of this vehicle with that of the Hummer H1 he helped launch at AM General in 1992 as a commercial vehicle. (Seen in yesterday’s video below.) He said, naturally, that there is no comparison, acknowledging that the earlier vehicle was very fuel inefficient and that the key is not in getting rid of the vehicle but in seriously upgrading its technology.
The San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets reported that Schwarzenegger became the first private citizen to own a Hummer in 1992. Actually, the truth is more interesting.
In 1990, while filming Kindergarten Cop in the state of Washington, Schwarzenegger became transfixed by a line of Army HumVees he saw on the highway. That’s the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, the military vehicle the Hummer is based on. In 1991, the HumVee became famous in the Gulf War.
Schwarzenegger, a friend of the first President Bush and then chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, pushed hard to get his very own HumVee in 1991. Which he did, and he loved it. A company rep joked that he used it “to go to Spago.”
Incidentally, I’ve never been a fan of the Hummer, having referred to it and other SUVs in a 1990s column as “global warmers.” Years ago, I asked Schwarzenegger what was with him and the Hummer. To his credit, he didn’t cite the usual reasons people give. He said that he liked the Hummer because it was an expression of his personality — big, bold, and expansive.
** THE AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY OF CALIFORNIA’S PROP 8. The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, last November’s successful initiative against same-sex marriage is all the more tragic in that the initiative never should have passed in the first place. …
The right to same-sex marriage will, in the end, win out. It’s the getting there that is messy. And it need not have been as messy as the passage of Prop 8, and its expected upholding by the California Supreme Court, has made it. …
Gay marriage opponents got a huge gift immediately from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s comments. Newsom had enraged top national Democrats, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by unilaterally declaring same-sex marriage lawful in San Francisco in the midst of the 2004 presidential race. Though it was a move that was predictably easily overturned, national Republican strategists credited the furor it caused with playing a propulsive role in turning out huge numbers of fundamentalist voters in Ohio, the lynchpin of George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election. … From my new column.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. … From my May 20th column.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. … From my May 18th column.
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country. … From my May 8th 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
This is up about $32 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan and North Korea.
Back in the White House this afternoon following his trip to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, President Barack Obama pressed the new Israeli government and Palestinians to drop current obstacles to peace.
** QUICK HITS. At his hybrid Hummer event late this afternoon in Capitol Park, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger revealed that he will address a joint session of the Legislature next Tuesday on the California budget crisis, after the legislators have finished their budget hearings. A top aide says that, in addition to state worker lay-offs and furloughs, a 5% across-the-board pay cut is in the works. I’ll have more about the Hummer tomorrow, but for now, the action superstar allowed as how he is quite pleased that the new vehicle is far more fuel efficient than the old. … Meanwhile, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh said today that Schwarzenegger ruined California, and his supposed presidential future (which requires a constitutional amendment), by governing as a moderate, not as a conservative. What else is new? … After meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today at the White House following his return from LA, President Barack Obama announced that Israel must halt its continued settlement of the West Bank. And that Palestinians must rein in anti-Israel violence.
Well, if you think Matt Drudge is a mainstream fellow, then you might think Sotomayor is some sort of ultra-lib. But for one thing. She’s not.
Here’s his reasoning, as it were: If the ultimate goal for Republicans is to defeat Obama in 2012, then the Sotomayor pick presents them with a golden opportunity to cast the president as a traditional liberal — far from the post-partisan figure he was able to present to the American public in the 2008 election.
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who has made no secret of his interest in a 2012 bid, made the same point in a statement released Tuesday on the Sotomayor selection.
“The appointment of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is the clearest indication yet that President Obama’s campaign promises to be a centrist and think in a bipartisan way were mere rhetoric,” said Huckabee.
Alex Conant, a Republican consultant and former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, added that that while Obama was able to remain an “enigma” during the campaign, the American public is now getting a “better sense of who he is. And on domestic policy, he’s proving to be a liberal partisan.”
Mike Huckabee and a former RNC spokesman certainly represent a well-grounded perspective …Well, okay, they don’t. This is non-serious. But typical of too many in the Beltway chattering class.
** A.F.S.C.M.E. CALLS FOR BIG CALIFORNIA TAX HIKES. AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees was a key part of a public employee union coalition that opposed the state budget compromise-related initiatives in this month’s California special election. They are opposed to limits on government spending.
They ran a TV ad around the state attacking the key measure, Prop 1A – which contained a state spending limit, a rainy day fund, and extension of temporary tax hikes – not on the basis of their ideology, that it would rein in spending too much, but using a right-wing argument. Namely, that Prop 1A would be an ineffective spending limit.
Today AFSCME released a plan to avoid the big state budget cuts predicted if the initiatives went down, which will greatly affect unionized public employees by depriving many of their jobs. The plan, not surprisingly, does not have a more effective state spending limit, as their TV ad called for, but it does call for maintaining government through a big round of new tax increases. The effective spending limit rhetoric was fodder for winning an election.
The AFSCME plan amounts to what it says is $44 billion in new revenue every year from here on out: The recommendations were delivered to state legislators on Wednesday and consist of a combination of measures including the imposition of an oil severance tax, an alcohol tax, the closure of existing corporate tax loopholes, an extension of a reduced sales tax to services such as entertainment and sporting events, the ending of offshore tax havens used by multinational corporations, and the restoration of high-income tax brackets to their levels under Republican Governors Reagan and Wilson.
Somehow, this is not a surprise.
There are two major political problems from the get-go. First, tax hikes require a two-thirds legislative vote in both houses. Both Republican legislative leaders lost their posts after barely delivering enough votes for a first round of temporary tax hikes. AFSCME wants a much more sweeping round of permanent tax hikes. Second, the alternative is to attempt to pass off taxes as fees, and raise these “fees” on a majority vote. That’s going to run afoul, let’s say, of strong legal challenges. If Democrats went along with the move, which former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown calls “a trick.”
** ODD AS IT MAY SEEM …Star Trek is now the number one movie of the year, so far, in America. The movie reboot passed the animated hit Monsters vs. Aliens last night to grab the honor. Star Trek‘s domestic gross was $194.8 million going into today’s showings. It should go over $200 million on Friday, and this weekend will pass Batman Begins to become the most successful franchise reboot in recent memory. It blew past the other big hit franchise reboot, the Bond film Casino Royale, last Friday. The movies on the horizon that have a good chance of overtaking Star Trek for the yearly domestic box office crown are the new Harry Potter and Transformers pictures.
Considering that the Star Trek franchise was absolutely dead in the water from 2002 on, this is an incredible turnaround for what began as a TV series back in 1966. Hell, that’s before Jerry Brown ever ran for office.
With a Pakistani Army offensive underway against the Taliban, jihadists have carried out several major terrorist bombings in recent days.
** OBAMA WILL HOST NEXT G-20 SUMMIT … IN PITTSBURGH. President Barack Obama will host the next summit of the G-20 (group of 20 leading economies) on September 24th and 25th in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The most recent G-20 summit was in London. The leaders participating in the G-20 represent 85% of the global economy. The G-20 includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
Pennsylvania was a cornerstone state for both campaigns in last November’s presidential election.
Obama, on his international tour next week, will also tour the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.
Of recent Supreme Court appointments, only Chief Justice John Roberts was viewed more favorably at this stage.
There is, of course, a pronounced partisan breakdown on the pick. 72% of Democrats call it excellent or good. 40% of independents do the same, while only 29% of Republicans take those views. It would probably be better for Obama if the number for independents was higher, but they are the most numerous in the no opinion category.
** CALIFORNIA’S TOP PUBLIC POLLSTERS TO GAY MARRIAGE ADVOCATES: WAIT TILL 2012. With emotions running hot in the wake of the California Supreme Court’s expected upholding of the Prop 8 anti-gay marriage initiative, many advocates want to put a pro-gay marriage initiative on the 2010 ballot. And you thought state politics was complicated enough with the economic crisis and budget meltdown.
Why? Because they see no movement in public support for same-sex marriage. And because 2012 will be another presidential election, with a much bigger turnout with President Barack Obama on the ballot. That will also give adocates more time to work on public opinion in less charged ways, and to put together a good campaign.
With some economic indicators rising at last, President Barack Obama took credit at last night’s Democratic fundraiser in Beverly Hills, saying: “We have stepped back from the brink.”
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is en route from Los Angeles to Washington on Air Force One, following a $4 million fundraiser last night for the Democratic National Committee at the Beverly Hilton.
He is receiving his daily intelligence and economic briefings during the flight.
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama lands at Andrews Air Force Base, from which he will travel to the White House on Marine One, arriving at 12:15 PM Pacific.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama meets one-on-one with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office.
At 1:45 PM Pacific, Obama holds an expanded meeting with President Abbas in the Oval Office.
At 2:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
At 3 PM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Vice President Joe Biden is back in Washington following his trip to Colorado and holds an Economic Implementation Cabinet meeting this morning in the Roosevelt Room.
During his speech last night at the DNC fundraiser, Obama said that the economy is beginning to turn around and that with regard to his promised change, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Quite a few celebrities were on hand with Obama, including Seth Rogin, Marisa Tomei, Kiefer Sutherland, Jamie Foxx, Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith, and Tyler Perry.
Obama is also monitoring a few geopolitical crises.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, urged by Obama, is continuing, with more signs that Taliban forces are being disrupted and driven back in various places. There is house-to-house fighting underway in at least one city.
But Pakistan now has a sizable refugee crisis, with some 2.4 million people displaced from their homes. Many are staying with friends or relatives, but the country’s support system is strained nonetheless.
North Korea set off what appears to have been an underwhelming nuclear device on Monday, prompting international condemnation. Obama put out a statement in the middle of the night on the move. And the UN Security Council, meeting in emergency session, thoroughly denounced it.
The Hermit State has launched several short-range missiles since then, further inflaming the situation. The missiles reportedly had a range of about 80 miles. North Korea has placed its forces along the border with South Korea on full alert, and threatens that any attempt to interdict any of its vessels to check for weapons of mass destruction will be considered an act of war.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger receiving his first Hummer in 1992.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger checks out a new electric Hummer prototype this afternoon at the Capitol.
Raser Technologies has worked with Hummer to produce a Hummer H3 powered by plug-in hybrid extended-range electric vehicle technology.
Schwarzenegger, of course, was the famed Hummer’s chief promoter. This became a problem for him as he focused on the environment, climate change, and renewable energy, and he switched his seldom driven Hummers to alternative fuels.
Meanwhile, protests are mounting about his proposed budget cuts in the wake of the downed special election initiatives. Legislative Democrats appear resigned to the cuts-based approach to bringing California’s budget into some semblance of balance.
** THE AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY OF CALIFORNIA’S PROP 8. The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, last November’s successful initiative against same-sex marriage is all the more tragic in that the initiative never should have passed in the first place. …
The right to same-sex marriage will, in the end, win out. It’s the getting there that is messy. And it need not have been as messy as the passage of Prop 8, and its expected upholding by the California Supreme Court, has made it. …
Gay marriage opponents got a huge gift immediately from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s comments. Newsom had enraged top national Democrats, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by unilaterally declaring same-sex marriage lawful in San Francisco in the midst of the 2004 presidential race. Though it was a move that was predictably easily overturned, national Republican strategists credited the furor it caused with playing a propulsive role in turning out huge numbers of fundamentalist voters in Ohio, the lynchpin of George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election. … From my new column.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. … From my May 20th column.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. … From my May 18th column.
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
This is up about $30 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan and North Korea.
President Barack Obama, after touring a new solar photovoltaic array at Nellis Air Force Base today outside Las Vegas, discussed his economic recovery program.
** QUICK HITS. There are signs that North Korea is looking for a naval incident with South Korea. It’s pursued two such deadly encounters in recent years. The US has two aircraft carrier strike groups, USS George Washington and USS John Stennis, in the Western Pacific, but only one, the Washington group, that is reportedly currently in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula. … President Barack Obama is expected to raise over $3 million tonight for the Democratic National Committee at the Beverly Hilton. It’s his first fundraiser in California since winning the presidency. … Ex-eBay CEO and Republican campaign official Meg Whitman will have her campaign for governor of California endorsed by John McCain on Friday. McCain, for whom Whitman served as national campaign co-chair, lost California by 24 points to Obama. … Former California Senate leader Don Perata was cleared today after a five-year investigation by the US Justice Department. No charges were ever filed against Perata, who spent a fortune defending himself against an amorphous cloud of allegations. Perata must now be rated the favorite to replace incumbent Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums in next year’s election.
** GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER. At the big DNC fundraiser tonight in LA, President Barack Obama will be joined by America’s newest Democratic Senator, Arlen Specter. The former Pennsylvania Republican makes his debut at a Democratic function. Obama is working on short-circuiting a 2010 primary challenge to Specter, who has actually pretty much a Democratic party line after some early comments suggesting otherwise following his dramatic party switch. Co-chairs of the event include Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, Ron Burkle, Casey Wasserman, John Emerson (who was my best man), Nicole Avant, and Ari Emanuel (Rahm Emanuel’s hyper agent brother).
White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.
Who says you can’t do important things, such as self-immolation, in 140 characters or less?
** GALLUP POLL: MOST AMERICANS OPPOSE GAY MARRIAGE.A Gallup Poll taken in early May shows same-sex marriage still widely opposed by most Americans. It’s 40% in favor, and 57% opposed.
This is why opportunities on this issue can’t be squandered by narcissism and bone-headed moves, as occurred last year in California around the Proposition 8 campaign.
Gay marriage is favored by 55% of Democrats, 45% of independents, and 20% of Republicans.
A separate question in the poll found close to half of Americans, 48%, saying that allowing legal same-sex marriages would change society for the worse. That is more than three times the 13% who believe legal gay marriage would change society for the better. The remaining 38% say it would have no effect on society or do not have an opinion on the matter.
Same-sex marriage is now legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, and Iowa, and will be legal in Vermont this fall.
But a move to legalize it in liberal New York has stalled in the state Senate after passing in the Assembly. A recent poll there found opinion evenly split, 46% for and 46% against.
However, views on gays in the military have undergone a major shift since 1993, when 43% were in favor.
Today, the latest USA Today/Gallup poll finds 69% of Americans in favor of military service by openly gay men and lesbians. While the Clinton-era policy remains in place, President Obama promised during the campaign to change it.
North Korea, which set off an underwhelming underground nuclear test blast on Memorial Day, has reportedly re-started its weapons-grade nuclear plant and launched yet another short-range missile, threatening military action against South Korea.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in the West today.
He spends most of the day in Nevada, which he took out of the Republican presidential column last November. In addition to boosting his own agenda, he’s helping Senator Harry Reid.
Then Obama comes to California, where he has the first LA fundraiser of his presidency.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Obama receives his daily intelligence and economic briefings this morning in Las Vegas.
It is not believed that he will be visiting Area 51.
At 11 AM Pacific, he and Senator Harry Reid tour the solar photovoltaic array at Nellis Air Force Base.
At 11:40 AM, Obama delivers remarks on Nevada projects included in his economic recovery program at the Thunderbird Hangar at Nellis Air Force Base.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama departs Las Vegas on Air Force One en route to Los Angeles.
At 1:35 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Los Angeles.
At 7:05 PM Pacific, Obama attends the Democratic National Committee fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Senate Majority Leader Reid is down in the Nevada polls in the run-up to his re-election campaign next year. Obama was on hand last night at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas to add to his warchest and further dissuade any serious Republican opposition.
Nevada Republicans are in disarray, with Governor Jim Gibbons in the midst of various scandals, and have yet to produce a significant challenger to Reid.
Obama is also monitoring a few geopolitical crises.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, urged by Obama, is continuing, with more signs that Taliban forces are being disrupted and driven back in various places. There is house-to-house fighting underway in at least one city.
In retaliation, Taliban operatives killed scores of people in a major terrorist bombing in Lahore.
North Korea set off what appears to have been an underwhelming nuclear device on Monday, prompting international condemnation. Obama put out a statement in the middle of the night on the move. And the UN Security Council, meeting in emergency session, thoroughly denounced it.
The Hermit State has launched several short-range missiles since then, further inflaming the situation. The missiles reportedly had a range of about 80 miles. North Korea has placed its forces along the border with South Korea on full alert, and threatens that any attempt to interdict any of its vessels to check for weapons of mass destruction will be considered an act of war.
Aside from, once again, getting more attention, it’s not clear what the North Korean leadership is trying to do.
Protests up and down the Golden State have greeted the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative.
** THE AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY OF CALIFORNIA’S PROP 8. The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, last November’s successful initiative against same-sex marriage is all the more tragic in that the initiative never should have passed in the first place. …
The right to same-sex marriage will, in the end, win out. It’s the getting there that is messy. And it need not have been as messy as the passage of Prop 8, and its expected upholding by the California Supreme Court, has made it. …
Gay marriage opponents got a huge gift immediately from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s comments. Newsom had enraged top national Democrats, including Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, by unilaterally declaring same-sex marriage lawful in San Francisco in the midst of the 2004 presidential race. Though it was a move that was predictably easily overturned, national Republican strategists credited the furor it caused with playing a propulsive role in turning out huge numbers of fundamentalist voters in Ohio, the lynchpin of George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election. …
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed the same-sex marriage situation last night on The Tonight Show.
UPDATE: SCHWARZENEGGER’S MORNING “HYDROGEN HIGHWAY” EVENT WILL NOT BE WEBCAST.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tours a hydrogen fuel facility at a Shell service station in West Los Angeles near the 405 freeway this morning and holds a press conference. He will then briefly join Hydrogen Road Tour 2009, an annual road rally up the West Coast that highlights advances in fuel cell technology. The road rally began on Monday in San Diego and ends on June 3rd in Vancouver, British Columbia. Schwarzenegger has created a network of 26 hydrogen fueling stations to form a nascent “Hydrogen Highway.”
At 2 PM, Schwarzenegger will take part in a text-based online chat called the Digg Dialogg. The interview session with Nicole Lapin of CNN will consist of Schwarzenegger answering the most popular questions submitted by the Digg online community.
Last night, Schwarzenegger was one of host Jay Leno’s final guests on The Tonight Show. Leno’s long tenure there ends this week, and he’s having his favorite guests on as part of the farewell. In a “surprise” move, Schwarzenegger declared his candidacy for governor on The Tonight Show in August 2003, and was elected in a 17-point landslide two months later.
While on the show, Schwarzenegger declared that the ban on same-sex marriage upheld yesterday by the California Supreme Court should and will be overturned in the next few years.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. … From my May 20th column.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. … From my May 18th column.
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
This is up about $29 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan and North Korea.
President Barack Obama this morning appointed Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
** QUICK HITS. A tremendous outpouring around the California Supreme Court’s decision upholding the anti-gay marriage Prop 8. (See my column linked below.) … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his speech this morning, discussed the dysfunctional California budget process. Later he announced another $5 billion in prospective budget cuts, including to the state’s workfare program and the prisons. … President Barack Obama is in Las Vegas tonight for a big fundraiser boosting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s re-election. A complicating factor for Reid: His son, who ran Hillary Clinton’s Silver State operation, wants to run for governor of Nevada, raising a dynasty issue. … Atlantic writer Marc Ambinder reports that Judge Sonia Sotomayor was Obama’s favorite pick for the Supreme Court from the beginning, despite the fact they hadn’t met. She certainly seems to fill the bill for him if you think about it.
Here are the numbers: Independents 38%, Republicans 34%, Democrats 29%.
Part of the difference between the veteran partisan skew and the overall partisan skew is that vets are overwhelmingly male.
** OBAMA EXPANDS NEXT WEEK’S INTERNATIONAL TRIP TO INCLUDE SAUDI ARABIA AS WELL AS EGYPT, GERMANY, AND FRANCE. President Barack Obama will also visit Saudi Arabia when he embarks next week on the second big international tour of his presidency.
Obama will now go first to Riyadh to meet with Saudi King Abdullah. Obama will hold no public events in Saudi Arabia.
After Riyadh, he goes to Cairo, where he will deliver a major address to the Muslim world in the historic Egyptian capital.
Obama will then go to Germany, where he will visit the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. Then he goes to France, to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy on June 6th.
** THE AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY OF CALIFORNIA’S PROP 8. The California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, last November’s successful initiative against same-sex marriage is all the more tragic in that the initiative never should have passed in the first place. …
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … CALIFORNIA: THE TRAGEDY OF PROP 8.
10 AM FLASH UPDATE: CALIFORNIA PROP 8 UPHELD BY STATE SUPREME COURT, EXISTING SAME-SEX MARRIAGES REMAIN VALID. More to follow.
** INITIAL THOUGHTS ON THE SOTOMAYOR APPOINTMENT. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t follow judicial politics closely, but Judge Sonia Sotomayor seems a good pick to me, in fact, the most logical pick.
Let’s look at the politics. Realistically speaking, Obama had to appoint a woman. It also made the most sense for him to appoint a Latino, or Hispanic, if that is your preferred term.
Sotomayor also has long experience on the bench, having been first appointed by Republican President Bush I, then by Democratic President Clinton. She’s well-credentialed as a Princeton alum and a former editor of the Yale Law Review. She’s a liberal, but not an ultra-liberal. She also has an extraordinarily compelling life story.
You can bet that Team Obama has carefully vetted her.
With regard to the latter, I don’t think affirmative action is that controversial now. (It’s interesting to note that the decision advantaged African Americans over Latinos, incidentally.)
With regard to the former, Sotomayor merely stated fact. A federal district judge does not make policy. But a a judge in a court of appeals does, by definition. Because the law has been seemingly unclear enough that it requires clarification.
There will be something of a big rain dance around this appointment – with lots of fodder for hyperpartisans, mainly on the far right, and the chattering cable culture – and then Sotomayor will be confirmed.
** WILLIE BROWN ON SPECIAL ELECTION AFTERMATH. From former California Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown’s Sunday SF Chronicle column: I was on the phone with state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass the other day, and I came away with the firm belief that she’s going to move quickly to see that the state budget is enacted on time, by the end of June.
What’s more, it’s going to be all cuts. No one knows exactly what the cuts will be, but it’s clear there will be no gimmicks, no tricks like trying to raise taxes by calling them “fees” that need only a simple majority vote instead of two-thirds.
It’s going to be painful, but Bass is conducting herself extremely well. She’s already called in all the special interests like the teachers union and the state workers union, and laid it out to them that she isn’t going to tolerate attempts to threaten or bully Assembly members like they have in the past.
By the way – can you imagine being a union leader who opposed the budget measures on the special election ballot, and now you have to go to your members and say it appears that 4 of the 10 of you sitting here just lost your jobs?
Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor, described in this AP clip, is expected to be named to the U.S. Supreme Court today by President Barack Obama. That is actually Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in the image above.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a very eventful day.
He has received his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.
At 7:15 AM Pacific, in the East Room of the White House, he will anounce his appointment of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme court, replacing retiring Justice David Souter.
Sotomayor, if confirmed by the Senate as expected, will be the Latino to serve on the Supreme Court.
She was appointed a judge of U.S. district court by then President George H.W. Bush, and appointed to a U.S. court of appeals by then President Bill Clinton.
Sotomayor, 54, is a New Yorker born of Puerto Rican immigrant parents, a product of Princeton University and Yale Law School. Her father, who never spoke English, died when she was 9 and her mother worked as a nurse to raise her.
Sotomayor is the first Democratic selection to the Supreme Court in 15 years.
Following the Sotomayor announcement and associated discussions, Obama receives his daily economic briefing and meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 1:10 PM Pacific, Obama departs the White House via Marine One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 1:25 PM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Las Vegas, Nevada.
At 5:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Las Vegas, Nevada at McCarran International Airport.
At 7:55 PM Pacific, Obama attends a fundraiser for Senator Harry Reid at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Senate Majority Leader Reid is down in the Nevada polls in the run-up to his re-election campaign next year. Obama will be on hand tonight to add to his warchest and further dissuade any serious Republican opposition.
Nevada Republicans are in disarray, with Governor Jim Gibbons in the midst of various scandals, and have yet to produce a significant challenger to Reid.
President Barack Obama honored America’s fallen veterans yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery.
Obama will also be monitoring a few geopolitical crises.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, urged by Obama, is continuing, with more signs that Taliban forces are being disrupted and driven back in various places. There is house-to-house fighting underway in at least one city.
North Korea set off what appears to have been an underwhelming nuclear device yesterday, prompting international condemnation. Obama put out a statement in the middle of the night on the move. And the UN Security Council, meeting in emergency session, thoroughly denounced it.
The Hermit State also launched two short-range missiles today, further inflaming the situation.
The California Supreme Court will today announce its decision on Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks at California Small Business Day today in Sacramento.
He also awaits the California Supreme Court’s promised decision today on Proposition 8, the initiative passed last November to invalidate the right to same-sex marriage that had been granted by the court last year.
Schwarzenegger will comment on the decision. He has urged the court to overturn the initiative.
And, in the late afternoon, Schwarzenegger tapes an appearance on The Tonight Show, which will air late tonight around the country.
This is host Jay Leno’s last week with the show – not that he’s exactly disappearing, as he will have a nightly show on NBC in the new season – and he is featuring his favorite guests for his swan song.
Schwarzenegger declared his candidacy for governor in a “surprise” announcement on The Tonight Show on August 6, 2003. He won a landslide election as governor in the California recall election two months later.
His speech to the small business conference – at which he will also discuss the chronic budget crisis – comes at 10:45 AM at the Sheraton Grande Hotel in Sacramento. It will be webcast live on www.gov.ca.gov.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. … From my May 20th column.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. … From my May 18th column.
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there.
In the process, the Obama Administration is signaling that there will be no massive military surge preferred by General David Petraeus, as well as, seemingly, an end to nation-building fantasies and a preference for more special operations while searching for compromise.
McKiernan, the commander of conventional ground forces for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is being replaced by a rather controversial special operations expert, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal oversaw the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country.
Obama even flashed the Vulcan hand sign — not so easy to do the first few times you try — at Nimoy at an Obama fundraiser in, for those of you who were johnnies-come-lately, January 2007.
Now for the part that’s not quite so obvious. This Star Trek hinges on the original captain of the Enterprise. But not the one you’re thinking of.
In rebooting the saga, the new stewards of Star Trek have neatly set up a classic coming-of-age journey for a new generation, the Obama generation. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
This is up about $26 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan.
The finest World War II film is They Were Expendable, shot in early 1945 while the war was still on. This John Ford film, focused on the then untried PT boats, tells some of the true story of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, sacrificed to buy time against vastly superior Japanese forces. Here the Americans in the Philippines learn of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and experience their first attack.
The nuclear device detonated by North Korea in 2006 had a yield of one kiloton, equivalent to one thousand pounds of TNT. The latest is judged to be perhaps one or two kilotons more than that. It had initially been supposed to have been a 20-kiloton device, the same size as the atomic bomb dropped by America on Hiroshima, Japan in August 1945. Current weapons held by the US and Russia are vastly more powerful than that device which, coupled with a similar bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki, at last ended World War II.
Clearly, North Korea, by carrying out this exercise on Memorial Day, is again seeking attention. But troubling as any nuclear detonation is, their aims are even more baffling. If North Korea hasn’t made a significant advance in the past three years, what is the point of the exercise? Whatever it is, it won’t be figured out here on Memorial Day.
** ABOUT THEY WERE EXPENDABLE. A few early scenes from this great 1945 film, based upon the best-selling book of the same name, about the American defeat in the Philippines at the beginning of World War II can be seen above. While highly regarded, with top stars and arguably the premiere director of the era, it was only a moderate hit when it was released. The story is essentially downbeat, though there is some uplift to be found in an ending which hints at the future.
Unlike other films of the era, most of the principals involved in making They Were Expendable were veterans of the war. When it was made, the war’s outcome was likely though not yet secured. Europe had been invaded on D-Day some seven months before principal photography began. And the Philippines were being taken back from the Japanese, though heavy fighting was still underway on several islands.
Director John Ford, who directed The Grapes of Wrath the year before the war began, was a captain in the Navy, having made several documentary films, including some amazing work on the island of Midway where he was wounded during the Japanese attack in the turning point 1942 battle in the Pacific. (Ford was also on Omaha Beach on D-Day, directing filming during the second wave of the amphibious assault. That footage has not been released, as it shows too much carnage.) Star Robert Montgomery, little remembered today, played the lead character, who went on to become one of the most highly-decorated Navy officers of World War II and fellow PT boat officer JFK’s pick to command Guantanamo Bay during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But Montgomery knew both the character he portrayed and Kennedy from his own service as a highly-decorated PT boat skipper in the Pacific, and commanded a destroyer during the invasion of Normandy. He actually directed the action sequences in the movie and went on to become a powerful producer in the new medium of television. Montgomery also later served as media advisor to President Dwight Eisenhower, but did not help Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, when he ran against fellow PT boat skipper John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Second lead John Wayne, still rated as one of America’s most popular all-time movie stars, gives a good, restrained performance here. Ironically, he did not serve during World War II, and his longtime director Ford reportedly gave him a lot of gas about that during the making of this film.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is back in Washington.
Early this morning, he had breakfast in the State Dining Room of the White House with Gold Star families, survivors of Americans killed in combat.
At 8 AM Pacific, Obama lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery.
At 8:15 AM Pacific, he delivers remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater in Washington.
In the middle of last night, Obama issued a statement condemning an underground nuclear test conducted by North Korea.
While the North Koreans have a habit of making unfounded claims (their recent attempt to place a satellite in orbit failed, contrary to their claims) and frequently do things to get attention (conducting such an exercise on Memorial Day falls into the pattern), this is being taken very seriously by leaders around the world.
China and Japan and European leaders have condemned the North Korean move.
Russia is convening an emergency meeting of the United Nationsl Security Council on the matter.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began a week-long visit to China on Sunday. The Californian, who’s ignored right-wing Republican calls for her resignation in the wake of her criticism of the CIA, is leading a congressional delegation. On Tuesday, Pelosi, long a critic of China’s human rights record, takes part in an alternative energy conference.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama continues his Memorial Day weekend at Camp David, the rustic Maryland presidential retreat, with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughtes Malia and Sasha.
Obama is focusing in on his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. The appointment is expected in the next two weeks.
While he is enmeshed in this appointment, Obama is monitoring the ongoing offensive of the Pakistani Army against the Taliban.
He is also working on a major speech to the Muslim world which he will give in early June in Cairo, Egypt.
Bolden, who won the Distinguished Flying Cross in the Vietnam War, is the first African American to head American’s space agency. He’s a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a master’s in engineering from the University of Southern California.
Although Obama’s made this historic pick and is clearly interested in space – the longtime Trekkie screened the new Star Trek, the biggest movie hit of the year so far, at the White House – budget considerations make the future of America’s space program unclear.
The space shuttle Atlantis landed this morning in California after the successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Obama watched the successful return of the space shutttle Atlantis this morning. The Atlantis was dispatched to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. But bad weather prevented its normal return to Florida for the past two days, so the spacecraft was redirected to a landing this morning in California’s high desert at Edwards Air Force Base, the original home of test piloting and the nascent space program of the 1950s.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TERMINATING THE DARKNESS?
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events today.
In a column slated for later in the day on Monday, on a much broader topic, I will explain how his cameo appearance in the new film Terminator Salvation was accomplished without him providing a new live-action performance.
In his Memorial Day weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama pays tribute to America’s fallen as well as the surviving veterans and currently serving members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama, accompanied by First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Sasha and Malia, is off to the presidential retreat at Camp David for the weekend.
Obama has no scheduled public events this weekend.
The president will be zeroing in on his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
He will also be monitoring the continuing offensive, which he urged, against the Taliban by the Pakistani Army.
** F1 SUNDAY. The globe-spanning Formula One racing season continues this weekend, with the action having moved from the Pacific Basin and Middle East to Europe, as the exotic race cars duel on the picturesque streets of Monte Carlo in the Monaco Grand Prix. You can watch the race live at 5 AM Sunday on Speed TV.
It’s a season of paradox, with the perennial power teams – Italy’s Ferrari and Britain’s McLaren – reduced to also ran status after the first five races of the season. A brand new team, Brawn GP, is running away with the season so far, led by British driver Jenson Button, who has won four of the five grand prixs to date. Button just secured the pole position again at Monaco.
With the sharp global economic downturn, budgets have been cut and that, along with a thoroughly redesigned race car, has enabled new players to break through. Brawn GP is so new that the team didn’t even have a sponsor for the first race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix. Then entrepreneur Richard Branson, of Virgin Air and Music fame, stepped forward at the last minute as the team went on to a surprise win. Since then the new leaders have picked up more sponsorship, including from the Terminator movie franchise.
“See you at the party, Richter!” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Ironside – seen here in Total Recall – both appear in the new hit film, Terminator Salvation. Ironside plays the pre-John Connor leader of the human resistance against the Skynet artificial intelligence while Schwarzenegger appears in a key cameo.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no scheduled public events this weekend.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. …
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. …
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there.
In the process, the Obama Administration is signaling that there will be no massive military surge preferred by General David Petraeus, as well as, seemingly, an end to nation-building fantasies and a preference for more special operations while searching for compromise.
McKiernan, the commander of conventional ground forces for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is being replaced by a rather controversial special operations expert, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal oversaw the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country.
Obama even flashed the Vulcan hand sign — not so easy to do the first few times you try — at Nimoy at an Obama fundraiser in, for those of you who were johnnies-come-lately, January 2007.
Now for the part that’s not quite so obvious. This Star Trek hinges on the original captain of the Enterprise. But not the one you’re thinking of.
In rebooting the saga, the new stewards of Star Trek have neatly set up a classic coming-of-age journey for a new generation, the Obama generation. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed on Friday at $61.67 per barrel, a nine-month high. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $28 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan.
President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address this morning at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He noted that he is halting the reduction of the Navy and increasing the Marine Corps and pledged to send sailors and Marines into combat only when “absolutely necessary” in a well-defined mission.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TERMINATING THE DARKNESS?
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama will spend Memorial Day weekend with his family at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. There he will work on finalizing his pick for the US Supreme Court. … Former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a Bush appointee, says that former Vice President Dick Cheney is wrong when he says America is less safe under Obama. … House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blew off reporters trying to get her to say more about the CIA and torture in her weekly press conference today. The controversy, as I expected, is dying down. … With the Drudge Report subsiding in its impact, national Republicans are increasingly using the Huffington Post to try to get their message out. … As I said to a friend last night, there would not have been many people 10 years ago who would have foreseen Arnold as the governor of California and Arianna as one of the most influential publishers in the world.
** LOCKYER CALLS “CUT.” Veteran liberal Democrat Bill Lockyer, the former state Senate leader-turned-two-term state attorney general and present state Treasurer, told California’s legislative budget conference committee today that it is time to rely on cuts to attempt to bring the state’s chronic budget crisis into some semblance of balance.
“It seems to me that the kind of budget we will require before the end of June is almost entirely comprised of cuts,” Lockyer told the 10-member, two-house conference committee charged with fashioning a plan that eliminates a $24.3 billion deficit. “My suggestion to you is don’t delay the pain. It’s going to be awful, but just get it done. It’s going to be worse if it doesn’t get done.”
Lockyer warned that borrowing tactics will not work and that, in the wake of Tuesday’s vote, notions from the state’s ultra-government faction that more tax hikes are the way to go in the midst of a recession are simply a pipe dream.
** FEINSTEIN CALLS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDACY “VERY UNLIKELY.” California’s senior senator ain’t running for governor next year. This will not surprise NWN readers.
** CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS. For the first time since the recession began early last year, California’s unemployment rate went down last month. It was 11.2% in March, and dipped to 11.0% in April. Of course, it was “only” 6.6% a year earlier.
Still, that’s a break in the bleak news of the past several months, and should be a surprise to those who’ve been predicting that the rate will keep going up inexorably to 14% or 15%.
Indeed, the national economy seems to be brightening more than a bit.
** PROP 8 DECISION COMING ON TUESDAY. The California Supreme Court announced this morning that it will issue its decision on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative that passed last November, on Tuesday. Gay rights groups and former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown intervened to overturn the initiative. If the initiative is deemed unconstitutional, which most observers do not expect, it will likely come on Brown’s interpretation of same-sex marriage being an inherent right rather than the grounds claimed by various groups that Prop 8 needed to go through the state Legislature first as a constitutional revision. Key justices were notably dismissive of that notion.
Proposition 8 should never have passed. But that, as they say, is another story.
President Barack Obama spoke about national security, terrorism, and American values in this speech yesterday at the National Archives Museum Rotunda in Washington.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a busy day.
He has signed the Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act in the Oval Office, designed to root out tremendous amounts of waste in Pentagon contracting, And he has departed the White House for the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
At 7 AM Pacific, Obama delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Senator John McCain’s son, Jack, is a member of the graduating class. His grandfather and great-grandfather were both admirals. McCain himself, with wife Cindy, will be in attendance. You can be sure that Obama will again recognize his Republican opponent, and now sometime ally, of 2008.
Jack McCain is the fourth member of the McCain family to be an Annapolis alumnus. Young Jack intends to be a naval aviator like his dad.
The event will be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
At 10:05 AM Pacific, Obama returns to the White House.
At 12 noon Pacific, he signs the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act in the Rose Garden.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Beirut, Lebanon today.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a cameo in the new Terminator Salvation, which I will explain later.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private meetings and discussions today in Los Angeles.
At 11:30 AM, in advance of Memorial Day, he delivers remarks at the West Los Angeles National Guard Armory.
Schwarzenegger will join officials of the California Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Mental Health to announce the launch of the Network of Care for Veterans Web site.
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW. When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. …
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. …
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there.
In the process, the Obama Administration is signaling that there will be no massive military surge preferred by General David Petraeus, as well as, seemingly, an end to nation-building fantasies and a preference for more special operations while searching for compromise.
McKiernan, the commander of conventional ground forces for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is being replaced by a rather controversial special operations expert, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal oversaw the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country.
Obama even flashed the Vulcan hand sign — not so easy to do the first few times you try — at Nimoy at an Obama fundraiser in, for those of you who were johnnies-come-lately, January 2007.
Now for the part that’s not quite so obvious. This Star Trek hinges on the original captain of the Enterprise. But not the one you’re thinking of.
In rebooting the saga, the new stewards of Star Trek have neatly set up a classic coming-of-age journey for a new generation, the Obama generation. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $61 to $62 per barrel range, a nine-month high.
This is up about $27 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan.
President Barack Obama refused to retreat this morning on the closure of the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison, despite a Senate vote denying funding for the closure and opposing bringing any suspected terrorists to the US.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TERMINATING THE DARKNESS?
** QUICK HITS. Admiral Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, says the Pakistani offensive against the Taliban is going pretty well, and that the danger of the slow-rolling jihad is receding somewhat. There are 2.4 million refugees inside Pakistan now as a result of the conflict. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger put aside the notion of more borrowing, at higher cost, to balance California’s budget, now in extraordinarily serious straits with the global recession tanking revenues and voters shooting down the special election initiatives. I have more on this, but have been hung up much of the day. Asked about the new Terminator movie, Schwarzenegger quips: “I’ll be back.” … The state’s Legislative Analyst puts the latest deficit at about $24.3 billion, $3 billion worse than the worst case scenario Schwarzenegger laid out last week. When critics on the far right and left claimed he was using “scare tactics.” … There seems to be little appetite amongst Democratic legislative leaders for more tax hikes to make up the budget gap. … Meanwhile, Republican legislative leaders continue to refuse to spell out the cuts they have been demanding for more than a year. … And San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, trying to run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, unveils his new “Buck the System” slogan tonight at his latest kick-off event in the City by the Bay. Newsom is actually more a part of “the system” than any potential candidate.
** POOR MARKS FOR PELOSI ON TORTURE AND C.I.A.The new Gallup Poll finds that a plurality of Americans disapprove of how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has handled the question of torture in the past interrogation of suspected terrorists. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama gets high marks, as does the CIA.
Last week, Pelosi attempted to respond to allegations that she learned of the use of waterboarding in September 2002 during a CIA briefing of congressional leaders. In her press conference, she asserted that the CIA misled her by denying that waterboarding was being used, even though government reports indicate it had been used on an al Qaeda terror suspect in the month prior to that briefing. The CIA responded and disputed her assertions that the agency misled her. Republican leaders have roundly criticized her remarks.
Sixty percent of Americans say they are following the news about the government’s use of harsh interrogation techniques closely, including 22% who say they are following it “very closely.” Republicans (66%) are slightly more likely than independents or Democrats (each 59%) to be following the matter closely.
The May 19 poll finds Pelosi largely losing the public relations game, as she gets a significantly more negative review for her handling of the matter than do the other major players in the controversy, including the CIA. Also, notably, Americans are much more critical of Pelosi’s handling of the matter than they are of the broader group of the Democrats in Congress she leads as speaker of the House.
Those who are paying the closest attention to the matter are especially critical of Pelosi, with 63% of this group disapproving of her, compared with just 30% who approve. This highly attentive group is generally somewhat more critical than the general public is of each of the actors — aside from the CIA, which is rated much more positively by those who are following the matter closely (63% approve) than by the broader population (52% approve). …
** OBAMA’S NEW CALIFORNIA-BASED CLIMATE POLICY: SIX KEY THINGS TO KNOW.When President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he is making California’s standard for vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions the new national standard, he accomplished a number of things. … From my new column.
** EXCERPTS FROM OBAMA’S SPEECH ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND GUANTANAMO. From Europe to the Pacific, we have been a nation that has shut down torture chambers and replaced tyranny with the rule of law. That is who we are. And where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology.
After 9/11, we knew that we had entered a new era – that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law; that our government would need new tools to protect the American people, and that these tools would have to allow us to prevent attacks instead of simply prosecuting those who try to carry them out.
Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions. And I believe that those decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that – too often – our government made decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, we too often set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And in this season of fear, too many of us – Democrats and Republicans; politicians, journalists and citizens – fell silent. …
First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.
I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. …
The second decision that I made was to order the closing of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
For over seven years, we have detained hundreds of people at Guantanamo. During that time, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo succeeded in convicting a grand total of three suspected terrorists. Let me repeat that: three convictions in over seven years. Instead of bringing terrorists to justice, efforts at prosecution met setbacks, cases lingered on, and in 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the entire system. Meanwhile, over five hundred and twenty-five detainees were released from Guantanamo under the Bush Administration. Let me repeat that: two-thirds of the detainees were released before I took office and ordered the closure of Guantanamo.
There is also no question that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. Instead of building a durable framework for the struggle against al Qaeda that drew upon our deeply held values and traditions, our government was defending positions that undermined the rule of law. …
The third decision that I made was to order a review of all the pending cases at Guantanamo.
I knew when I ordered Guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex. There are 240 people there who have now spent years in legal limbo. In dealing with this situation, we do not have the luxury of starting from scratch. We are cleaning up something that is – quite simply – a mess; a misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my Administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis, and that consumes the time of government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country.
Indeed, the legal challenges that have sparked so much debate in recent weeks in Washington would be taking place whether or not I decided to close Guantanamo. For example, the court order to release seventeen Uighur detainees took place last fall – when George Bush was President. The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantanamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican Presidents. In other words, the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place. …
President Barack Obama had his quarterly meeting with his Economic Recovery Advisory Board yesterday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a busy day.
At 7:10 AM Pacific, he makes a major speech on national security at the National Archives Museum Rotunda.
The event will be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
Obama then returns to the White House and receives the daily intelligence and economic briefings and meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, he welcomes the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers (his pick to win) to the White House. Obama and the team then participate in a service event at the South Portico, putting together care packages for American troops.
At 1:15 PM Pacific, Obama meets with President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania in the Oval Office.
Vice President Joe Biden is in Kosovo today.
Biden addresses the Assembly of Kosovo and then visits Camp Bondsteel to meet and speak to U.S. troops taking part in the NATO mission in Kosovo.
Right after Obama speaks this morning on national security – in which he will explain again the shutdown of the prison at Guantanamo Bay – former Vice President Dick Cheney will again assail Obama’s policies in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
This will be a big deal in the media.
Vice President Joe Biden is in the Balkans, where he visits Belgrade, Serbia.
Terminator Salvation opens wide today. Arnold Schwarzenegger had a more musical conception of the new Terminator movie.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private meetings and discussions today in Sacramento and Los Angeles.
After attending the annual Legislative prayer breakfast, Schwarzenegger will hold a press availability at the Sheraton Grande Hotel in Sacramento.
First Lady Maria Shriver unveils the first edible garden in Capitol Park, also this morning.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. …
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there.
In the process, the Obama Administration is signaling that there will be no massive military surge preferred by General David Petraeus, as well as, seemingly, an end to nation-building fantasies and a preference for more special operations while searching for compromise.
McKiernan, the commander of conventional ground forces for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is being replaced by a rather controversial special operations expert, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal oversaw the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country.
Obama even flashed the Vulcan hand sign — not so easy to do the first few times you try — at Nimoy at an Obama fundraiser in, for those of you who were johnnies-come-lately, January 2007.
Now for the part that’s not quite so obvious. This Star Trek hinges on the original captain of the Enterprise. But not the one you’re thinking of.
In rebooting the saga, the new stewards of Star Trek have neatly set up a classic coming-of-age journey for a new generation, the Obama generation. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $60 to $61 per barrel range, near a seven-month high.
This is up about $26 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan.
Holdover FBI Director Robert Mueller today gave a rather tortured, as it were, rationale for not closing the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama and ex-Vice President Dick Cheney(strangely more public now than when he held office as perhaps the least popular veep in history)give dueling national securityspeeches tomorrow. Cheney will again argue that Obama, now under fire from the left for various moves in the area, is too squishily lefty to defend America. … Over 2 million Pakistanis are now refugees in their own country in the wake of the ongoing Obama-urged offensive against the Taliban. … In what should surprise no one, California Republican legislators this afternoon held a press conference announcing their drive for big budget cuts in a cuts-only approach to the chronic budget crisis. And again, chronically, refused to specify any such cuts, instead laying out a sketchy long-term process. … The Bay Area Council, joined by such groups as the New America Foundation and Courage Campaign, today urged a California constitutional convention to deal with the state’s highly dysfunctional system of governance. But the con-con, should it occur, wouldn’t even begin for at least six months after the next governor is elected, in other words, for at least two years. No solutions for the near term.
** CALIFORNIA POLITICIANS GET 18% PAY CUT. After a raft of stories of big increases in pay and perks over the last few years under the Capitol Dome — recall how the 2008 term limits reform initiative went down after revelations of luxury spending by legislative leaders from their political campaign funds – the state commission setting compensation for state legislators and constitutional officers this morning voted to cut salaries by 18%.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed the commissioners needed to accomplish the pay cut, naturally applauded the move: “The California Citizens Compensation Commission took the right action today in voting to reduce the salaries of the state’s elected officials by 18 percent. The people of California have spoken loud and clear: they want the state to live within its means and do not want any more government waste or pay raises for California’s elected officials. I completely agree and that is why I have cut back in my own office and ordered layoffs of state employees to save money.” Schwarznegger had previously reduced pay in his office by 9.3%.
** SCHWARZENEGGER CONFIRMS OBAMA OKAY ON CUTS. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after meeting this morning in Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, confirmed reports that the Obama Administration has backed away from its earlier stance that proposed budget cuts take the state out of compliance with federal law. As part of the emergency budget, Schwarzenegger cut wages for home health care workers organized by the Service Employees International Union, which got an opinion from the Obama Administration that billions in economic recovery funds could be blocked by the move.
At his press availability following this morning’s meeting with Sebelius, Schwarzenegger said: “Just wanted to say that we had a terrific meeting with Secretary Sebelius about some of the confusions there were regarding the economic stimulus money and those confusions were cleared up this morning. We are very happy to report that they will bring to California the billions of dollars that were promised through the economic stimulus package.”
This should be something of a wakeup call to our friends on the left about the difficulty of dealing with public opinion on such things. People are embarrassed by Gitmo, which is a major stain on American’s global image. But don’t want suspected terrorists anywhere near them, even in SuperMax prisons, even though convicted criminals live in housing developments.
Obama will address the Guantanamo issue tomorrow is a major speech on national security.
The City of Santa Clara, down the Peninsula from the San Francisco, and the 49ers yesterday reached agreement on a financing package for a new 68,500-seat stadium. There will still need to be a public vote in Santa Clara ratifying the deal, and an environmental impact report.
The franchise’s negotiations with the administration of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom over the past few years have been fruitless. But it’s not a total loss for the mayor, as he went to Santa Clara University.
** CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS. The key state budget compromise-related initiatives in yesterday’s special election all went down to defeat as expected. None of them were close. Right now, the turnout looks like it was around 23%.
There will be calls for a constitutional convention to rejigger the state’s system of governance, which is clearly dysfunctional. Between the intractable ultra-government and anti-government factions producing gridlock in a Legislature with little expertise and a two-thirds vote requirement on key fiscal matters, a governor who’s become seen as “one of them” after many months of closeted negotiations, largely autopilot budgeting locked in by initiative, a deracinated press corps that has gone from above average to a hollow and underinformed shell, and an underinformed electorate uninterested in elections not involving Barack Obama, the system is overripe for reform. Don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
It’s unclear how the necessary mechanism would actually be triggered. And the electorate is showing no aptitude for complex solutions – for one thing, a big majority is against getting rid of the anachronistic two-thirds requirement on budget and revenue matters – and less interest in bothersome elections.
What’s likely on the reform front? More muddling. Whether it’s forward or not depends on how quickly Obama turns the economy around. In the short term, expect a state budget bloodbath, with the ranks of the principal victims including those public employee unions who advertised against yesterday’s package from the right in hopes of promoting the left.
Meanwhile, in LA, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa saw his ally Judy Chu, a state Board of Equalizations member, defeat his former ally Gil Cedillo, a state senator, in the special congressional election to replace new Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. That’s the good news for the mayor.
The bad news for the mayor, which is much more important, is that his handpicked candidate for Los Angeles city attorney, Councilman Jack Weiss, was badly beaten in yesterday’s run-off by Carmen Trutanich. The final tally, in a very low turnout election, is Trutanich 56%, Weiss 44%. Villaraigosa and his political operation went all out for Weiss, who finished first in March, but were crushed by a coalition of those disgruntled with the mayor’s leadership, spearheaded by the police.
This comes after the defeat of the mayor’s solar initiative in the first round of LA voting, and his own desultory re-election with 55% of the vote against a field of fringe candidates.
Villaraigosa now gets to deal with his city’s big budget deficit. His only consolation is that it is proportionately smaller than the budget deficit that now must be dealt with by his would-be rival, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, another gubernatorial hopeful who has his own problems with his own police. Newsom recently cancelled yet another out-of-state trip to promote his political career, the first time that’s happened in a long while.
President Barack Obama announced the new national policy on vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions modeled on the California plan in yesterday’s event in the White House Rose Garden.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 7 AM Pacific, Obama attends the first quarterly meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board in the Roosevelt Room.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office, then at noon Pacific participates in a credentialing ceremony for foreign ambassadors in the Oval Office.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama signs the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act in the East Room.
At 2:45 PM Pacific, he calls the crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from the Oval Office.
At 4:30 PM Pacific, Obama hosts a reception for Democratic and Republican members of the House and their guests.
Behind the scenes today, Obama is also focusing in on his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. He apparently still has six or more candidates in play. The pick may come next week. Or it may not.
Obama is also closely monitoring the Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, which he and his advisors urged upon President Asif Ali Zardari. The Pakistani government is reporting significant progress in the operations which have displaced some 1.4 million refugees.
Vice President Joe Biden is in the Balkans, where he visits Belgrade, Serbia.
As anticipated in a very low turnout special election, California voters rejected the key state budget compromise-related initiatives in yesterday’s special election.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Washington and Sacramento today.
He meets this morning with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the former governor of Kansas.
Schwarzenegger and Sebelius will discuss the drastic cuts made to California’s budget which violate federal rules for matching funds. He will ask the Obama Administration for flexibility so that California can make the cuts.
Afterwards, Schwarzenegger holds a press avail outside the Department of Health and Human Services, then flies to Sacramento.
This afternoon, Schwarzenegger meets with Democratic and Republican legislative leaders in the Capitol to discuss California’s worsened budget crisis in the wake of yesterday’s failure of the special election initiatives.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. …
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.” … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there.
In the process, the Obama Administration is signaling that there will be no massive military surge preferred by General David Petraeus, as well as, seemingly, an end to nation-building fantasies and a preference for more special operations while searching for compromise.
McKiernan, the commander of conventional ground forces for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is being replaced by a rather controversial special operations expert, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal oversaw the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. … From my May 13th column.
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country.
Obama even flashed the Vulcan hand sign — not so easy to do the first few times you try — at Nimoy at an Obama fundraiser in, for those of you who were johnnies-come-lately, January 2007.
Now for the part that’s not quite so obvious. This Star Trek hinges on the original captain of the Enterprise. But not the one you’re thinking of.
In rebooting the saga, the new stewards of Star Trek have neatly set up a classic coming-of-age journey for a new generation, the Obama generation. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $60 to $61 per barrel range, a seven-month high.
This is up about $26 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan.
This morning at the White House, President Barack Obama announced a new national policy on vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions modeled on the California plan. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA’S CALIFORNIA CLIMATE MODEL AND NEW VEHICLES.
Kennedy has a seizure at the Statuary Hall luncheon right after Obama’s Inauguration. He did return to the Senate to cast a deciding vote for Obama’s economic recovery package, but has been largely absent since.
** BAD POLL FOR HARRY REID.A new Las Vegas Review-Journal poll shows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fairly unpopular in Nevada, where he’s up for re-election next year. 45% say they would vote against Reid, while only 33% say they’ll definitely back him. 50% of Silver State voters have an unfavorable view of Reid, with only 38% viewing him favorably.
In contrast, President Barack Obama, who cracked the Republican lock on Nevada’s electoral votes last November, has a 55-30 favorable/unfavorable rating.
Notwithstanding Reid’s lack of popularity, which mostly dates back to his becoming the Senate’s Democratic leader in 2004, he has over $6 million in his campaign warchest, and Obama coming to Las Vegas for a big fundraiser later this month.
Better yet for the taciturn Westerner, the Republican Party is in disarray in Nevada, from troubled Governor Jim Gibbons on down, and there is no significant opponent yet emerging.
** ON THIS QUIET SPECIAL ELECTION DAY IN CALIFORNIA … The committee backing the six state budget compromise-related initiatives, California Budget Reform Now, isn’t having an election night party. It has scheduled a press conference at the Sheraton Grande Hotel in Sacramento to discuss the election results. At 9 PM tonight.
** ARNOLD UPDATE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s press avail today following his meeting with the California Congressional delegation, referenced below, is off. He met with the press outside the White House following this morning’s ceremony.
Following a meeting tomorrow morning in Washington with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, his former National Governors Association colleague, to discuss California’s need for a federal waiver allowing some state budget cuts of federally-funded programs, Schwarzenegger returns to Sacramento.
He will meet in the Capitol with Democratic and Republican legislative leaders tomorrow afternoon to discuss the budget situation in the wake of today’s special election.
Incidentally, President Obama cited Schwarzenegger twice during his presentation of the new federal policy on vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, which is modeled on the California program.
** STAR TREK‘S LONG LEGS. No, I’m not talking about Zoe Saldana, the actress who plays Uhura. The new, rebooted Star Trek is off to not only a fast start, but continued acceleration. Despite the heavily promoted launch of Angels and Demons, sequel (of a sort) to the mega-hit The Da Vinci Code, Star Trek is still the number one movie at the domestic box office.
While Angels and Demons narrowly won the weekend, $46.2 million to $43 million, over Star Trek, it really only bested Star Trek on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday, the brainy space opera was back on top, something which continued on Monday as well.
Star Trek is well on its way to being the most successful reboot of an aging franchise, as it’s likely to beat two very good recent movies at the box office. It will pass Casino Royale, the highly successful 2006 reboot of the James Bond franchise, in only its third weekend of release, this coming weekend. Then in the next few weeks, it will pass 2005′s Batman Begins.
** 24 AND THE TORTUOUS POLITICS OF TORTURE. The longtime hit TV series 24 has just wrapped a tumultuous seventh season in the midst of national debate about the past national policy of interrogation by torture of terror suspects. And, while 24 returned to past form as a crackling thriller, it’s done it in the midst of presenting a running debate about torture, mostly coming down on the side of torture.
Which, in its way, is appalling. There’s one thing, though. Torture may be more popular than many of us would like to think. …
President Barack Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu held a summit yesterday at the White House. Obama urged Netanyahu to back off West Bank settlements and work with Palestinians and said he wants to see diplomatic progress with Iran by year’s end.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the White House.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, Obama joins auto company CEOs, Cabinet members, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and other notable figures in the Rose Garden and delivers remarks on auto emissions and efficiency standards.
Obama will announce that the US will adopt vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emission standards modeled on those of the State of California.
The Bush/Cheney Administration blocked the California law for years.
The event will be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with meets with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Schultz, former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, and former Secretary of Defense William Perry in the Oval Office.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at ceremony honoring National Small Business Award Winners in the East Room.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates in the Oval Office.
Behind the scenes today, Obama is also focusing in on his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter. He apparently still has six or more candidates in play. The pick may come next week. Or it may not.
Obama is also closely monitoring the Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban, which he and his advisors urged upon President Asif Ali Zardari.
Obama is taking some heat on the left for his choice of a new American commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, former head of Joint Special Operations Command. See my column linked below on the Afghan command change.
Vice President Joe Biden is in the Balkans, where he spends the day in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the midst of the Kobayashi Maru, the supposed “no-win scenario.”
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Washington today and tomorrow.
At 9:15 AM Pacific, he joins President Barack Obama and other notables in the White House Rose Garden, where Obama announces that the US is adopting the California model on greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
The event will be roadblocked on all cable news nets.
Schwarzenegger voted by emergency absentee ballot in today’s special election on the state budget compromise-related initiatives, which are expected to go down.
Later in the day, Schwarzenegger meets separately with the California Congressional delegation, Senator Barbara Boxer, and Senator Dianne Feinstein.
At each meeting, Schwarzenegger will discuss the deep cuts he is making in the California state budget due to the new crisis, cuts which in some part violate federal funding standards. He’ll ask for support for federal dispensation for the cuts.
Schwarzenegger will hold a press avail this afternoon, following his meeting with the California Congressional delegation, in the vicinity of the Hart Senate Office Bldg.
** ANGELS AND DEMONS AND RELIGIOUS POLITICS. The sequel to one of the most controversial movies in recent memory is opening this weekend. And the collective response is a mild “hmm.”
In 2006, The Da Vinci Code was widely condemned by Catholic groups for blasphemy against religious doctrine. … From my May 15th column.
** WHAT DOES OBAMA’S AFGHAN COMMAND CHANGE MEAN?For the first such change in wartime since Harry Truman replaced General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War in 1951, Barack Obama is replacing General David McKiernan in Afghanistan. Obama is moving both to change a stalemated war in Afghanistan and to scale back expectations there.
In the process, the Obama Administration is signaling that there will be no massive military surge preferred by General David Petraeus, as well as, seemingly, an end to nation-building fantasies and a preference for more special operations while searching for compromise.
McKiernan, the commander of conventional ground forces for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is being replaced by a rather controversial special operations expert, Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal. As head of Joint Special Operations Command, McChrystal oversaw the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. …
** THE HYPE FLU’S BIG FADE.Remember that big, dangerous swine flu threat that the cable culture was going on about round the clock, still scaring the sweat out of people a week ago? Why, it’s going to … er, never mind.
** STAR TREK‘S NEW COMING-OF-AGE SAGA FOR GENERATION O. Let’s get the straight-up politics out of the way up front. Barack Obama, as he says himself, grew up on Star Trek. And both the new Spock, young Heroes TV star Zachary Quinto, and the classic Spock, Leonard Nimoy, each of whom star in the new movie, backed him for president, with Quinto campaigning around the country.
Obama even flashed the Vulcan hand sign — not so easy to do the first few times you try — at Nimoy at an Obama fundraiser in, for those of you who were johnnies-come-lately, January 2007.
Now for the part that’s not quite so obvious. This Star Trek hinges on the original captain of the Enterprise. But not the one you’re thinking of.
In rebooting the saga, the new stewards of Star Trek have neatly set up a classic coming-of-age journey for a new generation, the Obama generation. … From my May 8th column.
** OBAMA’S EARTH DAY ENERGY DECLARATION: CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE NATIONAL MODEL HE SAYS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH. … From my April 23rd 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. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
This is up about $25 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, due in part to some positive economic signs and in part to geopolitical jitters over Pakistan.
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