After rapper LL Cool J objected to an old interview of his being ripped out of context and used to promote the Thursday premiere of Sarah Palin’s new Fox News show, Real American Stories, the network was forced to drop the segment from the show. The network then called the rapper, star of the hit NBC series NCIS: Los Angeles, a “fledgling” actor.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … 10 KEY THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE HIGH-STAKES CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S RACE.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama’s new plan for offshore oil drilling drew criticism from left and right today. That either means it’s a good idea or, well, not. The proof, aside from the question of potential damage to the coastlines, will lie in whether this helps get some GOP backing for his overall plans. … Billionaire Meg Whitman, running as a Republican for governor of California, is drawing a lot of legal debate over her plan to have public libraries carry her “policy book,” which is really a glorified campaign brochure. (The policies don’t add up, and she didn’t write the “book,” which the campaign is now calling a “magazine.” Which it also is not.) Let’s see now, can public facilities be used to display campaign signs or other advertising? Clearly not. That was easy.
** PALIN’S REAL AMERICAN STORIES NOT SO REAL: LL COOL J SAYS SHE LIFTED AN OLD INTERVIEW OF HIS.Rapper LL Cool J says, contrary to the promotion, he is not part of Sarah Palin’s inaugural edition of Real American Stories Thursday on Fox News.
“Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palin’s Show. WOW,” he said in his Twitter feed on Tuesday night.
So Fox News has been forced to cut his segment from the show. And not exactly graciously, either, since the network ripped off his image and thoroughly misrepresented his purported appearance with Palin.
In response, Fox News cut LL Cool J from the ad and the show. “Real American Stories features uplifting tales about overcoming adversity and we believe Mr. Smith’s interview fit that criteria,” a spokesperson told Mediabistro. (LL Cool J’s real name is James Todd Smith.) “However, as it appears that Mr. Smith does not want to be associated with a program that could serve as an inspiration to others, we are cutting his interview from the special and wish him the best with his fledgling acting career.”
Again, highly inaccurate spin from Fox News.
LL Cool J doesn’t have a “fledgling acting career.” He’s one of the two stars of the season’s biggest new hit TV show, NCIS: Los Angeles. The series is a spin-off of the highest-rated scripted series on television, NCIS.
A new low of 40% of Americans view Pope Benedict XVI favorably amid new criticism about the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse by priests. Now, nearly as many Americans have an unfavorable view of the pope as have a favorable view.
The current results represent a major shift from two years ago, when the pope’s favorable rating jumped to 63% as he was concluding a well-received visit to the United States that included personal meetings between the pope and victims of sex abuse by U.S. priests. The latest allegations of lax handling of abusive priests mostly concern past abuse cases in Europe, but they implicate the pope, who had a central role in the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse cases prior to his becoming pope.
Pope Benedict’s image has deteriorated about equally among Catholics and non-Catholics from its 2008 high — by 20 and 23 points, respectively. Catholics continue to view him much more favorably than non-Catholics.
Pope Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, also saw his U.S. favorable ratings drop in 2002 as the Catholic Church responded to similar criticism for its handling of priest sex abuse allegations, mostly from the United States — but only as low as 61% favorable and 26% unfavorable (compared to the current pope’s 40% favorable and 35% unfavorable). As the scandal faded, Pope John Paul II’s ratings improved, and Gallup’s final measurement on him showed a 78% favorable and 11% unfavorable rating.
In general, Americans viewed Pope John Paul II more favorably than they view Pope Benedict XVI.
Benedict represents a much more conservative strain of thought within the Catholic Church than did John Paul.
In June 2008 remarks in Jacksonville, Florida, then Senator Barack Obama explained why he opposes offshore oil drilling. Today he says that he’s for it. In his remarks, Obama criticizes John McCain for having changed his position on offshore drilling.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 8:05 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on energy security at Andrews Naval Air Facility.
Obama, perhaps hoping to win some Republican support for his energy policies, is announcing a major expansion of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Virginia coast. His plans do not extend to the California coast.
This is a sharp reversal from what Obama said he would do during his campaign.
Obama will also institute new policies to have the military, a major energy consumer, use fuel and energy more efficiently.
At 11:40 AM Pacific, Obama meets with the Chavez family and leaders of the United Farm Workers and signs a proclamation in honor of Cesar Chavez Day at the White House. Today would have been Chavez’s 83rd birthday. His birthday is an official state holiday in California.
At 1:30 PM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks at the closing session of the Forum for Workplace Flexibility at the Eisenhower Executive Office Bldg. (formerly the Old Executive Office Bldg.).
Vice President Joe Biden is in Illinois today. At 8:30 AM Pacific, he speaks at the “Partners in Peace” event at the Peoria Civic Center.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is in Afghanistan, touring the various fronts and holding follow-up meetings in the wake of Obama’s surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday.
Meanwhile in Iraq, the narrow election victory of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular Sunni slate of parliamentary candidates is being undermined.
The Iraqi elections commission has repeatedly denied demands by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that results from the March 7th election be delayed in favor of a manual recount.
But a government commission, headed by the controversial Ahmed Chalabi, whose false intelligence fed neoconservative fervor for the 2003 U.S. invasion, says that it disqualified several candidates right before the election for supposed ties to the late Saddam Hussein. This includes three members of the Allawi slate, accounting for its narrow edge over the Maliki party.
And the Iraqi Supreme Court revised the election law, ruling that not only the first place party in the vote can attempt to form a parliamentary coalition.
Today is Cesar Chavez Day in California.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
The state Legislature is off on spring break this week.
Schwarzenegger won a court victory late yesterday when a state court of appeals knocked down a ruling by a local judge that would have ended the furloughs of state workers paid from sources other than the general fund. Had that ruling stood, the state would have had to find other ways to cut costs.
** 24: DOWN FOR THE COUNT? It’s end of the line time for 24, the ground-breaking TV series that, as much as any, seemed to symbolize the Bush/Cheney era. The word came out late last Friday from Fox that the series was ending, “by mutual agreement.”
Ironically, the show hit a high-water mark for the season last night, with a tense, rousing episode harkening back to its glory days. And there wasn’t a torture scene in sight.
Actually, the writing was on the wall last fall, when Fox executives said that this eighth season of the show might be the final one. And so it is. Ratings dropped during the Winter Olympics and haven’t come back up. Before the Winter Olympics, 24 averaged nearly 11 million viewers per episode. That dropped suddenly to 8.5 million when the Olympics began and never recovered; viewership is down to 8.3 million. (Despite the big drop, 24’s ratings are still only a little lower than those of Lost.)
Meanwhile, contracts are up — star Kiefer Sutherland (resolute series anti-hero Jack Bauer) reportedly makes $13 million per season and certainly wasn’t likely to take a pay cut — and so are costs, as happens with any long-running series. And by the end of this season, 24 will be the longest-running espionage series ever.
It would be tempting to say that 24’s controversial — and very unrealistic — reliance on torture as a ready solution to thorny plot points has something to do with ratings going down. But that would be wrong. (Be warned that there are a few spoilers ahead.)
The reality, as a brand-new CNN poll shows, is that most Americans agree with the hardball approach that 24 embodies. Popular support for closing the notorious prison at Guantanamo Bay is down sharply. It was 51% last year; now it’s down to 39%. …From my new column.
** NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.It’s been a very heady few days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called her “a Speaker for the ages” after she ramrodded the national health care reform bill through the House of Representatives. “The most powerful woman in American history,” declared The Economist.
Which had not been my immediate expectation when I met Pelosi, whose 70th birthday is tomorrow, three decades ago at a party at her San Francisco home. … From my March 25th column.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $49 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.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, toured Marjah, site of the recent offensive, today in southern Afghanistan. Yesterday he announced what has already been reported here and elsewhere, that the next offensive will be in the 1990s cradle of the Taliban, Kandahar.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama, appearing with French President Nicolas Sarkozy after their one-on-one Oval Office meeting this afternoon, said that the U.S. and its allies will move on a tough new round of sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program in a few weeks. Sarkozy, for his part, pledged that he will work with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to ensure that all of Europe backs the American play. … Sarkozy also condemned Israel’s recent moves to continue settlements in the disputed West Bank area, saying that it poisons the well with Palestinians and angers the Arab world. … Afghan President Hamid Karzai today ended a round of peace talks with a major group aligned with the Taliban. No agreement was announced.
** GUESS WHICH CALIFORNIA POLITICAL CANDIDATE IS ON THE AMAZON BEST-SELLER LIST. No, it’s not the one who spent weeks on a high-profile book tour and millions on advertising promoting her supposedly wondrous qualities as a corporate executive.
Poizner’s memoir, “Mount Pleasant: My Journey From Creating A Billion Dollar Company To Teaching At A Struggling Public High School,” is number 3 on the Amazon list of best-selling books, notwithstanding the fact that it won’t be released until Thursday.
What’s ahead of the Poizner tome?
The latest book by clever financial writer Michael Lewis, “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” on the machinations that nearly collapsed the global economy, is number one.
And far right commentator Sean Hannity’s latest effort, “Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda,” is number two.
I have to confess that I have not read either Poizner’s book or billionaire Meg Whitman’s earlier effort. LIke the ghost in The Ghost Writer, I’m actually not much one for reading political memoirs.
** 24: DOWN FOR THE COUNT? It’s end of the line time for 24, the ground-breaking TV series that, as much as any, seemed to symbolize the Bush/Cheney era. The word came out late last Friday from Fox that the series was ending, “by mutual agreement.”
Ironically, the show hit a high-water mark for the season last night, with a tense, rousing episode harkening back to its glory days. And there wasn’t a torture scene in sight.
Actually, the writing was on the wall last fall, when Fox executives said that this eighth season of the show might be the final one. And so it is. Ratings dropped during the Winter Olympics and haven’t come back up. Before the Winter Olympics, 24 averaged nearly 11 million viewers per episode. That dropped suddenly to 8.5 million when the Olympics began and never recovered; viewership is down to 8.3 million. (Despite the big drop, 24′s ratings are still only a little lower than those of Lost.)
Meanwhile, contracts are up — star Kiefer Sutherland (resolute series anti-hero Jack Bauer) reportedly makes $13 million per season and certainly wasn’t likely to take a pay cut — and so are costs, as happens with any long-running series. And by the end of this season, 24 will be the longest-running espionage series ever.
It would be tempting to say that 24′s controversial — and very unrealistic — reliance on torture as a ready solution to thorny plot points has something to do with ratings going down. But that would be wrong. (Be warned that there are a few spoilers ahead.)
The reality, as a brand-new CNN poll shows, is that most Americans agree with the hardball approach that 24 embodies. Popular support for closing the notorious prison at Guantanamo Bay is down sharply. It was 51% last year; now it’s down to 39%. …
** WHICH PARTY LEADS THE WAY IN SEX SCANDALS? In the wake of the Republican National Committee paying two grand for contributors to party at a Los Angeles bondage club, the Daily Beast raised this pressing question.
The answer seems to be that the Republicans lead the way in sex scandals.
But it’s a fairly close question.
Of course, given the party’s conservative “family values” rhetoric, the fact that the Republicans are in the lead at all raises a massive hypocrisy problem.
What better way to end March than with Michael Steele answering questions about an RNC member’s expenses-paid $2,000 night at a Los Angeles bondage club. Earlier in the month, Kevin Garn, Republican majority leader of the Utah state senate, admitted that he once skinny dipped with a 15-year-old girl and paid her $150,000 to keep quiet, and California State Senator and Republican family-values defender Roy Ashburn was arrested for driving drunk in a state-owned vehicle after leaving a gay nightclub with a new companion.
The Democrats can hardly crow, however. March was the month that “Tickle Me Eric” Massa burst onto the public stage—and out of the House of Representatives.
With every other issue devolving into partisan finger-pointing, The Daily Beast thought it would use two decades of cold, hard data and rational methodology to answer the question everyone in Washington wants to know: Which party has more problems with sex scandals?
After studying the 58 scandals over the past 20 years involving all politicians or major candidates for city mayor and above—many involved crimes, others just allegations, but all wound up as tabloid fodder—some conclusions can be reached.
• The number sex scandals has increased dramatically over the past few decades, thanks to technology, new press standards and a post-Clinton belief that everything is fair game.
• Republicans have more scandals (32 to 26), but Democrats have bigger ones, based on our methodology (13 out of the top 20).
• Democrats tend to have more problems with harassment, staffers and underage girls; Republicans tend to have more problems with prostitutes, hypocrisy and underage boys.
Incidentally, by “new press standards,” I think what the article is getting at is no press standards. It’s a porn-inflected yet oddly prudish infotainment media culture.
A Tennessee man authorities say is a white supremacist pleaded guilty to plotting to kill then-presidential candidate Barack Obama and dozens of other black people in 2008.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
At 8:05 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks and signs the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act at Northern Virginia Community College. These are the changes to the Senate health care bill that the House needed in order to pass it.
At 9 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 9:20 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden have lunch in the Private Dining Room.
At 11:45 AM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with Defense Secretary Bob Gates in the Oval Office.
At 12:30 PM Pacific, Obama and Biden meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in the Oval Office.
At 1:45 PM Pacific, Obama and President Sarkozy hold a joint press availability in the Rose Garden.
At 3:30 PM Pacific, Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host a dinner for President Sarkozy and French First Lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy in the Private Residence.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
In an interview on NBC’s Today Show, Obama said that the situation in Afghanistan is improving, but not rapidly enough.
He said that he flew to Afghanistan on Sunday to urge President Hamid Karzai to “embrace the fierce urgency of now.”
Meanwhile in Iraq, the narrow election victory of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular Sunni slate of parliamentary candidates is being undermined.
The Iraqi elections commission has repeatedly denied demands by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that results from the March 7th election be delayed in favor of a manual recount.
Nine suspects tied to a Christian militia in Michigan that was preparing for war against the government and the supposed “Antichrist” were charged with conspiring to kill police officers.
But a government commission, headed by the controversial Ahmed Chalabi, whose false intelligence fed neoconservative fervor for the 2003 U.S. invasion, says that it disqualified several candidates right before the election for supposed ties to the late Saddam Hussein. This includes three members of the Allawi slate, accounting for its narrow edge over the Maliki party.
And the Iraqi Supreme Court revised the election law, ruling that not only the first place party in the vote can attempt to form a parliamentary coalition.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is out of state.
He has no scheduled public events.
The state Legislature is off on spring break this week.
** NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.It’s been a very heady few days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called her “a Speaker for the ages” after she ramrodded the national health care reform bill through the House of Representatives. “The most powerful woman in American history,” declared The Economist.
Which had not been my immediate expectation when I met Pelosi, whose 70th birthday is tomorrow, three decades ago at a party at her San Francisco home.
While recollections from the age of four (that’s a little joke) can, as we all know, be decidedly hazy, I remember some clear impressions. Though the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi was relatively new to being in politics on her own hook. … From my March 25th column.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $48 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.
Ten days before President Barack Obama holds a summit meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague to sign a major nuclear arms reductions treaty, two female suicide bombers struck the Moscow metro today, killing dozens in a terrorist strike.
** QUICK HITS.Russian authorities are blaming Islamic extremists from the northern Caucasus region, perhaps Chechnya, for the the successful suicide bombing attacks this morning on the Moscow metro subway system. It being Russian politics, there are a few other conspiracy theories at play. Experts say the profile of the attacks matches the modus operandi used by terrorists from the would-be breakaway region. … In the wake of today’s Moscow attacks, security has gone on higher alert around U.S. transit systems. I’m not aware of attacks by Chechen terrorists against U.S. targets here or abroad, but the American and Russian presidents will hold a summit meeting next month in Prague. … The California Fair Political Practices Commission today, as expected, swiftly cleared Jerry Brown of charges leveled by billionaire Meg Whitman’s campaign for governor that Brown was illegally coordinating independent expenditure campaign activity with other Democrats. As someone who delved deeply into reporting on independent expenditure activity in the 2006 elections, it was obvious to me Whitman’s claim was completely spurious and had no hope of success. As it should have been to Whitman’s lawyer, who is regularly involved in these matters. … The FFPC late last week shot down a charge against San Francisco Mayor and candidate for lieutenant governor Gavin Newsom — leveled by the chief strategist in his aborted gubernatorial campaign who now works for another LG candidate, LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn — that Newsom is violating state law by going back to maxed-out contributors to his late gubernatorial campaign. This, too, was an obvious waste of time. …
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … 24: DOWN FOR THE COUNT.
** TRADE PUBLICATION SAYS BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN IS REJUVENATING CALIFORNIA’S BROADCAST REVENUES. California’s economy, and broadcast advertising revenues, have been hard hit by the global financial near meltdown. But a trade publication, Radio Broadcasting Report/Television Broadcasting Report, says that there is a savior already at work. Not on the economy as a whole, but certainly on California’s broadcast revenues.
That’s billionare Meg Whitman, the public affairs novice who suddenly decided to mount her own Republican campaign for governor of California.
“Whitman,” says the broadcasting trade publication, “is single-handedly rejuvenating California broadcast revenues.” In the process, she has become “an unavoidable presence on both television and radio.”
Former eBay executive and current Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is spending an average of $4 on advertising, which may not sound like much until you find out the time frame is per second. And her first test, the Republican primary, isn’t until 6/8/10.
The massive, unavoidable exposure purchased by the former McCain/Palin campaign co-chair and protege of Mitt Romney, however, “comes with the risk of over-exposure.”
No kidding.
** NEW POLL: IS THE NATIONAL HEALTH CARE BILL A SECRET WEAPON TO WIN INDEPENDENTS?A new Gallup Poll suggests an intriguing question. Is the national health care reform bill a secret weapon for the Democrats to win back independents?
Their standing amongst independent voters has taken a hit during the dragged-out “debate” over national health care reform. Independent voters are generally skittish about things that become controversial. And are heavily influenced by “trends.”
But when independents start seeing the benefits of the bill, that may change.
Why? Because independents disproportionately go without health insurance.
Uninsured Americans — those who stand to benefit the most from healthcare reform — are less Democratic and more independent than one might assume. Nearly half of the uninsured, compared with roughly a third of Americans with private insurance or Medicare, are politically independent.
Given this finding from Gallup Daily tracking in March, passing healthcare legislation did not merely cater to the Democrats’ base, but could potentially expand it among the uninsured themselves, who may now have more reason to support Democrats. Gallup polling immediately after the healthcare vote found 58% of uninsured Americans, compared with 45% of insured Americans, favoring the bill.
The net effect among all independents won’t necessarily be positive, however, as nearly 80% of that group currently has health insurance, and independents are almost evenly split on whether passage of the healthcare bill was a good thing or a bad thing.
Although the uninsured are clearly younger, on average, than the insured, age alone does not account for the tendency of the uninsured to be politically independent. At every age level, those without health insurance are more likely to be independent and less likely to be Republican than their insured counterparts.
President Barack Obama, on a surprise visit to Afghanistan yesterday, spoke to the troops at Bagram Air Base, which was established by the Soviets in the 1980s.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
Another big week in presidential politics, and perhaps a relatively quiet one in California politics.
Following his very big win last week on the national health care bill, and striking of a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia, President Barack Obama traveled to Afghanistan over the weekend. There he met with President Hamid Karzai, delivering a strong personal message on the need to crack down on corruption, and spoke to the troops.
This week we will see more talk about health care, as the president sells what he’s won to the voters. And there will be a fresh emphasis on creating jobs.
Obama will speak about the economy on Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina. By an odd coincidence, that is the same day on which the Labor Department releases unemployment numbers. The current jobless rate is 9.7%.
On Thursday, Obama goes to Portland, Maine, to do a health care event.
This will come on the heels of another health care event. On Tuesday, Obama signs the revisions to the national health care bill at Northern Virgina Community College.
The president also has a big geopolitical agenda this week.
On Tuesday, he welcomes French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his supermodel/pop singer wife, Carla Bruni, to the White House.
Obama will also be prepping for his big summit meeting next week with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
He and Medvedev struck a final agreement by phone last week on a new treaty to greatly reduce both countries’ nuclear weapons arsenals.
Obama and Medvedev will hold a U.S/Russia summit meeting in Prague on April 8th, where they will sign the nuclear arms reduction treaty. The signing will come nearly a year to the day from the Prague address in which Obama laid out many of his geopolitical goals, including the reduction of nuclear weapons. They will also deal with other pressing isses, such as NATO and Iran.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Preliminary results of the March 7th Iraqi national parliamentary elections were delayed several times; they are out now.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost in the national popular vote. Maliki has called again for a manual recount of the national vote. But the elections commission has again turned him down.
So now he is threatening legal action.
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular slate finished first in the vote and in parliamentary seats. Allawi is now proposing to form a government with coalition partners.
In other national action …
The Tea Party crowd showed up in Searchlight, Nevada, home town of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, over the weekend to try to defeat him this November and kick off a national drive. However, the event, headlined by Sarah Palin, drew a crowd of less than 10,000, a far cry from the advertised right-wing Woodstock.
The apparent Republican presidential frontrunner, Mitt Romney — who came up with the idea for his business protege, billionaire Meg Whitman, to run for governor of California — is still touring in support of his book, “No Apology.” He happens to be in Iowa today.
And Congress is off for spring recess.
So is the California Legislature, with little progress on the state’s chronic budget crisis.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s off now, had a rather good week last week, getting bills passed on his priorities of stimulating home buying and green tech manufacturing.
Schwarzenegger is also working to dampen the fundraising potential for a proposed initiative to do away with California’s landmark AB 32 climate change program.
The initiative, which is backed mainly by Texas oil interests, starts out behind in private polling which I reviewed a few weeks ago and noted a while back.
Billionaire Meg Whitman, the leading GOP candidate for governor, continues blanketing the state with a new TV ad talking about how California should be run like a business. Her rival, super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, is drawing some blood with a new TV ad attacking her for having had the same position on illegal immigration as the president, a position she recently changed.
Whitman has flip-flopped as much in the past few weeks as Democrat Jerry Brown has in 40 years.
What’s Brown doing? His work as California’s attorney general, with a lot of action there, and raising money. Presumably to be spent by his new advertising advisor, Don Draper …
President Barack Obama arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday morning, after his surprise trip to Afghanistan where he met with President Hamid Karzai and spoke to troops.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today, back from Afghanistan.
He received his daily intelligence briefing on Air Force One.
Obama arrived at Andrews Air Force Base earlier today, then helicoptered to the White House
At 1PM Pacific, Obama participates in a credentialing ceremony for foreign ambassadors.
At 3:30 PM Pacific, Obama marks the beginning of Passover with a Seder at the White House.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is out of state.
He has no scheduled public events.
The state Legislature is off on spring break this week.
** NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.It’s been a very heady few days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called her “a Speaker for the ages” after she ramrodded the national health care reform bill through the House of Representatives. “The most powerful woman in American history,” declared The Economist.
Which had not been my immediate expectation when I met Pelosi, whose 70th birthday is tomorrow, three decades ago at a party at her San Francisco home.
While recollections from the age of four (that’s a little joke) can, as we all know, be decidedly hazy, I remember some clear impressions. Though the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi was relatively new to being in politics on her own hook. … From my March 25th column.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $48 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.
President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan Sunday, after a non-stop overnight flight from Andrews Air Force Base.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … 24: DOWN FOR THE COUNT.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Afghanistan.
In one of the great change-ups in presidential scheduling, Obama used the cover story of a weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland to actually fly on Air Force One to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
After landing at the U.S. base there, once the main base of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Obama then flew by helicopter to the presidential palace in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
Here are pool press reports from the ground in Afghanistan.
WH pool – Aghan #1
POTUS helicopter touched down shortly after 8pm local time at presidential palace in Kabul in unnanounced visit to Afghanistan.
POTUS arrived aboard AF1 at 7:25pm local time (10:55am DC time) at Bagram Air Base after 12hr, 46min nonstop overnight flight from Andrews AFB. Met by Gen Stanley McChrystal and Amb. Karl Eichenberry after walking off AF1 10mins after landing in darkness.
Pool and POTUS immediately transferred to helos for 15min flight into Kabul.
WH pool – Afghan #2
Pool was briefed on AF1 shortly before landing by NSA James Jones and LTG Doug Lute, top AfPak official at NSC. Jones said POTUS would “engage” with Karzai on benchmarks. Please check against transcript, but some quotes:
POTUS will “engage President Karzai…to make him understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost since day one. That is things like…a merit-based system for appointment of key government officials, battling corruption, taking the fight to the narco-traffickers, which fuels, provides a lot of the economic engine for the insurgents.” He also said they would dicuss the importance of the reintegration and reconciliation process. More to come.
WH pool – afghan 3
Potus and Karzai emerged from palace along red carpet to parade grounds in middle of palace complex. Men were talking, but unheard by pool.
Men proceeded to raised platform in front of Afghan color guard where national anthems were played. After anthems, presidents stepped down from platform and reviwed troops. Walked shoulder to shoulder, Potus on Karzai’s left. No words spoken. Presidents have reurned inside palace. Whole welcoming ceremony lasted about 10mins.
WH pool – Afghan 4
Pool now holding as presidents meet in palace. Before arrival, staff said Karzai and Potus would meet for a 1 on 1 first. Staff said Potus would be joined by NSA Jones, Amb. Eichenberry and deputy NSA McDonough.
Following that meeting, session is broadened for 45min meeting with Karzai’s cabinet. In that meeting, US side to include NSA Jones, CoS Rahm, deputy NSA Donilon, LTG Lute, Amb. Eichenberry, Gen. McChrystal, Deputy Amb. Riccardoni, deputy NSA McDonough.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles.
He has no planned public events.
In his weekend video/radio address, President Barack Obama described what he calls “an historic week for America,” reforming the nation’s health care system and making student aid for higher education work for college students, not banks and middle men.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is at Camp David today.
Obama has received his daily intelligence briefing.
He has no planned public events today.
He and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev struck a final agreement by phone yesterday on a new treaty to greatly reduce both countries’ nuclear weapons arsenals.
Obama and Medvedev will hold a U.S/Russia summit meeting in Prague on April 8th, where they will sign the nuclear arms reduction treaty. The signing will come nearly a year to the day from the Prague address in which Obama laid out many of his geopolitical goals, including the reduction of nuclear weapons.
Planning is now ongoing for this event.
Congress is off for spring recess.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Preliminary results of the March 7th Iraqi national parliamentary elections were delayed several times; they are out now.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki lost in the national popular vote. Maliki has called again for a manual recount of the national vote. But the elections commission has again turned him down.
So now he is threatening legal action.
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular slate finished first in the vote and in parliamentary seats.
Allawi is now proposing to form a government with coalition partners.
The Tea Party crowd shows up in Searchlight, Nevada, home town of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to try to defeat him this November.
Senator John McCain reunited with his former running mate Sarah Palin at a rally in Arizona Friday where McCain is fending off a primary challenge from the right and facing the toughest re-election campaign of his Senate career.
John McCain and Sarah Palin are back together again. This time the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is coming to the rescue of the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
McCain has a tough primary fight against far right former Congressman J.D. Hayworth. So Palin, the toast of the far right, is campaigning with McCain yesterday and today. The two appeared together at a fundraiser last night at the same Phoenix hotel from which McCain conceded the 2008 presidential race to Barack Obama.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He joins First Lady Maria Shriver for the WE Connect Weekend event at the Forum in Inglewood. There families in need will gain access to various forms of assistance.
The state Legislature is off on spring break, which continues next week.
** NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.It’s been a very heady few days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called her “a Speaker for the ages” after she ramrodded the national health care reform bill through the House of Representatives. “The most powerful woman in American history,” declared The Economist.
Which had not been my immediate expectation when I met Pelosi, whose 70th birthday is tomorrow, three decades ago at a party at her San Francisco home.
While recollections from the age of four (that’s a little joke) can, as we all know, be decidedly hazy, I remember some clear impressions. Though the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi was relatively new to being in politics on her own hook. … From my March 25th column.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper.
In a real sense, as a filmmaker, Polanski is already a ghostly presence in America. One could note that he hasn’t had a big hit here since 1974’s Chinatown, which not coincidentally was made before his utterly unacceptable encounter with an underage girl. But one could also note that The Ghost Writer is a more commercial film than the films he’s been doing since his exile from the world’s movie-making capital of Los Angeles.
The Ghost Writer is a very well-reviewed, and widely reviewed, film, a roman a clef about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Which indicates that it has vibrancy beyond whatever it winds up doing at the domestic box office. It’s that good.
It’s based on the best-selling novel “The Ghost” by Robert Harris, which was bad enough for Tony Blair. But a book is one thing; a film is quite another. The novel by Harris — he was a friend of Blair who broke with him over the Iraq War — is very good. As is the basic story, good enough for me to know the novel well and still enjoy the twists and turns of the film. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
** 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 $80.00 per barrel on Friday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $46 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.
Confirming the video report below, earlier in the day from Moscow, President Barack Obama said this morning that a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia marks a reset of relations with Moscow and sends signals that the world’s nuclear powers intend to lead global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons.
** QUICK HITS.The likely big power winners in the 2010 Census are: Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona. Only the Lone Star State gained more population than the Golden State — both well over 3 million — in the past decade. … After the South Korean Cabinet went into emergency session over the sinking of a Navy ship, a spokesman said that, contrary, to earlier speculation from government circles, North Korea was not responsible for the incident. And that the target the distressed vessel fired upon before it sank was actually a flock of birds. Officially, it is unknown what caused the sinking, which cost the lives of dozens of sailors. … Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, hard at work behind the scenes on fundraising today, also contributed $500,000 from his campaign committee today to the open primary initiative on the June ballot. The measure, Proposition 14, has a good lead in the polls and is opposed by both of the Republicans trying to succeed him, billionaire Meg Whitman and super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. … At a big rally today in the Tuscon area, 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin made an impassioned pitch for her former ticket mate, Arizona Senator John McCain, to be re-nominated by their party, calling him “the leader of a party of ideas.” McCain has a Senate primary tussle on his hands with far right ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth.
** ONE OF THE TOP LOBBYISTS BACKING BILLIONAIRE MEG WHITMAN SAYS SHE WILL GO BIG FOR ANTI-AB 32 INITIATIVE. A lobbyist featured in radio ads for her campaign says that billionaire Meg Whitman, who’s spending like no one in history trying to go from non-voter to California’s next governor, will go heavy in the fall to repeal Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s trademark anti-climate change program.
Here’s what he told far right San Diego editorialist Chris Reed:
It’s full speed ahead for the effort to suspend the job-killing law until unemployment plunges, says the head of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
I had Jon Coupal on my KOGO 600 AM show last night and asked him about the gov’s declaration yesterday that AB 32 needs to be phased in carefully with consideration of economic competitiveness issues and in synch with national efforts to fight climate change.
“Too little, too late,” said Jon.
He also predicted that after the Logue/McClintock measure putting AB 32 on hold qualifies for the ballot that Meg Whitman will get aboard.
I hope so. As I wrote earlier this week, her present stand of supporting a one-year suspension is incoherent. She knows it’s bad policy and that it makes far more sense to have a uniform national or international approach on climate change. So why a temporary suspension?
Whitman had called for a one-year suspension. But in a Santa Barbara stop, under more aggressive press questioning than she got at the state Republican convention, she said the plan should be ended, like her primary rival Steve Poizner. Which Reed didn’t know till he read this.
The ballot drive is largely funded by Texas oil companies, with some additional money filtered through Coupal’s anti-tax lobbying group.
Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Reed.
** NEW POLL: OPPOSITION TO AFGHAN WAR DROPS SHARPLY WHILE SUPPORT FOR OBAMA’S MOVES INCREASES.A new CNN poll shows a big drop in opposition to the war effort in Afghanistan.
Which I expected while working on my column, “Is Obama’s AfPak Strategy Actually Working?,” published on March 5th and linked below.
Americans are growing more optimistic about the war in Afghanistan and opposition to the war has dropped below the 50 percent mark for the first time in nearly a year, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday indicates that 44 percent of the public says things are going well for the U.S. in Afghanistan, with 43 percent saying things are going badly.
“That’s a huge 23-point jump since last November, when two-thirds thought that things were going poorly in the war,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. …
Forty-eight percent of people questioned now support the war, with 49 percent opposed. This is the first time since May of 2009 in CNN polling that opposition has dropped below 50 percent.
“Opposition to the war is down a bit since January and down significantly since the fall,” adds Holland. “The intensity of opposition to the war is also down. Last fall 39 percent said that they opposed the war and their minds were made up. Today that number has dropped to one in three. Optimism has also helped Barack Obama.”
The poll indicates that 55 percent of Americans approve of how the president’s handling Afghanistan, up from 42 percent last fall.
Support for the war is highest among rural Americans.
“A 55-percent majority of people who live in rural areas now support the war, up 14 points since the fall. That’s the biggest increase in support for the war among major demographic categories. Some 58 percent of city residents and 52 percent of suburbanites oppose the war,” says Holland.
So far, at least, Afghanistan is turning from a potential disaster for Obama into a positive piece of his presidential portfolio.
But the jury is still out, and much can go wrong with such a massive military presence in-country.
** IRAQI ELECTIONS: PRIME MINISTER’S SLATE FINISHES SECOND. Now we know for sure, as if we did not before, why Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his allies kept calling for a recount of the oft-delayed results from the March 7th national parliamentary elections.
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s bloc has won the most seats in Iraq’s parliamentary elections. His coalition had two seats more than that of incumbent PM Nouri Maliki, officials said, in what was seen as a surprise result in the 7 March poll.
Earlier, the UN’s envoy to Iraq described the election as “credible” and urged Iraqis to accept the results.
Mr Allawi will need to form a coalition government as he lacks a majority, amid fears the results may spark violence. Just hours before the results were announced, twin bomb blasts in the town of Khalis, in Diyala province, killed at least 40 and left more than 60 injured.
In his first public response to the figures released by the electoral commission, Mr Maliki challenged the result, saying that it was far from being final. He repeated his call for the electoral commission to recount the vote and added that his bloc would press ahead with plans to form the new government.
The BBC’s Andrew North in Baghdad says this looks like a spectacular victory for Mr Allawi and a big upset for Mr Maliki – but at 91 seats to 89 it was a very tight race.
And with Mr Maliki’s party making allegations of irregularities, there are still concerns over whether the result will be accepted, our correspondent says.
Maliki will be under heavy pressure from the Obama Administration to accept the electoral results. Then the horsetrading will begin in earnest to see if Allawi and his allies can put together a government in Iraq’s multi-party system.
President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev held a phone conversation this morning that ironed out last-minute difficulties on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The new deal will be signed on April 8th in the Czech capital of Prague.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Camp David today.
Obama met with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and received his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.
He then phoned Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow.
The two presidents struck a final agreement on a new treaty to greatly reduce both countries’ nuclear weapons arsenals.
Obama, joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Bob Gates, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen then announced the agreement in the White House Briefing Room.
Obama and Medvedev will hold a U.S/Russia summit meeting in Prague on April 8th, where they will sign the nuclear arms reduction treaty. The signing will come nearly a year to the day from the Prague address in which Obama laid out many of his geopolitical goals, including the reduction of nuclear weapons.
At 1:45 PM Pacific, Obama departs the White House on Marine One en route to the presidential retreat at Camp David. He will sign the reconciliation follow-up legislation to the national health care reform bill before he goes.
As Obama prepares to leave, there appears to be a new geopolitical crisis emerging.
A South Korean Navy ship, apparently a guided missile frigate, has sunk in waters near North Korea. It may have been torpedoed.
Congress is off for spring recess. Last night, the House passed the reconciliation addenda to the national health care reform bill, following Senate passage. The vote in the Senate was 56 to 43. The vote in the House was 220 to 211.
A few more days of Republican obstructionism on the health care issue came to naught.
In other action, Vice President Joe Biden is in Texas today, appearing at fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The Tea Party crowd shows up in Searchlight, Nevada, home town of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, rally to try to defeat him this November.
Reid will not be around. He is in Las Vegas today, at the opening of a new shooting center, the development of which he spearheaded. Reid will be joined there by the head of the National Rifle Association.
John McCain and Sarah Palin are back together again. This time the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is coming to the rescue of the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.
McCain has a tough primary fight against far right former Congressman J.D. Hayworth. So Palin, the toast of the far right, is campaigning with McCain today and tomorrow. The two will appear together at a fundraiser tonight at the same Phoenix hotel from which McCain conceded the 2008 presidential race to Barack Obama.
Like any typical person, President Barack Obama visited a bookstore (yes, they still exist) yesterday in Iowa City.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Preliminary results of the March 7th Iraqi national parliamentary elections have been delayed several times; they are now due today.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to be trailing in the national popular vote. Maliki has called again for a manual recount of the national vote. But the elections commission has again turned him down.
So now he is threatening legal action.
Maliki’s slate is apparently leading former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular slate in more provinces. So there is a way in which Maliki might be able to cobble together more seats in parliament, while losing the overall national popular vote.
Which is hardly where a national leader wants to be.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Schwarzenegger will holds private talks.
The state Legislature is off on spring break, which continues next week.
** NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.It’s been a very heady few days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called her “a Speaker for the ages” after she ramrodded the national health care reform bill through the House of Representatives. “The most powerful woman in American history,” declared The Economist.
Which had not been my immediate expectation when I met Pelosi, whose 70th birthday is tomorrow, three decades ago at a party at her San Francisco home.
While recollections from the age of four (that’s a little joke) can, as we all know, be decidedly hazy, I remember some clear impressions. Though the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi was relatively new to being in politics on her own hook. …
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper.
In a real sense, as a filmmaker, Polanski is already a ghostly presence in America. One could note that he hasn’t had a big hit here since 1974’s Chinatown, which not coincidentally was made before his utterly unacceptable encounter with an underage girl. But one could also note that The Ghost Writer is a more commercial film than the films he’s been doing since his exile from the world’s movie-making capital of Los Angeles.
The Ghost Writer is a very well-reviewed, and widely reviewed, film, a roman a clef about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Which indicates that it has vibrancy beyond whatever it winds up doing at the domestic box office. It’s that good.
It’s based on the best-selling novel “The Ghost” by Robert Harris, which was bad enough for Tony Blair. But a book is one thing; a film is quite another. The novel by Harris — he was a friend of Blair who broke with him over the Iraq War — is very good. As is the basic story, good enough for me to know the novel well and still enjoy the twists and turns of the film. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $46 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.
President Barack Obama, appearing today in Iowa, mocked Republicans’ campaign to repeal his new health care law, saying they should “Go for it,” and see how well they fare with voters.
** QUICK HITS. An increasingly confident President Barack Obama, speaking today in Iowa City where he first outlined his health care reform plans in 2007, dared Republicans to try to overturn the national health care bill. Meanwhile, legal experts mostly dismissed the prospects for a lawsuit against the new law. … In the California governor’s race, the frontrunner in the Republican primary, billionaire Meg Whitman, is about to be hit with a TV ad from her super-rich state insurance commissioner rival, Steve Poizner, demonstrating that Whitman had the same position on illegal immigration as Obama. Under pressure, she recently changed her position. … No sign yet of TV advertising starting up in California’s Republican Senate race, in which ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina has pulled even with ex-Congressman Tom Campbell without paid advertising. … As long expected, an initiative to legalize marijuana in California qualified late yesterday for the November ballot. It had a lead in public polling last year. But the night is young. None of the major candidates for governor support it.
** PPIC POLL: A FEW KEY FACTS. The latest Public Policy Institute of California poll is out now, off embargo as of late last night. I get the PPIC polls well in advance of their publication, and so was able to clarify a few things early yesterday that struck my curiosity, then wait to see if anyone else was curious. More about that in a moment.
The PPIC poll mostly mirrors the Field Poll in its findings. Which is not surprising, because the two remaining major public polls in California were, ironically, conducted at the very same time, March 9th through 16th.
Which hasn’t prevented a number of reports in the press presenting the PPIC poll as a poll that is newer than the Field Poll. The only thing that is newer about it is that it was released a week later. Much of the data in both these polls is now two weeks old.
The period in which the poll was conducted is actually mentioned in the poll. But I didn’t see its sampling approach, so I called PPIC to find out.
It turns out that PPIC is using a sample with significant difference in partisan registration.
Actual voter registration in California is 45% Democrat, 31% Republican, and the remainder decline-to-state (or independent, as I call them) and minor party. That’s a 14-point Democratic edge over Republicans.
The Field model is 45% Democrat, 35% Republican, and 20% independent and other. That’s a 10-point Democratic edge over Republicans.
The PPIC model, after the person I called checked with the pollster, is 43% Democrat, 36% Republican, 19% independent, and 2% other. That’s a 7-point Democratic edge over Republican, half that of the actual registration in the state and 3 points less than in the Field model.
That undoubtedly accounts for the slight difference in the governor’s race numbers between Field and PPIC, polls which, as you know now, were actually conducted at the same time, concluding over a week ago. The Field Poll, released last week, had Jerry Brown slightly trailing billionaire Meg Whitman, whose ads had barraged the state for months unanswered, 46% to 43%. PPIC, taken at the same time with a sample more advantageous to Republicans, had it Whitman 44%, Brown 39%. (Brown leads super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, at last beginning to make a TV advertising move, by similarly wide margins in both polls, though two points less in PPIC, the same difference as applies to the Brown/Whitman numbers.)
Naturally, a few reporters, unaware that the polls were taken at the same time and use different partisan samples, presented this as Whitman increasing her lead.
One other significant difference between the polls, found within the data, concerns Latino voters.
In the Field Poll, Brown leads Whitman, 54% to 29%. But in the PPIC poll, when I first saw it, Brown’s lead over Whitman among Latinos was only 44% to 35%. Later in the day, this was corrected to Brown 45%, Whitman 35%, still a big difference from the Field numbers.
As it happens, there is a big difference between the two polls that may not have anything to do with differences/anomalies in sampling. And that’s the number in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
In the Field Poll, ex-Congressman Tom Campbell, who I expect to lose, still led ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, 28% to 22%, with far right Orange County Assemblyman Chuck DeVore mired in single digits. But in the PPIC poll, it’s Fiorina 24%, Campbell 23%.
I’ve already explained why Campbell is in deep trouble, having had to repeatedly change his story about his friendship with and support from a convicted jihadist terrorist.
Other interesting findings in the PPIC poll:
– For the first time, a slight edge for supporters of same-sex marriage, which Whitman and Poizner oppose.
– A big majority for comprehensive immigration reform, which Poizner and now Whitman, under pressure from Poizner, both oppose.
– General optimism about the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.
– Big concern that not enough is being done to stimulate employment.
– Continued support for President Barack Obama.
– A big edge for the Schwarzenegger-backed open primary initiative, Proposition 14 on the June primary ballot, which Whitman and Poizner oppose.
– Strong support for stricter regulation of banks and other financial institutions, which Whitman opposes.
Interestingly, the Whitman camp hasn’t jumped on this poll to trumpet a “growing” lead.
That may be because they are aware of private polling showing the race with Brown to be tied. And because they are aware that Poizner is still a threat.
Defense Secretary Bob Gates today approved new rules that will make it harder to discharge gays and lesbians from the military, calling the changes a matter of “common sense and common decency.”
** NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.It’s been a very heady few days for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called her “a Speaker for the ages” after she ramrodded the national health care reform bill through the House of Representatives. “The most powerful woman in American history,” declared The Economist.
Which had not been my immediate expectation when I met Pelosi, whose 70th birthday is tomorrow, three decades ago at a party at her San Francisco home.
While recollections from the age of four (that’s a little joke) can, as we all know, be decidedly hazy, I remember some clear impressions. Though the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi was relatively new to being in politics on her own hook. …
In testimony today before Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank might reverse course and start tightening credit when the “expansion matures.”
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington and Iowa today.
Obama has received his intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
He is now on Air Force One en route to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
At 10:05 AM Pacific, Obama arrives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
At 11 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on health care reform in Iowa City. It was there, as a presidential candidate trailing Hillary Clinton three years ago, that he talked about his national health care plan.
At 12:35 PM Pacific, Obama departs Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base.
At 2:25 PM Pacific, Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, where he boards Marine One.
At 2:40 PM Pacific, Obama lands on the South Lawn of the White House.
Obama is working on ensuring passage of several needed adjustments to the health care bill in the Senate through the majority vote budget reconciliation process.
Simon Lazarus, a constitutional scholar with the American Constitution Society, says nearly every aspect of the lawsuits brought against the national health care reform bill is frivolous.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Preliminary results of the March 7th Iraqi national parliamentary elections have been delayed several times; they are now due on Friday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to be trailing in the national popular vote. Maliki has called again for a manual recount of the national vote. But the elections commission has again turned him down.
So now he is threatening legal action.
Maliki’s slate is apparently leading former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular slate in more provinces. So there is a way in which Maliki might be able to cobble together more seats in parliament, while losing the overall national popular vote.
Which is hardly where a national leader wants to be.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Fresno today.
At 11 AM, Schwarzenegger will deliver remarks at the first annual Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day Event at the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Capitol Park. Last year Schwarzenegger signed legislation which established the annual “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day” on March 30.
At 2:30 PM, Schwarzenegger will hold a press conference at a development in Fresno where he will sign AB 183 by Assemblymember Anna Caballero (D-Salinas) and Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) to provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 to Californians who are buying their first home or purchasing a brand new home. This legislation is part of his California Jobs Initiative.
Schwarzenegger signed another of his big legislative priorities, promoting green tech jobs, into law yesterday.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper.
In a real sense, as a filmmaker, Polanski is already a ghostly presence in America. One could note that he hasn’t had a big hit here since 1974’s Chinatown, which not coincidentally was made before his utterly unacceptable encounter with an underage girl. But one could also note that The Ghost Writer is a more commercial film than the films he’s been doing since his exile from the world’s movie-making capital of Los Angeles.
The Ghost Writer is a very well-reviewed, and widely reviewed, film, a roman a clef about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Which indicates that it has vibrancy beyond whatever it winds up doing at the domestic box office. It’s that good.
It’s based on the best-selling novel “The Ghost” by Robert Harris, which was bad enough for Tony Blair. But a book is one thing; a film is quite another. The novel by Harris — he was a friend of Blair who broke with him over the Iraq War — is very good. As is the basic story, good enough for me to know the novel well and still enjoy the twists and turns of the film. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $47 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.
Russia and the U.S. have agreed on all documents that will form the new nuclear arms reduction treaty, according to the Kremlin. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today that the agreement is “very close.” The deal is expected to be signed next month in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, where Obama outlined the need in a speech last year.
** NEW COLUMN COMING UP … NANCY PELOSI’S TRIUMPH: A LONG TIME COMING.
** QUICK HITS. Sore losers? To say the least. At least 10 House Democrats who voted Sunday for health care overhaul have received violent threats to their lives or property, party leaders said today. … President Barack Obama heads to Prague in April to sign a new new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. … In news that does not shock,the latest Field Poll reveals that most California voters want to solve the state’s chronic budget crisis through cuts. But they only want to cut two of 14 areas, prisons and parks, which will hardly do it. … A local court struck down Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s furloughs for state workers financed by sources other than the general fund, such as the motor vehicles department. If the decision stands, that will make the fiscal crisis all the worse, or lead to firings. … Billionaire Meg Whitman, the free-spending GOP candidate for governor, apparently did not change any of her positions today. She’s been on a tear lately.
** WHY BIPARTISANSHIP ISN’T WORKING EVEN THOUGH MOST PREFER A POST-PARTISAN APPROACH. National polls, as well as polls in California, show that most want a post-partisan approach. But to accomplish that in government requires some significant bipartisanship.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says that the Republicans in Congress are held back from any of that because their party is gripped by fringe attitudes, generated by what I call the party’s Talk Radio Wing.
Majorities of Republicans believe that President Obama:
Is a socialist (67%)
Wants to take away Americans’ right to own guns (61%)
Is a Muslim (57%)
Wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government (51%); and
Has done many things that are unconstitutional (55%).
Large numbers of Republicans also believe that President Obama:
Resents America’s heritage (47%)
Does what Wall Street and the bankers tell him to do (40%)
Was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president (45%)
Is the “domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of” (45%) Is a racist (42%)
Want to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers (41%)
Is doing many of the things that Hitler did (38%).
Even more remarkable perhaps, fully 24% of Republicans believe that “he may be the Anti-Christ” and 22% believe “he wants the terrorists to win.”
Needless to say, belief in all these nonsensical things goes down sharply with education.
** GALLUP POLL: OBAMA BEST BY FAR ON HEALTH CARE, CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS RATED LAST. The improved news continues for President Barack Obama. The new Gallup Poll in the wake of the weekend passage of the national health care reform bill shows Obama faring the best by far of the major players in the process.
Obama has an excellent/good rating from 46%. Congressional Democrats trail with 32% and Congressional Republicans bring up the rear with 26%. Obama gets a rating of fair from 20%, and poor from 31%.
Gallup over the past year found Americans expressing more confidence in Obama on healthcare reform than in either congressional delegation. These findings are consistent with Americans’ general tendency to give presidents higher ratings than Congress on matters such as political trust and job performance.
Support for the healthcare legislation is strongly related to political party affiliation, so Democrats’ and Republicans’ ratings of the three primary political actors follow predictable patterns.
Independents, on the other hand, divide evenly on the merits of the legislation, and their ratings of the president and Congress on healthcare could have implications for how they vote in November’s midterm elections. At this point, independents give more positive ratings to the Republicans in Congress (and President Obama) than to the Democrats in Congress, in terms of how each has handled problems with the healthcare system.
Obama also leads the other two parties amongst independents, with 37% giving him excellent/good marks to Congressional Democrats’ 22% and Congressional Republicans’ 27%.
Yes, Vice President Biden, the enactment of the national health care reform bill is “a big f***ing deal.”
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama mets with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, the chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in the Oval Office. The topic: A sweeping geopolitical agenda.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden then received the daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.
Obama then met in the Oval Office with Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, the chairmen of the congressional banking committees, to discuss financial reform.
At 11:30 PM Pacific, Obama signs an executive order reaffirming the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s consistency with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion.
This was the reassurance to anti-abortion Democrats that the national health care reform bill would not be used to provide federal funding for abortion.
Obama is working on ensuring passage of several needed adjustements to the bill in the Senate through the majority vote budget reconciliation process. Senate Republicans have a series of amendments to the bill for which they seek enough Democratic support to send the overall bill back to the House for amendment. Senate Democrats are expected to reject these gambits.
Obama is also planning for the rest of the week, which will include a trip to Iowa to sell the health care bill’s benefits.
Attorneys general from 13 states, all but one Republicans, sued the federal government Tuesday, claiming the landmark health care overhaul is unconstitutional. Their efforts are very unlikely to succeed.
Obama’s private meeting late yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was inconclusive publicly, and perhaps conclusive privately. Netanyahu is insisting on continued settlement activity in disputed territory. Unless the Palestinians give in on this point and enter direct negotiations, which they say they won’t, the Israeli government has chosen settlements over the peace process.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
Preliminary results of the March 7th Iraqi national parliamentary elections have been delayed several times; they are now due on Friday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appears to be trailing in the national popular vote. Maliki has called again for a manual recount of the national vote. But the elections commission has again turned him down.
Maliki’s slate is apparently leading former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s more secular slate in more provinces. So there is a way in which Maliki might be able to cobble together more seats in parliament, while losing the overall national popular vote.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Silicon Valley today.
Schwarzenegger signs one of his legislative priorities, promoting green tech jobs, into law today. Passage of the bill came when he and legislative leaders agreed to a fractional solution to California’s chronic budget crisis, diverting over a billion dollars of transit funding.
At 11:15 AM, Schwarzenegger will view Zero Motorcycles’ 2010 product line and hold a press availability in Capitol Park.
At 3 PM, Schwarzenegger will tour Nanosolar, Inc. in San Jose and hold a press conference where he will sign SB 71 by state Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) to create a sales tax exemption for the purchase of green tech manufacturing equipment in California. This tax exemption is part of the Schwarzenegger’s California Jobs Initiative.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper.
In a real sense, as a filmmaker, Polanski is already a ghostly presence in America. One could note that he hasn’t had a big hit here since 1974’s Chinatown, which not coincidentally was made before his utterly unacceptable encounter with an underage girl. But one could also note that The Ghost Writer is a more commercial film than the films he’s been doing since his exile from the world’s movie-making capital of Los Angeles.
The Ghost Writer is a very well-reviewed, and widely reviewed, film, a roman a clef about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Which indicates that it has vibrancy beyond whatever it winds up doing at the domestic box office. It’s that good.
It’s based on the best-selling novel “The Ghost” by Robert Harris, which was bad enough for Tony Blair. But a book is one thing; a film is quite another. The novel by Harris — he was a friend of Blair who broke with him over the Iraq War — is very good. As is the basic story, good enough for me to know the novel well and still enjoy the twists and turns of the film.
Blair, the only Labour Party leader in the history of Britain to win three national elections — beginning with his Obama-like popular ascension to the office of prime minister in 1997 — was well on his way to becoming the global statesman of the age before he fatefully threw in with with the seemingly far more conservative Bush/Cheney White House. Together, they invaded Iraq and pursued ruthless tactics in what was called the war on terror.
Which, in the end, left many wondering in astonishment and anger how Blair could have been such a down-the-line, uncritical partner in disastrous policies. … From my March 22nd essay.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** MEG WHITMAN’S NEW! IMPROVED! POST-JOURNALISM! POLITICS.Something new and more than a little bizarre is busy being born in California. Call it post-journalism politics. … From my March 12th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $46 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.
President Barack Obama, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing behind him, this morning signed the $938 billion health care overhaul, celebrating hard-fought legislation that extends coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans, establishes new safeguards, and represents the biggest accomplishment of his presidency.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama had a private Oval Office sit-down with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu a few hours after Israel announced continued settlements on the hotly disputed West Bank. … Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led a delegation to Mexico City today, where she pledged greater assistance against drug cartels, whose operations have led to increased violence on the Texas border. Not yet on the California border. … Billionaire Meg Whitman, a GOP candidate for governor of California, today said she might only release a summary of her tax returns. She earlier promised 25 years worth.
** NEW GALLUP POLL: HEALTH CARE BILL NOW FAVORED.In the latest Gallup Poll, the just passed and signed national health care refom bill now wins a plurality of support nationwide.
Nearly half of Americans give a thumbs-up to Congress’ passage of a healthcare reform bill last weekend, with 49% calling it “a good thing.” Republicans and Democrats have polar opposite reactions, with independents evenly split. …
40% are opposed to the bill.
Independents, who seemed to be against the bill before its passage, now are split.
Americans’ emotional responses to the bill’s passage are more positive than negative — with 50% enthusiastic or pleased versus 42% angry or disappointed — and are similar to their general reactions.
Although much of the public debate over healthcare reform has been heated, barely a third of rank-and-file citizens express either enthusiasm (15%) or anger (19%) about the bill’s passage. However, only Democrats show greater enthusiasm than anger. Independents are twice as likely to be angry as enthusiastic, and Republicans 10 times as likely. …
Passage of healthcare reform was a clear political victory for President Obama and his allies in Congress. While it also pleases most of his Democratic base nationwide, it is met with greater ambivalence among independents and with considerable antipathy among Republicans. Whether these groups’ views on the issue harden or soften in the coming months could be crucial to how healthcare reform factors into this year’s midterm elections. Given that initial public reaction to Sunday’s vote is more positive than recent public opinion about passing a healthcare reform bill, it appears some softening has already occurred.
As the old saying goes, nothing succeeds like success.
** CALIFORNIA 2010: WHITMAN OUTSPENDS BROWN NEARLY 200 TO 1, AND THE FIELD POLL DISCOVERS VOTERS CARE ABOUT THE ECONOMY. Unbelievable.
In the first two-and-a-half months of the year, billionaire Meg Whitman has spent over $27 million on her campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Her Republican rival, super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, has spent $3 million. And de facto Democratic nominee Jerry Brown has spent $144,000.
Between January 1st and March 17th, Whitman spent $27.2 million. $20,386,888.64 went to Smart Media Group, involved with TV and radio ads. $1,451,502.70 went to Scott Howell & Company, Inc., her media consultants. $667,411.33 went to Tokoni, Inc., which runs her web site. (One of the principals was in her TV ad extolling her greatness as a corporate executive.)
$437,608.62 went to Bonaparte Films LLC, which is the corporate entity for Whitman chief strategist Mike Murphy.
Whitman also spent over $100,000 on private jets.
Which is nearly as much as Jerry Brown spent for everything.
Whitman outspent Brown by a ratio of 189 to 1. But Brown has over $14 million in the bank, while Whitman has a little over $4 million. Which means that Whitman needs to write another big check out to her campaign.
Majorities of voters rate four issues among their most important concerns – jobs and the economy
(69%), the state budget deficit (68%), education (60%) and health care (51%). Three other issues
are rated as top concerns by pluralities ranging from 36% to 47%. These include taxes (47%),
illegal immigration (37%) and water (36%).
Five other issues were rated as being of somewhat lower importance to voters in the gubernatorial
elections. They are gasoline prices and energy (29%), crime and prisons (28%), environmental
protection (26%), reforming the state constitution (25%) and global warming (23%).
Illegal immigration was actually more highly rated as an issue by all voters in 2006. But it is very highly rated by Republican primary voters, along with taxes, which is why Poizner is pounding on illegal immigration and Whitman has been forced to counter by moving to the right.
** THE GHOST(S): OF TONY BLAIR, ROMAN POLANSKI, AND A WAR ON TERROR.Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It has masterful suspense, wit, humor, excellent casting and acting, fascinating design and music, and a highly relevant story which does not hit one over the head with a message. Yet it seems unlikely, at least in America, to break out beyond the art house hit status of The Hurt Locker and other much-admired and not widely-seen films.
Why? I think the first two words in the lead sentence provide the explanation. It’s a Roman Polanski film. And the distributor either doesn’t know how to market a film made by so notorious a figure that he is practically a pariah, at least now in America, or has found it to be impossible. It’s certainly an intriguing challenge, one that would tax the talents of a Don Draper.
In a real sense, as a filmmaker, Polanski is already a ghostly presence in America. One could note that he hasn’t had a big hit here since 1974′s Chinatown, which not coincidentally was made before his utterly unacceptable encounter with an underage girl. But one could also note that The Ghost Writer is a more commercial film than the films he’s been doing since his exile from the world’s movie-making capital of Los Angeles.
The Ghost Writer is a very well-reviewed, and widely reviewed, film, a roman a clef about former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Which indicates that it has vibrancy beyond whatever it winds up doing at the domestic box office. It’s that good.
It’s based on the best-selling novel “The Ghost” by Robert Harris, which was bad enough for Tony Blair. But a book is one thing; a film is quite another. The novel by Harris — he was a friend of Blair who broke with him over the Iraq War — is very good. As is the basic story, good enough for me to know the novel well and still enjoy the twists and turns of the film.
Blair, the only Labour Party leader in the history of Britain to win three national elections — beginning with his Obama-like popular ascension to the office of prime minister in 1997 — was well on his way to becoming the global statesman of the age before he fatefully threw in with with the seemingly far more conservative Bush/Cheney White House. Together, they invaded Iraq and pursued ruthless tactics in what was called the war on terror.
Which, in the end, left many wondering in astonishment and anger how Blair could have been such a down-the-line, uncritical partner in disastrous policies. …
A Texas Republican congressman identified himself as the one who shouted “Baby killer!” at Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak during the heated Sunday debate on the just passed national health care reform bill.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 8:15 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks and signs the national health insurance reform bill in the East Room.
At 9:05 AM Pacific, Obama delivers remarks on the national health insurance reform bill on the South Lawn of the White House.
At 12 noon Pacific, Obama meets with Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and and Indiana Senator Richard Lugar in the Oval Office.
At 2:30 PM Pacific, Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu in the Oval Office.
Obama is working on ensuring passage of several needed adjustements to the bill in the Senate through the majority vote budget reconciliation process. He is also planning for the rest of the week, which will include a trip to Iowa to sell the health care bill’s benefits.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Red Bluff today.
At 10 AM, Schwarzenegger will join U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and deliver remarks at the groundbreaking of the Fish Passage Improvement Project at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam in Northern California.
The Fish Passage Improvement Project, part of the largest Department of the Interior economic stimulus project in the nation, is a $5.25 million cooperative agreement and is a part of the $109 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding going to Red Bluff for a multi-phase construction project. The multi-phase project has an estimated total cost of $230 million.
The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues, six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute. Unedited footage has yet to be produced and the instigator of the operation was arrested while attempting to monitor the phones of a U.S. senator.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** MEG WHITMAN’S NEW! IMPROVED! POST-JOURNALISM! POLITICS.Something new and more than a little bizarre is busy being born in California. Call it post-journalism politics. … From my March 12th column.
** IS MEG WHITMAN LIKE ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER? YES (IN THE WRONG WAYS)Is billionaire Meg Whitman, the former McCain/Palin campaign co-chair who seeks to replace action movie superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor of California, like Schwarzenegger?
It’s a question that her ultra-megabucks campaign clearly doesn’t like. The heavily programmed career corporate marketing executive goes out of her way to distinguish herself from the multiple times Mr. Universe. She was a CEO, of a company you may have heard of, eBay. And in case you hadn’t heard that and you live in California, she’s spent many millions of dollars for months on ads telling you about it. After all, it is her sole claim to fame. Whereas, in her view, Schwarzeneggger was merely a jock turned entertainer. (Not that she mentions her not so excellent eBay era adventures with, say, Skype, Craigslist, and Goldman Sachs. So I won’t, either.) … From my March 9th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $47 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.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, today addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington, affirmed the close relationship between the U.S. and Israel but warned that new Israeli construction on land claimed by the Palestinians threatens peace efforts and undermines America’s ability to help end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
** QUICK HITS. President Barack Obama will sign the national health care reform bill tomorrow on the South Lawn of the White House. … The London-based newsmagazine The Economist says that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful woman in American history, which had not been my immediate expectation when I met her three decades ago at her San Francisco home. … Silicon Valley-based Google is in an even bigger hassle with the People’s Republic of China than before, refusing to censor Chinese language Google and directing Chinese users to its Hong Kong-based web site.
** DEMOCRATS HAVE A BIG CONGRESSIONAL FUNDRAISING EDGE. The Senate still has to go through a set of votes making adjustments in the national health care reform bill the House passed last night, and Senate Republicans will throw up some roadblocks. But with the main bill passed, the heavy lifting in the House is done.
Last month, as the chaotic health care debate raged, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised a little more money than did the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, $5.1 million to $4.4 million. (The Republican edge is due to a million dollars in transfers from the campaign committees of party leaders.)
** NEW POLL: SUPPORT FOR NUCLEAR POWER HITS NEW HIGH. According to the new Gallup Poll, support for nuclear power as a source of electrical energy has reached a new high of 62%. I suspect this is because President Barack Obama supports it as part of the electric power portfolio.
A majority of Americans have typically favored using nuclear power to provide electricity for the United States since Gallup began asking about this topic in 1994. Support has edged up in the last two years, eclipsing 60% this year for the first time. In addition, 28% of Americans now say they “strongly favor” nuclear power, also the highest Gallup has measured since the question was first asked in 1994.
This year’s results, from a March 4-7 Gallup poll, came after President Obama announced federal government loan guarantees to build the first nuclear power plants in the United States in three decades.
Obama’s support for nuclear power apparently hasn’t done much to change how Democrats view the issue, as a slim majority of 51% favor it, virtually unchanged from last year. Most of the increased support for nuclear energy over the past three years has come among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, who have consistently been more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to favor the use of nuclear energy.
President Barack Obama spoke last night moments after the House of Representatives passed the Senate’s national health care refom bill. “Tonight, at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics. … Instead we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things.”
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
Following his triumph last night on the national health care reform bill — achieved with the enormous assistance of Californian Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House — it’s another big week in presidential politics for Barack Obama. It’s a big week in California politics, too, with Steve Poizner at last launching a major TV advertising drive in the Republican primary to succeed term-limited Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrat Jerry Brown and others slicing away at the claims of billionaire GOP hopeful Meg Whitman.
But first on Obama.
Health care policy is hardly my area of expertise, but last night’s 219 to 212 victory for Obama’s national health care refom bill in the House is clearly a very major accomplishment. Especially coming after the issue seemed dead in the water after the special election victory of “regular guy” Republican in January’s Massachusetts special election for the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat.
The Republicans, as conservative pundit and former Bush speechwriter David Frum put it, followed the Talk Radio Wing of their party and pursued a scorched earth strategy of all-out nyet on health care refom, betting the ranch on making it Obama’s Waterloo. Instead, they made it their own Waterloo, suffering their “most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.”
Republicans have made extravagant claims about this bill, from “death panels” to “socialism” to economic collapse. But that sort of talk is poppycock, and in any event the elements that come online this year are amongst the least objectionable to anyone. Obama and the Democrats will work to redefine what has become — through endless dithering in the Senate, obstructionism on the right, and the need to deal with unreasonable expectations on the left — a very controversial bill into something else again.
And Obama will swiftly pivot to the economy, which was the original plan for January before it was derailed by the Christmas Day bombing attempt and the Scott Brown surprise. The economy is improving, much of the economic stimulus comes online this year, and Obama will heavily promote economic recovery activities — as well as reform of unpopular Wall Street practices that nearly tanked the global financial system — all the way through the November mid-term elections.
The Senate has to make some adjustments to the health care bill through the majority vote budget reconciliation process, and there will likely be some Republican attempts to delay that, even though the filibuster can’t come into play, but Obama will be out in the country again this week selling the bill and its passage.
All of which would make for a very full week. But there’s more, as there always is with this administration in this chaotic time.
Obama is now scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who has alternated between defiance and some acquiescence in his dispute with America and the rest of the international community over settlements on the West Bank. The meeting comes as the international community protests and as new polls in Israel belied Netanyahu’s claim that the settlements pushed by his right-wing coalition represent a consensus point of view. They show that nearly half of all Israelis think the settlements should be frozen.
Netanyahu is bringing along Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and chief of the Israeli general staff, who is trusted by Americans. Far right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is welcome in few foreign capitals, is again staying at home. Netanyahu and Barak will also meet with Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as address the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).
Meanwhile in Iraq, where national parliamentary elections took place two weeks ago but no final count is yet available, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants a recount.
Why?
Because his slate is narrowly trailing that of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in the national vote count. But Iraq’s election commission has rejected Maliki’s call for a recount.
Allawi, who’s lived half his life in Britain and whose family lives in London now, represents a more secular brand of politics than does Maliki. The vote was not expected to be close. That may account for the slowness of the much delayed count, officially attributed to computer problems.
In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature are in something of an impasse on California’s chronic budget crisis. I know, you may have heard this before. The Legislature, whose Democrats want to put off big budget cuts and whose Republicans won’t okay new revenues, sent Schwarzenegger legislation which dealth with only a small fraction of the problem. He vetoed it, and there we are again.
In the governor’s race, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s claim that his protege, Meg Whitman, was “a different kind of CEO” who eschewed corporate perks is being exposed as wildly wrong. And Whitman, who revealed herself as a big business/Wall Street conservative at the state Republican convention the weekend before last, is being attacked now by Jerry Brown as the candidate of special privileges.
Whitman has a big lead over super-rich state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, and refused more debates at the end of last week. But she’s not feeling so confident that she hasn’t just dropped a big direct mail hit piece on him as a supposed closet liberal.
For his part, Poizner is launching a big TV advertising drive on Tuesday, introducing himself as a champion of efforts to stop illegal immigration. His past emphasis on the issue, which I think has a lot of resonance in a Republican primary, has moved Whitman, who aspires to appeal to Latino voters, to the right.
Last fall she said she was for “comprehensive immigration reform” after the fashion of that once championed by John McCain and the late Ted Kennedy. Now she says she’s against it, and she insists she will never support “amnesty,” one form or another of which is at the core of any immigration reform allowing illegal immigrants to remain in America.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco paid homage last night to the late Senator Ted Kennedy and urged the House to “make history.”
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 8:30 AM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
After the weekend passage of the national health care reform bill by the House, Obama is scheduled to spend today behind closed doors.
He is working on ensuring passage of several needed adjustements to the bill in the Senate through the majority vote budget reconciliation process. He is also planning for the week ahead, which will include a signing ceremony for the hard-won health care bill, several appearances in the country promoting its passage and immediate benefits, and a key meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will have a higher public profile.
He’s already made an announcement about tax cuts in the economic recovery act. Contrary to what many believe, taxes have gone down under Obama, as about half the economic stimulus program consists of tax cuts.
This afternoon, Biden hosts conference calls with governors and mayors on Recovery Act implementation.
At 4 PM Pacific, Biden hosts a welcome dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu at the Naval Observatory.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles, the Mojave Desert, and Sacramento today.
During the noon hour in the Hinkley area of the Mojave Desert, Schwarzenegger and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will tour the world’s largest operating solar plant, the NextEra Harper Lake Solar Electric Generating System, and a 250 megawatt proposed solar facility, the Abengoa Mojave Solar project.
Following the tour, Schwarzenegger, joined by Salazar and California Natural Resources Secretary Lester Snow, will hold a press conference at approximately 1 PM to sign SBX8 34 by state Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima).
The bill creates a new program that will make it easier to both conserve land for endangered species and build new renewable energy projects in California. It will also help further streamline and speed up the permitting and siting process for large-scale renewable energy projects.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** MEG WHITMAN’S NEW! IMPROVED! POST-JOURNALISM! POLITICS.Something new and more than a little bizarre is busy being born in California. Call it post-journalism politics. … From my March 12th column.
** IS MEG WHITMAN LIKE ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER? YES (IN THE WRONG WAYS)Is billionaire Meg Whitman, the former McCain/Palin campaign co-chair who seeks to replace action movie superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor of California, like Schwarzenegger?
It’s a question that her ultra-megabucks campaign clearly doesn’t like. The heavily programmed career corporate marketing executive goes out of her way to distinguish herself from the multiple times Mr. Universe. She was a CEO, of a company you may have heard of, eBay. And in case you hadn’t heard that and you live in California, she’s spent many millions of dollars for months on ads telling you about it. After all, it is her sole claim to fame. Whereas, in her view, Schwarzeneggger was merely a jock turned entertainer. (Not that she mentions her not so excellent eBay era adventures with, say, Skype, Craigslist, and Goldman Sachs. So I won’t, either.)
Whitman hates the comparison with Schwarzenegger, a comparison which is nonetheless obvious as both she and Schwarzenegger are Republicans, both are super-rich, and neither had any experience in elected office before deciding to run for governor of California. Why does she hate it? Well, Schwarzenegger, while still personally popular, has seen his once record job approval rating plummet with the global recession and the state’s gridlocked budget process. And he’s turned out to be too liberal for the increasingly right-leaning party whose nomination she is trying to win.
As someone who knew Schwarzenegger and talked with him extensively before he ran for governor in the 2003 California recall election — and who began scouting Whitman, putting together several hours of film of her, when she suddenly emerged as national co-chair of the Republican presidential campaign in early 2008 — it occurs to me that Whitman is like Schwarzenegger.
But in the wrong ways. (Keep in mind that I’m referring to the Schwarzenegger who suddenly jumped from promoting Terminator 3 into running for governor in 2003.) … From my March 9th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
This is up about $ 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.
President Barack Obama met with and addressed the House Democratic Caucus on Saturday. The House is scheduled to vote Sunday on the national health care reform bill. “We’re going to get this done,” vowed Obama.
** SUNDAY MID-AFTERNOON UPDATE: OBAMA TO ADDRESS THE NATION THIS EVENING. With an executive order reiterating the Hyde Amendment strictures against federal funding for abortion winning over a band of anti-abortion House Democrats, passage of the national health care reform bill by the U.S. House of Representatives is assured.
President Barack Obama will address the nation from the East Room this evening following the House vote.
** OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Obama has received the daily intelligence briefing and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on the national health care reform bill.
Obama has cleared his schedule for last minute lobbying and dealing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on various details.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, and Iraq.
He is now scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu — who has alternated between defiance and some acquiescence in his dispute with America and the rest of the international community over settlements on the West Bank — who is now scheduled to arrive in Washington in the next few days.
Netanyahu is bringing along Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and chief of the Israeli general staff, who is trusted by Americans. Far right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is welcome in few foreign capitals, is again staying at home. Netanyahu and Barak will also meet with Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as address the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee).
Meanwhile in Iraq, where national parliamentary elections took place two weeks ago but no final count is yet available, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants a recount.
Why?
Because his slate is narrowly trailing that of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in the national vote count.
But Iraq’s election commission has rejected Maliki’s call for a recount.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SUNDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
In his weekend video/radio address, with the Senate Banking Committee taking up financial reforms on Monday, President Barack Obama discusses the origins of the global financial crisis and the need for change.
** OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama has received the daily intelligence and economic briefings and met with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 12:05 PM Pacific, Obama meets with members of the House Democratic Caucus in the Capitol Visitor Center Auditorium.
The national health care reform bill is getting down to the short strokes, and Obama has cleared much of his schedule to deal with details and lobby wavering members of Congress.
The House vote is slated for Sunday afternoon.
Heading into the weekend, prospects for passage appeared to be good. The American Medical Association and the American Association for Retired People endorsed yesterday, not unexpectedly, and a stream of House Democrats got down off the fence and announced their support.
Republicans, sensing impending defeat, vowed to try fresh delaying tactics in the Senate and vowed retribution.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Moscow to work on closing the new nuclear arms treaty with Russia, deal with NATO, Iran, and AfPak matters, and to meet with other members of the Quartet powers on the Middle East (U.S., Russia, European Union, and United Nations).
Clinton and U.S. special envoy to Middle East George Mitchell met yesterday on the stalled Israeli/Palestinian peace process with the Middle East Quartet powers. They included Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, EU foreign secretary Catherine Ashton, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Quartet special envoy.
The Quartet (U.S., U.N., European Union, and Russia) called on Israel to halt its settlement activities in the disputed West Bank.
President Barack Obama has a special message for Iranians on the occasion of Nowruz, the traditional Iranian New Year festival, lamenting the course of the Tehran regime in closing down society and pursuing a nuclear program beyond peaceful purposes.
Clinton will also meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. They will discuss NATO, AfPak, and the Iranian crisis.
Obama has forged a very good relationship bordering on friendship with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. But with Putin, not so much. As I reported last year, Putin had Obama come out to his dacha for a private breakfast meeting, which not coincidentally ran long and made Obama late for his big Moscow speech, which was notably underplayed in the Russian press.
Putin, who I’ve studied at length and as I’ve always suggested, remains the real power in Russia. (Medvedev is very important, but in short form plays good cop to Putin’s bad cop. He was Putin’s chief of staff and was picked by the United Russia party, which Putin heads.) I would love to be present for the meeting between Putin and Hillary, two tough cookies.
Though Putin’s toughness is of a type unfamiliar to most Americans. He is not a monster nor a mobster. What he is is a very sophisticated intelligence officer with real management skills and more than a bit of charisma. And a substantial degree of ruthlessness.
Putin just declared that Russia will complete the oft-delayed Bushehr nuclear power plant for Iran this summer. The U.S. would prefer that it not be completed until Iran’s nuclear program is defanged into a state in which only civilian applications are possible.
Russia, an historical rival of Iran though now an ally of sorts, says it wants that, too. But it also wants to use as much leverage as possible to pursue its goal of reconstituting its sway over the post-Soviet space.
While the U.S. is no longer pushing for the expansion of NATO, it has not abandoned Georgia and is pushing back against Russian moves in the Baltics, having just completed a large air exercise there with the tiny Baltic air forces.
Obama is also monitoring geopolitical crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran.
In Iraq, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s slate has taken a slight lead in the overall count over that of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the slow count of March 7th’s national parliamentary elections. But Maliki leads in more provinces.
Allawi, who’s lived half his life in Britain and whose family lives in London now, represents a more secular brand of politics than does Maliki. The vote was not expected to be close.
That may account for the slowness of the much delayed count, officially attributed to computer problems.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared yesterday in Silicon Valley with Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs to promote a new organ donor registry. In the absence of such a registry, Jobs himself survived last year only by virtue of his wealth and fame.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE – SATURDAY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today.
He has no scheduled public events.
Yesterday Schwarzenegger held a press conference at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto to announce the introduction of a bill by state Senator Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) to make it easier for Californians to affirm their preferred organ donor status and to create the nation’s first live donor registry, the California Living Donor Registry.
An unannounced star guest was on hand, Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs, who benefited last year from an organ transplant.
Had I known about the Schwarzenegger-Jobs pairing in advance — Jobs apparently wanted it to be a surprise — I would have played it up more.
Jobs made the point that his life was saved because of his wealth and fame. And that this legislation will make it easier for more Californians to have the access that he benefited from.
** THE MITT & MEG SHOW: “TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS”Billionaire Meg Whitman, the seeming political cipher who would be governor of California, is purchasing endless amounts of unanswered advertising. It’s propelled her into a slight lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the new Field Poll, something which Brown (who’s held, lost, and held again leads in many campaigns) told me weeks ago that he expected.
Yet she has serious problems. At this past weekend’s state Republican convention, she tried to deal with two of them: Her avoidance of the press and her mysterious motivation as a newfound politician.
As a character, Meg Whitman lacks evident psychological credibility. Why is someone with no engagement in public affairs before her sudden leadership role in the 2008 Republican presidential campaigns — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to vote, and can’t say how long she’s lived in California — suddenly running for governor of the state?
Conservative Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Whitman’s business mentor, provides the answer. It was his idea that Whitman run for governor, and he convinced her to do it. … From my March 17th column.
** MEG WHITMAN’S NEW! IMPROVED! POST-JOURNALISM! POLITICS.Something new and more than a little bizarre is busy being born in California. Call it post-journalism politics. … From my March 12th column.
** IS MEG WHITMAN LIKE ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER? YES (IN THE WRONG WAYS)Is billionaire Meg Whitman, the former McCain/Palin campaign co-chair who seeks to replace action movie superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor of California, like Schwarzenegger?
It’s a question that her ultra-megabucks campaign clearly doesn’t like. The heavily programmed career corporate marketing executive goes out of her way to distinguish herself from the multiple times Mr. Universe. She was a CEO, of a company you may have heard of, eBay. And in case you hadn’t heard that and you live in California, she’s spent many millions of dollars for months on ads telling you about it. After all, it is her sole claim to fame. Whereas, in her view, Schwarzeneggger was merely a jock turned entertainer. (Not that she mentions her not so excellent eBay era adventures with, say, Skype, Craigslist, and Goldman Sachs. So I won’t, either.)
Whitman hates the comparison with Schwarzenegger, a comparison which is nonetheless obvious as both she and Schwarzenegger are Republicans, both are super-rich, and neither had any experience in elected office before deciding to run for governor of California. Why does she hate it? Well, Schwarzenegger, while still personally popular, has seen his once record job approval rating plummet with the global recession and the state’s gridlocked budget process. And he’s turned out to be too liberal for the increasingly right-leaning party whose nomination she is trying to win.
As someone who knew Schwarzenegger and talked with him extensively before he ran for governor in the 2003 California recall election — and who began scouting Whitman, putting together several hours of film of her, when she suddenly emerged as national co-chair of the Republican presidential campaign in early 2008 — it occurs to me that Whitman is like Schwarzenegger.
But in the wrong ways. (Keep in mind that I’m referring to the Schwarzenegger who suddenly jumped from promoting Terminator 3 into running for governor in 2003.) … From my March 9th column.
** THE CALIFORNIA AS FIRST “FAILED STATE” DEBATE: SCHWARZENEGGER, DAVIS, WHITMAN, AND JERRY BROWN.With Democrat Jerry Brown finally declaring his candidacy for California governor today and billionaire Meg Whitman’s super-rich Republican rival Steve Poizner starting his own TV ad campaign against her, this seems a good time to talk about a big new negative theme about the rather tarnished Golden State. Is California America’s first “failed state?” That’s what a lot of people are saying. So I talked about that with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger; the governor he replaced, Gray Davis; and a famous former governor favored to be the next governor, Jerry Brown. … From my March 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, 2009 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.
** 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 $80.68 per barrel on Friday. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.
This is up about $47 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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