Former Saturday Night Live star Al Franken, who performed in a bedroom comedy political act in the ’90s with Arianna Huffington, is Minnesota’s new U.S. senator following today’s concession by Republican Norm Coleman.
9:30 PM UPDATE: CALIFORNIA 2010 FUNDRAISING. Fundraising reports are due now for California’s gubernatorial hopefuls.
I called Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom on their cell phones this evening to inquire about their fundraising. I reached the former governor-turned-attorney general, and left a message for the San Francisco mayor. Brown told me he has between $7.3 and $7.4 million in the bank. Since he’s not an announced candidate for governor, he’s only able to raise money at the much lower limit accorded a candidate for attorney general, but he certainly has much more than Newsom, who is raising at the higher level. Once he is an announced candidate, Brown can go back to his contributors for more.
Newsom’s campaign manager did put out a memo late this afternoon which didn’t address his overall fundraising, but did tout his online fundraising, saying that today he passed the $1 million mark since the beginning of his campaign last year. Intriguingly, Newsom also just passed 4000 total online donations. Newsom’s average online donation is much larger than those of Barack Obama, suggesting that his campaign is using his web site as a convenience for its contributors.
I don’t have cell numbers for this season’s Republican gubernatorial hopefuls, but it’s something of a moot point in any event. Two of them are super-rich, ex-eBay CEO and Republican presidential campaign co-chair Meg Whitman, and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. Each will self-fund. The third hopeful, former Congressman Tom Campbell, who is not super-rich, doesn’t seem to be raising much money.
** QUICK HITS. While talking continues, still no solution to California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis as late afternoon turns to early evening on the final day in which a budget can be enacted to avert IOUs. … National Security Advisor Jim Jones, former commandant of the US Marine Corps and commander of NATO, says that US troop levels in Afghanistan will not be increased in the foreseeable future. Jones was there just recently. … WalMart says it’s going to follow President Barack Obama’s call and, for the first time, provide health insurance to its employees.
** IT’S SENATOR AL FRANKEN, AND 60 DEMOCRATIC VOTES IN THE U.S. SENATE. Norm Coleman conceded after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously today against his long-running court challenge to former Saturday Night Live star Al Franken’s 312-vote recount victory.
It was a very smart move by Barack Obama to ignore the venomous complaints from the netroots left against Joe Lieberman. Kicking him out of the Senate Democratic caucus would have made the 60-vote Democratic majority, which blocks Republican filibuster efforts, impossible. Now Lieberman is very loyal to Obama, and one of his biggest boosters. After campaigning against him last year at the side of his old friend John McCain.
The fact is that a governing coalition has to include both the Al Frankens and Joe Liebermans of the world.
** PALIN’S CAMPAIGN PROBLEMS REVEALED. NWN readers recall that I panned the pick of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate very shortly after it happened. Now Vanity Fair has an account, heavily sourced to the late McCain for President campaign, of the multiple problems it encountered in dealing with the Alaska governor. Much of it is not new, but it’s all in one place.
Schwarzenegger campaign manager-turned McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt, who helped push the pick as a Hail Mary pass, figures prominently in the account. Among other things, it recounts how he had to drop most everything for three days in order to prep her for her debate with Joe Biden. And how most of her other early advocates in the campaign found her impossibly difficult to work with.
Parades and a national holiday today marked the withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraqi cities. Iraqi forces are now responsible for security, with US forces pulled back to bases.
** NORTH KOREAN SHIP TURNS AROUND.That North Korean ship believed to be carrying contraband long-range missiles, shadowed down the China coast by the Navy destroyer USS John McCain, has reportedly turned around. Initially thought headed for Singapore, then Burma, both of which denied it was coming, it may now be headed for home.
This could mark a ratcheting down of North Korean crisis-mongering, especially since the threatened long-range missile launch in the direction of President Barack Obama’s home state Hawaii on the 4th of July hasn’t yet resulted in a missile on a launch pad.
** E.P.A. FORMALLY APPROVES CALIFORNIA CLIMATE PROGRAM. The US Environmental Protection Agency today formally approved California’s landmark cutting tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. The move had been repeatedly signaled and implicitly announced when the Obama Administration essentially adopted the California program on vehicle emissions.
The formal move came today, and allows the state – and more than a dozen other states following California’s lead – to implement its omnibus climate change program. Vehicle emissions are the cornerstone, but not the majority of the problem.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, both of whom battled the blocking Bush/Cheney Administration and major automakers on the issue, both reacted very positively, as you might suppose.
Schwarzenegger: “After being asleep at the wheel for over two decades, the federal government has finally stepped up and granted California its nation-leading tailpipe emissions waiver. This decision is a huge step for our emerging green economy that will create thousands of new jobs and bring Californians the cars they want while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to the environmental commitment of President Obama and the continued leadership of state Senator Fran Pavley, California’s long battle to reduce pollution from passenger vehicles is over, and a greener, cleaner future has finally arrived.”
Brown: “EPA’s reversal tears down the last remaining barrier preventing California from enforcing its laws curbing greenhouse gases. Today’s decision stands in sharp contrast to the Bush EPA’s politically driven denial two years ago.”
** FRANKEN DECLARED U.S. SENATE RACE WINNER BY MINNESOTA SUPREME COURT. After months of legal battle and delay by former Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, Minnesota’s state Supreme Court voted 5-0 today that comedian Al Franken has prevailed in the lengthy recount of last November’s Senate race there. Coleman may try to appeal to the US Supreme Court, but it will be very difficult for Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty to try to block Franken’s seating in the Senate now.
** CALIFORNIA BUDGET CRISIS UPDATE. No real progress this morning. I know you’re surprised.
June 30th is Sovereignty Day in Iraq, marking the withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraqi cities.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 7:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 11 AM Pacific, he delivers remarks highlighting nonprofit programs from across the country in the East Room of the White House.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, he meets with Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in the Oval Office.
Obama is prepping for his summit in Moscow from July 6th to July 8th.
With the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities, Obama and his advisors are monitoring the security situation there. Today is Sovereignty Day in Iraq. Most combat troops, who will now be based outside the cities, were actually removed on Sunday, two days ahead of schedule.
This is actually a landmark, but it’s being largely ignored by the US media.
Incidentally, contracts to develop the big Ramallah oil field in Iraq have just been let. The winners? A partnership between British Petroleum and the Chinese national oil company.
The losers? The partnership between Exxon Mobil and the top Malaysian oil company.
Obama, along with other world leaders, has denounced the military coup in Honduras, where President Manuel Zelaya, a champion of the poor who was trying to get his term extended, was deposed. Zelaya is preparing to return to the country.
And Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where once large protests have, as expected here, fizzled in the face of a massive security presence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
Yet another day has passed in Iran with demonstrations effectively tamped down.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The Russian Army has undertaken a large anti-terrorist military exercise which runs until the arrival of President Barack Obama in Moscow on July 6th.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussions, mostly focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events.
Today is the deadline set by state Controller John Chiang to have a budget in place in order to avoid having to begin issuing IOUs.
But the situation is at an impasse.
All the players are saying what they’ve been saying for weeks, though there are attempts to spin up new variations on the same theme.
I can only imagine how mind-numbing it would be to cover this full-time.
Democrats are asking for still more time to negotiate, having recycled various tax hike efforts in various guises – all of which have been defeated before – after going through a lengthy budget conference committee process to arrive at where they began. They can’t even get all the Dems to go along now, much less any Republicans, even when trying the tax-as-fee majority vote gambit. Which failed last year, incidentally.
Incidentally, even if Schwarzenegger were to go along with the gambit, a budget enacted in this manner would not go into effect for 90 days, doing nothing to deal with the need for a balanced budget in place to avert IOUs.
Republicans pretend on the one hand to go along with a stopgap, piecemeal effort to avert IOUs, then block it on the other.
Schwarzenegger comes up with a last minute proposal to deal with fraud in in-home health services and workfare programs, which is quite similar to ideas that have been discussed before.
We’ve been down this road many times.
The talks continue and the Legislature will be in session all day and likely well into the night. It’s all very exciting …
** TRANSFORMATIVE: LE CINEMA DE MICHAEL BAY. I love the films of Michael Bay. In fact, they are so dramatic and compelling that …
Gotcha! I actually do not love the films of Michael Bay. I don’t hate them, either. And there are a couple that I like. But the fact that it is considered preposterous for a writer — a writer who writes about anything, even wallpaper — to not dismiss Bay’s work in the most vehement of terms points up a dramatic disconnect between the critical community and the movie-going audience.
Bay’s new flick, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, just took in an astounding $200.1 million at the domestic box office in its first five days of release. …
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. Some 43 years after it began, and seven years after the movie franchise seemed completely played out, Star Trek is making firsts again. And so far, it’s the most popular movie of the year in America. …
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. … From my June 19th column.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th 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 $38 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 North Korea and Iran, though the latter have lessened substantially over the past week.
President Barack Obama today praised the narrow passage of major energy and climate legislation late Friday by the House, where it was pushed through by LA Congressman Henry Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and urged the Senate to act.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama today touted new light bulb requirements that he says will save billions in great energy efficiency. … Obama told gay and lesbian leaders in the White House that he is ending don’t ask/don’t tell in the military and lifting the ban on travel to the US by HIV-positive individuals. … Fireworks were seen in Baghdad and other major cities of Iraq as US forces formally turned over security arrangements to Iraqi commanders as part of their withdrawal from the cities. … In California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis, Democratic legislative leaders defied today’s statements by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and their own recent history on the issue, by passing a budget that contains tax hikes-as-fees in an attempt to get around the state’s constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote on such things.
** SCHWARZENEGGER SAYS NO TO DEMOCRATIC TAX HIKE BY MAJORITY VOTE. With their earlier plans having failed, as expected, Democratic legislative leaders now seem to be moving forward with the pass taxes-as-fees (thus removing the constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote), as I discussed this morning.
Not surprisingly, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said this morning that he will veto any such legislation. Its constitutionality, in any event, is in very serious question, as you might expect.
None of this can be a surprise for Democrats.
In fact, nothing that has happened for the past several weeks in California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis has had any result that is other than the expected.
President Barack Obama spends much of this 4th of July week prepping for the big summit next week in Moscow.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
An abbreviated week this week, with the 4th of July holiday looming on Saturday.
President Barack Obama spends much of the week prepping for his big summit next week in Moscow. He also does many other things.
California politics, and the state government’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis, sees a looming deadline this week.
Obama this week will work the Senate for the energy and climate change bill which narrowly passed the House of Representatives late Friday.
He will continue adjusting the universal health care package.
He will determine how things are going with the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq’s cities.
And he will monitor crises in Iran, where the protest movement has been predictably stifled, and North Korea, which threatens to test fire a long-range missile in the direction of his home state Hawaii on the 4th of July.
Things are less stimulating from an intellectual standpoint in California politics, where the state government is up against this week’s deadline by state Controller John Chiang on the issuance of IOUs in lieu of many payments.
Little apparent progress has been in the past several weeks, as legislative players have largely reverted – for the umpteenth time – to their default positions. Or, at least in the case of the Dems, new default positions, which do acknowledge the obvious need for cuts. But keep pushing for another round of tax hikes.
Republicans, of course, remain entrenched on fiscal matters, which is to say squarely in the pocket of the anti-government faction which dominates the caucus in the Legislature. So entrenched, in fact, that they turned down Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to enact a fee on property owners in high-risk fire areas. Notwithstanding the fact that fire services in those areas are already severely underfunded, as we’ve seen with the firestorms of the past few years.
As for the Democrats, they have acceded to the obvious need to cut programs in the wake of the massive loss of revenue caused by the global economic downturn and the state’s inadequate revenue structure. But, pressed by the ultra-government faction that dominates Democratic legislative politics in the Capitol, they keep pushing for more time (hoping to avoid further cutus) and more taxes.
I had this conversation with top Democratic legislators seven years ago, during Gray Davis’s governorship. Spending commitments (and tax cuts) taken on during the dot-com boom were resulting in a structural deficit. Their solution? Raise taxes. I asked how, given the Republican anti-tax stance and the state’s constitution, requiring at least some Republican votes.
Well, Republicans will just have to go along with tax hikes, I was told. Why? They’ll just have to, insisted then Assembly Budget Committee chair Jenny Oropeza.
That was in 2002.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and is meeting with senior advisors, all in the Oval Office.
At 10:15 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on energy in the Grand Foyer of the White House.
He will address the narrow passage, late on Friday, in the House of Representatives of major energy and climate legislation. Pushed through by LA Congressman Henry Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the legislation would establish a cap and trade system to cut greenhouse gas emissions and require that 20% of the nation’s electric power come from renewable sources. The bill faces major hurdles in gaining Senate passage and will be taken up later this year.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama meets one-on-one with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia in the Oval Office.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama holds an expanded meeting with Uribe in the Oval Office.
At 1:25 PM Pacific, Obama and Michelle Obama host a reception for LGBT Pride Month in the East Room. The Obamas have invited some 250 promiment members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. Obama is still trying to find the right balance on gay rights, with significant criticism for his lack of support for same-sex marriage, an issue which is still extraordinarily controversial, and for ending the don’t ask/don’t tell policy for the military, which is far less controversial.
At 4:15 PM Pacific, Obama attends a reception with Democratic National Finance Committee members at the Mandarin Hotel in Washington.
With the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities, Obama and his advisors are monitoring the security situation there.
And Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where once large protests have, as expected here, fizzled in the face of a massive security presence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
Yet another day has passed in Iran with demonstrations effectively tamped down.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Michael Jackson mania continues. Sister Janet Jackson discussed the late pop superstar last night at the Black Entertainment Television awards.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussions, mostly focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events.
Various moves by Democratic legislative leaders on the budget have failed, as predicted.
Late yesterday, the state Assembly revived the taxes-as-fees gambit, passing a budget with 44 votes out of 80. The bill recasts the oil severance and tobacco tax hikes as fee increases, zeros them out by cutting the gasoline tax, then institutes a gasoline fee. All as an attempt to get around the constitutional two-thirds vote requirement for tax hikes.
We’ve been down this road.
Incidentally, even if Schwarzenegger were to go along with the gambit, a budget enacted in this manner would not go into effect for 90 days, doing nothing to deal with the need for a balanced budget in place to avert IOUs.
The talks continue. It’s very exciting …
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. Some 43 years after it began, and seven years after the movie franchise seemed completely played out, Star Trek is making firsts again. And so far, it’s the most popular movie of the year in America. …
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. … From my June 19th column.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th 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 $37 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 North Korea and Iran, though the latter have lessened substantially over the past week.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has exploded across US movie screens, grossing over $200 million in its first five days, second fastest start of all-time behind only The Dark Knight. I find the critically-reviled film only moderately entertaining, but a fascinating phenomenon.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TRANSFORMATIVE: LE CINEMA DE MICHAEL BAY.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama has no scheduled public events today.
The US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said today that US combat troops were withdrawn from Iraqi cities today. This move came two days ahead of schedule.
Some troops remain as advisors and security for US personnel.
In Iran, a few thousand people reportedly tried to demonstrate outside a mosque in Tehran. They were forcibly dispersed by Iranian security forces.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again complained that Obama should not criticize the Iranian regime for its crackdown on protesters. He did not again demand that Obama apologize.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no scheduled public events today.
He is holding meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
Schwarzenegger has some changes to his budget plan that do not raise taxes or cut as heavily into what he see as an illusory budget reserve as Democrats want, but would preserve a diminished version of the state’s welfare program.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama praises the major energy and climate change legislation that passed the House of Representatives late on Friday.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Obama has no scheduled public events today.
He and his administration are pleased that the House passed, late yesterday, a major energy and climate change bill by LA Congressman Henry Waxman and others, which would set up a cap and trade system on greenhouse gas emissions and a renewable energy portfolio. It’s the first time that either house of Congress has adopted major climate change legislation.
But the vote was only 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats voting no — and eight Republicans voting yes — and the legislation faces a tough hurdle in the Senate. House passage required the strong support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a push by the Obama Administration and former Vice President Al Gore, Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work on climate change.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where once large protests have fizzled in the face of a massive security presence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
The Iranian regime, having largely shut down the protest movement, is moving now to brand it as largely an invention of foreign manipulators.
Indeed, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said again today that Obama made a mistake in criticizing the regime if he intends to negotiate with Iran.
The real action in Iran may be the infighting amongst the ruling elite.
There are various rumors about the whereabouts and activities of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini. He does seem to have urged his supporters to be more circumspect in their opposition with various symbolic acts that don’t directly challenge the Islamic state, which he says he continues to support. Communicating almost entirely through his web site, Mousavi nonetheless vows to fight on, though to what effect is another matter.
Mousavi agreed today to seek government permits for any future demonstrations he participates in, effectively removing himself from the fray as those permits will not be forthcoming.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
President Obama dispatched Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for three days of talks in Moscow in advance of next month’s summit with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussions, mostly focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events.
Various moves by Democratic legislative leaders on the budget have failed, as predicted.
And nothing was accomplished Friday, though the late Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett were honored by the Legislature.
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. Some 43 years after it began, and seven years after the movie franchise seemed completely played out, Star Trek is making firsts again. And so far, it’s the most popular movie of the year in America. …
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. … From my June 19th column.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th 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 last July 11th, crude oil closed on Friday at $69.16 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $35 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 North Korea and Iran, though the latter have lessened substantially over the past week.
Terrorist bombings are on the rise in the final days before the scheduled June 30th withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraqi cities.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA: WHAT’S NEXT ON IRAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST?
** QUICK HITS. The California Legislature made no progress today on the state’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.But, before adjourning late this morning, it did honor the memories of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will institute a third furlough day absent legislative action, thus acting against a bulwark of Democratic legislators. … Another quiet day in Iran, with little if any in the way of protest, the security apparat having successfully squelched a movement that has not expanded beyond its initial base. … The US House of Representatives passed a big bill on climate change and renewable energy setting up a cap and trade system similar to that outlined in California’s plan after Republicans trotted out various stalling tactics. If Congress does not follow California’s lead, states comprising most of the national population will. …
** SANFORD WATCH. In a new Survey USA poll, 60% of South Carolina voters want Governor Mark Sanford to resign. That includes 64% of women.
Sanford, who has already resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, disappeared for nearly a week. His staff said he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail,” a phrase that seems destined for the Hall of Euphemism, but he was actually missing Father’s Day weekend with his wife and four sons to carry on an affair in Buenos Aires.
** A BIG LEAD FOR JERRY BROWN.CalBuzz has the first real poll on the likely two-man race for the Democratic nomination for governor of California between former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Assuming Newsom doesn’t step away from the campaign.
The survey, by respected Sacramento pollster Jim Moore, has Brown way ahead of Newsom, 46% to 26%. Brown is even further ahead amongst older voters, the likeliest to vote. On the key measurement of whether or not the candidate (Brown has not announced, but Newsom is more than fully staffed and has been campaigning avidly for months) has “sufficient skills to be governor,” Brown gets 69% and Newsom gets 41%. And this is before the San Francisco Chronicle finally does its take-out on Newsom’s tenure as mayor of my home town, from which he’s been absent for an extraordinary amount of time while mayor.
There’s a lot more to the poll, but readers know my take.
I said more than a year ago that Senator Dianne Feinstein would never run for governor. She’s not running. I also said that I had serious doubts that Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa would stick with the race. They are both out.
Will Newsom stick? I defended him strongly against his netroots critics, who are now thrilled to be in the room with him, in the wake of his very messy affair scandal in 2007. On the basis that he would settle down and focus on being mayor. But instead, he’s been off and running, here, there, and everywhere. It’s actually striking that he is running for governor at all. For a couple of reasons.
First, his political career would not exist absent his, his father’s, and his grandfather’s close and longstanding ties to the Brown family. Something about which the daily newspaper reporters are somehow unaware.
Second, Newsom’s relative strength among young voters is due to his championing of gay marriage. But the reality is that California would have same-sex marriage right now if not for his dunderheaded moves last year. Which may become apparent to more of his supporters at some point. Not that it actually matters for the overall, that is.
Third, Newsom doesn’t have the resources to beat Brown. He has to spend a lot of money just to get better known, and he’s not setting the world on fire with fundraising, though he is able to pay his high-priced consultants, who keep spinning away. He’s not Steve Westly, by a long shot, and Westly fell short against the far less appealing and adept than Brown Phil Angelides.
The United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco 64 years ago today.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Today he is summiting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. There are a few key areas of contention for the US and Germany. Namely, Afghanistan and Russia. Though Merkel is a conservative, she is resistant to providing further assistance to the fight in Afghanistan. And her government, like the social democratic government before her, is closely aligned with Russia, where Obama goes on July 6th. Why? Energy. But Obama, while a friendly face for Moscow, has an agenda there.
Obama has met one-on-one with Merkel in the Oval Office and has held an expanded meeting with her as well.
At 8:30 AM Pacific, he holds a press conference with Merkel in the White House Rose Garden.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama has a working lunch with Merkel in the Old Family Dining Room.
At 11:40 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 3:15 PM Pacific, Obama and Michelle Obama host a picnic for White House staff on the South Lawn.
This follows last night’s Hawaiian-style luau for staff and members of Congress.
What’s with the parties?
These folks are working very hard, as you may have gathered from the attempts here to follow it all.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where protests Saturday fizzled in the face of a massive security presence and violence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and now Friday in Iran mostly passed quietly, with only a scattering of street protests.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
The Iranian regime, having largely shut down the protest movement, is moving now to brand it as largely an invention of foreign manipulators.
The real action in Iran may be the infighting amongst the ruling elite.
There are various rumors about the whereabouts and activities of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini. He does seem to have urged his supporters to be more circumspect in their opposition with various symbolic acts that don’t directly challenge the Islamic state, which he says he continues to support. Communicating almost entirely through his web site, Mousavi nonetheless vows to fight on, though to what effect is another matter.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Obama’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts. The US Navy, in the form of the destroyer USS John McCain, is following the passage of a suspect North Korean ship, which is hugging the China coast, first believed headed to Singapore and then believed headed (with a cargo of missiles) to Burma. But Burmese authorities now say the ship won’t be coming there.
Does North Korea have its own Flying Dutchman?
And Obama’s new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has been in country with his new leadership team for a week. He is urging his new subordinates to be very conscious of Afghan civilian sentiments even as he preps aggressive special ops programs against the Taliban.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban is widening, with troops going into the longtime jihadist stronghold of Waziristan. There have been no major terrorist bombings in reprisal for going on two weeks. But the country’s refugee problem continues.
And the US may have made a major blunder by launching a drone attack against a funeral procession in a bid to decapitate the Taliban. Many civilians were killed, and the Taliban leader escaped.
Some three million Pakistanis left their homes to avoid the offensive against the Taliban. Many refuse to return to their homes, worried that electric power and water won’t be available and not convinced that fighting between the Pakistani Army and Taliban won’t flare up again.
The late Michael Jackson performing “Thriller” live in Germany in 1987.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol, mostly focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events.
The Legislature, as anticipated here for months, having failed to pass the Democratic budget alternative the day before, failed to pass a stopgap measure yesterday.
The bill did pass in a bipartisan vote in the state Assembly. But that was illusory. Not only did the bill fail to garner any Republican support in the Senate, it actually lost a few Democrats.
The measure would only have dealt with about one-fifth of the actual budget problem.
Why the move? Trying to stave off the total package of budget cuts and drag out the process for a few more weeks. But … Is it likely that anything will change in the next few weeks that did not change in the last few months?
According to state Controller John Chiang, the state will have to begin issuing IOUs on July 2nd if a budget is not promptly enacted.
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. Some 43 years after it began, and seven years after the movie franchise seemed completely played out, Star Trek is making firsts again. And so far, it’s the most popular movie of the year in America. …
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. … From my June 19th column.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th 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 $36 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 North Korea and Iran. The price is down a few dollars over the past few days, reflecting an easing of some tensions in Iran.
On June 25th, 1950, the Korean War began with North Korean invading South Korea. North Korean forces swiftly overwhelmed the opposing South Korean Army and its American allies, capturing Seoul in three days and driving the remainder of both forces nearly into the sea. After a massive effort and years of fighting, US forces managed to repel North Korea, and its ally China, to the status quo ante. North Korea, loudly saber rattling of late, retains the world’s fifth largest military.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA: WHAT’S NEXT ON IRAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST?
** QUICK HITS.Michael Jackson, one-time King of Pop, died today in Los Angeles at the age of 50. Cause of death? Cardiac arrest. It’s a bit mysterious, as much of his life has been since he was the biggest music star in the world in the 1980s. … Iconic TV star Farrah Fawcett died today in Santa Monica of a long-time cancer at age 62. The Charlie’s Angels star was a classic pin-up model of the ’70s and ’80s who became a serious, award-winning actress. She had publicly suffered from cancer for years and finally succumbed today. … California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis moved no closer to resolution today as Democratic legislators, their plan failing yesterday as long anticipated here and elsewhere, came up with a stopgap plan to free up some cash for a state government about to run out by cutting some school spending and delaying payments to agencies. It won Democratic and Republican votes in the Assembly but failed in the Senate, where it was opposed by all Republicans and some Democrats.
** NEW POLL: CALIFORNIANS AND INFOTECH. A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California indicates that Californians’ use of broadband Internet connections is up significantly over the past year, but that a digital divide remains. Now 62% of Californians have broadband access, up from 55% last year. Another 5% have lower-speed Internet access. 75% of Californians say they have some form of computer.
Use of social networking media is up from 28% to 37%, though only 18% use Twitter. Among Californians under 35, Twitter usage is 31%. That’s the group that has adopted social networking in general, with 63% using it to some extent, compared with only 31% from age 35 to 54 and only 16% for 55 and up.
84% of Californians have mobile phones. 65% use text messaging, 30% use their phones to get on the web, and 29% use them for e-mail.
Now about the digital divide …
The digital divide persists between Latinos and other groups. While Latinos increased their Internet use (53% today, 48% 2008), the growth among whites was greater (88% today, 81% 2008). Whites’ computer use (89% today, 85% 2008) increased by about the same amount as Latinos’ (61% today, 58% 2008). Latinos today are far less likely to use computers and the Internet than Asians (87% computers, 85% Internet) and blacks (89%, 81%).
Nearly all high-income Californians use a computer and the Internet. Ninety-seven percent of Californians with household incomes of $80,000 or more use computers and the same percentage use the Internet. Those with household incomes of less than $40,000 are far less likely to report doing either (65% use computers, 58% use the Internet).
Intriguingly, the biggest users of social networking sites are African Americans, with 55% using them at least occasionally. 44% of Asians use social media, compared to 39% of whites and 28% of Latinos.
** WHAT NEXT IN CALIFORNIA’S CHRONIC-TURNED-CHAOTIC BUDGET CRISIS? With yesterday’s very predictable collapse of the Democratic budget plan, what’s next?
Well, unless a budget is put together very swiftly, or unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget is swiftly adopted, California’s state government will have to begin issuing IOUs in lieu of payment on July 2nd.
There are no good options here, and most of what seemed inevitable weeks ago seems inevitable today.
President Barack Obama met with five governors yesterday to discuss health care reform.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have had their daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have also participated in a “United We Serve” volunteer service event at the Fort McNair Fitness Center.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on the importance of passing a new, green-oriented energy bill in the White House Rose Garden.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with members of Congress from both parties to discuss immigration in the State Dining Room.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 3:30 PM Pacific, Obama, Michelle Obama, and Biden host a luau for members of Congress and their families on the South Lawn of the White House.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where protests Saturday fizzled in the face of a massive security presence and violence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and now Thursday in Iran mostly passed quietly, with only a scattering of street protests.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
The Iranian regime, having largely shut down the protest movement, is moving now to brand it as largely an invention of foreign manipulators.
The real action in Iran may be the infighting amongst the ruling elite.
There are various rumors about the whereabouts and activities of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini. He does seem to have urged his supporters to be more circumspect in their opposition with various symbolic acts that don’t directly challenge the Islamic state, which he says he continues to support. Communicating almost entirely through his web site, Mousavi nonethless vows to fight on, though to what effect is another matter.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Obama’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts. The US Navy, in the form of the destroyer USS John McCain, is following the passage of a suspect North Korean ship, which is hugging the China coast, first believed headed to Singapore and then believed headed (with a cargo of missiles) to Burma. But Burmese authorities now say the ship won’t be coming there.
Does North Korea have its own Flying Dutchman?
And Obama’s new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has been in country with his new leadership team for a week. He is urging his new subordinates to be very conscious of Afghan civilian sentiments even as he preps aggressive special ops programs against the Taliban.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban is widening, with troops going into the longtime jihadist stronghold of Waziristan. There have been no major terrorist bombings in reprisal for going on two weeks. But the country’s refugee problem continues.
Some three million Pakistanis left their homes to avoid the offensive against the Taliban. Many refuse to return to their homes, worried that electric power and water won’t be available and not convinced that fighting between the Pakistani Army and Taliban won’t flare up again.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol, mostly focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events.
The Legislature, as anticipated here for months, yesterday failed to pass the Democratic budget alternative.
Not only did the bill fail to garner any Republican support, it actually lost a few Democrats.
According to state Controller John Chiang, the state will have to begin issuing IOUs on July 2nd if a budget is not promptly enacted.
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. Some 43 years after it began, and seven years after the movie franchise seemed completely played out, Star Trek is making firsts again. And so far, it’s the most popular movie of the year in America. …
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. … From my June 19th column.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th 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.
With President Obama’s big Moscow summit coming up in less than two weeks, NWN will start focusing in on Russia/US relations. Moscow, “city of billionaires,” has taken a big hit in the great global downturn.
** 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 $36 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 North Korea and Iran. The price is down a few dollars over the past few days, reflecting an easing of some tensions in Iran.
A rising national Republican star, South Carolina Governor and Republican Governors Association chairman Mark Sanford, last in the spotlight for trying to refuse federal stimulus funds for his economically strapped state, has acknowledged that his disappearing act was for another reason than that offered by his staff, which had said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Sanford now says he spent nearly a week in Buenos Aires, Argentina carrying on an extramarital affair.
** QUICK HITS. Political infighting amongst Iranian ruling elites continued today with demonstrations mostly tamped down. The protest movement, even at its peak last week, had not grown beyond its initial demographic of the educated, professional and pro-Western. … With US combat troops scheduled to be withdrawn from Iraqi cities by the end of the month, the latest terrorist bombing in Baghdad today killed some 60 people. … Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that his directive to the City of Maywood to halt the abusive practices of its police department has resulted in a stipulated court order to halt “widespread abuse and gross misconduct.” The heavily Latino city in LA County is notorious for abusive police incidents involving its residents. … Cali GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman jostled one another again, with Whitman claiming several turncoat endorsers from Poizner, who has the lion’s share of politician endorsements, and Poizner campaign chairman Jim Brulte attacking Whitman’s tenure as CEO of eBay. … San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a darkhorse Democrat, continued touting his city’s new composting program though, after reading his column about it, I’m still not sure how it works. …
** CALIFORNIA: DEMOCRATIC BUDGET PLAN FAILS, AS LONG ANTICIPATED. As anticipated here for, well, quite awhile, the Democratic budget alternative has failed, falling far short of the two-thirds vote needed for passage in either house of the Legislature.
There’s a longer way of putting it, but you can fill in the blanks with regard to what what everyone is saying and doing.
Meanwhile, state Controller John Chiang warned today that he will soon have to issue IOUs in lieu of payment if a budget is not promptly enacted.
When would those IOUs begin being issued? July 2nd.
“Next Wednesday,” said Chiang, “we start a fiscal year with a massively unbalanced spending plan and a cash shortfall not seen since the Great Depression.”
** SANFORD NOW SAYS HE SPENT A WEEK IN SOUTH AMERICA HAVING AN AFFAIR. Resigning his post as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a staunch family values conservative last in the spotlight for joining with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in trying to refuse federal economic stimulus funds, just admitted that he was not hiking along the Appalachian Trail, as his staff maintained, or sightseeing in South America, as Sanford said earlier this morning, but enjoying a week-long tryst with a girlfriend in romantic Buenos Aires.
It’s virtually impossible to make this stuff up.
Sanford had disappeared for nearly a week, missing Father’s Day weekend with his wife and four sons. He now says he’s been conducting an affair with an Argentinian woman for months and that his wife knows about it.
Sanford said he had considered hiking on the Appalachian Trail, an activity he said he has enjoyed since he was a high school student.
“But I said ‘no’ I wanted to do something exotic,” Sanford said “… It’s a great city,” referring to Buenos Aires.
During his week-long fling, it was entirely unclear who was in charge of the Palmetto State.
** IRANIAN REGIME STIFLES PLANNED DEMONSTRATION.A huge security presence today broke up a planned rally in Tehran by supporters of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who distanced himself from the rally by calling it an independent effort. Hundreds came nonetheless, and were forcibly dispersed by Iranian police. A number of reports say that several protesters were beaten.
** GALLUP POLL: PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN MILITARY SOARS WHILE CONFIDENCE IN BANKS PLUMMETS TO BIG BUSINESS LEVEL.The new Gallup Poll shows that public confidence in the US military has shot up 11 points in the past year, while confidence in banks has sunk below that of TV news to right around that in big business, lowest of all institutions.
Organized labor doesn’t do very well, either. Confidence in small business is very high. Confidence in the presidency has shot upwards, while confidence in Congress remains low.
At 82%, the percentage of Americans’ expressing high confidence in the U.S. military has returned to where it was at the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003. Public confidence in the military is up 11 percentage points from a year ago, and nearly matches the record-high 85% found during the 1991 Gulf War.
Even with the military’s relatively low confidence ratings from 2004 through 2007 — a period of broad public doubt about U.S. success in Iraq — the organization has ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions list almost every year since the measure was instituted in 1973, and has been No. 1 continuously since 1998.
According to the June 14-17 survey, small business ranks second among the 16 institutions tested this year, with a 67% confidence rating. The next-most-highly regarded U.S. institutions are the police, the church or organized religion, and the presidency. All of these entities elicit high confidence from a majority of Americans. …
At the same time, confidence in banks fell by 10 points, from 32% in June 2008 to a record-low 22% today. The previous low point for banks was 30% in October 1991. …
The transition from the generally unpopular presidency of George W. Bush to the broadly popular presidency of Barack Obama has had a clear impact on Americans’ willingness to express high levels of confidence in the presidency, and most likely also explains the smaller confidence boosts seen for other aspects of government, including Congress, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, and the public schools.
The increase in the already-high confidence levels in the military could be the result of several factors, including the improved political and military situation in Iraq and the setting of target dates for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from that country.
The near-collapse of U.S. financial markets last fall and recent bankruptcies within the auto industry are obviously key contributors to reduced confidence in big business and banks. The increased confidence Americans show toward small business may simply be the natural result of contrasting small business with big business.
President Barack Obama addressed the brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime. Protests have largely dissipated.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has had his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors, all in the Oval Office.
It’s a big day for health care, with Obama meeting with five governors in the afternoon and holding a nationally televised town hall meeting on ABC in the evening.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Governors Granholm, Douglas, Doyle, Rounds, and Gregoire to discuss health care in the Roosevelt Room.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama participates in a town hall on health care in the East Room. The event will be televised by ABC News.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where protests Saturday fizzled in the face of a massive security presence and violence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sunday and Monday and Tuesday in Iran mostly passed quietly, with only a scattering of street protests. There was reportedly one protest, with a few thousand people, so far today.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
The Iranian regime, having largely shut down the protest movement, is moving now to brand it as largely an invention of foreign manipulators.
There are various rumors about the whereabouts and activities of opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini. He does seem to have urged his supporters to be more circumspect in their opposition with various symbolic acts that don’t directly challenge the Islamic state, which he says he continues to support.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Obama’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts. The US Navy is following the passage of a suspect North Korean ship, which is hugging the China coast, first believed headed to Singapore and now believed headed (with a cargo of missiles) to Burma.
And Obama’s new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has been in country with his new leadership team for a week.
Many Pakistani refugees, concerned about lack of electricity and not convinced that the fighting between the army and the Taliban is over, are refusing to return to their homes.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban is widening, with troops going into the longtime jihadist stronghold of Waziristan. There have been no major terrorist bombings in reprisal for going on two weeks. But the country’s refugee problem continues.
Some three million Pakistanis left their homes to avoid the offensive against the Taliban. Many refuse to return to their homes, worried that electric power and water won’t be available and not convinced that fighting between the Pakistani Army and Taliban won’t flare up again.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol, mostly focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events.
The Legislature is expected to take up a Democratic budget proposal today. The plan includes big cuts but preserves longstanding social safety net programs rather than eliminates them, while adding another round of tax hikes and cutting into a budget reserve that Schwarzenegger says is mostly illusory. Its prospects seem dim.
All right. Its prospects seem non-existent.
I understand that people in the Capitol feel they need to play their roles. But that doesn’t make the play all that interesting.
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. Some 43 years after it began, and seven years after the movie franchise seemed completely played out, Star Trek is making firsts again. And so far, it’s the most popular movie of the year in America. …
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. …
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th 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 $35 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 North Korea and Iran. The price is down a few dollars over the past few days, reflecting an easing of some tensions in Iran.
President Barack Obama focused on Iran and health care in today’s White House press conference.
** QUICK HITS. Another relatively quiet day in Iran, where protests have largely evaporated since last Friday’s speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a violent crackdown Saturday by security forces against the much smaller number of protesters who showed on Saturday. … The meeting between US special envoy George Mitchell and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to jump-start the Mideast peace process has been postponed. … Defense Secretary Bob Gates established a new joint command to deal with cyberspace threats. Cyberspace Command gets up and running in October. …
** TESLA SCORES BIG SUPPORT. California-based Tesla Motors scored big today with the US Department of Energy. Energy Secretary Steve Chu, a Californian, announced that Tesla is getting $465 million in federal loans as part of a program to stimulate new vehicle development.
Tesla, which is headquartered in San Carlos, will use $365 million for the engineering and assembly of the Model S, a sedan scheduled to go on sale in 2011. The car, which is a follow-on to the high-end and highly-regarded sports car the Tesla Roadster, will go 300 miles on an electric charge.
The other $100 million of Tesla’s federal funding will go to a plant manufacturing powertrains.
Former state Controller Steve Westly, now a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and a member of the Tesla board of directors, was naturally delighted, saying: “At precisely the time the American auto industry is retrenching (some would say crumbling) Tesla is about to add 1,000 new auto manufacturing jobs in California.
“I think this is a testament to California’s being the nation’s innovation leader. It’s also a reminder that California still has a lot to offer.”
The Obama Administration is also loaning $5.9 billion to Ford and $1.6 billion to Nissan, all for the purpose of developing new vehicles to help carmakers meet much more stringent fuel efficiency standards.
Finally some good news for California.
** JERRY BROWN’S BIG EDGE. A poll by Sacramento pollster Jim Moore shows former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown with a big lead over San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the Democratic primary for governor of California.
It’s Brown 43%, Newsom 26%.
This is before active campaigning by Brown, who has not declared his candidacy. Newsom declared months ago and has been campaigning for months.
Brown has no campaign staff, although he does have a network of old friends, along with his wife and 2006 campaign manager Anne Gust Brown, who is the unpaid special counsel to the attorney general. Newsom rolls with a large entourage of guys, as I’ve mentioned in passing, and has a number of very high-priced consultants on payroll.
In addition to a big lead, Brown has a big edge financially. Newsom, unlike former state Controller Steve Westly, who is not running, in 2006, is not in a position to self-fund his candidacy to a substantial degree, though he was wealthy prior to the big recession. His restaurant and wine holdings have apparently taken a major downturn, according to former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who created Newsom’s career by appointing him to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Newsom has been fashioning himself as an Obama for California. But there are a few problems. For one thing, Newsom was a national co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and attacked Obama last year. Everyone on his staff backed Clinton over Obama. One of his key advisors ran an anti-Obama 527 “independent expenditure” committee during the primaries, which I revealed at the time. For another, it’s very hard to claim that the famously iconoclastic Brown is an establishment politician.
Newsom chief strategist Garry South, who kept trying to position his then client Gray Davis as far more “safe” and routine than Davis’s former boss Brown, is well aware of this, though he postures otherwise now to serve his new client.
When First Lady Michelle Obama visited San Francisco yesterday, California First Lady Maria Shriver, who did support Obama in the primaries – and whose husband, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a key Obama ally – was her host. Newsom was not much in evidence.
I am not convinced that Newsom will end up running in next year’s primary.
** OBAMA STAYS OUT OF IRANIAN ELECTION RESULTS AND CRITICIZES REGIME CRACKDOWN. In his press conference, just now, President Barack Obama said it’s up to Iran to determine its government. He also said that Iran’s government has acted in defiance of “international norms” in its harsh and violent treatment of protesters. Following his statement, Obama called on a Huffington Post correspondent to take a question that came from an Iranian via HuffPost. Obama said, in answer to a question about under what conditions he will accept the legitimacy of Iran’s renewed government: “It is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to prosperity and stability. We hope they will take it.”
The fiance of Neda, the young Iranian woman apparently shot by Iranian security forces on Saturday, tells the story. Demonstrations against the regime have petered out.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has had the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors, all in the Oval Office.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama holds a news conference in the Rose Garden. Major topics will include Iran, health care, North Korea, and the economy.
At 11:15 AM Pacific, Obama meets one-on-one with President Michelle Bachelet of Chile in the Oval Office.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama holds an expanded meeting with President Michelle Bachelet of Chile in the Oval Office.
At 1:15 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in the Oval Office.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where protests Saturday fizzled in the face of a massive security presence and violence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sunday and Monday and now Tuesday in Iran have mostly passed quietly, with only a scattering of street protests.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Obama’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts. The US Navy is following the passage of a suspect North Korean ship, which is hugging the China coast, first believed headed to Singapore and now believed headed (with a cargo of missiles) to Burma.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban is widening. There have been no major terrorist bombings in reprisal for most of the last week.
And Obama’s new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has been in country with his new leadership team for a week.
Iran, of course, is the big ponderable, if not imponderable. See my column linked below.
Ed McMahon, longtime sidekick to Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, died this morning at UCLA Medical Center. He was 86.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussion around California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
Schwarzenegger will join First Lady Maria Shriver tonight at the California Museum in Sacramento to deliver remarks at the opening of the Library of Congress’ “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition.”
In this 200th anniversary year of the birth of Lincoln, this exhibition of Lincoln objects is the nation’s most comprehensive collection of 200 artifacts dedicated to the 16th president. The California Museum is the first of five stops on the national tour and the only stop on the West Coast.
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. …
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. In the biggest example of event marketing that comes to mind, President Barack Obama used his ballyhooed speech today at Cairo University to reposition America in the Muslim and Arab worlds.
“I have come here,” he said, “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
The fact is that Obama didn’t really say anything new. The positions he laid out are positions he had in his campaign. But he did say it all at once, and quite well. He did say it in a 50-minute address aimed directly at the Muslim and Arab worlds. He did say it in Cairo, largest city in the Arab world and a critical city in the history of Islam. And he did say it at the leading modern university in Egypt in an event co-sponsored by the world’s chief center of Arabic literature, the ancient Al-Azhar University.
In that sense, to borrow a phrase from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. The context is the key to the effort.
In an even larger sense, the message is himself. Both who he is, and who he is not. … From my June 4th 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 $33 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 North Korea and Iran. The price is down a few dollars over the past few days, reflecting an easing of some tensions in Iran.
President Barack Obama today announced an agreement with the pharmaceutical industry to close a gap in Medicare coverage, making his universal health care plan more achievable.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama is dispatching National Security Advisor Jim Jones, former Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander, to meet with top officials in Aghanistan, Pakistan, and India to deal with America’s biggest ongoing trouble spot. Not counting Iraq. Or North Korea. Or … The new ABC News/Washington Post poll gives Obama a 65% job approval rating. But only 52% on his economic policy. … Even before Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stepped away from the race for the Democratic nomination for governor of California, Anne Gust Brown, 2006 campaign manager for (and wife of) frontrunning former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown sent out a missive directing folks to the new “Fighting for You” section of Brown’s web site, where Brown discusses his various ongoing moves as AG, asking for help in “cleaning up the mess” in California politics. Brown has not announced his candidacy but is well in front of constantly campaigning San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in fundraising. … I am certain that no one else is going to run for governor on the Democratic side.
** ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA MAKES IT OFFICIAL – HE’S OUT OF THE GOVERNOR’S RACE. LA’s mayor, in a five-minute appearance just now on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, made his position clear. In answer to a direct question as to whether or not he will run in 2010 for governor of California, Villaraigosa answered: “No.”
His reasons? He has too much to do as mayor of Los Angeles, the job for which he be sworn in for a second term next month. And he has a teenage daughter two years away from graduating from high school, and doesn’t want to devote what remains of his time when he’s not busy being mayor to campaigning rather than parenting.
Villaraigosa described the system of governance in California as “broken,” citing the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a budget or raise a tax, term limits, intractable factions in the Capitol, and, in a slight eyebrow-raiser, the need for “open primaries” to select less partisan legislators.
Although many have been all atwitter, so to speak, about this, this is not a surprise here. While Villaraigosa, who was also a successful speaker of the California Assembly, could have been a very formidable candidate, he would have faced a difficult campaign in the Democratic primary.
And he has a lot of work to do in Los Angeles. Like San Francisco, where the only announced candidate, Mayor Gavin Newsom, is in his own second term as mayor, Los Angeles has big budgetary woes, though LA’s are actually smaller by proportion.
Villaraigosa has time on his side. If former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, who will be helped by the LA mayor’s withdrawal because of his much greater familiarity with Southern California than Newsom and his longstanding ties with the Latino community – including his close friend and ally the late Cesar Chavez, for whom California has a holiday – serves another term as governor, there will be ample time for Villaraigosa and others, such as former state Controller Steve Westly, who still may have their eyes on the prize. To the extent that being governor of California can be described as a prize at this point.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … STAR TREK‘S FIRSTS…43 YEARS ON.
** A POIZNER WEB SITE. California GOP gubernatorial hopeful Steve Poizner, the present state insurance commissioner, announced this morning that he has again revamped his web site.
** AN ANTONIO ANNOUNCEMENT? Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will be on CNN at 1 PM today talking with Wolf Blitzer, supposedly about his gubernatorial campaign plans, if any. If that is so, he seems likely to put an end to the gubernatorial campaign talk, which had become quite advanced.
After all, it’s not The Tonight Show. Nor is it the more conventional campaign kick-off setting. With the various troubles of Los Angeles, and most of his constituents desiring that he not run, it’s best to get the campaign stuff out of the way prior to his inauguration next month to a second term as LA’s mayor.
Iranian opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, purportedly defeated in a landslide by radical Islamist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gave measured support to his supporters who had filled the streets in protest prior to the weekend.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK
Another big week in presidential politics, as the Iran crisis plays out and the North Korea crisis percolates. Has the dramatic protest movement n Tehran and elsewhere fizzled in the face of the regime’s force? And in California politics, a question: Is there anything happening besides stasis?
President Barack Obama keeps pushing his domestic agenda this week, accelerating economic stimulus spending and pushing health care reform, for which there is broad public support but also concern among some Senate Democrats about cost. The public supports having the so-called public option, i.e., government-sponsored health care. But the first cost estimates were eye-popping, and a recession is not the best time for talk of taxes.
But this is the week in which we’ll learn what sort of legs the dramatic protest movement in Iran has.
After six straight days of massive protest following the swiftly proclaimed landslide re-election victory of radical Islamist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the protesters fell silent on Friday when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered his sermon. In a rambling address, in which he denounced foreign meddling, Khamenei declared that the time for protest had passed, Ahmadinejad would continue to be president, and those who opposed this were opponents of the Islamic state and would be dealt with accordingly.
On Saturday, protesters came out in much smaller numbers than before and were alternately turned back by security forces or brutally dispersed. Sunday was quiet. As has been Monday.
Meanwhile, there is a power struggle amongst the ruling elite. If serious and persistent opposition to Khamenei does not emerge there, whatever slim chance there was for a revolution from below will be ended.
Five relatives, including the daughter, of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic cleric who heads the Assembly of Experts (the oversight council for the supreme leader), were arrested over the weekend, but all have been released.
Opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s but now a modernist, is mostly absent now in the wake of Khamenei’s Friday address, despite many twitter reports to the contrary. He is asking his supporters to take care to avoid harm, and to turn on car headlights during the late afternoon as a form of protest.
At the moment, this is not adding up as a big battle.
Meanwhile, Iran is dealing with foreign criticism by threatening some European ambassadors with expulsion.
Obama, for his part, has made made measured criticism his stock in trade, focusing much more on the bloody crackdown than the suspicious election results. He’s long had an agenda to pursue with Iran (see my column linked below). He’s getting a lot of gas from the American right-wing, who don’t have much in the way of real world alternatives other than harsh words, but also support from the realpolitik crowd such as Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft.
The North Korean crisis is also percolating this week, with the Navy dispatching a destroyer named, ironically, USS John McCain to shadow a ship believed to be carrying contraband missiles, and with the North Korean regime threatening to test fire a long-range missile toward Hawaii on the 4th of July. Obama has moved missile defense units to protect Hawaii, which is of course his home state.
Now to California politics. Will the usual stasis continue this week as well?
With regard to California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis, the usual suspects are saying the usual things.
Liberal Democrats in the Legislature, pushed by the Capitol’s ultra-government faction, want some tax increases and a drawdown of budgetary reserves to avoid some further cutting.
Conservative Republicans in the Legislature, pushed by the Capitol’s anti-government faction, oppose taxes and want big cuts.
The chronic crisis, managed for years in a variety of ways, became chaotic with the sharp downturn in state revenues caused by the global economic recession. This was further exacerbated by the state’s revenue system, which is overly reliant on booms and busts affecting the fortunes of high-income Californians.
Democratic legislative leaders say they’ll take up a budget with some tax hikes this week.
Meanwhile, the desultory 2010 governor’s race continues.
On the Republican side in this blue state, ex-eBay chief Meg Whitman, a top official in the Mitt Romney and John McCain presidential campaigns, picked up a few endorsements last week and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who made his tech fortune in cell phone tracking technology, added a few presidential campaign veterans to his staff.
On the Democratic side, a Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner poll for the LA Times – the Times had to drop its poll, but is now sub-contracting on occasion – of Los Angeles city voters found that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who I’ve doubted for some time will run, retains popularity but has problems in his home city.
Most LA voters don’t want Villaraigosa to run for governor. If he were to run against frontrunner Jerry Brown, the state attorney general and former governor, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the only announced candidate, he would lead. The Los Angeles city numbers amongst registered voters? Villaraigosa 38%, Brown 31%, Newsom 13%.
Villaraigosa’s lead in LA is based on Latino voters. Brown, a longtime advocate for Latinos, has a big lead amongst whites, 41-22, with 19% for Newsom, and the most reliable voters over 50, 45-31, with 11% for Newsom.
I’ll do a California 2010 piece this week. You sense my excitement about the “race,” naturally …
U.S. Marines recently arrived in Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s surge of forces there engaging the Taliban in Helmand Province. New commanding General Stanley McChrystal, former head of Joint Special Operations Command, arrived last week.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have had the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors, all in the Oval Office.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama delivers a statement on the agreement by pharmaceutical companies to lower drug costs for seniors in the Diplomatic Reception Room. This agreement is worth $80 billion.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama signs the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in the Rose Garden.
First Lady Michelle Obama is on her way to San Francisco, where she will be hosted by California First Lady Maria Shriver.
This afternoon, Obama and Shriver are at Bret Harte Elementary School in San Francisco to help hundreds of volunteers build a school playground.
From there, they go to the National Conference on Volunteering and Service at Moscone Center, the world’s largest conference on volunteerism, attended by some 4500 people.
Michelle Obama gives the keynote address at 5 PM Pacific.
Shriver and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, co-chairs of the conference, also speak.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where protests Saturday fizzled in the face of a massive security presence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sunday and now Monday in Iran have mostly passed without a renewal of street protests.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Obama’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts. The US Navy is following the passage of a suspect North Korean ship, which is hugging the China coast, first believed headed to Singapore and now believed headed (with a cargo of missiles) to Burma.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban is widening. There have been no major terrorist bombings in reprisal for most of the last week.
And Obama’s new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has been in country with his new leadership team for a week.
Iran, of course, is the big ponderable, if not imponderable. See my column linked below.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger engages in private meetings and discussion around California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
Schwarzenegger also addresses the National Conference on Volunteering and Service this afternoon at Moscone Center in San Francisco.
He and First Lady Maria Shriver serve as honorary co-chairs of the conference, which is the world’s largest gathering of volunteer and service leaders from the nonprofit, government and corporate sectors.
U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, hosted today in San Francisco by Shriver, keynotes the conference at 5 PM, and Shriver speaks as well at 5:30 PM.
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. …
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. In the biggest example of event marketing that comes to mind, President Barack Obama used his ballyhooed speech today at Cairo University to reposition America in the Muslim and Arab worlds.
“I have come here,” he said, “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
The fact is that Obama didn’t really say anything new. The positions he laid out are positions he had in his campaign. But he did say it all at once, and quite well. He did say it in a 50-minute address aimed directly at the Muslim and Arab worlds. He did say it in Cairo, largest city in the Arab world and a critical city in the history of Islam. And he did say it at the leading modern university in Egypt in an event co-sponsored by the world’s chief center of Arabic literature, the ancient Al-Azhar University.
In that sense, to borrow a phrase from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. The context is the key to the effort.
In an even larger sense, the message is himself. Both who he is, and who he is not. … From my June 4th 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 $33 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 North Korea and Iran. The price is down a few dollars over the past few days, reflecting an easing of some tensions in Iran.
An apparently quiet Sunday in Iran after much smaller than usual protests on Saturday were forcibly suppressed by the state security apparatus. Included in this new clip is video apparently showing a young woman dying after being shot by militia.
** OBAMA TODAY - SUNDAY. President Barack Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Yesterday, in advance of Father’s Day, he took daughters Sasha and Malia on an unscheduled ice cream outing.
Behind the scenes, however, things are a bit less jolly.
Obama and his advisors are monitoring the situation in Iran, which has been quiet today – Tehran time is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California – after small demonstrations yesterday were violently put down by Iranian security forces. 10 or more people are believed dead.
Obama issued this statement yesterday in response to the violence from the Iranian regime: The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
There are continued signs of a power struggle amongst the Iranian political elites. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic cleric who heads the Assembly of Experts (which has the power the power to remove the supreme leader) and dislikes President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has reportedly been in the holy city of Qom trying to rally other clerics. Ahmadinejad repeatedly accuses Rafsanjani, who is reported to be one of the richest men in Iran, of corruption.
His daughter, a former member of parliament who has been speaking at the opposition rallies, was arrested yesterday, along with four other members of Rafsanjani’s family who have not been identified.
Other developments today show the danger of relying on rumor and twitterized reporting.
Many such reports yesterday had it that the leading opposition presidential candidate, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, had proclaimed that he is “ready to be martyred.” Supposedly at a rally somewhere in Tehran, which no one had video of.
Highly dramatic, if true.
Today Mousavi’s web site denied those reports, as did a close Mousavi ally speaking to the Associated Press.
And Ali Larijani, speaker of the parliament, who actually sat next to Ahmadinejad at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Friday sermon, was widely reported to have declared that the majority of Iranian voters disputed the purported outcome of the presidential election.
But today, Larijani denounced Britain, America, and other countries for supposedly interfering with Iran and its democratic choice, Ahmadinejad.
So it goes.
Obama is also monitoring the North Korean crisis. That North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons technology and believed headed to Singapore is now apparently headed to Myanmar. A Navy destroyer, USS John McCain, is shadowing the ship.
Obama is also contemplating the future of his health care reform. A CBS News/New York Times poll shows 72% in favor of the public health insurance option. But there is also major concern in the Senate about the cost and how it gets paid for.
Humorist John Hodgman roasted “the first nerd president of the modern era” (who flashed the Star Trek Vulcan salute, twice) and discussed the nerds vs. jocks culture war at last night’s Radio & Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington. Hodgman, “PC” in the long-running Apple commercials, was also a doctor on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. Not that I would know.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama has had his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors, all in the Oval Office.
He has no scheduled public events today.
Obama is of course monitoring the situation in Iran, where protests today fizzled in the face of a massive security presence ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The time in Tehran is eleven-and-a-half hours ahead of California.
Leading opposition politician Mir Hossein Mousavi has not surfaced today, and there were conflicting reports whether he had asked his supporters not to attend a big rally scheduled for 4 PM Tehran time in the city’s Revolution Square.
According to CNN, protesters in the low thousands did attempt to demonstrate today in Tehran but were blocked, sometimes brutally, by security forces run by the Revolutionary Guard, which as noted in my column Friday morning took over the security apparatus in the capital city.
Only one death is reported by 8 PM Tehran time, that of an apparent suicide bomber at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, who emerged as the leader of the fundamentalist revolution in Iran 30 years ago. The bombing may have been carried out to foil an apparent plan by Mousavi to take refuge there as a political gambit. There may, of course, be other deaths, as the security forces are using force.
Obama is also closely monitoring several other crises: In North Korea, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Obama’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts. The US Navy is following the passage of a suspect North Korean ship, which is hugging the China coast, toward Singapore.
The Pakistani Army offensive against the Taliban is widening. There have been no major terrorist bombings in reprisal for most of the last week.
Iran, of course, is the big ponderable, if not imponderable. See my column linked below.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no scheduled public events this weekend.
Returning home to LA last night, he had a bit of a scare when his private jet made a sudden emergency landing at Van Nuys private airport.
Schwarzenegger had been scheduled to land at Santa Monica airport.
Smoke suddenly started coming out of an instrument panel in the cockpit and the pilots decided to land at the nearer private field. LA fire units responded as the plane arrived.
Nothing nearly so dramatic as his exiting the plane in Eraser.
Scheduled big protests on Saturday in Tehran and elsewhere fizzled in the face of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s declaration and thousands of Iranian security troops. The footage shown here is from previous events.
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. …
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. In the biggest example of event marketing that comes to mind, President Barack Obama used his ballyhooed speech today at Cairo University to reposition America in the Muslim and Arab worlds.
“I have come here,” he said, “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
The fact is that Obama didn’t really say anything new. The positions he laid out are positions he had in his campaign. But he did say it all at once, and quite well. He did say it in a 50-minute address aimed directly at the Muslim and Arab worlds. He did say it in Cairo, largest city in the Arab world and a critical city in the history of Islam. And he did say it at the leading modern university in Egypt in an event co-sponsored by the world’s chief center of Arabic literature, the ancient Al-Azhar University.
In that sense, to borrow a phrase from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. The context is the key to the effort.
In an even larger sense, the message is himself. Both who he is, and who he is not. … From my June 4th 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 last July 11th, crude oil closed at $69.55 per barrel on Friday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $36 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 North Korea and Iran. The price is down a couple of dollars in the last day or so, reflecting an easing of some tensions in Iran.
In advance of this Father’s Day weekend, President Barack Obama touted responsible fatherhood, mentioning his own father’s absence from most of his life in saying that government does not have the answers.
** QUICK HITS. In an interview with CBS, President Barack Obama warned Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that “The world is watching” how his state deals with democratic protesters in the wake of the hotly disputed landslide re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad … Triggering status anxiety amongst some pols, on Monday First Lady Michelle Obama is coming to San Francisco, where she’ll be hosted by California First Lady Maria Shriver at a big volunteer event where they’ll help construct an elementary school playground and at the national conference on volunteerism. Shriver endorsed President Obama during last year’s Democratic presidential primaries. … Speaking of the first lady’s other half, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today declared a state disaster in Fresno County and requested federal disaster assistance for the drought situation. …
** ENSIGN: WHAT HAPPENED IN VEGAS DIDN’T STAY IN VEGAS. Well, in a sense it did, because it’s all still happening in Vegas, but I couldn’t resist the line. Now it looks like shakedown time. Or at least that is what the embattled Republican’s operation is saying. The Las Vegas Sun, all over the story, reports today that the husband of the staffer to Senator John Ensign – who resigned as chairman of the US Senate Republican Policy Committee this week – who had an affair with the Nevada senator and one-time 2012 GOP presidential hopeful, demanded lots of cash and other financial benefits over the past month from the senator. The husband, of course, was also a staffer to the senator.
The Sun also reports that the staffer, one of the most senior aides to Ensign prior to going to work for a smaller airline headed by an Ensign supporter, sent a letter to a Fox News anchor saying that he and his wife, the senator’s former mistress, needed help in exposing Ensign’s“heinous conduct and pursuit” of the staffer’s wife, who was also a staffer of the senator at the time of the affair.
“The actions of Senator Ensign have ruined our lives and careers and left my family in shambles. We have lost significant income, suffered indescribable pain and emotional suffering. We find ourselves today with an overwhelming loss of relationships, career opportunities and hope for recovery. Our pursuit of justice continues to place me and my family in harm’s way as we fear for our well being.”
The global economic crisis hit the annual Paris Air Show this week, with the two big civilian manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, in trouble. Unmanned aerial vehicles are one of the few growth sectors for stressed military budgets around the world.
** HILLARY UNDERGOES SURGERY TO REPAIR HER BROKEN ELBOW, WHICH IS APPARENTLY SUCCESSFUL. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton underwent surgery to repair her broken elbow this morning, well ahead of the expected next week. Clinton fell and broke her elbow Wednesday afternoon while hurrying to a meeting at the White House. The surgery was lengthy and may have been more complex than expected.
Here’s the statement from Clinton’s office: “Statement of Cheryl D. Mills, Counselor and Chief of Staff, State Department
“At 7:30am this morning, Secretary Clinton underwent a two hour surgery to successfully repair her fractured right elbow. Her doctors at The George Washington University Hospital have advised her that they expect her to make a full recovery without lasting damage to her arm. After the surgery she returned to her home in Washington where she will remain with her family through the weekend.
“Decisions about her schedule and travel will be made and announced in the days to come.”
** NAVY PREPARES TO INTERCEPT A NORTH KOREAN SHIP. The US Navy is preparing to intercept a North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons material sanctioned by the UN Security Council. The Kang Nam left port in North Korea on Wednesday and is currently hugging the China coast en route to Singapore.
The Navy destroyer in question, as fate would have it, is USS John McCain, named for the senator’s four-star admiral father and grandfather. The McCain is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. It’s 505 feet long, with a crew of nearly 300 and a top speed of over 30 knots, which is something in excess of 35 miles per hour, and its own helicopter.
** CALIFORNIA UNEMPLOYMENT EDGES UP TO MODERN “RECORD” HIGH. California’s unemployment rate, a lagging indicator in any recovery scenario, has edged up to 11.5%. Which is not actually a record, given the Great Depression, but is a record among current record-keepers in the past few decades.
As Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger noted: “When the world loses one-third of its wealth in 18 months, it is to be expected that historic levels of job losses will follow. Not surprisingly, we and our fellow states have seen unemployment numbers rise sharply during this difficult time.”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told the people of Iran today that the time for protest is past.
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH.Two weeks after his landmark address in Cairo, where he honored traditional Islam and extolled engagement with modern Islam, President Barack Obama finds himself in a conundrum. Determining what to do about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who just told the people of Iran, in an unusual nationally-televised sermon at the end of Friday prayers, to stop acting like they live in a democracy.
It’s a particularly tricky question for Obama, because he has an unusual dual role to play: Inspirational global icon and president of the United States.
As the president of the United States, it’s Obama’s job to figure out the needs of America and go about meeting them. As a global icon, he is expected to inspire. …
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has had his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors, all in the Oval Office.
He has also addressed the Esperanza National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast and Conference, promising to move forward on immigration reform, without offering a timetable.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama visits the nonprofit organization Year Up in Arlington, Virginia.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama holds a town hall to discuss fatherhood and mentoring in the East Room of the White House.
At 1 PM Pacific, Obama hosts a mentoring session with young men from local schools on the South Lawn of the White House.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets again with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama attends the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
The Obama Administration says it’s ready if North Korea follows through on its threat to conduct a long-range missile test in the direction of the president’s home state of Hawaii on the 4th of July.
Obama is also closely monitoring several crises: In North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
North Korea may launch a long-range missile toward Hawaii next month, and continues saber-rattling rhetoric and acts, running a patrol boat up to the edge of the Northern Limit Line the night before last.
Iran, of course, is the big ponderable, if not imponderable. See my column linked above.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds more private discussion today about California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
But today is mostly, again, about water policy. Yesterday he met privately following his budget crisis address in Fresno with mayors and local elected officials from across the San Joaquin Valley.
Today he is touring fields lying fallow in Mendota.
Then Schwarzenegger meets with local elected officials at Mendota City Hall to discuss the statewide drought and its effects on the region.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. President Barack Obama changed the old kabuki in dealing with his second North Korean crisis. The first time around, back in April, dealing with a long-range missile test that failed to place a satellite in orbit, Obama treated the effort as more of the same rather baffling attention-seeking by the Hermit Kingdom. This time, after a string of provocations including an underwhelming underground nuclear detonation, a series of missile launches, and the imprisonment of two California-based journalists, Obama went in another, tougher, direction that may lead to a naval confrontation. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. There’s no question that timing is, as it were, of the essence in politics. Consider the timing of President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, coming as it did just two days before the 65th anniversary of D-Day.
Most focus simply on the Cairo speech. But that speech exists in a larger context, alongside the speech over the weekend in Normandy which bookended it on Obama’s second big international tour.
On Thursday in Cairo, Obama gave his rhetorical best to reposition a mostly peaceful America in the future of the Muslim world. On Saturday in Normandy, he reminded of America’s glittering, and far more martial, past. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. In the biggest example of event marketing that comes to mind, President Barack Obama used his ballyhooed speech today at Cairo University to reposition America in the Muslim and Arab worlds.
“I have come here,” he said, “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
The fact is that Obama didn’t really say anything new. The positions he laid out are positions he had in his campaign. But he did say it all at once, and quite well. He did say it in a 50-minute address aimed directly at the Muslim and Arab worlds. He did say it in Cairo, largest city in the Arab world and a critical city in the history of Islam. And he did say it at the leading modern university in Egypt in an event co-sponsored by the world’s chief center of Arabic literature, the ancient Al-Azhar University.
In that sense, to borrow a phrase from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. The context is the key to the effort.
In an even larger sense, the message is himself. Both who he is, and who he is not. … From my June 4th column.
** TERMINATING THE DARKNESS: HOPE FLOATS, BUT ANXIETY ABIDES. Is the era of the dark comic book movie fable coming to an end? Or is it more a matter of a spate of seemingly underperforming dark would-be blockbusters? … From my May 31st column.
** 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 May 26th 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 $38 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 North Korea and Iran.
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