Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, cast her controversial comment that “a wise Latina” can make a better judge as a matter of diversity.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … HILLARY RETURNS! (SORT OF).
** QUICK HITS. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor took some flak from Republcans on the Senate Judiciary Committee today but passed through without any new controversy or real damage. The hearing continues tomorrow. … With talks continuing behind closed doors, no public progress today in California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis. But no sniping, either. The issues are as they always are. How much to cut where, how sacrosanct eduction spending is, whether to raid local government or find cuts and gimmicks elsewhere, and so on. While all this drags on, California’s bond rating got another downgrade. … Meanwhile, a big natural gas pipeline project, the Nabucco project, designed to diversify Europe away from its dependence on Russia is running into predictable big problems. … Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, overshadowed in her new role, delivers a major address tomorrow. I’ll explain.
** BIG NEW CONGRESSIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several other Californians in Congress, like LA’s Henry Waxman and the San Francisco Bay Area’s George Miller, today revealed the big new health care bill Pelosi intends to pass this month in the House of Representatives. It’s a $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans, with medical providers, employers and the wealthiest picking up most of the tab.
The federal government would be responsible for ensuring that every person, regardless of income or the state of their health, has access to an affordable insurance plan. Individuals and employers would have new obligations to get coverage, or face hefty penalties.
Health care overhaul is President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority, and his goal is to slow rising costs and provide coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured Americans.
Democratic leaders said they would push the measure through committee and toward a vote in the full House by month’s end, while the pace of activity quickened on the other side of the Capitol. …
The liberal-leaning plan lacked figures on total costs, but a House Democratic aide said the total bill would add up to about $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private calculations. Most of the bill’s costs come in the last five years after the 2012 presidential election.
The legislation calls for a 5.4 percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million a year, with a gradual tax beginning at $280,000 for individuals. Employers who don’t provide coverage would be hit with a penalty equal to 8 percent of workers’ wages with an exemption for small businesses. Individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage would pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.
And it has the so-called “public option” for a real national health service.
** WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS: ENSIGN SAYS HE’S STAYING ON. Despite being caught up in a massive scandal surrounding his affair with a staffer who was married to one of his top aides – and large amounts of hush money being paid to his mistress, her husband, and their family from various sources (including $100,000 from his wealthy retired casino exec dad), Nevada Senator John Ensign says he’s staying on and running for re-election in 2012.
Ensign, a family values conservative, had been chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee and a dark horse hopeful for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. But he resigned his party leadership post in the wake of revelations.
This is probably not a good idea on Ensign’s part, as this report from today’s Las Vegas Sun may make clear.
Discomfort over the Ensign affair escalated last week after the senator disclosed that his parents had paid $96,000 to the family of Cynthia Hampton, the campaign staffer with whom Ensign had the affair.
She and her husband, Doug Hampton, one of the senator’s top aides, had both left the senator’s employment around the time of the payment in April 2008.
The affair has drawn in Ensign’s colleagues, including Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, a housemate in the Christian home they share in Washington. Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor who recently admitted an affair with an Argentine woman, has said he sought counseling with those from the C Street house.
In a televised interview last week with Sun columnist Jon Ralston, Doug Hampton said Ensign paid his wife more than $25,000 in severance — a sum that raised alarm because it was not reported, as would have been required, on campaign disclosure statements.
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s pick for the US Supreme Court, is in her second day of Senate confirmation hearings.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a day mostly focused on travel, to Middle America. He does a major economic stimulus event in hard-hit Michigan and throws out the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, appearing later on the broadcast during the game.
He has already held one-on-one and extended meetings with Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands in the Oval Office.
At 7:50 AM Pacific, Obama receives his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.
At 8:05 AM Pacific, Obama receives his daily economic briefing in the Oval Office.
At 8:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 10:15 AM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 10:30 AM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Mt. Clemens, Michigan.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Mt. Clemens, Michigan.
At 12:40 PM Pacific, he delivers remarks on community colleges at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan. Obama has a $12 billion initiative on community colleges, which can be a prime source of training and re-education for a changing workforce.
At 2 PM Pacific, Obama departs Mt. Clemens, Michigan en route to St. Louis, Missouri.
At 3:25 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in St. Louis.
At 5:35 PM Pacific, Obama throws out the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis.
Obama will appear on the All-Star Game broadcast sometime between the third and fifth innings.
At 7 PM Pacific, Obama departs St. Louis, Missouri en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 8:55 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base.
At 9:10 PM Pacific, Obama arrives back at the White House.
Meanwhile, Obama’s Supreme Court pick, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is in her second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in the Middle East, conferring with Gulf Arab leaders, reassuring them about the Obama Administration’s economic moves and talking up International Monetary Fund forecasts which have been revised upward for the second half of 2009 and for 2010.
The six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, taken together, are America’s second largest creditor behind China, as well as a source, through sovereign wealth funds, of massive investment in US banks and industry.
American troops in Afghanistan are setting up security arrangements for the national election on August 20th.
As he travels today, Obama will also be monitoring a number of geopolitical crises and situations:
In Afghanistan, where his Marine offensive in the south of the country is going well, with light casualties, pushing the Taliban back from positions in which they’d become entrenched. US forces are also fanning out around the country to lay the security groundwork for the country’s election on August 20th.
In Iran, where protests against the June 12 presidential election outcome have mostly abated.
In Pakistan, where refugees displaced by the Pakistani Army offensive, urged by Obama, against the Pakistani Taliban are beginning to return to their homes in the Swat Valley and elsewhere.
In North Korea, where a belligerent Pyongyang has been quiet of late following its fizzled challenge to the US on the 4th of July.
And in Russia, where reaction is still emerging to last week’s Moscow Summit. The Russian media seems mostly positive about Obama and relations with the US, but the proposed anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic continues to be a point of major contention.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger holds private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol, focusing on California’s chronic-turned-chaotic budget crisis.
He has no scheduled public events today.
Big 5 negotiations between Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders began again late Friday afternoon, continued over the weekend, took a break Monday for staff consultation, and will continue today.
Progress is reportedly being made, but we’ve been down that road before.
** DIMINISHING RETURNS FOR OBAMA’S SUMMITEERING. President Barack Obama returned early Sunday morning from a near week-long international tour that took him to a key summit in Moscow, a G-8 summit, and his first appearance in Africa as president. But some suggested, with his poll numbers down a bit and media attention mostly elsewhere, that his summiteering is having diminishing returns.
Perhaps. But I think it has at least as much to do with the media culture.
American media, especially cable TV news, is moving more into infotainment mode, stuck on a few areas. Geopolitics has never been its strong suit, and political coverage is mostly focused on food fights. Which was unfortunate, as following on to his addresses in Prague and Cairo, Obama gave the final two of his advertised four major speeches on his new geopolitics last week, in Moscow and in Accra, Ghana. …
** OBAMA DOES MOSCOW, AND VICE VERSA. Flying to Italy Wednesday morning for the troubled G-8 summit, President Barack Obama departed Moscow after a very intriguing summit with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
This was the so-called “Reset Summit” to bring American/Russian relations out of the neo-Cold War depths they’d sunk to last year. It certainly succeeded at that, and at some other things as well, especially with regard to sharp reductions in nuclear weapons, aid for the US effort in Afghanistan, and a pullback on NATO expansion, a longtime thorn in the side of Russia. But other sticking points remained, on a US anti-missile shield and on Iran.
All amidst some notable intrigue, some of it generated from the Obama side. …
Unlike most of the rest of Europe, Russia is hardly in the grip of Obamamania. He’s certainly more popular than George W. Bush or John McCain, but that’s damning with faint praise. … From my July 8th column.
** OBAMA’S CONSEQUENTIAL FIRST 4TH: NOKO, AFPAK, IRAQ, RUSSIA, PALIN (PALIN?!) Quite a consequential first 4th of July as president for Barack Obama.
Not only did he have 20 of daughter Malia’s schoolgirl friends over for a Camp David sleepover in honor of her 11th birthday on the 4th of July — just wait till her “Independence Day,” Dad — he had a few other things on his plate, as well as the barbeque for military families and the fireworks show. Not counting his inherited worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
North Korea was to have been the drama of the day. But it turned into a major fizzle. … From my July 4th column.
** THE GOP’S PALIN FOOD FIGHT: WHY NOW? You have to hand it to Sarah Palin. For a sideshow, she’s very good at being the center of attention. Even when she doesn’t want to be.
She had a few big controversies earlier this year — her on-again/off-again headlining of the big GOP congressional fundraiser, her pregnant teenage daughter, the usual Alaska stuff — but she’s hit the jackpot this week with a huge food fight among big name Republicans. What’s unexamined is this question: Why now? … From my July 2nd column.
** TRANSFORMATIVE: LE CINEMA DE MICHAEL BAY. … From my June 29th essay.
** STAR TREK FIRSTS … 43 YEARS ON. … From my June 23rd essay.
** OBAMA AND THE AYATOLLAH. . … From my June 19th column.
** OBAMA’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT: NORTH KOREA, AGAIN. … From my June 12th column.
** REMEMBERING AMERICA: OBAMA’S D-DAY SPEECH AND TWO DAYS IN JUNE. … From my June 8th column.
** REPOSITIONING AMERICA: OBAMA’S CAIRO SPEECH AS THE ULTIMATE IN EVENT MARKETING. … From my June 4th column.
** TERMINATING THE DARKNESS: HOPE FLOATS, BUT ANXIETY ABIDES. … From my May 31st column.
** THE AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY OF CALIFORNIA’S PROP 8. … 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.
You can listen to my recent video webchat with Schwarzenegger here.
** 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 is trading around $61 per barrel.
This is up about $27 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program. But oil has been slumping over the past week or so from recent highs on fears that the global economic recovery is happening too slowly.
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| Comments (55) |
…do you drive a Jag?…heh heh
Oh, yes. The ancestors came to Virginia before the Revolution, so my rather moderate Anglophilia is not contained by Bond and Dr. Who.
I really liked your blog!
Just for the record, the following was very nice and absolutely worthy of being the last word!
Bill Bradley says,
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“Oh, yes. The ancestors came to Virginia before the Revolution, so my rather moderate Anglophilia is not contained by Bond and Dr. Who.
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader.