Climate change is clearing the long fabled “Northwest Passage” through the Arctic. Two German freighters have just traversed the once mythical route.
** QUICK HITS.Famed neoconservative theorist Irving Kristol passed away today at the age of 89. You may be familiar with his son, Bill Kristol. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is filing a court-ordered plan to reduce California’s prison inmate population. But the court wants a cut of more than 40,000 by 2012, and Schwarzenegger’s plan would do only half that. By 2013 his plan would get to 40,000, but only with policies the state Assembly wouldn’t pass in its just concluded session. … San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his wife, actress Jennifer Siebel Newsom, this afternoon welcomed their first child. Newborn Montana Tessa was announced to the world via a trademark Newsom tweet. …
On Sunday, the president stars in an unprecedented five morning talk shows, as he takes to TV to push his health care overhaul through Congress. He’ll top off the blitz with a hit as sole guest on David Letterman’s “Late Show” Monday night.
For those eager to hear a bit of the interviews, the White House agreed to let each network use a single soundbite on their Friday evening news shows.
The assembly line of network anchors starts filing in–and quickly out–of the West Wing this afternoon. Same venue for all—the elegant Roosevelt Room outside the Oval Office, with “The Rough Rider” portrait of Teddy Roosevelt over the fireplace.
Each network gets 15 minutes in the chair, plus five minutes to swap out the talent. “I’m guessing he’ll knock this out in just under two hours,” a White House aide said.
On Sunday, the president is scheduled to appear on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Univision, the Spanish language network. The five appearances are unprecedented for a sitting president.
He apparently thinks his vacation, and some other scheduling adjustments, dealt with his over-exposure problem.
Obama is pushing national health care reform. With that Teddy Roosevelt portrait as a backdrop, I suspect he mentioned that the first President Roosevelt proposed national health care over 100 years ago, and we still don’t have it.
** WESTLY RAISES SECOND VENTURE CAPITAL FUND. Former California state Controller Steve Westly, one of President Barack Obama’s earliest and biggest backers, told me today that he’s finished raising the second venture capital fund for his Westly Group. His target was $100 million; he ended up with $120 million. These funds, like his first round of venture investing, will go into clean tech start-ups.
Westly, a former top exec at eBay and lifelong Democratic activist, has become one of the biggest clean tech venture capitalists around. Working out of his office (he shares space at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers) on the legendary “venture boulevard” of Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, he was already one of the biggest investors in Tesla Motors, the snazzy Palo Alto-based electric car company.
Other areas of venture involvement for Westly, who goes to China (where he says clean tech is taking off) every few months, are solar power, smart grid tech, green building materials, and recycling. He’s bullish on the prospect for initial public offerings next year. Unlike his old colleague Meg Whitman, he doesn’t think that California’s climate change program should be rolled back.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … TARANTINO RE-WRITES WORLD WAR II INTO HIS BIGGEST HIT.
** WHY POST-PARTISANSHIP IS GOOD POLITICS. The new Gallup Poll shows that a big majority of Americans give President Barack Obama credit for trying bipartisanship.
Now, from an operational standpoint, he may have been trying it for too long on national health care reform. But that is another matter.
President Barack Obama may have failed to achieve much bipartisan agreement on his major policies since he took office, but Americans give him credit for trying. Sixty percent say Obama has made a sincere effort to work with Republicans, down from prior measurements but still the majority view. …
Democrats and Republicans diverge in their views of Obama’s efforts. Ninety percent of Democrats believe Obama is attempting to work with congressional Republicans; 27% of rank-and-file Republicans agree. More than half of independents, 56%, view Obama as making a concerted effort toward bipartisanship.
The independent numbers are the key, naturally.
Americans are much less likely to believe members of Congress in either party are trying to work with the other side than to believe Obama is. Thirty-three percent say the Republicans in Congress are making a sincere effort to work with Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Slightly more, 38%, believe the Democrats in Congress are trying to cooperate with the Republicans.
The trend lines in ratings of both congressional parties are similar, with a great deal of optimism about bipartisanship after last November’s election — optimism that diminished greatly several months into the current session of Congress.
Which, of course, won’t happen. In fact, Schwarzenegger is getting ready to celebrate the third anniversary of the signing of AB 32.
Whitman was CEO of eBay and served as national co-chair of the John McCain for President campaign and national finance co-chair of the the Mitt Romney for President campaign. Most of the press calls her a moderate because she’s pro-choice on abortion, but on every other issue, like Poizner, she is hugging the far right rail.
Says Whitman: “It’s time to bring some common sense and balance back to California’s regulations. My plan is to encourage job growth by cutting taxes and modifying regulations that discourage our businesses from hiring. Within months, Sacramento will be handing down new rules to implement AB32, the far-reaching law to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. Signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, AB32 may have been well intentioned. But it is wrong for these challenging times.
“With this ongoing economic crisis, the governor has the ability to issue an executive order putting a moratorium on most AB32-related rules. I urge him to do so. And if he does not, I will issue that order on my first day as governor.”
Schwarzenegger has no formal comment, naturally. I rather suspect his private comment would be something along the lines of, “Shove off.”
Climate change has so affected the Arctic icepack in recent years that a brand new shipping lane is becoming available, even faster than climate scientists predicted at the beginning of this century, when climate change deniers insisted the polar ice caps would remain pristine for centuries to come.
President Barack Obama extended his warm wishes for the beginning of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah. He is currently engaged in hardball negotiations with Israel over a re-start of the Palestinian peace process, which he intends to begin on September 23rd in New York on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 8 AM Pacific, First Lady Michelle Obama participates in an event featuring stories about women and families affected by the current health care system at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
At 10 AM Pacific, President Obama meets with recipients of the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award in the Oval Office.
In other action …
Most of Europe is relieved that Obama dropped the Bush/Cheney plan to install an anti-missile system near the Russian border. Despite its ostensible targeting against a currently non-existent Iranian threat, Moscow viewed it as an anti-Russian move in its “near abroad.”
In Afghanistan, major recounts have been ordered for the August 20th presidential election in the wake of charges of massive fraud.
And in Israel, US and Israeli officials continue to negotiate in advance of next week UN General Assembly meeting in New York, at which there is a planned American/Israeli/Palestinian re-start of the Middle East peace process.
Many mixed signals are emanating from Israel these days. The very latest signal is that a freeze can be achieved on settlements by religious fundamentalists on the West Bank.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has events in Los Angeles and San Francisco today.
At 8 AM, he drops by an apartment complex in the Monrovia area of LA in which senior citizens and disabled people are in danger of being evicted.
At 11 AM, he holds an event at Solazyme in South San Francisco. This is a firm which is focused on developing biomass energy from the ocean.
While the California Legislature failed to accomplish much of anything of real significance this year in its regular session, Schwarzenegger will be bringing it back this fall to focus on several issues.
** OBAMA AND AL QAEDA: NEW MOVES SHOW SUCCESS MAY NOT DEPEND ON AFGHANISTAN.While things are going quite ruggedly for America in Afghanistan, they may be going worse for Al Qaeda everywhere. Osama bin Laden’s taunting 9/11 anniversary message was days late and very lame. And President Barack Obama’s lethal approach to dealing with the organization that attacked America on 9/11 took a startling, and still more lethal, turn this week in Somalia.
Which raises a central question: Are we not in fact much closer to achieving our central goal in Afghanistan than most imagine? …
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11’s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy. … From my September 11th column.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd 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.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is calling for a joint missile defense project between the US, NATO, and Russia.
** 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 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, 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
As long expected here at NWN, President Barack Obama has canceled the Bush/Cheney Administration’s plans for an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe. Officially intended as a check on an as yet non-existent Iranian missile threat, the plan was regarded in Moscow as an anti-Russian move.
** QUICK HITS. John McCain predictably denounced the Obama Administration’s move to drop the Bush/Cheney plan to place an anti-missile program purportedly aimed at Iran near Russia. Last year, when Russia invaded Georgia (McCain’s chief foreign policy advisor was Georgia’s paid lobbyist) after Georgian forces foolishly attacked the breakaway province of South Ossetia, McCain declared: “We are all Georgians now!” Obviously, as I wrote at the time, and with all due respect to the senator, who I like, that was non-serious. … Joe Lieberman also denounced the move. Which is a bit odd, as Israel needs Russia’s help in reining in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and has little to offer Moscow on its own. … House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in answer to a press conference question today in Washington, tearfully compared the current anti-Obama climate on the right to the climate in San Francisco just prior to the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the great gay rights icon. Pelosi was then emerging as a prominent San Francisco figure and Northern California chair of the Democratic Party at the designation of then Governor Jerry Brown. …
** OBAMA AND AL QAEDA: NEW MOVES SHOW SUCCESS MAY NOT DEPEND ON AFGHANISTAN.While things are going quite ruggedly for America in Afghanistan, they may be going worse for Al Qaeda everywhere. Osama bin Laden’s taunting 9/11 anniversary message was days late and very lame. And President Barack Obama’s lethal approach to dealing with the organization that attacked America on 9/11 took a startling, and still more lethal, turn this week in Somalia.
Which raises a central question: Are we not in fact much closer to achieving our central goal in Afghanistan than most imagine? …
** REALITY CHECK: BILL CLINTON’S “UNPRECEDENTED” SUPPORT FOR GAVIN NEWSOM AND BILL CLINTON’S “BIG FEUD” WITH JERRY BROWN. I thought I would give it at least a day to see how the news of former President Bill Clinton appearing at an LA fundraiser next month for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decidedly longshot gubernatorial bid played out in the rest of the California press. The first day went as expected. So I gave it two days to see what got reported.
The extra day made no difference, as all the other coverage focused on the supposedly unprecedented nature of the Clinton move, with a lot of attention to a supposed Clinton-Brown feud and the sometimes bitter clash between Clinton and former Governor Jerry Brown in the 1992 Democratic presidential race. In which Clinton, of course, emerged as the nominee and future president and Brown was the runner-up.
Since I cover presidential politics every day, I follow what the Clintons are up to. Which made me aware of something that I waited in vain for others to report. Namely, that the former president is in the midst of a fundraising tour on behalf of politicians around the country who played major roles in Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign against President Barack Obama.
Gavin Newsom was a national co-chairman of the 2008 Hillary Clinton for President campaign. He campaigned around the country on Hillary’s behalf, and took quite a few shots at Obama in the process, notwithstanding the fact that he has more recently styled himself as a California version of Obama.
But he is just one of 10 politicians I know of so far — and Clinton sources tell me there are more — to receive this sort of support from Bill Clinton.
And others have received far more support than Newsom is getting from Clinton. Not the least of which was would-be Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic national chairman. The former president campaigned heavily for McAuliffe, who nonetheless finished a badly beaten third in the Virginia primary.
It’s not hard to find this out, either. I did a Google search just before writing this item to see if anyone had else mentioned it and, within a minute, found a big feature in Politico published three months ago entitled “Payback: Bill Clinton’s Loyalty Tour.”
You don’t have to be in touch with the Clinton camp to know this.
Now, as for the big Clinton-Brown feud. I remember the 1992 presidential race very well. It was actually nastier — on both sides — than the easily found YouTube clips suggest. Though it actually cooled off well before the California primary, which was not until June, and in which Brown obligingly ran no TV advertising.
I’m going to publish a column about this overall story as Clinton is about to arrive in Los Angeles next month. I wrote about some of it last year when the Clinton campaign inaccurately cited the Clinton-Brown 1992 race as rationale for why it was continuing a very tough campaign against Obama in June 2008.
But for all the easily found rancor, there are no quotes in the current stories that are more recent than 1992. And my understanding is that, while I personally doubt that Bill Clinton and Jerry Brown will ever be best friends — though there is more history there than people know, and I’ll get into that in this upcoming column — their current relationship is not that bad.
** OBAMA REMARKS ON MISSILE DEFENSE IN EUROPE.
Good morning. As Commander-in-Chief, I’m committed to doing everything in my power to advance our national security. And that includes strengthening our defenses against any and all threats to our people, our troops, and our friends and allies around the world.
One of those threats is the danger posed by ballistic missiles. As I said during the campaign, President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat. And that’s why I’m committed to deploying strong missile defense systems which are adaptable to the threats of the 21st century.
The best way to responsibly advance our security and the security of our allies is to deploy a missile defense system that best responds to the threats that we face and that utilizes technology that is both proven and cost-effective.
In keeping with that commitment, and a congressionally mandated review, I ordered a comprehensive assessment of our missile defense program in Europe. And after an extensive process, I have approved the unanimous recommendations of my Secretary of Defense and my Joint Chiefs of Staff to strengthen America’s defenses against ballistic missile attack.
This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems, and offer greater defenses against the threat of missile attack than the 2007 European missile defense program.
This decision was guided by two principal factors. First, we have updated our intelligence assessment of Iran’s missile programs, which emphasizes the threat posed by Iran’s short- and medium-range missiles, which are capable of reaching Europe. There’s no substitute for Iran complying with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program, and we, along with our allies and partners, will continue to pursue strong diplomacy to ensure that Iran lives up to these international obligations. But this new ballistic missile defense program will best address the threat posed by Iran’s ongoing ballistic missile defense program.
Second, we have made specific and proven advances in our missile defense technology, particularly with regard to land- and sea-based interceptors and the sensors that support them. Our new approach will, therefore, deploy technologies that are proven and cost-effective and that counter the current threat, and do so sooner than the previous program. Because our approach will be phased and adaptive, we will retain the flexibility to adjust and enhance our defenses as the threat and technology continue to evolve.
To put it simply, our new missile defense architecture in Europe will provide stronger, smarter, and swifter defenses of American forces and America’s allies. It is more comprehensive than the previous program; it deploys capabilities that are proven and cost-effective; and it sustains and builds upon our commitment to protect the U.S. homeland against long-range ballistic missile threats; and it ensures and enhances the protection of all our NATO allies.
This approach is also consistent with NATO missile — NATO’s missile defense efforts and provides opportunities for enhanced international collaboration going forward. We will continue to work cooperatively with our close friends and allies, the Czech Republic and Poland, who had agreed to host elements of the previous program. I’ve spoken to the Prime Ministers of both the Czech Republic and Poland about this decision and reaffirmed our deep and close ties. Together we are committed to a broad range of cooperative efforts to strengthen our collective defense, and we are bound by the solemn commitment of NATO’s Article V that an attack on one is an attack on all.
We’ve also repeatedly made clear to Russia that its concerns about our previous missile defense programs were entirely unfounded. Our clear and consistent focus has been the threat posed by Iran’s ballistic missile program, and that continues to be our focus and the basis of the program that we’re announcing today.
In confronting that threat, we welcome Russians’ cooperation to bring its missile defense capabilities into a broader defense of our common strategic interests, even as we continue to — we continue our shared efforts to end Iran’s illicit nuclear program.
Going forward, my administration will continue to consult closely with Congress and with our allies as we deploy this system, and we will rigorously evaluate both the threat posed by ballistic missiles and the technology that we are developing to counter it.
I’m confident that with the steps we’ve taken today, we have strengthened America’s national security and enhanced our capacity to confront 21st century threats. Thank you very much, everybody.
Earlier today in Moscow, it was apparent that Russia is pleased about the Obama Administration’s decision to shelve an anti-missile program based in Poland and the Czech Republic. The program, originated by the Bush/Cheney Administration, was a major stumbling block in relations between the US and Russia.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He phoned the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic very late last night to inform them that he is canceling the anti-missile program which was to have been based in their two countries.
This morning, he made a statement about this change in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room.
Obama is now holding a rally for national health care reform at the Comcast Center in College Park, Maryland.
At 11:05 AM Pacific, Obama posthumously awards the Medal of Honor to Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti in the East Room of the White House. Sergeant Monti was killed while earning the nation’s highest award for heroism in Afghanistan.
At 2:15 PM Pacific, Obama hosts a viewing of “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” at the White House Movie Theater.
Obama will meet next week with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in New York. One of the major items on the agenda: Iran’s nuclear program.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus’s release yesterday of long-in-the-works draft national health care legislation appears to be a wet firecracker. Despite his many compromises, it is garnering virtually no Republican support.
Vice President Joe Biden continues his surprise trip to Iraq.
In Afghanistan, major recounts have been ordered for the August 20th presidential election in the wake of charges of massive fraud.
National security experts around the world are contemplating Obama’s new approach to Al Qaeda, as seen in Tuesday’s lethal special operations strike in Somalia which killed an Al Qaeda leader and everyone else in his convoy.
And in Israel, US and Israeli officials continue to negotiate in advance of next week UN General Assembly meeting in New York, at which there is a planned American/Israeli/Palestinian re-start of the Middle East peace process.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnolf Schwarzenegger has private discussions today in Los Angeles.
At 10 AM, he joins Rev. Jesse Jackson at Dorsey High School in LA for an event encouraging students and promoting education reform.
In addition to his trademark motivational talk, Schwarzenegger will speak about the need to pass legislation qualifying California for the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top educational grants.
Such legislation will be taken up in a special legislative session in the near future.
Because of state law specifically de-linking student performance from teacher evaluation, California is ineligible for the Obama program.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11’s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy. … From my September 11th column.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd 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 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, 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 $39 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Senator Max Baucus unveiled his version of a national health care bill today. To the dismay of left and right.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA AND AL QAEDA: NEW MOVES.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama appears less than wowed by the finally revealed Senate Finance version of national health care. The left thinks it’s a gift to the insurance crowd, the right thinks it lets a large camel’s nose under the tent on a real national health service. Not a shock, and the search goes on. … In Afghanistan, preparations have begun for a run-off in the controversial August 20th presidential election. President Hamid Karzai has 54% of the vote, but a third of his votes have been challenged by election regulators. … I wasn’t there, but today’s Silicon Valley confab with 4 of the 5 candidates for governor of California was reportedly as routine as I expected. No one said anything they hadn’t said before, and everyone appeared on different panels. … Ex-President Clinton didn’t fly in to confront ex-Governor Brown, either. There’s far less to that than a lot of folks have swiftly worked themselves into thinking …
** NEW POLL: WHO’S THE FAVORITE BEATLE? With the reworked CDs released — I got all the early recordings, which I didn’t know well at all, and they are fantastic, it’s like discovering a new band — Beatles fever is back. So, who’s the favorite Beatle?
When it comes to picking their favorite lad from Liverpool, Americans say Paul (27%) is their favorite Beatle, with John taking a distant second at 16%, and far fewer choosing George Harrison (10%) or Ringo Starr (9%) a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.
In what could be a surprise to fans of the Yellow Submarine crew, 22% of those polled say they don’t like the Beatles and 3% say they are not familiar enough to make a decision. …
“Americans over 30 and those over 65 love Paul,” Said Zogby International CEO John Zogby. “It must be the crazy love songs and Yesterday. Interestingly, John is the main answer for people who never go to church. [Less than 1%] of Woodstockers are not familiar enough to make a judgment, and frankly, who could they possibly be?”
Born Again Christians are three times as likely to say Paul is their favorite Beatle (25%) than John (8%). Paul is also the favorite among Woodstockers (31%) and Nikes (27%), while First Globals (19%) prefer John.
Democrats (25%) are far more likely than Republicans (6%) and independents (15%) to say John is their favorite Beatle, while moderates (32%) are far more likely to prefer Paul. Liberals (14%) are more than twice as likely as moderates (7%) and conservatives (9%) to pick George as their favorite.
Conservatives (30%) are the most likely ideology to say they don’t like the Beatles, followed by moderates (19%) and liberals (9%) who say the same.
President Barack Obama called rap star Kanye West a “jackass” for his on-stage outburst at the Video Music Awards when Taylor Swift won best female video over Beyonce.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He then held one-on-one and expanded meetings with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, also in the Oval Office.
At 10 AM Pacific, Obama and First Lady and Michelle Obama host an event on the Olympics, Paralympics and Youth Sport on the South Lawn of the White House.
The event is, among other things, in promotion of Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama meets with General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in the Oval Office.
At 5:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the CHCI’s (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) 32nd Annual Awards Gala in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus this morning released draft national health care legislation. It has co-ops in lieu of the public option.
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and US special envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell last month in Jerusalem. Negotiations are continuing.
Vice President Joe Biden continues his surprise trip to Iraq.
In Afghanistan, major recounts have been ordered for the August 20th presidential election in the wake of charges of massive fraud.
National security experts around the world are contemplating Obama’s new approach to Al Qaeda, as seen in yesterday’s lethal special operations strike in Somalia which killed an Al Qaeda leader and everyone else in his convoy.
And in Israel, US and Israeli officials continue to negotiate in advance of next week UN General Assembly meeting in New York, at which there is a planned American/Israeli/Palestinian re-start of the Middle East peace process.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnolf Schwarzenegger has private discussions in and around the Capitol.
At 10:45 AM, Schwarzenegger hosts the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport awards, at which nine individuals wil be recognized for championing fitness among youth.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11’s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy. … From my September 11th column.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd 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 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, 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Speaking today at the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh, President Barack Obama argued that the success of the middle class is linked with the success of organized labor.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama is planning the ultimate TV chatfest full-court press early next week on national health care reform. He will appear on all three of the broadcast networks’ Sunday shows, then follow that up with an appearance on David Letterman’s show on Monday night. … Obama’s director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, said today that the US spends $75 billion a year on intelligence work. Considering the stuff they get wrong, errors in the press, which has nothing like the intelligence community’s budget or expertise, hardly seem to matter … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger held his big renewable energy event this afternoon at a huge solar array run by the state’s most liberal public utility, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. That public utility, along with the state’s municipal utility association and a raft of renewable power producers joined Schwarzenegger to denounce the Legislature’s only major bill of the session, a 33% renewable requirement by 2020, as overly restrictive. Schwarzenegger signed an executive order to carry out the requirement through the AB 32 climate change program framework. Still, legislation would be good, even though the most likely next governor, Jerry Brown, pioneered California’s renewable power thrust. Maybe the clashing sides can get together and work it out. And maybe they can address something more pressing; namely, the fact that California is falling short of the 20% renewable power by 2010 standard that Schwarzenegger had accelerated from the first standard enacted by former Governor Gray Davis.
** BIDEN MAKES SURPRISE TRIP TO IRAQ. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq today on a publicly unscheduled three-day trip. Here are a couple of press pool reports. Think of this journalism as the scribbled version of the rough draft of history …
Biden emerged from the C17 into a hot dusk at about 4:50pm. He was greeted
by Gen Ray Odierno, Amb. Christopher Hill, and Iraqi Foreign Minister
Hoshyar Zebari. Biden’s national security adviser Tony Blinken and Deputy
Secretary of State Jim Steinberg also walked through the welcome line.
Boarded helos for the Green Zone, short, uneventful flight on Air Blackhawk
through warm Baghdad evening. Streets quiet below as people endure the
final hours of the daily fast inside.
Touched down in Green Zone (LZ Washington) at 5:08pm. Short pool spray with Biden, Hill, Odierno and Steinberg as they began
their meeting. No remarks.
We’re holding.
VPOTUS took a few questions after his meeting with Hill, Odierno,
Steinberg, others.
Some highlights:
-Biden said “he has a personal reltionship” and “has won a measure of
trust” from Iraqi leaders, and he is “here to listen.” Twice he said he has
been asked by Iraqi leaders, as he has been in past, “to act as an
interlocutor” as they work through political issues. He named the elections
law, in particular. “A successful election is the necessary condition for some of the
outstanding political issues to be resolved,” Biden said.
-He said Odierno is “optmistic” that Iraqi forces will be ready on schedule
to allow U.S. withdrawals to go ahead as planned – ie, no need to delay or
extend stay. -On the referendum over the status of forces agreement, which might force a
fast U.S. withdrawal, Biden said he has been told by Iraqis “it is likely
to happen.” (That is, that the referendum will be held.)
“But there are a number of steps that still need to be taken,” Biden
said. “I’m not sure it’s settled yet.”
-the Green Zone has been hit by a few mortars in last hour or so. No
apparent damage, but the signal to take cover has sounded a couple times.
VPOTUS fine.
** JERRY BROWN UNVEILS NEW SYSTEM TO CURB PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE. Prescription drug abuse has become epidemic, as we’ve seen in numerous news reports as well as the celebrity deaths of Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith.
Appearing today in Los Angeles, Attorney General Jerry Brown, who’s been working on this issue the past few years, unveiled a new system to curb prescription drug abuse. It’s a real-time monitor that provides pharmacists, physicians and other care-givers, medical regulatory boards, and law enforcement officers information about which drugs have been prescribed to whom.
Described by the former governor as “a high-tech monitoring system that will enable doctors and law enforcement to identify and stop prescription-drug seekers from doctor-shopping and abusing prescription drugs,” the CURES (Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System) database will be placed online in a secure manner for the instant access of qualified personnel.
** POIZNER LAYS OUT FAMILIAR ECONOMIC AGENDA. California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, a super-rich Republican gubernatorial hopeful, laid out his economic agenda in a press conference call this morning in advance of his address at noon today to the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.
On the conference call, Poizner said his plan centers on four points: Massive tax cuts. New restrictions on lawsuits. A rollback of state labor laws to a national standard. And rollback of what he calls restrictive regulations on development.
Asked how he would get that through the Legislature, he said he would campaign for a part-time Legislature, which he presumes would have a very different ideology. Support for a part-time legislature in last week’s Public Policy Institute of California poll was at 23%.
Poizner’s theory is that big tax cuts will actually grow tax revenue. This, of course, is the supply side economic doctrine which was so controversial during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when massive deficits occurred.
** NO WHITMAN. I was told by a Meg Whitman backer that the former eBay CEO and California Republican gubernatorial hopeful would probably appear at a forum tomorrow morning held by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group at which all the other most likely gubernatorial candidates will appear. Her campaign had originally said she would not appear, due to a conflict with a business magazine conference in San Diego. But she’s not on the main agenda there, so it appeared that she might show up after all. But she will not.
Whitman is rapidly acquiring the image of a dodger, as quite a few others have already noted.
Ironically, the forum looks quite routine, though it’s been hyped by other press. The various hopefuls are simply appearing on panels, on different topics at different times. Frontrunner Jerry Brown, for example, speaks on the energy and environment panel.
** BILL CLINTON TO APPEAR WITH NEWSOM. According to the campaign of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, former President Bill Clinton will appear with Newsom at a fundraiser for the mayor’s longshot campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination on October 5th.
Newsom, who has styled himself as California’s version of Barack Obama, was actually a national co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, and made numerous appearances around the country campaigning for Clinton and attacking Obama.
The clearcut, if undeclared, frontrunner, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, did not support Hillary Clinton. And he ran against Bill Clinton in 1992, ending as the runner-up to Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Unless the event raises about $20 million, Clinton’s appearance won’t materially affect the California governor’s race.
President Barack Obama speaking at the Pentagon Memorial on the 9/11 anniversary.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is on the road today in Ohio and Pennsylvania talking economic recovery. He also campaigns for Republican-turned-Democratic Senator Arlen Specter.
At 6 AM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 6:15 AM Pacific, Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One en route to Vienna, Ohio.
Obama will receive his daily intelligence briefing in-flight.
At 7:15 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Vienna, Ohio.
At 7:40 AM Pacific, Obama hosts a roundtable discussion with workers at the Lordstown Complex General Motors Plant in Warren, Ohio.
At 8:10 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on the economy at the Lordstown Complex General Motors Plant in Warren, Ohio.
At 8:50 AM Pacific, Obama departs Warren, Ohio on Air Force One en route to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
At 9:20 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
At 10:40 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the AFL-CIO Convention at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama departs Pittsburgh on Air Force One en route to Philadelphia.
At 12:45 PM Pacific, Obama arrives in Philadelphia.
At 1:10 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a fundraising event for Senator Arlen Specter at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
At 3 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a fundraising reception for Senator Arlen Specter at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
At 3:55 PM Pacific, Obama departs Philadelphia on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 4:40 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 4:55 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
The FBI raided three homes in the Queens borough of New York yesterday investigating a suspected Al Qaeda operative.
In other action …
Recounts will occur with at least 10% of the polling stations in Afghanistan’s controversial August 20th presidential election. But President Hamid Karzai says he’s over the 50% threshold in a multi-candidate field needed to avoid a run-off against the former Northern Alliance fighter and spokesman, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.
US special envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell met for two hours today with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, but did not reach agreement on the controversial continuing West Bank settlements. They will meet again.
It was also learned today that Israeli President Shimon Peres met secretly in Jerusalem with top Palestinian negotiators, in furtherance of an American/Israeli/Palestinian meeting on the sideline of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York on September 23rd.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnolf Schwarzenegger has private discussions today in Los Angeles and the Capitol.
At 2 PM, he holds a press conference at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s North Array in Rancho Cordova to discuss California’s renewable portfolio standard and the state’s approval process for renewable energy projects.
He will sign an executive order directing the Air Resources Board to enact regulations under the state’s landmark AB 32 climate change legislation to meet the goal of having 33% of California’s electric power generated by renewable sources by 2020.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11’s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy. … From my September 11th column.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd 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 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, 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Speaking this morning on Wall Street, on the first anniversary of the fall of the Lehman Brothers investment house, President Barack Obama warned the financial industry that future reckless behavior will not be countenanced.
** QUICK HITS. Following their Greenwich Village lunch today, President Barack Obama will speak at former President Bill Clinton’s annual New York event, the Clinton Global Initiative, next week. … In a seeming surprise given past rhetoric, Israel has endorsed negotiations with Iran starting in a few weeks involving the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany. Previously, Israel pushed hard for a deadline next week for a resolution of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. … Some hysteria emerged today around Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s determination to veto a renewable energy bill, to the effect that he intended to consider nuclear power as renewable energy. As I know well, Schwarzenegger knows better than that and has no intention of including nuclear in an executive order he plans to issue tomorrow setting a 33% renewable power target by 2020. … Look for a negotiated settlement between Schwarzenegger and legislators of rather technical matters holding up legislation on this issue. … Somewhat lost in the shuffle: The fact that California is well off the current target of 20% renewable power by 2010. Maybe we should be focused on the roadblocks to this reform. …
** TRACKING AMERICAN UNEASE.The Gallup Poll today has a chronology of public opinion on the economy over the past year.
Each of Gallup’s economic measures began to deteriorate in the weeks after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15, 2008. Though already high, the percentage of Americans saying the economy was getting worse increased further in the reporting periods after the collapse. Shortly after President Bush signed a $700 billion financial industry bailout into law on Oct. 3, 2008, the “getting worse” percentage tied its previous high of 90% (based on Oct. 6-8 interviewing).
Americans’ views of the job market began to deteriorate in earnest in the late fall of 2008. The percentage of American workers reporting that their employers were letting people go eclipsed the number who said their employers were hiring for the first time since Gallup began tracking this measure in Dec. 1-3 interviewing; little over a week later, the government reported that jobless claims had hit a new 26-year high. Hiring and letting go have remained at similarly negative levels ever since.
President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009, and his signing of the $787 billion stimulus package into law in February brought with them a relative steadiness in Gallup’s economic outlook and job-market measures, but the first half of 2009 saw consumer spending fall precipitously from late 2008 levels. While self-reported average daily spending hovered in the mid-$80 to mid-$90 range through much of the initial economic crisis shock waves of September and October, spending declined into the $70 range in mid-November and then, after a temporary holiday season uptick, spending fell further during the first half of 2009, fluctuating mostly in the mid-$50 to mid-$60 range.
Since late March 2009, generally upward of 30% of Americans have said economic conditions are getting better. While this is up from its post-crisis low of 8% in late September/early October, consumer spending and hiring have not rebounded.
Americans’ reports of the national job-market situation remained gloomy throughout the spring and summer of 2009, but have not deteriorated much further, even as Chrysler and General Motors filed for bankruptcy. The back-to-school season did bring temporary increases in self-reported spending, but average daily spending remains far below what it was a year ago. …
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden released a tape on Sunday claiming that President Barack Obama is “powerless” to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bin Laden makes a practice of tweaking America around every anniversary of his organization’s attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
A busy week in presidential politics, and a fairly (and typically) slow week in California politics, with the regular state legislative session for this year having mercifully ended last week.
Today is the first anniversary of the collapse of the massive New York investment banking firm Lehman Brothers, and President Barack Obama is marking the occasion with a major address on Wall Street discussing the government’s bailout of the financial industry and the need for systemic reforms. Congress, under heavy influence from lobbyists, has been slow to move on reform while quick to complain about all the public money poured into the Wall Street bailout.
Obama continues his push for national health care reform this week, in the wake of conflicting polls regarding the impact of last Wednesday night’s big speech to Congress. Some results indicate a rush of support for Obama and the national overhaul; others do not. I think the issue remains complex and hard to grasp for most, who nonetheless want action but worry about all the spending to bail out the financial sector and to revive the economy as a whole.
The usual Congressional ping-pong on the issue continues, with the Senate at last saying it will come to the point on a draft bill. Will the so-called “public option” be included? In one way or another, yes.
This is a big week on the geopolitical front, with action centering around Israel, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Obama has planned for months to announce the re-start of Israeli/Palestinian negotiations next week when the UN General Assembly convenes in New York. But Israel pushing forward with new settlements on the West Bank is throwing a monkey wrench in that plan.
Obama’s special envoy for the Middle East, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, is in Israel now for high-level meetings. For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu met yesterday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has taken on a key role at Obama’s urging to facilitate matters with the Palestinians and Arab nations.
With regard to Iran, the US, along with the other permanent 5 UN Security Council members — Russia, China, France, and Britain — and Germany, has agreed to negotiate with Iran on normalizing relations. Iran, which issued the vaguest of statements calling for negotiation, which made no real mention of its nuclear program, now says it will discuss its nuclear program. Which it claims is for energy production only.
Netanyahu made a secret (at the time) trip to Moscow at the beginning of last week, where he met with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Russia and China are said to be averse to further sanctions on Iran, and Russia has made noises about delivering state-of-the-art anti-aircraft systems to Iran. One persistent rumor has it that a wayward Russian freighter, founds thousands of miles from where it was supposed to be after a supposed hijacking, was actually carrying these systems. On Saturday, Putin did not address the Netanyahu meeting, but did say that Israel’s concerns are legitimate and that Iran should stick to nuclear power generation rather than nuclear weapons.
With growing concern about a seeming nation-building effort in Afghanistan, incumbent President Hamid Karzai is claiming victory in August 20th’s presidential election amidst pronouncements from the UN-backed elections commission there of widespread fraud and irregularity.
Obama is reviewing a classified report from his new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, the former Joint Special Operations chief, on the situation there. McChrystal is believed to be asking for more troops.
Meanwhile, in California politics, the final day of this year’s session of the Legislature, which went late into Friday night, was largely the expected bust.
Legislators failed to come up with a new state water plan, not surprising since the legislative conference committee was appointed only last week. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says she’ll ask Schwarzenegger to call a special legislative session to deal with water.
The watered-down version of prison reform that came out of the Assembly, occasioned because many liberal Democrats who had previously supported its provisions, got cold feet, was passed by the state Senate, which had earlier gone for the more expansive bill pushed by Schwarzenegger.
That means that the already rickety second state budget of the year has a few hundred million more dollars in savings to find somewhere. And it puts the state far out of compliance with a federal court order for a reduction in the prison inmate population of more than 40,000.
The Legislature did pass a Renewable Portfolio Standard bill calling for 33% of the state’s electric power to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.
After rolling out a raft of technical complaints about the bill from renewable energy producers and energy consumer organizations, Schwarzenegger communications director Matt David announced late yesterday that Schwarzenegger will veto a bill passed by the state Legislature to mandate that 33% of California’s electric power come from renewable energy sources by 2020. Schwarzenegger will instead sign an executive order mandating the advanced Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) be achieved through administrative means.
The RPS is something I’ve followed closely throughout the decade, having been the first to report, following a conversation with him, in early 2002 that then Governor Gray Davis would support California having an aggressive renewable energy mandate. The original legislation called for 20% by 2010. Davis, feeling this was overly optimistic, signed legislation mandating 20% by 2017.
Schwarzenegger told me, also in 2002, that this was too conservative a target. When he came into office, he accelerated the nation-leading 20% RPS back from 2017 to 2010.
But California is going to fall short of this, as Davis expected. In fact, California, the world leader in wind-generated electric power under then Governor Jerry Brown, fell behind Texas (on wind, not renewables overall) a few years ago.
Perhaps we should all be more concerned with clearing away the obstacles to getting where we are supposed to be rather than gaudy new goals.
A special state commission on tax reform may come up with a report today. Or it may not. Whatever happens, it’s clear that any recommendation to lower tax rates for wealthy Californians and corporations is a political non-starter.
While the Legislature has mercifully ended its regular session for the year, it will probably come back in the next few months. Water, education reform (legislation still hasn’t passed to qualify California for Obama Administration education challenge grants), perhaps tax reform, quite likely the prison crisis and the need to adjust the state budget once again are all reasons for special sessions.
On the undramatic 2010 front, the most likely gubernatorial candidates will participate in a half-day forum Wednesday sponsored by a Silicon Valley trade group. The undeclared frontrunner, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, will be joined by his hard-running distant challenger for the Democratic nomination, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and three Republican hopefuls: ex-eBay CEO and Republican campaign official Meg Whitman, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, and former Congressman Tom Campbell.
Poizner and Campbell held a debate on a San Francisco radio show last week, about which there was some controversy because Whitman again refused to join in. But I don’t recall hearing anything about the debate in its aftermath.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers one year ago today heralded a near meltdown of the global financial system and led to massive government intervention to save Wall Street.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is on the road today promoting reform of the financial system.
Obama, who has had his daily intelligence and economic briefings, left the White House this morning and flew to New York City.
At 9 :10 AM Pacific, he delivers a major address on the financial system and needed reforms at Federal House on Wall Street.
Following the speech, Obama has a private lunch meeting with former President Bill Clinton in Greenwich Village.
At 12:35 PM Pacific, Obama departs New York City on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One for the flight to the White House.
At 1:45 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnolf Schwarzenegger has no scheduled public events today.
Schwarzenegger holds private meetings and discussions in Los Angeles.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11’s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy. … From my September 11th column.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd 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 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, 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
The National Football League’s opening Sunday is today, but it’s doubtful that any of the games will achieve the drama of Saturday night’s college showcase, USC vs. Ohio State. Southern California silenced a roaring, record Ohio Stadium crowd of 106,000, coming from behind to win, 18-15, on a late, length-of-the-field drive led by its freshman quarterback.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama has no scheduled public events today.
Obama appears tonight on the CBS news program 60 Minutes.
Obama is prepping a major speech for Monday in New York on the first anniversary of the demise of the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm. This is the event that made it clear that a financial earthquake was underway, and that its epicenter was Wall Street.
Wall Street, and, as a result, Congress, is balking at new regulations to rein in the excesses that caused the near meltdown of the global financial system.
Obama is also monitoring the situation with Iran, as international diplomats are about to begin negotiating with the troublesome Islamic republic just a few weeks in advance of his deadline for progress.
And Obama’s special envoy for the Middle East, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, is in Israel today meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Obama has planned to announce a renewal of Israeli/Palestianian peace talks when the United Nations General Assembly meets in New York later this month. But Israel pushing forward with new settlements on the West Bank is throwing a monkey wrench in that plan.
Netanyahu is about to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no scheduled public events today.
After rolling out a raft of technical complaints about the bill from renewable energy producers and energy consumer organizations, Schwarzenegger communications director Matt David announced late yesterday that Schwarzenegger will veto a bill passed by the state Legislature to mandate that 33% of California’s electric power come from renewable energy sources by 2020. Schwarzenegger will instead sign an executive order mandating the advanced Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) be achieved through administrative means.
The RPS is something I’ve followed closely throughout the decade, having been the first to report, following a conversation with him, in early 2002 that then Governor Gray Davis would support California having an aggressive renewable energy mandate.
The original legislation called for 20% by 2010. Davis, feeling this was overly optimistic, signed legislation mandating 20% by 2017.
Schwarzenegger told me, also in 2002, that this was too conservative a target. When he came into office, he accelerated the nation-leading 20% RPS back from 2017 to 2010.
But California is going to fall short of this, as Davis expected. In fact, California, the world leader in wind-generated electric power under then Governor Jerry Brown, fell behind Texas (on wind, not renewables overall) a few years ago.
Perhaps we should all be more concerned with clearing away the obstacles to getting where we are supposed to be rather than gaudy new goals.
President Barack Obama, in his weekend video/radio address, stepped up the pressure for national health care reform citing a new Treasury Department report saying that half of Americans with private health insurance will lose it at one point or another under current law.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is on the road today promoting national health care reform.
At qq AM Pacific, he delivers an address to a large crowd at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He returns to the White House this afternoon.
Obama is considering the murky situation around Iran, Israel, and Russia.
The US, along with the other permanent 5 UN Security Council members — Russia, China, France, and Britain — and Germany, has agreed to negotiate with Iran on normalizing relations. Iran, which issued the vaguest of statements calling for negotiation, which made no real mention of its nuclear program, now says it will discuss its nuclear program. Which it claims is for energy production only.
All this comes amidst the backdrop of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s no longer secret trip to Moscow at the beginning of the week. The possible topic of discussion? A mysteriously missing Russian freighter (supposedly hijacked) that turned up a few weeks ago thousands of miles from its last reported position, a ship which some say was carrying Russia’s most advanced anti-aircraft systems for Iran.
The Israelis, of course, fear an Iranian nuclear weapon, but put out mixed signals about how close one might be.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not address the Netanyahu meeting today, but did say that Israel’s concerns are legitimate and that Iran should stick to nuclear power generation rather than nuclear weapons.
U.S. space shuttle Discovery made an unscheduled landing yesterday at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The shuttle, returning from a lengthy mission to the International Space Station, was redirected to California from Florida on account of bad weather.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnolf Schwarzenegger has no scheduled public events today.
The final day of this year’s session of the Legislature, which went late into Friday night, was largely the expected bust.
Legislators failed to come up with a new state water plan, not surprising since the legislative conference committee was appointed only last week.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says she’ll ask Schwarzenegger to call a special legislative session to deal with water.
The watered-down version of prison reform that came out of the Assembly, occasioned because many liberal Democrats who had previously supported its provisions, got cold feet, was passed by the state Senate, which had earlier gone for the more expansive bill pushed by Schwarzenegger.
That means that the already rickety second state budget of the year has a few hundred million more dollars in savings to find somewhere. And it puts the state far out of compliance with a federal court order for a reduction in the prison inmate population of more than 40,000.
The Legislature did pass a Renewable Portfolio Standard bill calling for 33% of the state’s electric power to come from renewable energy sources by 2020.
However, the state is falling short of the 20% RPS standard accelerated by Schwarzenegger to 2010 from the original 2017 enacted by former Governor Gray Davis.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11’s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy.
With Al Qaeda, granted safe harbor by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington, George W. Bush turned aside the urgings of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to go after Iraq, which actually had nothing to do with 9/11. Instead, after the Taliban refused to turn over Al Qaeda leaders or deny the organization its bases in Afghanistan, America and Britain, with help from Russia and Iran, intervened militarily on October 7th.
Two days before 9/11, Al Qaeda operatives posing as journalists had assassinated Afghanistan’s main anti-Taliban figure, Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, a hero of the successful war against the late Soviet Union. Nevertheless, US and UK air power and special operations forces joined with the Northern Alliance and other Afghan forces to end the Taliban regime and dislodge Al Qaeda.
But Bush, perhaps already distracted by his upcoming, trumped-up crusade against Saddam Hussein, took his eye off the ball and let Osama bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda leaders escape from Afghanistan. …
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd column.
** CAMELOT ENDS, AGAIN: THE PASSING OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY.Camelot has ended. Again.
The death late last night in Massachusetts of Ted Kennedy, one of the historic lions of the United States Senate, followed swiftly on the heels of his sister, the Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away on August 11th. With the passing of these two very public personalities, only one of the siblings of JFK and RFK, the much more private former Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, remains.
Camelot has ended again. Which means that it has ended before. And probably will again. For it is a legend, and legend seldom dies for long, if at all.
Camelot was the nickname for John F. Kennedy’s thousand day administration of the early 1960s, chosen because of the young president’s fondness for the hit Broadway musical about the legendary court of King Arthur.
But it was really about much more than a single presidential administration, or the immediate promise of another under a President Robert F. Kennedy, or the long lingering promise of yet another under a President Edward M. Kennedy, or even the transferred promise of another under a President Barack Obama.
It’s about a spirit, a spirit which to many seemed to have been captured like lightning in a bottle in the early 1960s, an exciting time of promise and peril, which accounts for that era’s powerful hold on the American popular imagination.
Ted Kennedy himself captured the spirit of the thing in his great eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on June 8th, 1968 when he quoted from his second slain brother’s speech to the youth of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation a few years earlier.
“The answer is to rely on youth. Not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” … From my August 26th column.
** OBAMA AND THE AFGHAN ELECTION: WHAT IT MEANS, WHAT IT DOESN’T. The Obama Administration should be sighing with a sense of relief after the presidential election in Afghanistan. However, for those with nascent/encroaching nation-building fantasies, what happened with the Afghan election should be thoroughly disabusing.
The Taliban failed in their threat to halt the election, and were unable to pull off any of the promised spectacular attacks demonstrating a strong military capability. But that’s to be expected, as some 300,000 US, NATO, and Afghan troops were fanned out across the county to prevent just that. Better to keep our eyes on the real world goals in Afghanistan: Denying it as a base to Al Qaeda, and moving on in the mission of dampening Islamic opposition to America.
While we slid by in this election, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that we are any closer to realizing persistent nation-building fantasies in Afghanistan. It’s nowhere near a 20th century democracy, much less a 21st century democracy. Perhaps a 19th century democracy. But for the powerful forces ever insistent on dragging it back into the Dark Ages. … From my August 20th 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 Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil closed at $69.29 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Through a steady morning downpour, New Yorkers commemorated the eighth anniversary of 9/11 at Ground Zero, site of the late World Trade Center.
** QUICK HITS.On this eighth anniversary of 9/11, Iran, former American ally on Afghanistan, issued a general statement about peace and understanding (I exaggerate only a little) while sidestepping the question of its nuclear program. (See my column linked below regarding the Iranian nuclear program.) Russia and China signaled they aren’t excited about hard new sanctions on Iran. The Perm 5 + 1 (US, UK, France, China, and Russia, the UN Security Council permanent members) plus Germany — not a Perm 5 country because of, well, World War II — nonetheless agreed to begin negotiating with Iran. … Far right California Republicans today dropped an attempt to keep independent voters out of their state primaries, a new stricture narrowly put in place for last year’s presidential primary. … Negotiations for a long-delayed California water deal continue into the night in the last day of the state’s legislative session for the year. While details are, naturally, unclear, a deal, if it comes to pass, would include conservation efforts, some above-ground storage, and a peripheral canal with provisions to preserve the massive Sacramento River Delta while moving water from north to south. One stumbling block, in addition to the perpetual environmentalist vs. consumer scrap is the cost of bonding for an already chaotic state budget. On the other hand, it’s ridiculous that the water system of a growing mega-state hasn’t been addressed in decades.
** REPUBLICANS STILL TOPS ON TERRORISM AND MILITARY THREATS, WHILE DEMOCRATS LEAD ON PROSPERITY. Notwithstanding President Barack Obama’s muscular military policies, a new Gallup Poll shows that Republicans are still holding on to a relatively narrow edge over Democrats in general when it comes to dealing with international terrorism and military threats.
Republicans are favored over Democrats in this issue area, 49% to 42%. That number is down significantly from the first part of this decade.
Gallup instituted this question in September 2002, a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States. At that time, with President George W. Bush’s approval rating approaching 70%, the Republicans had a substantial advantage over the Democrats as to which party would better protect the country from terrorism, 50% to 31%.
Democrats are the party most trusted to deliver economic prosperity, 50-39 over the Republicans.
Roughly speaking, both parties are maintaining their old stereotypical images, with Republicans seen as the fatcat party and Democrats as the peacenik party.
** TRUST IN STATE GOVERNMENT PLUNGES AROUND THE COUNTRY. It’s not just California’s troubled state government that’s found constituent confidence down sharply. That’s true around the country, though not to the same degree in most places, according a new Gallup Poll.
Gallup’s annual Governance Poll, conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2, finds 51% of Americans saying they have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in their state government to handle state problems, down from 67% from 2004 to 2008. The prior low occurred in 2003, when trust was 53%, due to an economic downturn but also possibly affected by the news about efforts to recall then-California Gov. Gray Davis.
The declining trust this year likely reflects the challenges many state governments have had in trying to pass state budgets while revenues are declining due to the economic recession. Forty-eight states faced budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2010, and the states were forced to raise taxes or make unpopular budget cuts to close the gaps. The most dramatic example is in California, which came close to bankruptcy this year as legislators struggled to find a way to fund its budget, before finally agreeing on a new budget in late July after several months of contentious negotiations.
California’s home region of the West shows exceedingly low levels of trust in state government, at 38% (and 22% among the 98 California residents in the poll). Gallup found similarly low levels of trust in California as well as the nation as a whole in 2003, just before voters in the state successfully recalled Davis.
But the low levels of trust in the Golden State account for only a small part of the 2009 decline, as trust in state government is 54% among non-California residents.
In fact, trust in state government is down significantly from last year in all regions of the country, and is now above the majority level only in the South. The sharpest drop — 27 percentage points — has occurred in the West, but there have been double-digit decreases in all four regions of the country.
** NEW CALIFORNIA POLL: VOTERS OVERWHELMINGLY THINK THAT BIG INTERESTS RUN STATE GOVERNMENT AND WANT OPEN PRIMARIES BUT NO PART-TIME LEGISLATURE. The latest poll by the Public Policy Institute of California finds that a whopping 73% think that the state government is run by a few big special interests and hold the state Legislature in low repute. But they reject the preferred solution of the right, a part-time legislature (only 23% support that), while giving a whopping 70% support for the open primary proposal contained in the first state budget deal this past spring. Both political party organizations strongly oppose that.
While 62% say that state government wastes a lot of money, only 33% back major changes to the California constitution, a premise of the state’s professional reformers who want a constitutional convention, which couldn’t happen any time soon.
53% say that the two-thirds vote requirement to pass a state budget, unusual for an American state government, should be lowered to 55%.
But 65% say they’re for strict state spending limits. Which the May 19th special election voted down, coupled as it was with an extension of tax hikes.
Majorities still support Prop 13 and term limits, but 58% say they back “splitting the property tax roll,” allowing higher taxes on corporate property.
As for major personalities, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inched back upward to 33% job approval from likely voters, while President Barack Obama is in the high 60s and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer — the latter facing what I don’t take to be a very serious Republican challenge next year, despite her feisty liberalism — both get majority job approval.
You can see the outline of a relatively obvious campaign message here.
9/11/01. The image directly above is of the crash site of United Flight 93 (originally bound for San Francisco), which was headed for the White House before passengers fought the Al Qaeda operatives and brought the plane down in a Pennsylvania field.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.Eight years since 9/11. It feels like 18 years, if not 80.
So much has changed since then, yet so much is still the same.
We all remember how America seemed unified in 9/11′s aftermath, especially in contrast to the disunity engendered by the Florida election debacle. And much of the world embraced America. Then there was the fear, the feeling that another jihadist strike inside America was surely coming.
All that remains of any of that is the permanent wartime footing at the airports.
Well, that and Osama bin Laden, along with an ongoing problem for America in the Islamic world. And a confused Afghanistan strategy.
With Al Qaeda, granted safe harbor by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington, George W. Bush turned aside the urgings of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to go after Iraq, which actually had nothing to do with 9/11. Instead, after the Taliban refused to turn over Al Qaeda leaders or deny the organization its bases in Afghanistan, America and Britain, with help from Russia and Iran, intervened militarily on October 7th.
Two days before 9/11, Al Qaeda operatives posing as journalists had assassinated Afghanistan’s main anti-Taliban figure, Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, a hero of the successful war against the late Soviet Union. Nevertheless, US and UK air power and special operations forces joined with the Northern Alliance and other Afghan forces to end the Taliban regime and dislodge Al Qaeda.
But Bush, perhaps already distracted by his upcoming, trumped-up crusade against Saddam Hussein, took his eye off the ball and let Osama bin Laden and other top Al Qaeda leaders escape from Afghanistan. …
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama observed a moment of silence outside the White House at 8:56 AM (EDT) in remembrance of Al Qaeda’s first attack of September 11, 2001.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama commemorates the eighth anniversary of 9/11 today.
At 5:46 AM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama observed a moment of silence outside the White House to mark the moment at which the first airliner hijacked by Al Qaeda crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.
At 6:30 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks and participates in a wreath laying ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
At 7:50 AM Pacific, Obama receives his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.
At 8:10 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
Later in the day, Obama tapes an interview with CBS correspondent Steve Kroft for this coming Sunday’s edition of 60 Minutes.
At 6:30 AM Pacific, Vice President Joe Biden participates in New York City’s 9/11 commemoration ceremony at Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Center.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers remarks and participates in a ceremony commemorating 9/11 and today’s National Day of Service this morning in the Capitol Rotunda.
With only one day left in this year’s legislative session, Schwarzenegger is pushing again for action on water. But, despite vows by legislative leaders, there is apparently no consensus.
Which is not a surprise here at NWN.
There may also be action on accelerating California’s renewable energy requirement for utilities and on prison reform. Or, there may not.
Last chance for the California Legislature to accomplish anything major this year …
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd column.
** CAMELOT ENDS, AGAIN: THE PASSING OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY.Camelot has ended. Again.
The death late last night in Massachusetts of Ted Kennedy, one of the historic lions of the United States Senate, followed swiftly on the heels of his sister, the Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away on August 11th. With the passing of these two very public personalities, only one of the siblings of JFK and RFK, the much more private former Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, remains.
Camelot has ended again. Which means that it has ended before. And probably will again. For it is a legend, and legend seldom dies for long, if at all.
Camelot was the nickname for John F. Kennedy’s thousand day administration of the early 1960s, chosen because of the young president’s fondness for the hit Broadway musical about the legendary court of King Arthur.
But it was really about much more than a single presidential administration, or the immediate promise of another under a President Robert F. Kennedy, or the long lingering promise of yet another under a President Edward M. Kennedy, or even the transferred promise of another under a President Barack Obama.
It’s about a spirit, a spirit which to many seemed to have been captured like lightning in a bottle in the early 1960s, an exciting time of promise and peril, which accounts for that era’s powerful hold on the American popular imagination.
Ted Kennedy himself captured the spirit of the thing in his great eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on June 8th, 1968 when he quoted from his second slain brother’s speech to the youth of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation a few years earlier.
“The answer is to rely on youth. Not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” … From my August 26th column.
** OBAMA AND THE AFGHAN ELECTION: WHAT IT MEANS, WHAT IT DOESN’T. The Obama Administration should be sighing with a sense of relief after the presidential election in Afghanistan. However, for those with nascent/encroaching nation-building fantasies, what happened with the Afghan election should be thoroughly disabusing.
The Taliban failed in their threat to halt the election, and were unable to pull off any of the promised spectacular attacks demonstrating a strong military capability. But that’s to be expected, as some 300,000 US, NATO, and Afghan troops were fanned out across the county to prevent just that. Better to keep our eyes on the real world goals in Afghanistan: Denying it as a base to Al Qaeda, and moving on in the mission of dampening Islamic opposition to America.
While we slid by in this election, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that we are any closer to realizing persistent nation-building fantasies in Afghanistan. It’s nowhere near a 20th century democracy, much less a 21st century democracy. Perhaps a 19th century democracy. But for the powerful forces ever insistent on dragging it back into the Dark Ages. … From my August 20th 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 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
Congressman Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who shouted “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during last night’s address to Congress, says that party leaders urged him to apologize. Wilson, a longtime follower of the late segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, is quite wrong in his insistence that illegal immigrants would be covered in Obama’s national health care bill.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING.
But Obama himself spent much of the afternoon in a meeting that hadn’t been on his schedule earlier. He summoned 17 centrist or more conservative members of the US Senate, all Democrats (including independent Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats), to discuss health care. What they all have in common is that each has had problems with one or more aspects of the emerging health care plan.
So it’s obviously too soon to chalk up the big “W.”
Will the so-called “public option” — in which a national health insurance service would compete with private insurers — be in the final bill? Obama certainly made the case of it last night. Is it the be-all/end-all that so many on the left make it out to be? If it’s the key to forcing greater efficiencies in an increasingly expensive system with declining results, and if it’s the key to ensuring that insurers give the coverage they should to patients.
** SPEAKING OF TRUST IN THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH … You remember now ex-California Assemblyman Mike Duvall, the family values Orange County Republican who resigned yesterday after his bragging on his sexual exploits with female lobbyists was released on YouTube. Well, the guy he was bragging to got caught up in the scandal today when he was forced off the, yes, Assembly Ethics Committee.
That’s fellow SoCal Republican Jeff Miller, who didn’t seem bothered by his colleague — who was vice chairman of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee — going on and on about his sexual affair with the much younger and hotter lobbyist for one of the nation’s biggest utility companies.
** GALLUP POLL: TRUST IN LEGISLATIVE BRANCH AT RECORD LOW. A new Gallup Poll shows that Americans’ trust in the legislative branch of government is at a record low.
A new California poll will show something similar with regard to the state Legislature.
At a time when President Obama is asking Congress to develop and pass far-reaching healthcare reform legislation, a record-low 45% of Americans say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the legislative branch of government, far fewer than trust the judicial (76%) or executive (61%) branches. Second only to the judicial branch are Americans themselves — 73% trust “the American people as a whole” to make judgments about the issues facing the country. …
Trust in the executive branch approached an all-time high in 2002, about a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and as George W. Bush was still enjoying high job approval ratings. Trust in the legislative branch that year was also relatively high. From that point on, however, trust in both branches began to decrease, and in the latter years of the Bush administration, Americans placed greater trust in the legislative than in the executive branch. This year, coincident with a new presidential administration, trust in the executive branch has jumped, while trust in the legislative branch has continued to decrease, reaching its lowest level in Gallup history.
President Barack Obama spoke yesterday at the New York memorial for the late Walter Cronkite.
** OBAMA TODAY. Following his well-received address last night on national health care to a joint session of Congress, and his remarks earlier in the day in New York at former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite’s memorial service, President Barack Obama has an active day in the White House.
Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 7:15 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on health insurance reform in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
At 7:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with his Cabinet in the Cabinet Room.
At 9:30 AM Pacific, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 10:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in the Oval Office.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner in the Oval Office.
At 3 PM Pacific, Obama welcomes the National Hockey League champion Pittsburgh Penguins to the White House at the South Portico.
At 4:30 PM Pacific, Obama chairs a meeting of the Homeland Security Council on preparations for the H1N1 flu in the Situation Room.
And, although it’s not on his schedule, Obama is likely to watch part of tonight’s National Football League season opener featuring the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tennessee Titans.
The Steelers owners and star players helped Obama win the pivotal state of Pennsylvania last November, and Obama made Steelers owner Dan Rooney America’s ambassador to Ireland.
When Arnold Schwarzenegger emigrated from Austria to Santa Monica in 1968, with his fabled gym bag and $20 (or $50) in cash, the Beatles — whose remastered songs are finally available as of this week in 21st century format — had just put out the classic “Magical Mystery Tour.”
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger joins former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown today to award California’s Medal of Valor to a half-dozen police officers from around the state.
The ceremony, with remarks by the current governor and the former and likely future governor, takes place at 11:45 AM in the Governor’s Council Room in the Capitol.
With only two days left in this year’s legislative session, Schwarzenegger is pushing again for action on water. But, despite vows by legislative leaders, a plan has yet to emerge from a special conference committee.
Which is not a surprise here at NWN.
There may also be action on accelerating California’s renewable energy requirement for utilities and on prison reform. Or, there may not.
Schwarzenegger is also monitoring today’s delayed meeting of a special tax reform commission. If it comes up with a plan, Schwarzenegger has vowed to call a special session of the Legislature to vote it up or down.
The group, however, seems deadlocked on ideological grounds, as I’ve suggested several times in the past, and action seems unlikely.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd column.
** CAMELOT ENDS, AGAIN: THE PASSING OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY.Camelot has ended. Again.
The death late last night in Massachusetts of Ted Kennedy, one of the historic lions of the United States Senate, followed swiftly on the heels of his sister, the Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away on August 11th. With the passing of these two very public personalities, only one of the siblings of JFK and RFK, the much more private former Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, remains.
Camelot has ended again. Which means that it has ended before. And probably will again. For it is a legend, and legend seldom dies for long, if at all.
Camelot was the nickname for John F. Kennedy’s thousand day administration of the early 1960s, chosen because of the young president’s fondness for the hit Broadway musical about the legendary court of King Arthur.
But it was really about much more than a single presidential administration, or the immediate promise of another under a President Robert F. Kennedy, or the long lingering promise of yet another under a President Edward M. Kennedy, or even the transferred promise of another under a President Barack Obama.
It’s about a spirit, a spirit which to many seemed to have been captured like lightning in a bottle in the early 1960s, an exciting time of promise and peril, which accounts for that era’s powerful hold on the American popular imagination.
Ted Kennedy himself captured the spirit of the thing in his great eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on June 8th, 1968 when he quoted from his second slain brother’s speech to the youth of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation a few years earlier.
“The answer is to rely on youth. Not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” … From my August 26th column.
** OBAMA AND THE AFGHAN ELECTION: WHAT IT MEANS, WHAT IT DOESN’T. The Obama Administration should be sighing with a sense of relief after the presidential election in Afghanistan. However, for those with nascent/encroaching nation-building fantasies, what happened with the Afghan election should be thoroughly disabusing.
The Taliban failed in their threat to halt the election, and were unable to pull off any of the promised spectacular attacks demonstrating a strong military capability. But that’s to be expected, as some 300,000 US, NATO, and Afghan troops were fanned out across the county to prevent just that. Better to keep our eyes on the real world goals in Afghanistan: Denying it as a base to Al Qaeda, and moving on in the mission of dampening Islamic opposition to America.
While we slid by in this election, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that we are any closer to realizing persistent nation-building fantasies in Afghanistan. It’s nowhere near a 20th century democracy, much less a 21st century democracy. Perhaps a 19th century democracy. But for the powerful forces ever insistent on dragging it back into the Dark Ages. … From my August 20th 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 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
The entire Beatles catalogue has been remastered for the digital age and re-released today.
** OBAMA SPEECH TO TONIGHT’S JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS. (EXCERPTS)
I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last. It has now been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. And ever since, nearly every President and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way. A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.
Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover. …
During that time, we have seen Washington at its best and its worst.
We have seen many in this chamber work tirelessly for the better part of this year to offer thoughtful ideas about how to achieve reform. Of the five committees asked to develop bills, four have completed their work, and the Senate Finance Committee announced today that it will move forward next week. That has never happened before. Our overall efforts have been supported by an unprecedented coalition of doctors and nurses; hospitals, seniors’ groups and even drug companies – many of whom opposed reform in the past. And there is agreement in this chamber on about eighty percent of what needs to be done, putting us closer to the goal of reform than we have ever been.
But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.
Well, the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.
The plan I’m announcing tonight would meet three basic goals:
It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance to those who don’t. And it will slow the growth of health care costs for our families, our businesses, and our government. It’s a plan that asks everyone to take responsibility for meeting this challenge – not just government and insurance companies, but employers and individuals. And it’s a plan that incorporates ideas from Senators and Congressmen; from Democrats and Republicans – and yes, from some of my opponents in both the primary and general election. …
Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan:
First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
What this plan will do is to make the insurance you have work better for you. Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick. And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies – because there’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse. That makes sense, it saves money, and it saves lives.
That’s what Americans who have health insurance can expect from this plan – more security and stability.
Now, if you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans who don’t currently have health insurance, the second part of this plan will finally offer you quality, affordable choices. If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange – a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices. Insurance companies will have an incentive to participate in this exchange because it lets them compete for millions of new customers. As one big group, these customers will have greater leverage to bargain with the insurance companies for better prices and quality coverage. This is how large companies and government employees get affordable insurance. It’s how everyone in this Congress gets affordable insurance. And it’s time to give every American the same opportunity that we’ve given ourselves. …
This is the plan I’m proposing. It’s a plan that incorporates ideas from many of the people in this room tonight – Democrats and Republicans. And I will continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open.
But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result. We know these things to be true.
That is why we cannot fail. Because there are too many Americans counting on us to succeed – the ones who suffer silently, and the ones who shared their stories with us at town hall meetings, in emails, and in letters. …
** THE SANTA MONICA PIER IS 100 YEARS OLD! Speaking of anniversaries, as we do, the Santa Monica Pier — one of the coolest yet most plebeian places in the world — is 100 years old today.
Actually, the details are more than a little lacking, courtesy of LA Observed, but I say drive over there tonight and act like you know what you’re doing, and all will be well.
** RIGHT-WING CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLYMAN RESIGNS IN WAKE OF VIDEO REVELATION. State Assemblyman Mike Duvall, a very conservative, family values Republican politician from Orange County, resigned at mid-day today in the wake of the YouTube revelations — in his very own words — of his extramarital sexual liaisons with Capitol lobbyists.
Female lobbyists, that is. He’s not that big a hypocrite.
But it was clearly bad enough.
Here’s his bathos-laden statement: “I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state. I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work.”
As longtime readers know, I do not delve into private lives. So long as no one is getting hurt, it’s cool with me. But I must say that, once again, it is quite remarkable how those who insist on delving into private lives once again turn out to be amongst the most egregious offenders.
In general, I don’t care in the least who this yo-yo, who I wouldn’t know if he crashed through my skylight, has sex with. Though I suspect his wife and family might. But if he is bragging about having sex with a lobbyist for Sempra, the big utility company, he deserves all the opprobrium he has received and will receive.
This character is, of course, one of the anti-gay, anti-government types who are turning the California Republican Party into the 21st century equivalent of the John Birch Society. The Birchers are now birthers …
** BEATLES! Sorry if things seem a bit slow here today. I’m waiting on President Obama’s big speech tonight (though I suppose I should cut to the chase and say that some very significant form of national health care will pass this fall) and the 70th anniversary party for California’s famed den of political iniquity, Capitol restaurant/bar Frank Fat’s.
Oh, and today’s release of the remixed Beatles catalogue, which I have here in the office already.
Yes, that, crash, clang, harmony … “I wanna hold your hard day’s night!”
And, for the record, the Beatles were before my time. But they’re a lot of fun, and nearly as important as Pop Art …
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … OBAMA DOING BETTER THAN HANDWRINGERS AND ATTACKERS IMAGINE.
President Barack Obama yesterday gave a Back To School address at a high school in Arlington, Virginia. Which, quite strangely, was extremely controversial in most precincts of the far right. And even more strangely, was controversial in the conventional media.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama departed the White House very early this morning en route to New York on Air Force One.
While on Air Force One, Obama has received his daily intelligence and economic briefings.
At 6:20 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in New York City.
At 7:30 AM Pacific, Obama addresses the Walter Cronkite Memorial Service at Lincoln Center in New York City.
At 10:25 AM Pacific, Obama departs New York en route to Andrews Air Force Base on Air Force One.
At 11:20 AM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he embarks on Marine One.
At 11:35 AM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
At 5 PM Pacific, Obama discusses national health care reform in an address to a joint session of Congress.
In other action, Vice President Joe Biden hosts a Rosh Hashanah reception at the Naval Observatory.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, making his only appearance of the 2008 general election campaign a few days before the election on behalf of his friend John McCain in Columbus, Ohio. Which was a few weeks before Barack Obama did a video address for Schwarzenegger’s global climate summit at the Beverly Hilton. He didn’t need the tie, and a leather jacket would have been a bit much.
UPDATE: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger meets with emergency response officials and discusses the statewide fire situation from the Capitol at 12 noon.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd column.
** CAMELOT ENDS, AGAIN: THE PASSING OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY.Camelot has ended. Again.
The death late last night in Massachusetts of Ted Kennedy, one of the historic lions of the United States Senate, followed swiftly on the heels of his sister, the Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away on August 11th. With the passing of these two very public personalities, only one of the siblings of JFK and RFK, the much more private former Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, remains.
Camelot has ended again. Which means that it has ended before. And probably will again. For it is a legend, and legend seldom dies for long, if at all.
Camelot was the nickname for John F. Kennedy’s thousand day administration of the early 1960s, chosen because of the young president’s fondness for the hit Broadway musical about the legendary court of King Arthur.
But it was really about much more than a single presidential administration, or the immediate promise of another under a President Robert F. Kennedy, or the long lingering promise of yet another under a President Edward M. Kennedy, or even the transferred promise of another under a President Barack Obama.
It’s about a spirit, a spirit which to many seemed to have been captured like lightning in a bottle in the early 1960s, an exciting time of promise and peril, which accounts for that era’s powerful hold on the American popular imagination.
Ted Kennedy himself captured the spirit of the thing in his great eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on June 8th, 1968 when he quoted from his second slain brother’s speech to the youth of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation a few years earlier.
“The answer is to rely on youth. Not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” … From my August 26th column.
** OBAMA AND THE AFGHAN ELECTION: WHAT IT MEANS, WHAT IT DOESN’T. The Obama Administration should be sighing with a sense of relief after the presidential election in Afghanistan. However, for those with nascent/encroaching nation-building fantasies, what happened with the Afghan election should be thoroughly disabusing.
The Taliban failed in their threat to halt the election, and were unable to pull off any of the promised spectacular attacks demonstrating a strong military capability. But that’s to be expected, as some 300,000 US, NATO, and Afghan troops were fanned out across the county to prevent just that. Better to keep our eyes on the real world goals in Afghanistan: Denying it as a base to Al Qaeda, and moving on in the mission of dampening Islamic opposition to America.
While we slid by in this election, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that we are any closer to realizing persistent nation-building fantasies in Afghanistan. It’s nowhere near a 20th century democracy, much less a 21st century democracy. Perhaps a 19th century democracy. But for the powerful forces ever insistent on dragging it back into the Dark Ages. … From my August 20th 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 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
Your posts are welcome in the Forum. You can send me a private tip by clicking on the “Contact” button in the upper right.
In his oddly controversial Back to School speech, President Barack Obama challenged students to challenge themselves by exercising their talents to learn skills rather than imagine they will be reality TV, music, or sports stars.
** QUICK HITS. Following a meeting this afternoon in the Oval Office with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said they are confident that major health care reform legislation can be swiftly passed. And what of the fate of the so-called “public option,” which would set up a nascent national health service competing with private insurers? That is, suddenly, from the Congressional perspective, most unclear. … In California, major water legislation has yet to emerge by late afternoon. … So, too, is the situation with ongoing prison reform legislation. … Meanwhile, NWN will be on hand tomorrow night at the party commemorating the 70th anniversary of the legendary Frank Fat’s restaurant in California’s capital. As will former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. But not, as I’m just told, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, the 2010 frontrunner.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … HOW OBAMA IS DOING ENTERING A BIG MONTH FOR HIS PRESIDENCY.
** BILL CLINTON PREDICTS OBAMA WIN ON HEALTH CARE. Former President Bill Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview with Esquire magazine, predicted that President Barack Obama will succeed where he failed in getting a big health care reform bill.
Clinton, as you’ll recall, was very much at loggerheads with Obama during the 2008 campaign while campaigning for his wife, Hillary Clinton, who is now Obama’s secretary of state.
Endorsing Obama’s push for health legislation, Clinton tells Esquire executive editor Mark Warren that Democrats should ignore opposition from the GOP. “The president’s doing the right thing. It is both morally and politically right,” Clinton says. “I wouldn’t even worry about the Republicans. I’d worry about executing.
”Do I think he’s doing the right thing, even though he’s jamming a lot of change down the system? I do,” Clinton says. “So there’s a lot that’s like my first year, but it’s going to have a different ending — he’s going to get health-care reform.” …
Clinton talked about the failure of his health care reform proposal, which nearly crippled his first term in the White House and helped spur the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives, and a national Republican wave, in 1994.
“Almost everything anyone today writes about this stuff is wrong. It’s a classic example of how in a war, the victors get to write history.
“Basically, everybody who writes about this stuff today repeats the health-insurance lobby’s line from 1994. Like: “The bill was long and complicated.” The bill took out four hundred more pages of federal law than it put in. They say we forced a bill on Congress — untrue. I asked Congress to write the bill, and Chairman [Dan] Rostenkowski [of the House Ways and Means Committee] demanded that Hillary send him a bill — a complete bill. He said, “I won’t take it up if you don’t. We don’t know enough about it, the interest groups will eat us alive, we’ll modify your bill, but you’ve gotta send us a whole bill.” It was the demand of the most important committee in the House of Representatives. And yet I’ve read over a hundred stories saying what a terrible mistake we made, it was all our doing. We did what Congress asked us to do. We also got two bills out of two committees for the first time ever. Harry Truman tried to do this, Richard Nixon tried to do it, Lyndon Johnson didn’t even try, with the biggest congressional majority in history. He didn’t even try — he quit at Medicare and Medicaid, because he knew how hard it was…”
“And we now know, and I’m surer of this than anything: We just couldn’t do [health-care reform] as long as Bob Dole was running for president. He’s a good guy, and he’s a friend of mine, and the whole time I dealt with him, the only time he was not as good as his word was on this.” …
President Barack Obama’s back-to-school speech oddly drew fire from the right for “indoctrination” of children. In reality, former First Lady Laura Bush backs what Obama is doing.
TUESDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
A very busy week in presidential politics. And in California politics, it’s the last chance dance to salvage a poor legislative year.
President Barack Obama delivers his back-to-school-speech today at a high school in Arlington. Tomorrow night, he gives a highly anticipated speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress in prime time. Then on Thursday, it’s the eighth anniversary of 9/11, spurring further discussion of the troubled situation in Afghanistan.
The US Supreme Court seems poised this week on a decision that may release a flood of corporate cash into federal elections. But will this help Republicans, as many assume, or Democrats?
Obama had good news going into the Labor Day weekend, in that his job approval rating in the Gallup Poll, which had slipped to 50%, is now back up to 55%, with 38% disapproving.
Part of his problem, to the extent that someone with higher job approval than other executives around the country has one, is that, as I’ve mentioned, he was overexposed. Which his vacation, and some adjustments in his scheduling before that, did something to help.
I suspect also that his eulogy for Senator Ted Kennedy also played a part in the rebound for his rating.
Obama is preparing a major prime time address for next Wednesday night to both houses of Congress on health care reform. Obama has suffered from seeming indecision and lack of definition on the issue, which has allowed Congressional Democrats to advance various splintered plans in committees and has helped Obama’s opponents way over on the right to to stir up bizarre fears.
How hard will Obama push for the so-called “public option?” We’ll see this week.
Obama is also planning new regulations for Wall Street and other financial firms to respond to populist outrage about last year’s near financial meltdown and the massive and largely mysterious federal bailout of the financial sector. These may be announced later this week.
And he is contemplating the situation in Afghanistan, where complaints about the August 20th election – results are still far from complete – continue and the security situation is very challenging. President Hamid Karzai is leading a multi-candidate field including Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister and Northern Alliance fighter against the Soviets and Taliban, but is just short of the majority needed to avoid a run-off.
The situation is now so serious that a UN-backed elections commission has ordered a recount of many results, charging major fraud in the election process.
Obama may sidestep the question of increasing the troop level there by changing out thousands of existing support personnel for combat personnel and replacing the support troops with contractors.
The Obama Administration continues to work on restarting Israeli/Palestinian peace talks. It is criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for announcing plans to build hundreds of new housing units for settlements in the disputed West Bank in advance of a supposed freeze on settlements to trigger new peace talks with Palestinians.
These talks have been expected to be announced in late September during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. But that’s in some doubt with the Palestinians furious about Netanyahu’s move.
Back in California, the Legislature has four days to attempt to salvage one of the poorest years in memory. Aside from passing a couple of rickety budgets, little of major significance has been accomplished. And of course the two budgets adopted this year will still leave the state facing massive deficits in years ahead, and the latest may not survive this year.
A joint committee is scheduled to produce a water plan today for vote by the end of the week. Will dams be included in the package? It’s hard to see a plan succeeding without a few.
There may also be action on renewable energy and, perhaps, prison reform.
Or there may not.
Former Congressman Joe Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, says he won’t run for the seat of his uncle, the late Senator Ted Kennedy. The Kennedys have held that seat since it was first won by John F. Kennedy in 1952, including the time it was held by a JFK friend while Ted Kennedy ran in a special election to replace the president.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama has a busy day. Congress is back in session after a month-long recess.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden received the daily intelligence and economic briefings early this morning in the Oval Office.
Then Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan went over from the White House to Arlington, Virginia to hold a discussion with 9th graders at Wakefield High School.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at a back-to-school event at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama and Vice President Biden attend an investiture ceremony in honor of Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor at the Supreme Court.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office.
At 12:50 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with the Professional Golfers Association Champions of America in the Oval Office.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tours a video lab at John Burroughs High School in Burbank this morning.
At 10:45 AM, he holds a press conference at which he will challenge Californians to enter the California Department of Public Health’s Film Fest – “Lights, Camera, Save Lives” – a competition to create a short video highlighting the steps to avoid H1N1 and seasonal flu.
** WHY THE KENNEDY EULOGIES STRUCK THE RIGHT TONE.The eulogies this past weekend for Senator Ted Kennedy provided the late senator a wonderful send-off, presenting him as both passionate partisan and powerful conciliator, a send-off that would undoubtedly have pleased him. Undoubtedly, in that he planned most of the proceedings himself.
While he didn’t write his eulogists’ speeches for them, he can’t help but have had a very good idea of what they would say. And what they presented was a picture of a man who was a staunch Democrat, “the soul of the Democratic Party,” as President Barack Obama put it, a most imperfect man who was nonetheless a great man of family, and a man of the Senate. Or, perhaps more accurately, a man of the old Senate. …
Kennedy found his political home in this environment. More the doctrinaire liberal than either John or Robert Kennedy, he spoke passionately and fought strongly for the partisan causes that came to define the Democratic Party.
But he focused not only on the fight, but on the result, keeping lines of communication to Republicans open and compromising to find the deal when he felt that the fight was becoming for naught. As a result, Ted Kennedy made a large and lasting imprint on the fabric of America. … From my September 2nd column.
** CAMELOT ENDS, AGAIN: THE PASSING OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY.Camelot has ended. Again.
The death late last night in Massachusetts of Ted Kennedy, one of the historic lions of the United States Senate, followed swiftly on the heels of his sister, the Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away on August 11th. With the passing of these two very public personalities, only one of the siblings of JFK and RFK, the much more private former Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, remains.
Camelot has ended again. Which means that it has ended before. And probably will again. For it is a legend, and legend seldom dies for long, if at all.
Camelot was the nickname for John F. Kennedy’s thousand day administration of the early 1960s, chosen because of the young president’s fondness for the hit Broadway musical about the legendary court of King Arthur.
But it was really about much more than a single presidential administration, or the immediate promise of another under a President Robert F. Kennedy, or the long lingering promise of yet another under a President Edward M. Kennedy, or even the transferred promise of another under a President Barack Obama.
It’s about a spirit, a spirit which to many seemed to have been captured like lightning in a bottle in the early 1960s, an exciting time of promise and peril, which accounts for that era’s powerful hold on the American popular imagination.
Ted Kennedy himself captured the spirit of the thing in his great eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral on June 8th, 1968 when he quoted from his second slain brother’s speech to the youth of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation a few years earlier.
“The answer is to rely on youth. Not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” … From my August 26th column.
** OBAMA AND THE AFGHAN ELECTION: WHAT IT MEANS, WHAT IT DOESN’T. The Obama Administration should be sighing with a sense of relief after the presidential election in Afghanistan. However, for those with nascent/encroaching nation-building fantasies, what happened with the Afghan election should be thoroughly disabusing.
The Taliban failed in their threat to halt the election, and were unable to pull off any of the promised spectacular attacks demonstrating a strong military capability. But that’s to be expected, as some 300,000 US, NATO, and Afghan troops were fanned out across the county to prevent just that. Better to keep our eyes on the real world goals in Afghanistan: Denying it as a base to Al Qaeda, and moving on in the mission of dampening Islamic opposition to America.
While we slid by in this election, it would be a huge mistake to imagine that we are any closer to realizing persistent nation-building fantasies in Afghanistan. It’s nowhere near a 20th century democracy, much less a 21st century democracy. Perhaps a 19th century democracy. But for the powerful forces ever insistent on dragging it back into the Dark Ages. … From my August 20th 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 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, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
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